Toward Democratic Renewal

I'm sure that all progressive bloggers are disheartened and bedeviled by the devolution of democracy in Canada. Not only has it been under consistent and sustained attack by the Harper regime, but it has also (perhaps as a result of those attacks) seen a substantial rise in the number of disaffected and disengaged citizens, attested to by the abysmal turnout in recent elections.

In today's Star, Bob Hepburn has some suggestions on how to reverse this deplorable situation, posed in this way by Hepburn:

How can Stephen Harper and other political leaders be prevented from running roughshod over our democracy?

Hepburn suggests that Harper's egregious contempt for our democratic principles and traditions are sparking a backlash among a growing number of Canadians.

It is a suggestion with which the founder of Democracy Watch, Duff Conacher agrees:

“There will be huge competition on this issue among the political parties like we haven’t seen in more than 10 years,” he says.

So how can we, as concerned citizens, contribute to this push for democratic renewal?

First, you can write, email and telephone Harper, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, as well as your MP. In the past, many people have written to Ottawa, but have received unsatisfying responses or no replies at all. Don’t give up, though. Politicians will change direction if enough people write to them, Conacher says.

Next, Hepburn advises joining

a non-profit community group engaged in a public issue ... [that] can provide a chance to share your views with elected officials or public servants.

Third, spend $10 and join a political party. As a member, you can try to influence candidates and the political agenda at the local or national level.

Fourth, talk about political issues with your family and friends. [Alison]Loat [of Samara]says one of the biggest challenges for anyone interested in restoring democracy is getting others engage. Barely 40 per cent of Canadians report they have talked with their friends or families or work colleagues about a political or societal issue in person or on the phone in the last year.

Fifth, sign up with pro-democracy efforts and petitions that are being launched across Canada. For example, the Ottawa-based Council of Canadians is urging its members to take a vote pledge, with a promise to challenge two more eligible voters to join them in taking the pledge. As well, Dave Meslin, a Toronto organizer who co-founded Spacing magazine, is seeking ideas for a book he is writing, titled One Hundred Remedies for a Broken Democracy.

Hepburn also points out that Duff Conacher is

the driving force behind Democracy Education, a coalition of national groups that operates the VotePromise.ca website that strives to get voters to encourage non-voters to turn out for the coming election.

The idea is to extract a promise from as many of your friends and acquaintances as possible to Make the Vote Promise.

Taken separately, perhaps none of these will cure our political malaise, but in the aggregate, they may, with the proper effort, result in a return to healthier numbers at the ballot box.

We have our job cut out for us. The challenge is daunting, but I refuse to believe it is insurmountable.

Coalition Redux

Never ones to shy away from expressing strong opinions, Toronto Star readers weigh in again on the best way to try to defeat Mr. Harper in the next election:

Re: Pondering a union of moderates, Letters Jan. 10

Federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau must get their heads together. Prior to 2006, the federal conservative parties realized they were fighting each other. They became one party and have been in power ever since. In 2011, with a vote increase from approximately 37 per cent to 39 per cent, they went from a minority to a majority government.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper could win again in 2015 unless the left unites. NDP and Liberal issues and policies may vary slightly but they are heading in the same direction. If they don’t join, Harper will be one of the longest reigning prime ministers even though, by far, he is the worst prime minister ever, taking that title from (I’m sure) a relieved Brian Mulroney.

Let’s review some of his highlights. He promised to be transparent and accountable. Not so. United Arab Emirates allowed our military to use its military bases and hospitals, and they flew soldiers home at no cost to Canada. When Harper refused UAE commercial flights into Canada, we lost that privilege. This has cost Canada at least $300 million for an alternate airbase.

Harper wanted to buy 65 F35 jets from an American company, even though the U.S. air force wouldn’t because the jets were flawed. Because of Harper’s hawkishness, Canada was kicked out of the UN Security Council. He taught us that proroguing is not something you eat. He is the only prime minister in Commonwealth history to be held in contempt of Parliament.
Harper hired Deloitte Consulting for advice on how to handle finances. And yet before the election, he told us he had the means to balance the budget. He said he would be tough on crime, and then scrapped the long gun registry.

