A Very Impressive Lady

Every time I hear Elizabeth May speak, I am struck by the balance and wisdom of her words. A very impressive lady, she clearly has real leadership qualities:

Something We Should All Keep In Mind

H/t Michael Nabert

Thursday Morning

H/t Toronto Star

The events of yesterday were undeniably tragic. A young man, Nathan Cirillo, died. As I noticed on a Facebook posting by my cousin's wife, Nathan was a friend of their son with whom he played organized hockey. Six degrees of separation and all that, I guess.

Nonetheless, I have to confess that when I heard the news on CBC radio, my first thoughts were twofold: how these events could work to Harper's electoral advantage (I could immediately envisage the attack ads juxtaposing Harper's "strong leadership and stand against terrorism" against Trudeau's talk about searching for the "root causes" of terrorism), and how this could very well provide a pretext for further erosion of our civil liberties. Like frightened mice, many people aid and abet anyone or anything to ensure the comforting illusion of security.

Fortunately, I found a measure of balance in two Star columnists this morning, Martin Regg Cohn and Thomas Walkom.

Cohn's words bring some much-needed perspective to terrorism:

For terrorists, killing people is merely a means to an end. By far the bigger objective for terrorists is to terrorize — not just their immediate victims, but an entire population.

A soldier lost his life Wednesday. And parliamentarians lost their innocence.

But the nation must not lose its nerve.

Public shootouts or bombings are carefully choreographed publicity stunts that require audience participation to succeed: If the public gives in to fear, and the state succumbs to hysteria, then the shootings or bombings have hit their mark. If the audience tunes out the sickening violence, the tragic melodrama is reduced to pointlessness.

And he quickly gets to what, for me, is the heart of the matter:

The risk is that we will overreact with security clampdowns and lockdowns that are difficult to roll back when the threat subsides.

Terrorists will never be an existential threat — our Parliament and our parliamentarians are too deeply rooted to crumble in the face of a few bullets or bombs. The greater risk is that we will hunker down with over-the-top security precautions that pose a more insidious menace to our open society.

Thomas Walkom, while acknowledging that events such as yesterday's have a very unsettling effect, reminds us that Canada is not exactly in virgin territory here:

In 1966, a Toronto man blew himself up in a washroom just outside the Commons chamber. He had been preparing to take out the entire government front bench with dynamite. But it exploded too early.

Other legislatures have had their share of trouble, most notably Quebec’s national assembly, which was attacked in 1984 by a disgruntled Canadian Forces corporal.

He shot and killed three as well as wounding another 13 before giving himself up.

In 1988, another man was shot after he opened fire with a rifle in the Alberta Legislature building.

And no one who is of a certain age can ever forget the FLQ crisis of 1970 which led to Pierre Trudeau imposing The War Measures Act, which effectively suspended civil liberties across the country, a measure that was widely embraced at the time.

Walkom ends his piece on an appropriately ominous note:

We seem headed for another of those moments of panic. The fact that the gunman attacked Parliament has, understandably, spooked the MPs who pass our laws.

It has also spooked the media and, I suspect, much of the country.

The government wants to give its security agencies more power over citizens. The government wants to rally public support for its war in Iraq.

On both counts, this attack can only help it along.

If we are not very careful and vigilant, the real threat will come, not from terrorist attacks, but from our putative political leaders.

The Harper Regime: 90 Pound Weaklings When It Comes To Heavy Lifting

As I indicated in yesterday's post, the Harper Conservatives seem very selective in 'standing up for the vulnerable'; they just don't seem to have what it takes to do the real heavy lifting that is required in our troubled world, preferring instead to utter bellicose rhetoric and put our young men and women in harm's way battling an enemy that defies traditional methods of combat.

Globe reader Andrew van Velzen of Toronto offers his view of their performance thus far:

Stephen Harper badly wants to be a player – a contender, if you will – on the world stage (On Balance, Harper Is Right – editorial, Oct. 8). But Canada’s symbolic military contribution to the air assault on Islamic State targets won’t do it.

