Paul S. Graham

I had dinner with Stephen Lewis last night, me and 400 other folk who gathered to support development projects in Uganda at a dinner sponsored by Friends of Uganda, a Winnipeg-based group of individuals and organizations with strong ties to Uganda.

Lewis is well known in Canada and abroad for his work on behalf of Africa, and in particular, the support his foundation gives to community-based organizations that are working against HIV/AIDS in Africa. A passionate orator who exudes wit, charm and a fierce commitment to social justice, Lewis spoke movingly for about 45 minutes on the enormous obstacles Africans confront and on the progress they are making.

In a lighter vein, he reported on a recent trip to the Yukon where, he said, he too could see Russia. It was vintage Stephen Lewis.

You can listen to his speech here.

And perhaps when you are finished you will contact the Friends of Uganda to offer your help and/or financial support. Or visit the Ugandan Canadian Association of Manitoba for more information.

“A week is a long time in politics” is the popular aphorism that causes pundits to nod sagely and political operatives to reach deeper into their bag of tricks for manipulating the short attention spans and even shorter memories of the electorate.

Ample evidence demonstrates that political bloggers of all stripes are not immune.

Evidently, attention spans are getting shorter across the pond. Commentators such as George Monbiot and Andrew Rawnsley have noted that British PM Gordon Brown has become fond of quipping that “an hour is a long time in politics.”

Monbiot laments the inability of politicians to think beyond surviving the next election and proposes a solution: a new, independent Parliamentary committee — a Hundred Year Committee — whose purpose would be

to assess the likely impacts of current policy in 10, 20, 50 and 100 years’ time. Like any other select committee, it gathers evidence, publishes reports and makes recommendations to the government. It differs only in that it has no interest in the current political cycle. Its maximum timeframe is roughly the residence time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

This got me thinking. (Monbiot always gets me thinking!) I’ve heard this somewhere before. Buzz phrases stated rolling through my attentionally deficient mind: sustainable development, government watch dog, arms-length whoohaws, reports to Canada, sustainable development, hold their feet to the fire, annual reports — AHA, YES! AUDITOR GENERAL! SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT! WE’RE SAVED!

In Canada, we don’t need a Hundred Year Committee. We have the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, who annually reports to Parliament on the state of federal government management of our tax dollars. Included in their mandate is the responsibility to assess how effectively departments are fulfilling their “sustainable development plans.” When they find problems, they report them to Parliament and departments are supposed to respond with their strategies for remedying the deficiencies.

This year, after a decade of performing these audits (70 in total), the OAG decided to take a look at how well federal departments were doing in terms of fulfilling their commitments to comply with their own sustainable development plans. In their words, they “followed up on selected recommendations and findings from prior reports to determine if satisfactory progress has been made in addressing them.”

Bureaucratese is a deadening language. It rarely conveys the sense of urgency that it purports to describe. Commenting on governmental progress on the sustainable development front, they write

We found mixed progress by departments and agencies in addressing and resolving the recommendations and findings included in this Status Report. Of the fourteen chapters in the report, five show satisfactory progress and nine show unsatisfactory progress. Where satisfactory progress was made, four success factors were present—realistic objectives, strong commitment at senior levels, clear direction, and adequate resources. Where progress was unsatisfactory, some or all of these factors were absent.

Translation: Goverment — you have flunked! The last ten tears of Liberal and Tory administrations have been proven incapable of ensuring that federal departments meet their objectives for sustainable development. What’s the holdup? In the OAG’s cautious prose

Of particular concern is the poor performance by departments and agencies in conducting strategic environmental assessments when developing policy and program proposals. These assessments are required when proposals that are submitted to Cabinet have an environmental impact.

