Zundel loses in court, Feds won’t turn over secret evidence

Infamous Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel lost a challenge to the Supreme Court on the grounds that evidence against him was being kept secret. Court papers last year were filed against Zundel, saying he was a threat and a potential terrorist (or something of that ilk) and should be deported.

For those curious about Zundel’s past, there is a good summary here. Now, according to this, Zundel is a racist, a bigot and generally the kind of guy you wouldn’t spit upon were he aflame. But I don’t see anything about terrorism or violence, just some racist propaganda.

Are we all such idiots that we need the government to protect us from the things this man might say? Are we so blind and stupid that we might actually listen to his far-fetched stream of bigoted nonsense and end up as Nazis? I think the only people who would listen are those who are as bigoted as he already. To muzzle this man is a statement to us: “You, O Citizens of Canada, are so stupid, so ignorant and so gullible that we have to protect you from Naughty Words that might warp your fragile, simple minds. It’s for your own good. Just think of Government as parents, and of yourselves as children with one hand in the cookie jar and the other poking things into electrical outlets.”

As to the supposed terrorist threat, well, I thought that one had to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Does one not have to be presumed innocent before even committing a crime, too? Or are we going to round up people we think might do something bad in the future and imprison or exile them before they get a chance to do whatever dastardly deed they look like they might want to do?

Of course, the government has “secret evidence” against Zundel, too. Very convenient. You had better hope the government isn’t gathering “secret evidence” against you, too. Are you sure you’ve never done anything illegal?

Zundel loses Supreme Court challenge

Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel has lost another bid to challenge the federal government’s claim that he’s a security threat. The Supreme Court of Canada refused Thursday to hear Zundel’s argument that he’s being treated unfairly because some of the evidence against him remains secret.

No raise for MPs

Paul Martin has announced that the forecasted 10% pay increase for MPs has been scrapped. I am sure we should all be grateful that they have decided not to award themselves any more of our money as payment for work we don’t want or need.

No 10% pay hikes for MPs: Martin

Prime Minister Paul Martin is putting the brakes on a big fat pay raise for MPs. Martin says a 10 per cent pay hike for members of Parliament has been ruled out. An independent commission looking at judges’ salaries had recommended the increase.

Back-Slappin’ Academics

Competition for the Trudeau Scholarships, $50,000 per annum boons for graduate students committed to making the world more likely to conform to the late Mr. Trudeau’s visions, is heating up. So are the requirements, as is evidenced by one bureaucrat’s sniff that only “TRULY exceptional” students need apply:

“Plainly put, Trudeau Scholars are expected to become leading national and international figures in their fields and in Canada.”

In describing a past TRULY exceptional winner of the award, the same bureaucrat noted that, “Bob [not real name] is a brilliant student…”

Immodesty is seemingly a limited commodity in academia nowadays. Judging from this observation, banality apparently is not.

Americans more likely to survive a heart attack than Canadians

With all the hullabaloo about 45 million Americans being without health insurance, and American per-capita healthcare spending being well below Canadas, it seems to have escaped the attention of many that American healthcare does seem to deliver better results anyway.

Corroborating what the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation had said some time ago, a new study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association finds that Americans with a blocked coronary artery heart attack (about a third of all heart attacks) have a 19.6% chance of death, as opposed to Canadians, who risk a 21.4% chance.

Procedures in the US are different, with American surgeons performing three times as many angioplasties and coronary bypasses than their Canadian colleagues. A study conducted in 1990-1993 found that American heart attack sufferers had better heart function and quality of life - but only by <0.5%. That gap has since increased, which is particularly remarkable given that Americans have a poorer starting-point than Canadians, with greater incidence of diabetes and high blood pressure.

The free market provides better. That's all there is to it.

Canadians less likely than Americans to survive heart attack, study finds

Canadians have a greater risk of dying within five years after a common type of heart attack than their American cousins, a study comparing treatments in the two countries suggests.

The research, to be published in an upcoming issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, suggests that more conservative treatments in Canada may be behind the difference in survival rates, said Padma Kaul, an epidemiologist at the University of Alberta and lead investigator of the study.

The Idol Scale - Who Will Be American Idol - Bush or Kerry ?

As I have written here and elsewhere, the most pressing problem with politics in (North) America relate to the fact that there is no suitable vehicle to deliver suitable information to the public masses that choose our leaders. This situation has evolved naturally from the marriage of mass marketing and American-style democracy.

But there’s a new hybrid of democracy emerging right now that seems to involve an electorate without the cynicism we have seen in our political systems. I refer to the family of “Idol” television shows on FOX and CTV.

The popularity of this type of democracy versus the political kind gives us an opportunity for forging a new metric in order to track our democratic progress. I call it the Idol scale. It indicates, roughly, the importance to the average person of the “Idol” winner, versus the person who will lead their government.