Canada has lost a huge amount of credibility on foreign affairs under Mr. Harper’s tutelage. Just look at the climate change file (Tories Behind On Climate Targets – Oct. 8). If Mr. Harper wants the world to notice him, how about committing Canada to working diligently for a political solution to the Syrian civil war, even if it means talking with Iran and Bashar al-Assad? Better yet, let’s settle thousands of Syrian refugees in Canada. That would be a concrete and positive step.

Maybe then the world would begin to show Mr. Harper some of the respect he so craves.

And speaking of protecting the vulnerable, National Post letter writer John Shaw of Newmarket makes this point:

The arrogant idea that Canada can bomb people in Iraq into a more peaceful existence is being widely promoted. The reality is that there are now more innocent civilians being killed and even more bad guys than before the last Gulf War. ISIS has skillfully manipulated politicians, such as Stephen Harper, to act exactly as they wish — and war is exactly what these groups thrive on.

Critical thinkers, Take Heart

Dispelling misconceptions is never well-received in the media:

Penetrating The Fog Of War

Yesterday, in response to a picture I posted quoting Herman Goering on the ease with which people can be manipulated into war, Scotian, a frequent commentator, responded to the picture, offering his analysis of the Canadian reaction to ISIS. I offer you his comments, always insightful, for your consideration:

Sadly, I am forced to agree.

However I was rather pleasantly surprised to see Trudeau and the Libs not at the last join with Harper on the combat side, I rather had expected to see that. Indeed, in the last couple of days Trudeau has been sounding a lot more sensible than I was expecting, and in even more importantly, nuanced in his positioning on this issue, which I happen to think is the right place to be. I do think something needs doing by Canada at this point, if only because of our alliance partners being involved, as well as just how ugly ISIS is in its actions, but the idea that it must be combat action, no that comes from the Harper mentality on this issue. I happen to think we are far better suited in this case for the non-combat logistic and recon roles where military elements are concerned, and we have been asked by the Kurds and Iraq last month not for combat power but humanitarian assistance. That being said though I was never in favour of military/combat action to begin with.

I have yet to be convinced of the threat to us here in Canada by this group. Are they nasty operators with terrible ideology and aims with brutal means of trying to bring them about? No question on any of that. Are they recruiting from our disaffected youth? Again yes, that is factually inarguable. However, what actual threat capacity to they pose to us here in this nation above and beyond the already ever present threat of individual actions of terrorists (of which there are many such groups including some with high funding) using local materials to disrupt/attack local targets? This is a question I have yet to hear any answer that makes any sense to me beyond the political rhetoric level.

I am also more than a little troubled that until ISIS/ISIL started beheading western reporters and using youtube to publicize that fact this group was not seen as such a massive threat to our interests. We know this group has a lot of well educated westerners within it, that indeed they recruit for such as much as locals. Therefore they have to understand that this sort of thing will inflame emotions and make military intervention more probable, so why then are they asking for it? There is much military wisdom in not doing what your enemy is clearly trying to get you to do, I said that about GWB and the 2003 shift in focus to Iraq instead of following through with Afghanistan (where I still believe that if the US had stayed there alone and done the full follow through there could not only have been a real success but a ripple effect to weaken such forces, instead of the strengthening we saw as a result of doing what bin Laden clearly wanted from the US with Iraq), and I think this is something that has not gotten anywhere near the serious consideration it needs in this case.

I also recognize the difference that while ISIS/ISIL is using terrorist tactics yet it is still more than a terrorist group, it is an insurgency, and that is an important distinction to be making. This is a group that wants to become a real government, it means that to really defeat them will take far more than military action but serious political/diplomatic action, and there Canada could have been vital in laying the groundwork in that area, and I think that was where Trudeau was making the most sense to me.