When Jean Chrétien’s Liberals chose not to fight in the illegal war in Iraq, Harper wrote a letter to the U.S. apologizing for Canada’s refusal. He promised Senate reform. Didn’t happen. Instead he stacked the Senate in his favour.

In 2011, the postal workers went on a rotating strike. Harper said that commerce relies heavily on the mail. So what did he do? He locked out the postal workers, so no mail was delivered. Sounds like a Monty Python skit.

He silenced the scientists for fear they may show evidence of climate change. Nothing gets said or done unless it goes through him first. Hence, the label he has acquired: Party of One.

John Vesprini, Stoney Creek

First, to paraphrase Churchill, “first past the post is the worst form of election possible, except for all the others.”

All proportional representation does is transfer power to small parties, far in excess of their voter turnout. That is one reason the NDP supports it. You will discover that, and express your malcontent, when a hard-right party wins a balance of power with 15 to 20 per cent of the vote.

Second, why is it that right-wing parties are routinely cited by letter writers with the “61 per cent voted against this government” and left-wing parties are not? Kathleen Wynne won a majority with 38.2 per cent of the vote, but none of the letter writers acknowledged that fact.

Based on election results from the last two elections, in Ontario Stephen Harper enjoyed the support of 44 per cent of actual voters, and 27 per cent of eligible voters, while Kathleen Wynne had 38 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

Finally, the Conservative party did receive the plurality of votes cast in the last election, on a party basis. There are four parties on the left, which split the so-called “progressive” vote.

Two parties splitting the “right” vote cost us 10 years of Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government. Until the “progressives” unite, we will continue to get a government elected by a majority of Canadians, on a party basis.

Alan McDonald, Trenton

As I have said before, it is doubtful that a uniting of progressives will take place before the upcoming election. It may be seriously entertained afterwards, if Harper is re-elected with another majority. However, if that happens, I suspect it will be too little, far too late.

Thirst for personal power will have triumphed over the public good, once again.

UPDATED: Have The Terrorists Already Won?

Much press has been devoted to the aftermath of the cowardly massacre at Charlie Hebdo; strong displays of solidarity both in defence of freedom of expression and disdain for the jihadists' efforts to squelch it, have been widespread. But despite these demonstrations, one can legitimately ask if the terrorists have already achieved victory.

I offer but one example here of the egregious irony/hypocrisy of a state-sanctioned suppression of the very right that so many are so staunchly defending against attack.

Associated Press journalists Lori Hinnant and Angela Charlton report the following:

In a sign that French judicial authorities were using laws against defending terrorism to their fullest extent, a man who had praised the terror attacks while resisting arrest on a drunk driving violation was swiftly sentenced to four years in prison.

I guess freedom of expression is ultimately largely contingent upon whether or not one finds acceptable the view being expressed. So it would seem that both the French government and the terrorists have found something upon which they can both agree.

UPDATE: Many thanks to Karen for providing this very timely link.

A Blog Post Recommendation

I have only one purpose in this brief post, and that is to strongly recommend that you take a look at Dr. Dawg's latest post. A trenchant and incisive dissection of the rot that has beset the CBC, Dawg concludes that there is little worth saving at what he calls the 'MotherCorpse', given its increasingly flagrant disregard for conflict of interest issues, Amanda Lang's case being only the latest.

Who is to blame for this sorry state? Well, you'll have to read Dawg's post for his answer.

The CBC: The Ethical Slide Continues

H/t Canadaland

The once-prized principle of journalistic ethics continues its precipitous decline at the CBC. Following last years's timid management response to conflict of interest allegations against chief correspondent and resident sycophant Peter Mansbridge and its sophistic treatment of oil shill/resident crank/climate-change denier Rex Murphy, the Corporation's management is at it again in defending its senior business correspondent, Amanda Lang.

Two days ago, Canadaland reported the following:

Multiple sources within CBC News have revealed to CANADALAND, under condition of anonymity, a shocking campaign Amanda Lang undertook in 2013 to sabotage a major story reported by her colleague, investigative reporter Kathy Tomlinson.

The story that Lang tried to block was uncovered by reporter Kathy Tomlinson and her Go Public team. It revealed that the Royal Bank of Canada was

using an outsourcing firm to bring in temporary workers for its Canadian employees to train... in order to sack those Canadian employees and ship their jobs overseas.