According to Google figures that I found, the two systems have the participation rates as follows:

AMERICA:

American Idol: 24 M Voters
2000 American Presidential Election: 101 M Voters

CANADA:

Canadian Idol:3.6M Voters
2004 Canadian Federal Election: 13.5 M Voters

This gives us an “Idol Scale” of roughly 25%.

I say roughly, because there are some important structural differences in these votes:

The Idol election has the advantage that you can legally vote several times, and that you can vote from your home. (This explains the Canadian idol participation rate of %110, versus %60 for the general election.)

So, comparing the two systems head-t-head isn’t exactly isn’t fair, but for the purposes of examining trends it’s a good benchmark to begin with.

Aside from the eifferences in the voting process, let’s compare some other differences between Idol voting and governmental voting.

Pre-Vote Campaign
Idol Elections
Moderated sing-offs

Runoff elections,
leading to 2 candidates

Major press coverage

Voters see candidate perform live,
make a decision based on performance.

Governmental Elections
Moderated debates

Party Conventions,
Runoff elections at
leading to 2 major candidates

Major press coverage

Some voters see candidates debate live,
as well as misleading television ads,
character smears done by advocacy groups,
contradictory analysis from the press,
make a decision based on performance.

Post-Vote Term of Office
Idol Elections
A few months of high
media presence

Winner’s music provides
entertainment

No promises, no
rhetoric, no policies

No discernable effect
on our lives
otherwise

Governmental Elections
Four years or so of high
media presence

Winner’s gaffes provide
entertainment from
nightly talk-show hosts

Angry public reactions to
broken promises, rhetoric,
failed policies

No discernable effect
on our lives
otherwise

While my comparison here may seem flippant at first glance, it actually makes sense if one takes the approach that any government’s central presence in our lives is its communication through media. And, in fact, for many people government only affects our lives in this way.

The Panetta Institute found that only one-fourth of college students discuss political issues three or four times each week. One-third stated that the government played no role in their lives, double the 17% of adults responding similarly. And these were college students, not just young people in general.

Politics has already become another form of entertainment in America, with the emphasis on personalities, the drama of elections and election strategy, scandals and gaffes.

As this trend continues, we should keep our eyes on the Idol Scale. An increasing Idol scale means that the political “show” is slipping in the ratings, and that changes are required to make it more popular.

What changes ? We might see younger and better-looking candidates, less discussion of policy, more emphasis on personality and entertainment value, the elimination of all campaign promises, and more turnover in the cast of characters associated with an administration to keep things fresh. There may even be changes in the system to allow home-based or internet-based voting.

If these changes come to pass, we might see the reversal in direction of the Idol factor and an increase in popularity of political democracy.

—-

As for real change - the re-emergence of an effective political system that has popular support and governs for the well being of all the people - it can’t happen until…

1. There is a rebirth of the notion that government policies have a real and positive effect on our lives.
2. A new medium of consesus-building and debate emerges to submit and propose alerternatives.
3. The current media for political discussion retreats back into traditional forms of entertainment.

These three prerequisites could arise spontaneously and organically, or even (somewhat) through some kind of mass-media based introspection of all of our ills. But it seems more likely that the current system of communication will only fail catastrophically. We may be in the early stages of that process already.

Watch the Idol scale !

How To Save Democracy - Really

In the September issue of Walrus magazine, Allan Gregg, has written an article entitled ‘How To Save Democracy’. As a renowned pollster (founder of Decima research, co-founder of The Strategic Counsel), I would expect Mr. Gregg to have a rich understanding of the Canadian mindset, and he doesn’t disappoint there.

But unfortunately, the salvation he proposes negates the essence of the people he wishes it on.

Diagnosis and Cure

Allan Gregg begins with an assessment of the current political situation in Canada. Identifying and tagging our most obvious problems should be easy task for a pollster, and he hits the biggest targets spot-on. �The core problem is that our cynicism cultivates further soil for more cynicism.� he writes. He describes the pitfalls in blaming politicians for cynicism, that doing so �distances the electorate even further from the system that was designed to protect and advance the citizen’s needs.”

The author points out public relations campaigns have had no real positive effect. He is also skeptical that electoral reforms such as proportional representation will achieve anything. But after showing a distaste for imposed, centrally-programmed solutions, Mr. Gregg goes on to propose solutions that run along the same lines.

His concept seems sound: politicians and the people are too far apart and the gap needs to be bridged. Perhaps if the people can see what our government, and our local MPs do for us, it will make government and civic participation more meaningful to us.

How can we make it happen ? Mr. Gregg suggests bringing politicians into closer contact with the voters, granting more access to the system, and making local representatives more influential. The suggested means of achieving these goals include compulsory voting, and �public sponsorship of festivals, reading series, debates and town-hall meetings� to encourage community.