I find it interesting to note that both sides are using that Goering quote against us. The Harper side is obvious and other have dealt with it before so I won't rehash it here at the moment. However, the point I was making about the use of youtube and the handful of western beheadings ISIS/ISIL has been releasing is also clearly being used to create that effect in countries like ours, which is why I said it is clear to me they want military action from us, and when your enemy wants something so obviously is it really the wisest course to give it to him?

So that is where I am at the moment. I am very disturbed by how poorly I find this issue being examined given the level of obviousness of ISIS/ISIL in trying to provoke this exact response. I am also bothered by no one being able to show the actual real threat in real terms to western nations by this group. I know there is some threat posed, if only by their destabilizing effect in an oil rich part of the world, but in terms of direct security threat, that I have seen a remarkable dearth of credible information, and that also troubles me. This time I think the Opposition parties are right to vote against this action (and I am far from a dove, I have strong military history within my family, would have been reserve in my youth save for a disqualifying injury in my late teens) and that currently the Liberals (much to my surprise) are actually closest to where I am on this issue at this time, something I did not expect, and has actually increased my respect for Trudeau in this issue. He was smart enough to to not freeze his position too soon, he showed nuance, yet he also in the end stuck up for the role which in this conflict I think we would be best serving our national interests as well as those of those suffering on the ground.

This is a very complex and nuanced issue and deserved far better treatment than this government has given to it, not just on the political aspects but the substantive as well. As I said, much to my surprise over the past month Trudeau navigated the substance of this issue far better and closer to my own preferences than I expected to see from him (and I am one that was not offended by his comment regarding whipping out F-18s the other day, it was clear to me he wasn't trying to make a joke or be funny but to make a policy point/critique in a fairly blunt and direct manner, something a bit different than just a joke, and I went and watched the relevant material multiple times before I came to this degree of belief as to what he was doing), and his party is in my view making not just the right decision but also for the right reasons. Imagine that.

I hadn't meant to go on quite so much on Trudeau, I only did so because for me at the moment he is of the three main leaders making the most sense on this issue (May is also providing serious sense on this front, but being such a tiny party leader gets little coverage and carries negligible impact unlike the big three) to me since it first started becoming a serious political issue in this country some weeks back. I've been relatively quiet to date because like Trudeau I was waiting to see what was actually being proposed, and issues like this I take seriously and tend to try to stay away from discussing only in political/partisan terms because of that (mind you the political partisan games Harper clearly has been playing is I believe unheard of in our history for such an issue).

Cheap Rhetoric Versus Practical Questions

With regard to the ISIS threat, here is what Prime Minister Harper had to say in the House:

“These are necessary actions, they are noble actions” .... “When we think that something is necessary and noble, we don’t sit back and say that only other people should do it. The Canadian way is that you do your part.”

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, on the other hand,

asked a series of questions on the matter, including the length of the planned mission, the exit strategy and the exact demands of the United States for a Canadian military contribution.

While Harper is content to wrap himself in the flag, one wonders how ordinary Canadians will react once that flag is draped around coffins coming back from the Middle East.

The Perspective That Age Bestows

Unlike some, I do not bemoan the passage of time. True, I am of that generation known as 'the baby boomers,' but while I am at times mildly bemused about certain things ('How can it be 50 years since the Beatles first played in Toronto?'), I was never beguiled by the notion that we would be young forever. Yes, I try to keep fit and hope to be active throughout the rest of my years, but ceding my place to others in both the workplace and the larger world bothers me not in the least. As Margaret Wente recently noted in a surprisingly (for her) good column, the real surprise is that there is no adventure remotely like aging.

Probably one of the biggest benefits (and potentially one of the biggest curses, depending upon one's frustration threshold) of growing older is the perspective that age bestows. The experiences of a lifetime offer a tremendous filter by which to assess the things that we see and hear, the people we meet, the 'truths' that are offered to us, etc. It was with this filter that I read Tim Harper's column the other day in the Toronto Star.

