On Kettles and Teapots

With apologies, this timeworn metaphor was the only one that came to mind upon reading about this singular example of Church hypocrisy.

Pining For A Non-Existent Past

It occurs to me that perhaps the limited appeal of young Tim Hudak, the increasingly out-of-touch leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, might be related to the retro mentality that periodically pops up in North America. You know, that nostalgic pining for a non-existent past where everyone lived harmoniously in a semi-suburban environment, when men would daily don their work attire (usually a suit and tie), go forth bravely to earn the family's bread, and then return home to be greeted by the loving, doting wife, clad, in the mode of June Cleaver, in apron and pearls. And, of course, there was the malt shop, were teens had good clean fun.

Perhaps that era's main appeal lies in its alleged lack of ambiguity. The answers were there for all who cared to look: good-paying jobs, the car as king, and clearly-defined roles for all. Environment and ecology were words used only by specialists who had little to do with their time.

That is the kind of fictitious past that young Tim seems to be drawing upon for policy formulation, and it is that kind of simplistic thinking that fewer and fewer people, I believe, are willing to uncritically accept, at least if this letter from The Hamilton Spectator is any indication:

Build new Fort Erie-to-Hamilton highway: Hudak (thespec.com, March 7)

I have just read the article wherein Tim Hudak is again quoted as saying he will go ahead with a new highway between Fort Erie and Hamilton.

I am a retired Ontario ministry of transportation employee who was involved in the mid-peninsula highway project and the later Niagara-GTA corridor study project. I am also a resident of Flamborough.

Tim Hudak scares the bejabers out of me.

All the studies have shown that the type of highway he wants is not needed in the foreseeable future. Why can’t he accept this fact?

I don’t think he is an uneducated man, but he seems to be unable to read or to comprehend. He is willing … no … he is anxious, to bulldoze through sensitive wetlands and prime farmland because he thinks it might get him more votes in the Niagara area.

Hudak appears to be a small-thinking man who cannot accept that his ideas just don’t work in today’s society. Most of his comments about jobs are red herrings when it comes to a new highway. While he talks about well-paying skilled trades jobs, he is also talking about getting rid of the unions that helped ensure those types of jobs are well-paid. Again, he doesn’t see the disconnect in his statements.

Although I lean to the right politically, I could never vote for the Ontario Conservative Party with Hudak as its leader. It is incredibly sad that those of us who do lean slightly to the right have no one to vote for.

Will MacKenzie, Flamborough

UPDATE: Perhaps young Tim would be wise to heed this advice from the father of the new conservatism, Preston Manning.

The Strange Economics of Stephen Harper

Even though he only has a Master's degree in economics, our Prime Minister likes to present himself as an economist. And, like the myriad other untruths propagated by his regime, perhaps the biggest lie is that resource extraction, especially tarsands oil, is the most prudent activity around which the Canadian economy should revolve. Indeed, the Harper propaganda machine is so powerful that when anyone dares question the wisdom of such a narrow approach, he or she is automatically labelled anti-Alberta, anti-growth, and profoundly un-Canadian. One doesn't have to search too far back in memory for the pilloring Thomas Mulcair endured over his 'dutch disease' remarks.

Yet somehow, the most potent criticism hurled against Hugo Chavez as President of Venezuela, his reliance on oil exports to the exclusion of a more diversified economy, is supposed to have no application to Canada in Harperworld.

In today's Star, Thomas Walkom attempts to set the record straight. Entitled Alberta’s oil woes mean trouble ahead for Canada, his piece observes that oil, the unilateral basis of the federal government's trade policies, is in trouble. Citing Alberta's deficit budget in which spending will be slashed, he examines the similarities between Alberta and Venezuela:

Curiously, Alberta has much in common with the Venezuela that Hugo Chavez bequeathed to the world. Both rely on heavy oil exports to the U.S. Both are one-party states (Alberta more so than Venezuela). Both are utterly dependent on the price of oil and both have economies that, in different ways, have been deformed as a result of this dependence.