But this is pure central programming and it would not receive any better response than the PR exercises he himself discounts. Let�s look at a recent example in Canadian politics to see why.

An Anti-Antidote

For a good anti-antidote to Mr. Gregg�s antidote, let�s consider the history of the Reform Party of Canada. Started by real communities of disaffected voters who worked within the system, believing it would make a difference in people�s lives, it was a model of a grassroots political movement. These people didn�t need to be taught the value of political action, or have the idea of community preached to them: they already had it.

So what happened to their movement ?

Fast forward twenty years or so and that party has become the Conservative Party of Canada. While still shiny and new, it is now very much a part of the Canadian political machine. Eastern Canadian voters certainly come to the new party as an alternative to the Liberals, but it is another political party now. It is no longer a movement for political reform.

And the chasm between the people and their leaders still exists after the arrival of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party. In fact, it�s worse. This history illustrates the path that even a successful implementation of Mr. Gregg�s ideas would take.

The system as it is inevitably moves us to a division of the government and the governed, whether that government is big or small. In the end, the cynicism does not abate.

A Solution for Another Time

So why does Mr. Gregg fail to save democracy in the end ? It is because his solution attempts to solve the cynicism, which is a symptom of the problem, rather than working on the problem itself: an outdated political system that fits its people like a bad suit.

He gives himself away this fact himself with the sentence �we must make � changes aimed at elites as well as cultural changes aimed at the masses.� If Mr. Gregg truly thinks of the people of Canada as the masses, then can he really expect the �masses� to behave as civically responsible individuals ?

This is his elemental error. Even as he realizes that we�re dealing with the masses, Allan Gregg reverts to a past ideal � a political system designed for a place, time and people that no longer exist.

The American founding fathers designed a system of government for a community, to be run by leaders (not by the masses) for the public good. The modern great-grandchild of that system gives every citizen can vote, where campaigns are run by remote control through pervasive electronic media. The mass public includes a majority who feel no obligation to civic duty beyond scanning the day�s headlines. They don�t even vote.

One can hope for change, but we shouldn�t waste our energies hoping for the impossible. No festival or reading program will cause �The Greatest Generation� to reappear. That generation of civic minded, newspaper-reading individuals are gone, along with their dignified and revered political leaders. Who we are, how we do things, and how we see events have changed.

Mr. Gregg, in recognizing that we-the-people, are now we-the-masses should have followed through with that idea to a more appropriate solution. Although the mass public can�t expected to participate in the political process in the same way as the �public� of the past, they can be useful in working towards positive change.

A more effective approach might be to leverage the distance between politicians and the mass public, rather than to try to bridge it.

An Alternative Approach

The mass public is disgusted with politicians that vie for their support but don�t solve our problems. One thing the Canadian mass public definitely wants in its government is good management.

If we could somehow crystallize roughly what the masses are looking for, and quantify a reasonably objective set of measures that help to define that ideal, we � the people � could set the political agenda. One could argue that the Reform push for deficit reduction in the 1990s was an example of the people demanding concrete and clear results. The Liberal government responded to pressure, making Reform and its grassroots supporters a significant agent of change in Canada.

Are there other ways in which we, the people, can get what we want from our politicians ?

Here�s a suggestion for a first step along those lines.

If there was a clear set of objective measures against which government performance can be measured that was generally agreed upon, there would be no place that a government or opposition could hide. The key would be for these metrics to be cross-partisan, clear and publicly accessible, like a score card.

For example, we have heard about hospital waiting lists to be growing, and hears every politician vow to lower them ? So how have they done against that goal ? Do you know ? Would you know where to look to find out ? Currently, when trying to form an opinion on such things, you have a choice between listening to superficial and contradictory arguments made on all sides (sometimes emotive, sometimes exhaustingly complex) or taking it upon yourself to do the research.

Is this a fit choice for the mass public ? Are either of these sources of information helpful to the masses ?

Without a clear source of information within reach, the public is shouted at by vested interests, drowning each other out with bullhorns full of contradictory facts and figures and deliberate misinformation. The majority gets confused, and checks out of the process.

Imagine how much more helpful it would be to see a box score such as the following in every daily newspaper:

This is only a rough example, and I don�t know much about designing charts, but wouldn�t adding such a table to our daily newspapers would put long-term thinking about health care squarely in the public mind ?

If I wanted to know the weather, movie times, or the ball scores, I would only have to pick up any local paper. Why aren�t long term medical statistics worthy of similar coverage ?

Faced with hard numbers above, fixed in the public mind, no politician would be able to hide behind rhetoric or exaggeration. The key indicators in the document, as discussed, would have to include measures agreed upon by a cross-partisan group: a clear, simple and report card.

