Au Revoir Citoyenneté Française

Paul Martin did say that Michaelle Jean was going to impress us. This is the first thing that has made sense about Michaelle Jean since she was designated Governor General. I’m impressed by her ability to learn as she goes. Pas mal du tout! Paul has kept a promise.

h/t: CBC Watch

Canada and the Impossibility of Conservatism

Robert Fulford has some depressing thoughts on the impossibility of conservatism in Canada (though he doesn’t put it that way) in Saturday’s National Post. Along the way, he does a decent job explaining why conservatives have traditionally had to transform themselves into Liberals (either in name or in deed):

Articulate Canadians tend to be believe that Canada has always relied on government for its existence and that improvements in our common life are most likely to come through government action. We consider government supervision more vital than individual enterprise, which makes us into a nation of regulators. When something new appears in the world, the American asks: How can money be made from this? The Canadian asks: How can we regulate it?

I would add that Albertans’ attitudes toward self-reliance and civil society (neighbors care for each other before the state needs to be involved) are an anomoly in this Canadian matrix, which helps explain why the rest of Canada is so threatened by it and why they regard us as “American.”

But Fulford overlooks one obvious conclusion to his correct view that Canadians by and large look to the state to glue it together. That only the state administration keeps a territory together indicates that there is society, no social glue beyond the actions of the coercive state. There is no republic because there is no public. There is no Canadian nation, just a Canadian administrative state. For other examples of this kind of rule, consider Great Britain’s former empire, the Roman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire, or even the rule the Hudson’s Bay Company wielded over its territories.

Conservatives, if they’re to form a national government, must understand what the Liberals have long ago understood: Canada is an empire (a midget one, but still an empire) and not a nation-state.

Next question: when’s our Boston Tea Party?

Gun Registry Audit: Bigger Fraud Than Adscam

The Winnipeg Sun reports that Sheila Fraser, Canada’s first citizen, er, Auditor-General, is going to find that the federal Liberals’ gun registry is a fraud that will make Adscam look like peanuts.

If their sources are correct, we need to be clear on this: this isn’t simply about incompetence and the general idiocy of minds who concocted this program.

No, this is about fraud. The next few months should be interesting. Allan Rock, where are you now?

Sullivan Beats Clarke for NPA Nomination

Tonight, Councillor Sam Sullivan beat former deputy-premier Christie Clarke for the NPA mayoral nomination in Vancouver. Sullivan will now face the COPE-Vision alliance candidate Jim Green in the upcoming mayoral race.

The news could not be more welcome: Sullivan is an admirable candidate in every sense of the term. Sullivan, a quadriplegic, is a member of the Order of Canada for his work with non-profit agencies which assist Canadians with disabilities. And, in an example of B.C.-style bilingualism, he is fluent in Cantonese.

Of course, Sullivan’s campaign organization is stacked with federal Conservatives. Clarke, in contrast, depended upon the organization cobbled together by her husband Mark Marissen, who is also Paul Martin’s top B.C. organizer.

Even if Green wins the coming election, it will be reassuring to know that Paul Martin’s greasy fingers have been kept out of Vancouver politics.

Thinking About Strahl

Chuck Strahl, Conservative MP for Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon in BC has been diagnosed with lung cancer, as you all know by now. I haven’t thought much of Chuck Strahl since the summer of 2005. On the surface, he originally was an MP like all others. He first stood out to my attention as party whip for the Alliance. A bright but modest man, it seems. The bio page on his website lists, still today, some of his best accomplishments in an understated manner. Since becoming Deputy Speaker of the Commons, he has become more visible, but it has been his newly-announced illness that has raised his visibility even more. Despite his lung cancer, he has vowed to continue serving the public for as long as he can. It’s a courageous thing to do.

Strahl was not always so. In what was to me the lowest point of his career, he was chief mutineer against Stockwell Day, organised a separate caucus whose strings may or may not have originated at Preston Manning’s feet, and which would rather be politicly subservient to Joe Clark than to close ranks with his fellow Alliance members and their leader. However many failures Day’s leadership may have had, they were only aggravated by Strahl and the mutineers. He hurt the party. It was somewhat fitting that he would end up taking cues from Joe Clark. Strahl was afflicted with the Tory syndrome of turning against leader and colleagues. He was a Joe Clark Tory more than he was an Alliance man. Whatever Clark’s shortcomings, though, Clark always publicly respected Mulroney’s leadership (even if he did not invite the PM for dinner once). Strahl seemed oblivious to that lesson then, but he seems to have picked it up now.

Fundamentally, as an instrument of Preston Manning’s bitterness and in his convenient political romance with Joe Clark, Strahl showed a side of him that I could not come to trust, however rooted in personal conviction it may have been. He baulked the will of the party, much like in a Banana Republic, because he did not like the new leader. Two thirds of the membership had just elected Day and rejected Manning, but in the summer of 2001 Strahl arrogantly refused the party members’ decision, declared himself unable to deal with Day, refused to recognise the party’s constitution, and in what seemed to be a tantrum he left caucus to form his own ring of MPs (The Democratic Representative Caucus. It was a kind of a caucus, but it was neither representative nor democratic, which is why they had to hammer people twice with the very similar ideas of representation and democracy in their name). Mostly, Monte Solberg being the exception, the DRC was a ring of lacklustre Prestonista MPs. Strahl’s rebellion against Day might have survived its mutinous image if Strahl had not made an attempt (albeit failed) to capture the party leadership after forcing Day out. Over all, it’s the lack of loyalty to the membership’s democratic will that sticks in my mind right along all of Strahl’s good accomplishments in public life.

