Citizenship on the Sidelines

Being on holiday has induced in me a certain mental torpor, so please forgive me if this post states the obvious. Those of us who write politically-oriented blogs are, of course, engaged intellectually and emotionally in the machinations of those we elect. And I suspect it is to our regular consternation and disappointment that more people do not recognize the vital role that the political realm plays in so many aspects of our lives, from the taxes we pay to the physical, social, and economic conditions in our cities, provinces, and the country as a whole. Failure to recognize those facts can lead us into some very dark situations.

While many many people have pointed out the flaws of our current first-past-the-post democracy, the larger problem, it has always seemed to me, is the failure of vast swaths of the population to even bother to vote. We all know, for example, that less than 40% of those who voted federally in 2011 had the power to elect a Harper majority. But perhaps a more current and even more telling illustration is the soap opera continuing to unfold in Toronto, one that had its genesis long before Rob Ford became its mayor, a result which has made Ontario's capital city the subject of international derision.

Was the election of Rob Ford a failure of our system? Obviously not. Those who voted for him had every right to choose as they did, as did the almost 50% who refused to vote. However, that latter choice, as the choice of almost 40% not to vote federally in 2011, means the we all have to endure the consequences of disengagement/citizen inertia.

These thoughts occurred to me upon reading a story in today's Star by Catherine Porter, in which she went to the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, described as the heart of Ford Nation. Porter went there soliciting comments about how the people feel about Ford, and the overwhelming majority 'stand by their man.' Unlike the right wing, which tends to be exceptionally intolerant of progressives, I say they have every right to feel as they do and to vote as they do.

But I guess you can see the problem I am getting at here. Diversity of view is great, but if one part of the electorate is active and engaged, even in policies and orientations with which we do not agree, and too many others just yawn, look the other way or go back to the latest in reality television, the larger society suffers. So please don't tell me there is no one to vote for or your vote doesn't count. That is only a self-fulfilling justification tantamount to an ignoble and deeply injurious abdication of the responsibilities of citizenship.

A Word From The West

We are still in Alberta, having just returned to Edmonton from a trip to Banff and Lake Louise conducted by our son. I suspect that even if we weren't here, I would have some sympathy for the West's reaction to the latest utterance from Justin Trudeau.

Although I generally don't like to use cliches, some would say that this is what happens when you send a boy to do a man's job. The alternative interpretation, of course, would be to say this is what happens when a party of no discernible principles elects as their leader the person whom polls suggest will lead them back to the promised land of politics.

Sadly, the good of the country does not appear to enter into the Liberal Party's calculations.

Rick Salutin on Civic Embarassment

We are in Edmonton right now, and when people ask us where we are from, I mention our community as being about 70 kilometers from Toronto; I then hasten to add that we have nothing to do with Rob Ford, one whose escapades every westerner we meet seems to be well aware of. Never have I felt a greater urge to distance myself from Ontario's capital, with obvious good reason.

I therefore found especially interesting Rick Salutin's thoughts on civic embarrassment and its effects on the people. You can read it here.

Off to Banff tomorrow. I wonder if the Rockies will resound with derisive laughter as well.

A Democratic Expression of Our Discontent

Oh, this idea I like very much. And the tactic is easily adaptable in situations that could best be described as 'fluid':





H/t Sylvia Wilson Canadians Rallying To Unseat Stephen Harper

A Little Something For Your Friday Consideration

We are about to go out exploring downtown Edmonton, so just a little something for your viewing pleasure today. It might be useful to bear in mind the context within which this should be viewed, the decision by Mike Duffy in 2008 to show the false starts and stops of Stephane Dion, then the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, a decision that some say was a significant contributing factor in the Liberal electoral woes that ensued.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council found that CTV Atlantic violated the Radio Television News Directors Association Code of Ethics in a broadcast on October 9, 2008:

The CBSC has concluded that CTV violated Article 8 of the Code, regarding decency, consideration and conduct, for broadcasting the interview outtakes after it had said that it would not do so.

Hmm... decency, consideration, conduct - seems like the now disgraced Seantor Duffy learned nothing from the decision.



H/t Chrisine Reid, Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper

A Tale of Two Reports

David Tkachuk

Carolyn Stewart Olsen

CTV's Robert Fife has been doing exemplary work on the sordid tale of corruption and coverups in Ottawa that has been emerging these past several days. As the true nature of our Prime Minister and his regime becomes increasingly apparent to more and more Canadians, the latest news is that the Senate’s internal economy committee chair David Tkachuk and Carolyn Stewart Olsen appear to have been the prime movers on the sanitization of the Deloitte report on disgraced Senator Mike Duffy's fraudulent expense claims.

You can see the original and the doctored reports here.

Robert fife's video report, and the accompanying story, can be accessed here.

Of course, quite predictably, David Tkachuk is claiming that this is all an innocent misunderstanding and, like his political master and dear leader, didn’t know about the cheque until [he] found out about it in the media”.

P.S. We are heading off to Edmonton tonight to visit our son, so I'm not sure how much blogging I will be doing for the next week or so.

The Internet As Lie Detector

Funny thing about the Internet, isn't it? Almost everything that is uttered or printed by public officials cannot, happily, be rewritten à la Orwell's Nineteen -Eighty-Four. But then again, the government depicted within the novel must have felt the need to guard against uprisings by the people and so relied on scapegoating, invective, close monitoring of citizens, etc. While these techniques are certainly used with regularity by the Harper regime, I suspect that our 'government' feels that its greatest defense against repercussions over its corruption and its debasement of democracy is the apparent monumental indifference of large swaths of the Canadian public.

It must be thus, otherwise how can we explain Harper's shameless and very obvious contempt for the truth? For example, last Wednesday on Power and Politics the regime was expressing its full confidence in Nigel Wright's payment of the $90,000 to the disgraced Senator Mike Duffy. Indeed that staunch defence continued until Wright's resignation on Sunday. :

And yet now, in what can only be viewed as a massive middle finger sent from Peru to the people of Canada, the odious Stephen Harper would have us believe that he acted immediately upon learning of the payoff, an "inappropriate deal' that, he says, elicited sorrow, anger and frustration when he learned about the payoff. Left unexplained was why Wright continued to enjoy his full confidence until Sunday, long after the payoff had been revealed:

And if you have the stomach for it, you could watch the video below in which Eve Adams, who has apparently replaced former Harper pet parrot Pierre Poilivre as public defender of all things Harper, launches into a sycophantic justification of 'dear leader.' Her nauseating performance begins at about the 7 minute mark:

So the evidence is there for all to see that our Prime Minister is also our prime prevaricator. As Oscar Goldman used to say on The Six Million Dollar Man, We have the technology. The real question is, do enough Canadians have the will to use it in the interests of beginning the process of restoring our country in 2015?