In addition to finding the last decade of governments guilty of failing to meet important environmental commitments, the OAG points to chronic, short-term thinking as an additional problem:

But as important as it is to address environmental challenges that exist today, it is equally important to anticipate new challenges and new opportunities that may arise tomorrow. Doing this would help the government get ahead of the curve and develop policies and programs to mitigate the challenges and exploit the opportunities. Strategic environmental assessments and sustainable development strategies are management tools put in place to get departments and agencies to do this. Unfortunately, both tools are broken; they need to be fixed. [my emphasis]

There you have it. Our government sufferes from attention deficit disorder; it can’t or won’t do proper environmental assessments, it can’t fix identified problems, it does not even try to anticipate what is on the horizon, much less beyond it.

In the unforgettable words of American writer Jim Kuntsler, our governments (and the folks who elected them) are “sleepwalking into the future.”

Nothing focuses one’s attention on the fate of future generations quite so effectively as the birth of one’s first grandchild. Mine was born last year and I alternate between the joy I derive from watching her grow and the despair I feel when I consider the world she will inhabit after I am gone.

I don’t imagine my feelings are unique. There may even be politicians who share these sentiments, but in the world of five-second sound-bytes and six-point platforms (each with three talking points, max) it is difficult to discern who these folks might be.

Among politically active friends and acquaintances, I think I am on firmer ground. I know more than a few who make a sustained effort to puzzle through what we need to do to create a sustainable world where my grandkid can raise her kids in peace and justice.

I extend my circle of folks I can count on in this way to the blogosphere, where there are many thoughtful, analytical voices for social justice. But we have to do better.

We’ve all guilty of publishing the smart-ass one liners that pass for political wisdom — the pithy denunciations of political rivals that prove we belong to the same club. We’ve all helped feed the rumour mills with less than rigorously researched facts at one time or another.

Somehow, we (and here I am talking to “progressive” political bloggers and others who visit here) have to wean ourselves off the steady diet of cheap thrills, hysterical language and gotcha sensationalism that pass for political analysis these days. We need to resist the urge to score easy points on the seemingly hapless fools who aspire to lead us. We need to become more thoughtful, deliberate and long-term in our own thinking and writing, and demand that our politicians do the same.

In other words, progressive political bloggers need to lead by example when we call on politicians to replace their short-term opportunism with planning and authentic concern for the well being of future generations.

End of rant — for now.

According to Rideau Institute president Steven Staples “I have heard that there are memos being produced inside the Canadian government today that are saying that the [Afghan] war has already been lost.”

Staples made the statement speaking at an Oct. 18, 2008 forum sponsored by Peace Alliance Winnipeg and the Canadian Federation of Students entitled “Canada after Bush: What’s at Stake?”

In his 45 minute address, Staples compared the programs of Barack Obama and John McCain and speculated on the implications of their platforms for Canada in terms of trade and the environment, climate change strategies, energy security, border issues and national security and foreign policy, especially as it pertains to Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Commenting on Bush’s tragic legacy, Staples said:

In Canada, the Liberal Government of Jean Chrétien after 911 quickly implemented far reaching national security measures to harmonize our policies with US priorities with terrible results – as Canadians saw what happened when Maher Arar was trapped and tortured by the post 911 secret security apparatus that had been thrown up in the weeks that followed those attacks. While Chrétien famously refused to join the invasion of Iraq after tremendous protests, he sent us deeper into Afghanistan. One hardly notices the difference now, with so many soldiers killed and billions of dollars spent on that failing Afghan war, that we didn’t go into Iraq; the results are pretty much substantially the same.

Staples noted strong similarities between the spending policies of Bush, the two presidential candidates and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

As many commentators, such as the Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson have pointed out, neither candidate has a plan to deal with the massive US budget deficit which has been driven by Bush’s policies of big military spending and tax cuts. This may sound familiar because its these same policies that the Globe and Mail has said under Steven Harper has cost us our budget surplus. Harper’s big tax cuts and his big military spending increases now risk driving Canada into a budget deficit and an economic downturn.

Staples said it was time for Canada to develop a national energy policy that addressed Canadian needs and made it clear that Canadian oil belongs, in the first instance, to Canadians. He said this approach is not one recognized by U.S. leaders.