Examining the Harper regime's decision to send troops to Iraq as 'advisers' to help in the fight against ISIS, Tim Harper seems to lament the complacence about terrorism felt at home:

When Abacus Data asked Canadians voters to rank the importance of 13 different issues in a poll done last month, security and terrorism ranked 13th, cited by a mere six of 100 respondents as one of their top three concerns.

He seems to suggest we should be alarmed for reasons of domestic security:

We know there have been at least 130 Canadians who have travelled to join radical fighting forces, including the Islamic State. At least 130. That number was released early in the year and other estimates put the number much higher.

We know that at least 80 of them have returned to this country, with the training and the motivation to cause much harm here.

And he reminds us of this:

Even as daily dispatches of Islamic State barbarism, mass executions, beheadings of two Americans with a Briton now much in danger, and genocide come into their homes, Canadians apparently believe it is something which merits a baleful shake of the head.

While not an outright endorsement of the government's decision to dispatch troops to Iraq, it seems to me that the columnist is providing the context within which that decision makes sense.

It is an analysis with which I profoundly disagree.

And that's where the perspective offered by both age and history becomes most relevant. Having lived through times when the rhetoric of threat has been used to frighten people into compliant thinking, surely some critical reflection is warranted here. I remember oh so well how, during the years the U.S. was fighting a losing war in Vietnam that cost so many lives and exacted so many grievous injuries, the justification was 'The Domino Theory', the idea that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, a cascading effect would ensue throughout southeast Asia, and would end who knew where.

But the fact of the matter is that the Vietcong were employing a form of warfare that was not amenable to traditional methods of containment, thereby rendering the war futile, and the lives lost and injuries sustained meaningless.

The same is true about Afghanistan. Ignoring the lessons of history provided by Alexander the Great, the British and the Russians, the Americans and their allies plunged headlong into battle, again with the same results. As to the egregious failure of Iraq, the same lessons apply.

Yet here we are, back at the beginning, once more embracing the hubristic belief that hydra-headed terrorism can be contained. While it may be humbling and frightening to admit, there are some things over which we have no control.

Thus endeth a hard lesson.

Harper, Trudeau and Mulcair - Soft on Terrorism

Let's begin with the definition of "terrorism." Merriam-Webster offers up a fairly standard definition: "the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal."

That sounds exactly like what is going on in Gaza right now. That is exactly what is going on in Gaza right now. It's terrorism. Deliberately planned and precisely executed terrorism. And our prime minister and his government and our opposition Liberal and New Democrat leaders and all their parties are just fine with it. Trudeau even praises the terrorist government for its "commitment to peace." Thanks, Justin, now sit down.

Israel tries to mask its terrorist campaign as "self defence." Harper, Trudeau and Mulcair parrot that line. The Gang of Four - Netanyahu, Harper, Trudeau and Mulcair - maintain that Israel is going after Hamas, not targeting Gaza Palestinians.

They don't want to connect the dots between Israel's attack on Lebanese civilians in 2006 and its working over of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in 2008/2009 and the sequel now underway. Yet they're all the same, all straight from the same IDF playbook. There's even a name for it, the Dahiya Doctrine. It was named after the Beirut suburb that Israel demolished in 2006.

This technique deliberately targets civilians. They are the intended victims - the old and the young, women and children, those least able to get out of the way. The attack on the civilian population begins by taking out their essential services - water plants (check), sewage plants (check), electricity plants (check). Then you go at the civilians directly by bombarding their homes (check), hospitals (check), schools (check), and markets (check). You really work them over and you just keep at it all the while pretending that you're really targeting someone else.

The steady reduction of Gaza is blatant, deliberate terrorism. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s something even worse. Maybe what Netanyahu has in mind this time is enhanced terrorism, 'terrorism plus', - ethnic cleansing. Maybe he wants to render Gaza uninhabitable. Already some 90% of what passes for freshwater (it's actually a mild brine) is unfit for human consumption. The destruction of the sewage system almost guarantees there'll be a cholera epidemic before long. Taking down the power grid is the icing on the cake. It's positively medieval.