Strahl’s judgement seems to have improved since. He has become a more prudent man and a respected Deputy Speaker. I pray that his health will be restored. I wish him many years of success ahead, in good health.

Cross posted from Civitatensis

Deaf, Dumb, and Blind

The Globe and Mail’s Lawrence Martin, prompted by Peter Newman’s new book on Mulroney, bemoans the decline of finesse and intellectual virtue among Canadian politicians. Martin exalts Pierre Trudeau as a paragon of culture in the field of Canadian politicians.

One achievement that few deny Pierre Trudeau was his enormous cultural impact. With his savoir-vivre and aura of erudition, he embodied a new intellectualism. He dragged the country out of its cultural backwater. He was our renaissance man.

Count me, please Mr. Martin, among the few. Publicly disrespecting the Monarch with his much-rehearsed childish pirouette, lifting his middle-finger to western Canadians, and f***ing swearing on the floor of the House were national cultural heights and real marks of Trudeau’s intellectual prowess and savoir-vivre, were they not? What a load of rubbish.

Cross posted from Civitatensis

Harper Swats the Pygmies

Stephen Harper has finally responded to the critiques of various nonentities within the Conservative Party. It’s classic Harper: Sensible, but slightly cutting.

“Any Conservative, anywhere, at any time, can, by criticizing other Conservatives, become an instant and enormous media star.”

This was, of course, a comment dedicated to one Carole Jamieson, a cranky old lady who rocketed to prominence as a “top Tory organizer” when she put out a press release (can private citizens out out press releases?-maybe I should start) hurtling alot of sophomoric insults in Harper’s direction. Stephen Taylor has written an enlightening account of the intrepid Ms. Jamieson, from her attacks upon four generations of Conservative leaders to her attempted sponsorship of a joke candidate in the 2000 Alliance leadership race.

“The Conservative leader who wins, the leader who brings Conservatives together and unites them, is a leader who, frankly, ignores such people. It is a leader who does not spend his time attacking other Conservatives, it’s a leader who spends his time attacking the Liberals and that’s what I intend to do.”

Take that, Carole.

Alaska Pays Bigger Dividend Checks Than Alberta

Alaska’s oil revenues pay out an annual check to Alaskans, unlike Ralph Klein’s “generous” one-time pay out of $400/person. However, this year the Alaska dividend is much smaller than previous years, a mere US$845 per person, compared to US$1,963 in 2000.

So, one must take Don Martin with a grain of salt when he worries over the envy Klein’s $400/person will cause among Canadians. I haven’t read any stories about Missourians or Pennsylvanians getting envious over Alaska’s payout.

Maybe Don Martin is just trying to stoke Canadians (who as a lot might be more envious than Americans).

Colorado: A Trillion Barrels of Oil?

Austin Bay links some articles on speculation in Colorado that the current price of oil makes oil shale recovery economically viable. If it is, some estimates claim Colorado alone would have about a trillion barrels of oil (Wyoming and Montana also has reserves).

See the post as well as the comments for comparisons with Alberta’s oil sands (which are currently much less expensive to extract).

Social Justice, gender equality, blah blah blah blah …. Anyone else sick of living in a loser country?

Always good to see our leaders out there taking the moral high road, sympathising with the downtrodden, moralising about all that is wrong in the world—most of which Canada is in no position nor has the courage to do anything about.

Yesterday Martin spoke to federal civil servants, sympathising with the plight of both politicians and bureaucrats heavy laden by scandal. Man, I just want to have a good cry. Scandal is hard! It’s hard on everyone, especially those who perpetrate it. But thank God we have the values of “social justice” and “economic opportunity” to motivate us on! To bind us all together! What would Canada do without such grand cover for dishonesty and shady deals by bureaucrats and Liberals to keep the “governing party of Canada” in power?

Today Pettigrew berates, BERATES!, the UN for not taking a tougher stand on nuclear non-proliferation in its recent leaders summit declaration. Oh yeah, and aside from not fretting about radical islam or crazy commie induced nuclear winter, the UN forgot to get tougher on women’s rights and gender equality. Now nuclear non-proliferation is a serious issue—my bunker isn’t yet finished—but the fact that Canada even expects all the world leaders to declare such a thing—when everyone knows Iran and North Korea are working against it, and God knows who else—-is ridiculous. And shame on the UN for not restating its commitment to women’s rights and gender equality, especially in a world where most leaders don’t give a damn. What would Canada do without such preaching to the faithful, a dogmatic foreign policy still hoping for a warm-fuzzy-Star-Trek-like-unisex world, denying as long as possible clear and present danger?

Back to the domestic front where Toronto Conservatives are calling for Stephen Harper, the best Leader of the Opposition this country has had in a generation, to step down. What would Canada do without those clear-headed-real-politik Toronto Conservatives, if only by name and self-description?

God willing Canada needs to fight a war or something, anything that requires real sacrifice again! It’s a country infested with losers, the high moralising intellectual type, those who would do well if shipped off to a front-line and shot at! At least that way they might, by chance, get a glorious death. And those who didn’t die, might actually become decent human beings.

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