US leaders look at Canadian oil as part of US domestic sources; they don’t really think of Canada and all the oil we’re pumping down there as being a foreign source. They just assume it’s kinda theirs’. In fact Canada is now the number one source of oil imports to the United States and there is already a tacit agreement that tar sands production will increase five-fold by 2020 to increase the supply to the United States.

Staples expressed grave fears regarding Obama’s plans for Afghanistan and the implications for Canada.

This Obama policy of shifting thousands of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan is probably the most worrisome for us in the short term. For all of the positive changes that an Obama presidency could bring, this would be a huge mistake. By simply pumping in thousands of US troops to contribute to the same counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan that they have been following all this time, Obama will only make matters worse. And that’s not all; he will try to pull other countries down with him in Afghanistan. The US will seek greater allied contributions to the war. Already – I don’t know if you saw it on CBC the other night: a senior adviser to the Obama campaign told the interviewer that he will be looking for more support from Canada. And remember, we’ve committed to another three years of fighting, to December 2011.

Wrapping up his speech, Staples outlined what he saw as Canada’s priorities following the election of a new US president. These would include renegotiating NAFTA to incorporate environmental and labour protections, developing a made-for-Canada energy policy, support for Canada’s devastated manufacturing sector, and pushing for peace in Afghanistan.

Listen to Steven Staples here

To hear Steven Staples entire address, click on Canada After Bush. (Hint: For streaming audio, click on the little red arrow.)

The Rideau Institute on International Affairs is an independent research, advocacy and consulting group based in Ottawa. It provides research, analysis and commentary on public policy issues to decision makers, opinion leaders and the public. It is a federally registered non-profit organization, established in January 2007.

Steven Staples is the president of the Rideau Institute. In the past 15 years, Steven Staples has acted as the Director of Security Programs for the Polaris Institute, the Issue Campaigns Coordinator for the Council of Canadians and the Coordinator for End the Arms Race. He is well known for his work on international defence, disarmament and trade issues.

By Carl Boggs, Counterpunch, Oct. 18, 2008

The arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in July 2008 for war crimes allegedly committed in the 1990s took the Western (especially United States) media by storm, a case that was upheld as a watershed moment in the struggle for global justice. Demonized by the Western media as an “architect of genocide” in the former Yugoslavia, Karadzic was quickly extradited from Serbia to the Hague to be prosecuted before the NATO-funded International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), a court that had already put on trial 66 Serbs for assorted war crimes. Despite a paucity of evidence showing that Karadzic was actually involved in anything resembling genocide, the media and political elites were quick to celebrate his arrest as a triumph of international legality. Whatever Karadzic’s ultimate fate before this politically-charged tribunal, the truly odd feature of this drama is that a relatively minor figure like Karadzic could be the target of so much moralizing scorn –likened by some to another Hitler – while leaders of the most powerful war machine in history, planners of an illegal, catastrophic war and occupation in Iraq lasting almost six years, are treated with the dignity and respect of statespersons instead of being held accountable for criminal behavior dwarfing anything that took place in Yugoslavia. Within American political and media culture, of course, it has long been an article of common belief that war crimes must be the work of evil others, never Americans whose taken-for-granted noble intentions serve to immunize them legal accountability.

Might it be possible that President George Bush and his co-conspirators in military aggression will some day be held to the same international standards as the designated enemies – to the very norms that U.S. leaders themselves so righteously champion when it comes to Serbs and others? Could Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, and the entire gang of neocon ideologues responsible for bringing the Iraq debacle to the world ever be judged according to the principles of Nuremberg, the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Charter, and other canons of international law? Within prevailing American discourse, the very idea that U.S. leaders might be prosecuted for war crimes is, more than ever, beyond the scope of tolerable debate.

Article continues . . .

We live in a country where 9.97 percent of the popular vote can translate into 50 seats in Parliament (Bloc Québécois) and 6.8 percent gives you zilch (Greens).