If you're a Liberal or a New Democrat, this is on you too. It's your party that is supporting this, absolving Israel of its campaign of terrorism, condoning the reduction of Gaza that will lead, must eventually lead to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population from the Gaza strip.


MoS, the Disaffected Lib

Holding Our 'Leaders' To Account

It is almost impossible, I think, to feel anything but a dark impotence when it comes to world events today. Wherever we look, be it the Ukraine, Africa, the Middle East or our own backyards, death, despoliation and injustice prevail. At times, it seems assuming the fetal position is the only reasonable response to a world out of control.

Yet, even when there seems little we can do to ameliorate the world's suffering, there is something all of us can do - refuse to be silent and passive in the face of atrocity - refuse to make it easier for those with power to have their way - refuse to allow them to commit their atrocities in our name.

Clearly, that spirit of defiance is at work in today's letters to The Star, a few of which I reproduce below:

Re: ‘Hamas has no interest in peace,' Baird says, July 16

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s condemnation of Hamas and his unconditional support of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza ought to be appalling for anyone with a modicum of consciousness. What happened to the Canada known internationally known as a soft-power participating in peaceful resolutions for world conflict?

Would Mr. Baird and his boss, Stephen Harper, be as critical of the victims’ struggle for nationhood if they were the ones helplessly watching their hopes for a homeland on just over 20 per cent of what Palestine was before 1948 being progressively confiscated by Israel while living in a concentration camp called Gaza?
Should they, instead, not be working toward brokering ideas for a two-state solution so that Israelis can leave in peace and without collective guilt for the genocide taking place and the Palestinians can once again be a sovereign people as they rightly deserve?

Carmelinda Scian, Islington

One wonders how Baird can walk through the front doors at Foreign Affairs each morning knowing the whole building is laughing at him behind his back. The pantheon of poorly educated cretins appointed by Harper to cabinet has destroyed 105 years of solid partnership and respect with the world.
Now that Canada advocates (and demands others advocate) state murder in Palestine of women and children, are we any different from Vladmir Putin who presides over the deaths of thousands in Syria purely for the purpose of arms dealing.

Surely we’ve murdered enough Arabs for our selfish want of oil and our kook obsession with Israel.

Bryan Charlebois, Toronto

How dare our prime minister give Canada’s pledge of “unequivocal” support to a nation that has in recent days killed over 150 civilians. Israel claims to be defending itself from rocket attacks that have amounted to one civilian death.

Stephen Harper, you do not speak for all Canadians in giving unconditional support to a nation that is okay with home demolitions, bombing residential areas, destroying schools and hospitals, killing children and unarmed civilians. We cannot give unequivocal support to anybody, let alone a nation known for its human rights violations.

Harper represents the citizens of Canada, not his personal political affiliations. He must not put the blood of innocents on the hands of Canadians through unconditional support of this nation.

Arsheen Devjee, Edmonton

Harper and Baird abandoned any pretense of objectivity on the Israel/Palestinians file when they allowed themselves to be feted as Negev Dinner honorees. Their motives in doing so were to keep the generous donations coming to the Conservative Party of Canada from many Canadian Jews who have come to take for granted their knee-jerk praise of Israel, right or wrong.

Ron Charach, Toronto

I'm Sure It Is Just A Coincidence ...

...but if I were paranoid, I might see a connection between this and this.

Radio Free Canada: The Cultivation Of Fear And Other Tory Sins

This is rather interesting:

Some Well-Deserved Ridicule

I suspect only the party faithful and the 'true-believers' would find these pictures objectionable:

This Can't Be Healthy

As deeply suspicious and cynical as I am about institutions, it is probably not surprising that I view with a jaundiced eye the events surrounding the arrest of two terror suspects accused of a plot to blow up a Via Rail train. Many have asked questions about the sudden urgency of Harper's rearranging the parliamentary agenda so that his terror bill could begin to be debated on Monday, coinciding with the RCMP announcement of the arrests.