Venezuela faces a reckoning and so does Alberta. So, indeed, does Canada as a whole.

Echoing the 'dutch disease' currency inflation problem articulated earlier by Mulcair, Walkom says, as a result of the decline in oil prices for the tarsand product,

We are already seeing a decline in the Canadian dollar as a result of the resource slowdown. In the long run, this should be good news for Canadian manufacturers who export their goods. In the short run, it means all of us are a little poorer.

Where we don’t see any change is in the federal government’s approach to the economy. The Harper Conservatives remain dazzled by resources. They believe that if the markets want Canadians to hew wood and draw water, that’s what we should do.

But markets are notoriously fickle. This is a fact the entire country will have to face. Alberta is just getting there first.

As Walkom's piece suggests, expect no new understanding or economic insights in the world that Stephen Harper and his cabal inhabit.

Some Thoughts on 'Tea Party Tim'

I wish I could take credit for the title sobriquet describing Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, but that distinction lies with Val Patrick of Hamilton whose letter, along with several others that appear in today's Star, I am taking the liberty of reproducing below. Enjoy!

Tea Party Tim Hudak has launched into another round of union-bashing. This time he is focused on the thousands who have no right to strike and are required by law to have wage and benefit disputes settled by arbitration. His target this day was the firefighters of Stratford.

Attacking the decision in their case, he asserts a need for new legislation requiring arbitrators to “factor in the ability to pay.” Either Mr. Hudak is actively misleading the people of Ontario, or is too lazy to read the current legislation.

The Fire Protection and Prevention Act already requires arbitrators to consider: 1. The employer’s ability to pay in light of its fiscal situation; 2. The extent to which services may have to be reduced, in light of the decision, if current funding and taxation levels are not increased; 3. The economic situation in Ontario and in the municipality; 4. A comparison, as between the firefighters and other comparable employees in the public and private sectors, of the terms and conditions of employment and the nature of the work performed; and 5. The employer’s ability to attract and retain qualified firefighters. Similar requirements exist in the legislation covering others who are denied the right to strike.

Mr. Hudak is simply on a Republican-style campaign seeking to mislead and divide enough people to let him squeak to power. The only pay that needs legislating is that of the corporate CEOs who bankroll Mr. Hudak’s attack on workers and their unions.

Val Patrick, Hamilton

Tim Hudak has become a crashing bore. It’s always the same tired old right-wing bromides from this guy: unions bad, business good, cut, slash, burn.

We’ve been there, done that in the 1990s and what did we get? Longer wait times at hospitals, an education system more focused on test scores than critical thinking, a shredded social safety net that tosses the poor and disabled on the scrap heap of society and imprisoned them there financially.

Blind faith in business landed us in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The only good thing about an election now would be the end of Hudak’s tenure as party leader. So he should be careful what he wishes for, he just might get it.

John Bruce, Niagara Falls

Tim Hudak’s claim that unions are stalling Ontario’s economic recovery is factually incorrect. Corporations and their CEOs are making historical profits and salaries on the backs of Ontario’s workers.

Making such inflammatory statements only fosters resentment and anger; clearly, a more substantive and logically articulated policy is warranted. Inflating unemployment ranks, selling off profitable crown corporations and killing unions is mediocre thinking. Ontarians experienced that same kind of neocon economic policy during the Mike Harris era, we don’t need another dose of revisionist history.

As a retired pensioner, please don’t give me any guff about corporations being abused by union bosses, I pay a higher rate of tax than your corporate friends and I don’t have the luxury of tax loopholes.

RBC chief Gordon Nixon took a million dollar salary cut in 2011, but he rebounded to make $12.6 million the following year. Somehow I don’t feel sorry for him. What could he possibly have in his head that’s worth more than $12 million a year?

Hudak’s former boss, Mr. Harris, attended 18 corporate meetings last year and earned $780,000; that’s obscene. With that as a backdrop, Hudak wants to deny Ontarians a decent standard of living?