The table below illustrates how our electoral system disproportionately allocates seats. (Thanks to Challenging the Commonplace for the table.) A rational observer has to ask why the Tories, for example, can lose almost 170,000 votes and win an additional seats. At the other end of the scale, one wonders how the Greens can improve their vote by almost 300 thousand votes and still be shut out of the House.

Voter turnout was at an all-time low of 59.1%. So-called “voter apathy” undoubtedly has many causes, however, it is not unreasonable to conclude that disgust with an undemocratic electoral system is a major one.

While this is not a new problem, there seems to be a new willingness on the part of a growing number of Canadians to do something about it. If you are one of them, or even merely curious, consider joining Fair Vote Canada.

And while you’re there, check out their video: Electoral Dysfunction: there is a cure.

After the election we’ve just endured, we need a chuckle or two.

Peace Alliance Winnipeg will be holding a rally, march and public forum on Oct. 18, 2008 in Winnipeg. These events are part of a Canada-wide series of actions to demonstrate Canadian opposition to the war in Afghanistan and Canada’s combat role in it.

“October marks the seventh year of a war that has claimed the lives of thousands of Afghans and almost a thousand NATO troops, including 97 Canadian soldiers,” says Peace Alliance Winnipeg spokesperson Glenn Michalchuk. “Most Canadians are opposed to this war and were dismayed when Parliament voted to extend Canada’s combat role to the end of 2011.”

Anti-war actions are planned for several communities in Canada, including Fredericton, Grand Forks, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

Public Forum

Peace Alliance Winnipeg and the Canadian Federation of Students will host a public forum entitled “Canada after Bush: What is at stake?” at the Bullman Centre in Centennial Hall, University of Winnipeg, following the march, at 3:30 p.m.

The featured speaker is Steven Staples, who is the president of the Rideau Institute. In the past 15 years, Mr. Staples has acted as the Director of Security Programs for the Polaris Institute, the Issue Campaigns Coordinator for the Council of Canadians and the Coordinator for End the Arms Race.

He is well known for his work on international defence, disarmament and trade issues. In 2006 he published his first book, Missile Defence: Round One (Lorimer), which chronicled the citizen-based campaign that succeeded in persuading the Paul Martin government to announce that it would not join the U.S. ballistic missile defence program in February 2005.

Steven Staples is a member of the Canadian Pugwash Group and the Group of 78, and also acts as the General Secretary of the international network of anti-nuclear groups, Abolition 2000.

Workers at the Winnipeg Free Press went on strike at noon on Monday. WAYNE GLOWACKI/freepressonstrike.com

A thousand employees of the Winnipeg Free Press struck, yesterday, over wages, pensions and working conditions. They will tell their story at http://www.fresspressonstrike.com and provide a local-news alternative to their employer. Their lead story chronicles the beating their boss is taking on the stock market.

Get yer news at freepressonstrike [dot] com!

No matter how the pollsters slice and dice it, two-thirds of Canadian voters do not want a Tory government. The same might be said, in greater or lesser proportions, about a Liberal, NDP or Green government.

That said, a centre-left coalition of Liberals, New Dems and Greens could probably find enough common ground to meet many of the political objectives of most Canadians. It wouldn’t be ideal, but it would be preferable to another Harper government, propped up by the Liberals — which is what we face now.

Here are five reasons why we should support a centre-left coalition:

1. A centre-left coalition would more accurately reflect the political will of the majority of Canadians who have rejected Harper and his neocons.

2. In the event that Harper gets enough seats to form a minority government, a centre-left coalition would keep him from doing so.

3. In the event that Dion gets enough seats to form a minority government, it would prevent him from playing Parliamentary footsies with the Tories and moving to the right.

4. It would give the NDP a chance to show what they could do in government at the federal level and perhaps improve their chances in future elections. The same could hold true for the Greens if they manage to get someone elected.