Coincidences happen, but I am always suspicious when they do. And given the well-known politicization that the RCMP has undergone in recent years, any person with a modicum of critical-thinking skills is bound to wonder if this is not yet another example of our national police force allowing itself to be used by its political masters, something undoubtedly unhealthy both for democracy and general trust in government.

In his column today, The Star's Tim Harper implies an element of manipulation:

Governments have long used fear to their advantage.

The former George W. Bush government in the U.S. used to change the colour of its “terror threat” if it was marching into headwinds on other matters. In this case, by abruptly changing gears last Friday and deciding to move on its long-neglected anti-terrorist legislation, Conservatives immediately faced charges of using the Boston Marathon bombings for political expediency.

Security expert Wesley Wark believes there was a degree of opportunism in the Conservative move to bring the anti-terror debate to the Commons floor Monday...

But no one Tuesday wanted to try to connect the other dots. It had become too perilous with two terror suspects in custody.

The Star's Heather Mallick is less opaque in her accusations, stating bluntly about the RCMP,

I do not trust them, just as I no longer trust Toronto police after the G20 debacle and do not trust a Harper majority government. Its calling card is to warn us non-stop of “Muslim terrorists,” which might not offend were this government neutral on religion.

Mallick reminds us of the terrible erosion of civil liberty the Conservative's anti-terror bill entails:

... “preventative detention” would mean that any Canadian could be arrested and held for three days on suspicion of terrorist involvement with no charge being laid.

“An investigative hearing” means that someone suspected of knowing about a terrorist plot could be imprisoned for up to a year if they refused to answer questions.

She points out that another provision of the bill is that it makes it a crime to leave Canada to commit an act of terrorism, and raises the specter of a false arrest abroad:

Do you trust Stephen Harper and the Conservative government and the RCMP to do the ethical, informed, reasonable thing in your case? Or do you expect them to follow a hard-right ideology, to overreact as the Americans do?

The answer for many of us to that question is sadly negative. And such a complete loss of faith and trust in one's government can't be healthy, either for individuals or for our democracy.

Finding The Light Amidst Despair

During my teaching days, in the aftermath of 9/11 a student came to see me to discuss her feelings of helplessness and despair in the face of such monumental evil. While I had no special wisdom to offer her, I did say that although I had been witness to some terrible world events in my lifetime, I had never lost complete hope for one particular reason: if evil truly prevailed in this world, we would have destroyed ourselves by now. The fact that we haven't attests to something that the truly vile and depraved amongst us never acknowledge or admit to themselves – the human capacity for goodness, selflessness, and resilience.

I reminded her of the literature we had studied that attests to those qualities. John Steinbeck, in his best-known novel, The Grapes of Wrath, explored the concept of Manself, his term for the human spirit, a spirit that may certainly suffer setbacks, whether through violence in its many forms, beaten strikes or economic injustice, but remains alive, even in defeat, as long as people continue taking the steps necessary to oppose oppression in its many forms:

... Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live- for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live – for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken.

And this you can know- fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

During the recent bombings in Boston, that spirit was very much in evidence. People, despite not knowing where or when the next bomb might go off, instead of fleeing to the safety of shelter, tended to those who had sustained such grievous injuries. Whether doctors, passersby or marathon watchers, they thought of others before themselves:

This is why, whether we are talking about evil on a large or small scale, whether we are talking about suffering that seems to arbitrarily visit us either collectively or individually, hope remains alive, reminding all of us that every one of these moments of grace point the way to something greater, something that some would call transcendent, or to paraphrase Steinbeck, distinctive in the animal kingdom.

Our Inconvenient Civil Liberties/Charter Rights

It may be that I am overly sensitive to the reactionary agenda that seems to dominate society today. It may be that I am misinterpreting a public statement made by a Canadian professor who teaches at both the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University. It may mean nothing at all. Or it could have very dangerous implications.

Ever since the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001, there has been a steady erosion of civil liberties in the United States. Illegal renditions by that country, aided and abetted by many other jurisdictions, targetting American citizens for assassination, and denying suspects their Miranda rights are but three examples.