Canadaland reports that as CBC journalists across the country were gathering more information to follow up on the story, they were summoned to a conference call with Tomlinson and Amanda Lang:

Lang, they recall, relentlessly pushed to undermine the RBC story. She argued that RBC was in the right, that their outsourcing practices were “business as usual,” and that the story didn’t merit significant coverage. She and a defiant Tomlinson faced off in a tense, extended argument. Two of the CBC employees we spoke to recall a wave of frustrated hang-ups by participants.

“I cannot emphasize enough how wrong it was,” said one CBC employee we spoke to. “That another journalist, not involved in a story, would intervene in the reporting of others and question the integrity of her colleagues like that. I haven’t seen anything like it before or since.”

Lang's efforts did not end there, and extended to on-air efforts to undermine the story, as you will see if you read Canadaland's full report.

Canadaland has since learned the apparent reason for Lang's efforts to subvert the story:

CANADALAND can now confirm that CBC Senior Business Correspondent Amanda Lang’s ties to RBC go beyond sponsored speaking events.

Sources close to Amanda Lang, who spoke to CANADALAND on the condition of anonymity, confirm that she has been in a romantic relationship with RBC Board Member W. Geoffrey Beattie since January 2013 at the latest. This relationship is ongoing, and the two were involved in April 2013, when Lang acted within the CBC to scuttle a colleague’s reporting on abuses of Canadian labour law by RBC.

Predictably, CBC management is circling the wagons.

CBC News Editor-in-Chief Jennifer McGuire said in a memo to staff Monday that the allegations about business reporter Amanda Lang’s involvement in the story on RBC’s use of temporary foreign workers were “categorically untrue.”

End of story. Or so the CBC might wish. But with the kind of fine investigative work being done at Canadaland (they were, in fact, the first to uncover the Jian Ghomeshi accusations), I suspect that this story is far from dead.

"Dirty Secrets From The Man Who Worked For Harper"

This needs to be watched by all Canadians concerned about our country's future. Please circulate widely:



H/t Operation Maple

The Harper Strategy Strikes Again

To which of the myriad Machiavellian Harper strategies do I refer? It's the one that says if you don't like what a group is saying, muzzle them or shut them down.

The Hill Times today reports the following:

Newly-appointed Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O’Toole has informed an advocacy group for wounded and psychologically injured veterans that it is no longer a stakeholder adviser to the Veterans Affairs department.

Mike Blais, who helped launch Canadian Veterans Advocacy in 2011 to advocate for veterans and serving Canadian Forces members who did combat tours in Afghanistan and their families, told The Hill Times that Mr. O’Toole (Durham, Ont.) gave the bad news to the group in a voicemail he left on Mr. Blais’ phone service Jan. 7.

Mr. Blais' group, which had been part of a Veterans Affairs Canada Stakeholder Committee established in 2012,

had been one of the most vocal critics of the department’s treatment of injured veterans and Canadian Forces members in the months leading up to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) decision to shuffle former Veterans Affairs minister Julian Fantino (Vaughan, Ont.) out of the post last week, following scathing criticism from Auditor General Michael Ferguson for delays in treatment for veterans.

What prompted the termination, which the 'classy' Mr. O'Toole left in a voicemail message to Mr. Blais? Here is what the former said last June in the House:

“As a veteran myself, I have been quite offended by some of the work that group does. It is not sincere. It is not based on sound policy. I understand, at committee, that they have acknowledged that their funding has come from unions”.

Setting the record straight, Blais offered the following:

The advocacy group lobbied against government budget plans in 2012 that would have resulted in job losses at Veterans Affairs Canada, he said, after which the union representing the employees provided Canadian Veterans Advocacy a donation of $2,000.

“Every department at that time took a 10-per-cent hit except Veterans Affairs Canada,” Mr. Blais said.

“We worked hard on that and the Union of Veterans Affairs Employees made a donation of $2,000, no strings attached, just a donation to the war chest. There is not tit for tat, no, nothing, right. As a consequence to that, even though it was three years ago and a meagre $2,000, they’ve been attempting to label us,” Mr. Blais said.

Julian Fantino may have been replaced as Veterans Affairs minister, but his malignant, vindictive spirit clearly lives on.