The mass public needs to come up with better devices for making decisions. The key is for us to move forward is to recognize that we are a mass public, and to accept that political topography as a starting point. Simplifying the various debates, or giving all the information, or only the most sensational is no help at all.

We need start thinking about what the masses can do for us, rather than what we can do for the masses.

Ralph Goodale promises you’ll give $15bn for healthcare

The federal government has committed to adding an extra $3bn to healthcare funding in addition to $12bn already pledged last year to reach Romanow’s target for 2005-6. Goodale also alluded that money was only part of the problem and reform was needed. However, seeing as the Canadian government, every major political party and indeed, the majority of the Canadian people seem to know absolutely nothing about economics, it’s fair to say that these reforms will probably make things worse.

The other key point to remember is that the government doesn’t have any money. It doesn’t generate any wealth. When Goodale pledges $15bn to healthcare, what he’s pledging is to extort $15bn from you and your neighbours to give to healthcare. It’s the old big-government trick, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and when Peter has nothing left, rob Paul and give it back. Don’t forget to slice your fee off the top when the money goes each way, of course, and don’t worry about what you’ll do when the money runs out. Somebody else will be in power then, they’ll have to clean up your mess and meanwhile, like Pierre Trudeau, people will be lauding your “achievements” instead of cursing your utter, asinine stupidity while the man in power will be blamed for what you did, like Mike Harris.

Goodale promises $15 billion for health

With the premiers set to meet the prime minister next week on health care, the federal finance minister is promising what he calls significant investments in health care.

However, Ralph Goodale said Thursday it will not be at the expense of balanced budgets and other national priorities.

CBC Funds Documentary that Shows Terrorists’ Human Side

Your hard earn tax dollars were spent to finance a “documentary” that attempts to show the “human side” of the Sept. 11 terrorists.

Hijacker film winning praise

CRITICS ARE applauding a CBC-backed film about the Sept. 11 attacks that tells the story of the atrocity from the hijackers’ point of view. Overcoming a last-minute pullout by U.S. cable channel HBO, director Antonia Bird succeeded in making The Hamburg Cell — a wrenching drama that recounts the meticulous preparations for the attacks and presents the terrorists as human beings.

Based on painstaking research by co-writer Alice Perman, who combed court transcripts and investigators’ reports and interviewed friends and relatives of the hijackers, the film follows a group of young men who met as students in Germany and played a key role in al-Qaida’s most devastating attack.

Thank god we have the morally inept CBC to show us that even terrorists have a human side.

I think it is about time we cut the purse strings out from under this state sponsored propaganda machine. Funding quasi-documentaries that appeal to those weak-minded individuals who believe a terrorist is someone that can be reasoned with, is perfectly acceptable for a private corporation. But I have to draw the line at allowing a publicly funded broadcaster to fund this type of idiocy.

The State of the Art

Toronto, Canada:

A Canadian mass murderer made it to the semifinals of a U.S. poetry contest before shocked judges pulled his entry after learning of his identity.

Clifford Olson, convicted of killing eight girls and three boys in 1982, wrote a poem called “Success” for a quarterly contest operated by the Maryland-based National Library of Poetry.

“We were shocked, it’s something that has never happened before,” contest spokesman Eric Mueck said Friday.

The poem, penned while Olson is serving life in a Canadian prison, ends as follows: “A life that is clean, a heart that is true,

“And doing your best…that’s success.”

Too Concerned over Optics: Conservative Convention in Montreal

In what will be the first in many superficial indulgences extended to the province of Quebec, the Conservative party of Canada is opting to hold its first ever policy convention in Montreal. Why the Conservatives choose Montreal over anywhere else in Canada is obvious - they’re pandering to those who think optics is what is going to win them the next election.

Harper announces Conservative convention details

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has announced when and where the party’s first-ever convention will take place.

The event is slated to take place March 17-19 in Montreal. Harper didn’t deny that having the convention in Quebec is a strategy.

He said his first priority for the next election “is establishing and re-establishing roots for Conservatism in the province of Quebec. I think this is an important step.”

I can see their motivation, by choosing Montreal the Conservatives are trying to send a message (optics) to the average Quebecois that they’re not that scary and that they’re a real alternative to the Bloc and the Liberals. The problem with this whole exercise is that by playing buddy-buddy with Quebec - with all that goes with such behaviour, policy conventions in Montreal, spending promises, special status guarantees, etc - will alienate and weaken their support in other areas of the country.

Lets remember, brokerage politics with a heavy emphasis on optics was the name of the game during the Mulroney rein - and we all know how that ended.

Harper should be spending less time thinking how he can appeal to the average Quebecois and more time on the actual party policies that might attract them. Do we really need to wait seven more months to decide the parties policies? Yes … unless of course, its not the policies that matter, but rather the optics of the whole affair.

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