5. It would provide an opportunity to replace our outmoded “first past the post” electoral system with some form of proportional representation. This, in turn, would improve the prospects for democracy in Canada over the long term.

Where would the Bloc Québècois fit in this scheme? That would be up to the Bloc. I suspect they would maintain their independence and represent their constituents as they saw fit. That includes getting rid of Harper, which should mean they wouldn’t oppose a centre-left coalition until it became popular in Quebec.

Thoughts?

Does Stephen Harper rate a blue sweater or an orange jumpsuit? Canadians who haven’t heard the controversial interview between Harper and author Tom Zytaruk should review it carefully. You can hear it here.

According to the Criminal Code of Canada it is a crime to offer a bribe to a Member of Parliament. Those found guilty could face 14 years in prison. This, then, is serious offence.

Presumably, any law-abiding party leader who was aware that a bribe was going to be offered would insist that his or her party officials abide by the law.

Is our current Prime Minister law-abiding? Listen to this segment of a discussion between Stephen Harper and Tom Zytaruk about “financial considerations” offered to then terminally ill MP Chuck Cadman in exchange for his vote against a Liberal budget.

The quality of the recording isn’t great. Turn up your speakers, and read along below.

Then ask yourself some questions:

• Why didn’t Harper tell his officials to obey the law? He is, after all, a self-proclaimed “law ‘n order” guy with a reputation for controlling what his underlings do and say.
• Does Harper understand the law? Oh wait, he’s the guy who legislated fixed election dates and then called an early election.
• Do we want a Prime Minister who would countenance what amounts to a bribe to a dying MP for his vote? Does this make him an accessory?
• Wouldn’t an orange jumpsuit be more appropriate attire for our PM than a fuzzy blue sweater?

Harper-Zytaruk Transcript

Here’s what’s on the tape between author Tom Zytaruk and Harper, recorded after Cadman’s death in 2005.

Zytaruk: “I mean, there was an insurance policy for a million dollars. Do you know anything about that?”

Harper: “I don’t know the details. I know that there were discussions, uh, this is not for publication?”

Zytaruk: “This (inaudible) for the book. Not for the newspaper. This is for the book.”

Harper: “Um, I don’t know the details. I can tell you that I had told the individuals, I mean, they wanted to do it. But I told them they were wasting their time. I said Chuck had made up his mind, he was going to vote with the Liberals and I knew why and I respected the decision. But they were just, they were convinced there was, there were financial issues. There may or may not have been, but I said that’s not, you know, I mean, I, that’s not going to change.”

Zytaruk: “You said (inaudible) beforehand and stuff? It wasn’t even a party guy, or maybe some friends, if it was people actually in the party?”

Harper: “No, no, they were legitimately representing the party. I said don’t press him. I mean, you have this theory that it’s, you know, financial insecurity and, you know, just, you know, if that’s what you’re saying, make that case but don’t press it. I don’t think, my view was, my view had been for two or three weeks preceding it, was that Chuck was not going to force an election. I just, we had all kinds of our guys were calling him, and trying to persuade him, I mean, but I just had concluded that’s where he stood and respected that.”

Zytaruk: “Thank you for that. And when (inaudible).”

Harper: “But the, uh, the offer to Chuck was that it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election.”

Zytaruk: “Oh, OK.”

Harper: “OK? That’s my understanding of what they were talking about.”

Zytaruk: “But, the thing is, though, you made it clear you weren’t big on the idea in the first place?”

Harper: “Well, I just thought Chuck had made up his mind, in my own view …”

Zytaruk: “Oh, okay. So, it’s not like, he’s like, (inaudible).”

Harper: “I talked to Chuck myself. I talked to (inaudible). You know, I talked to him, oh, two or three weeks before that, and then several weeks before that. I mean, you know, I kind of had a sense of where he was going.”

Zytaruk: “Well, thank you very much.”

Further reading

• CBC: Timeline – The Chuck Cadman Bribe Controversey
• Toronto Star: Tape not altered as Harper claimed . . .