Nicholas Kostiak, Tottenham

So Mr. Hudak is once again attacking members of unions and environmentalists, blaming them for Ontario’s economic woes. If he is truly concerned about controlling spending and reducing debt he should look at himself, his party and the very wealthy, many of whom suppot his party.

Instead of attacking unions, that made many workers middle class, and those who believe that companies need to be part of the solution to our environmental problems, Hudak should do the following: cut his own salary, benefits and perks; increase his short working year; make the wealthiest pay their fair share of taxes; and close loopholes that allow the wealthy to financially benefit in ways that the average Ontarian cannot.

These suggestions, though supported by many, would never be supported by Hudak and the Conservatives because they would adversely affect many of those who support his party. Mr. Hudak should stop putting profit ahead of people and recognize the real pro-family beliefs of earning a livable wage and saving our planet.

Ken Walters, Toronto

A Portrait of Ambition

While even I can reach my saturation point when it comes to tales of Senate fraud and corruption, I found this portrait of Senator Pam Wallin in today's Toronto Star rather interesting. Apparently the former broadcaster is known for her political ambitions, having unseated and replaced Liberal Colin Kenney from the chairmanship of the powerful Senate committee on national security and defence.

The article notes that since her elevation, the committee has become far less critical of government policy. As well,

The ascendancy has fuelled speculation in some circles in the red chamber that she has her eye on the top job, government leader in the Senate, a position that means she would be a member of cabinet.

Tim Harper has more to say about the prospect of Wallin taking over the position, currently occupied by Marjory LeBreton, in his column, also found in today's edition.

Expect this soap opera known as the Senate to continue playing on indefinitely.

A Graphic Depiction of Unfettered Capitalism

The true believers in unfettered capitalism will not like this video:

H/t Alex Himelfarb

Absolutely!

For me, one of the biggest offenses against logical thinking is absolutism, which essentially says there is only one right answer, that everything is black or white, with no gradations of gray. An example would be Vic Toews infamous assertion, when controversy erupted over his deeply flawed Internet surveillance bill, that those who opposed the legislation were siding with child pornographers. Another would be George Bush's claim, after 9/11, that 'You are either with us, or with the terrorists.'

Despite what the above examples might suggest, such thinking, sadly, is not the exclusive domain of those with limited intelligence; we all have the potential to fall into the absolutist trap. I am no exception, despite the fact that I try as much as possible to practise critical thinking.

Yet sometimes, there seems to be only one ineluctable conclusion to be drawn, as absolutist as it may appear. Such is the way I felt this morning upon reading Tim Harper's latest column. Entitled A hand stretched across the aisle in the print edition of the paper, the piece details the efforts of the NDP's Nathan Cullen and Liberal leadership candidate Joyce Murray to promote a one-time co-operative pact among the three parties in order to unseat Stephen Harper in the next federal election. Elegant in its simplicity, the plan would work as follows:

... seats held by the Conservatives in which the governing party received less than 50 per cent of the vote would be targeted for co-operation... Each of the three parties would nominate their own candidates and, assuming all three parties backed co-operation, the single candidate would be chosen in a run-off.

This way, of course, the centre and left would not be siphoning off votes from each other, which is what occurred in the last election, allowing Stephen Harper's crew to come up the middle and form a majority government despite being supported by only a minority of voters.

Joyce Murray avers that the majority within the three parties (this includes the Greens) support the notion, but what is telling is the reaction of the party leaders and leadership aspirants: NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has forbidden his MPs from responding to a letter from Green Party leader Elizabeth May championing the notion. Montreal MP Marc Garneau accused [Murray] of giving up on her party. And Justin Trudeau, of no fixed ideology, and, who once flirted with the idea of co-operation, has slammed the door on the prospect.

For me, there are no shades of gray, no nuances, in their flat rejection of the one strategy that could break Harper's stranglehold on Canada. Each is consumed with the bald lust for power. All other considerations, including what is best for the country, are secondary. I can see no other explanation.

So whether I am guilty of absolutist thinking or have drawn the only reasonable conclusion possible, I leave to the reader to decide.