Lest we think we are beyond such practices in Canada, we need only think of the infamous case of Maher Arar, whose rendition to Syria for torture and imprisonment was aided and abetted by our government.

So it was with real interest that I read in this morning's Star the fact that two years ago, Russia warned the FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old bombing suspect killed earlier Friday after a firefight with police, was a follower of radical Islam” and that “he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”

The question naturally arises, of course, as to why, with that warning, nothing was done to prevent the deaths and grievous injuries that occurred last week at The Boston Marathon.

Canadian professor Christian Leuprecht addresses that question in the following way:

“Is there anything in the way that the law is written that prevented intelligence agencies from doing the job they need to do?”

“It points to the difficulty we’ve put intelligence services in,” he said. “On the one hand we expect them to pick out all the radicals and rein them in and make sure they don’t do anything crazy. On the other, we live in a society where we agree that just having marginal ideas is not illegal.”

Again, I am perfectly willing to admit the possibility that I am misinterpreting Professor Leuprecht's comments, which may simply be observational in nature. However, if they are, instead, prescriptive, he and everyone else who may see our rights and freedoms as inconvenient or unnecessary fetters to law enforcement need to be reminded of one inconvenient truth: those rights and freedoms exist to protect citizens against abuses from the state; they are not there to make anyone's job easier, even for those charged with the responsibility of rooting out terrorism that may reside in our midst.

Will I Be Deemed High Risk for Terror, Crime or Immigration Fraud ?

I have a confession to make. Since January of 2010, my wife and I have visited Cuba four times. So what, one might ask? Cuba has always been a popular destination for Canadians seeking some respite from harsh Canadian winters. What harm is there in that?

Well, potentially a great deal, if I understand the terms of the new border security pact that the Harper government has struck with the Obama government. Called Beyond the Border, it is being extolled by our 'leader' as the biggest breakthrough in Canada/U.S. affairs since the North American free trade pact. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

As reported in The Star, one of those details is the following:

Under a sweeping new entry-exit system to be in place next year Canada will share more information on travellers, including people arriving here from abroad, or going from here to third countries. So-called “trusted” travellers will be speeded across borders, while those deemed “high risk” for terror, crime or immigration fraud will be red-flagged, or prevented from getting here.

In his column, Thomas Walkom elaborates:

Canada will be required to give more information about its citizens and residents to the U.S. By 2013, the countries promise to put in place a “systematic and automated biographical information-sharing capability” and by 2014 a “biometric information-sharing capability.”

A new exit-control system will be put in place for those crossing the land border between Canada and the U.S. in order to “exchange biographical information on travellers.”

So what does any of this have to do with our frequent visits to Cuba? Well, perhaps the most salient fact is that since 1982, Cuba has been designated by the Americans as a '"state sponsor of terrorism," the reasons for which can be seen by clicking on this link, reasons that are, in my view, typical of the United States' paranoid and jaundiced contempt for countries that don't embrace their worldview and values.

Nonetheless, I think the implication of this new border deal are clear. Personally, since I have not travelled to the U.S. for over 10 years, I doubt that the pact will have much effect on me, since if I had to choose between the two countries, Cuba would be my preferred destination.

However, fate can be capricious, and who knows if circumstances might at some point necessitate a visit to the U.S., that benighted country where reason has been largely supplanted by hysteria, and where productive policy has been replaced by demagoguery? Will I find myself being denied entry for my love of Cuba and its people, about whom I have written previously on this blog? Will I be taken to a back room and grilled about my relationship with certain Cubans that we have become friends with outside of the resort? Will I be subjected to the dreaded and invasive body search that can be imposed on the most unlikely of travellers?

These are questions that apparently are of no concern to Stephen Harper, who seems perfectly content to surrender our privacy rights and sovereignty because of the boost the pact will give to cross-border trade.

Quaint notions, sovereignty and privacy rights, aren't they?