“Trudeaupian legerdemain”

Mark Steyn at his best. Brilliant.

Mr. Siddiqui was not impressed by the arguments mounted against the head-to-toe body bag—for example, the notion that it is a “symbol of oppression”:

“Let’s assume that [the niqab] is,” [Haroon Siddiqui] wrote. “Whose business is it to end the practice—that of the state?”

That’s pretty cute coming from a guy who, during this magazine’s long battle with Canada’s “human rights” commissions, argued at length that it was most certainly the business of the state to end the practice of Maclean’s carrying Islamophobic Steyn columns. If the state can regulate what you write and say and think and even (as in the lesbian heckler case at the British Columbia Tribunal) what you quip, it can most certainly regulate what you wear. In Canada, it would be quicker to list what isn’t the business of the state. “The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation,” said Pierre Trudeau, unless, of course, you’re tucked up with a nice mug of cocoa reading an Islamophobic edition of Maclean’s. It was a classic bit of Trudeaupian legerdemain: if you’re allowed to roger anything that moves, or doesn’t, according to taste, you won’t notice all the other parts of your life the state has a place in. In Canada, it’s the state’s business when you get your hip operation, not yours: if the state has jurisdiction over your hip, why shouldn’t it also have jurisdiction over which garments the hip can be sheathed in? In Canada, a resident alien is not permitted to own a bookstore, on grounds of cultural protection. If “cultural protection” can prohibit a homosexual from San Francisco opening up a gay bookstore in Vancouver, why can’t it also extend to a Muslim woman’s dress?

And Quebec is Canada without even the residual restraints of the Britannic inheritance. In the interests of la collectivité, the province regulates not only the public usage of language but the very size of lettering in which your words can be displayed. If the state has power to set a maximum font on the ladies’ room door, why can’t it also set a limit on the yards of cloth you have to hoist up once you get in there?

Emphasized portions mine. Do read it all.

Surprise! Surprise! The NDP will raise taxes!

How’s that NDP majority working for you now, Nova Scotia?

The results from Finance Minister Graham Steele’s cross-province consultation on the province’s finances are in, and they indicate a sales tax increase is coming in next week’s budget.

Related: Government fiscal myopia (Tax! Tax! Tax!) cuts across party lines, it seems. The Quebec Liberals.

Update April 1: Éric Duhaime expounds on the tax and spend addiction of the Quebec Liberals. Increasing government spending by 3% “year after year after year.” Nice.

Bob Chiarelli is a Zombie

That’s the only way I can explain the fact that his political career just won’t die.

From 1987 to 1997, Ottawa suffered through Mr. Chiarelli’s reign as an MPP.  His time at Queen’s Park was undistinguished, and ended when Mr. Chiarelli resigned and returned to Ottawa to deal with a family tragedy.  Soon after, he settled in as Regional Chair.  This was a fairly suitable high-profile, low-impact position befitting a politician of Mr. Chiarelli’s stature and competency.  His name remained in the news, but he wasn’t able to do too much damage.

Upon the amalgamation of Ottawa and several surrounding municipalities, Mr. Chiarelli was elected mayor.  The cities that had been relatively well run during the ’90s, became a unified bloated lumbering beast after Mr. Chiarelli assumed power.  Under his guidance, the city council was more interested in enacting smoking bands, debating the Iraq war and trying to build a $9 million chamber music hall than it was in making sure the city ran smoothly.  Mr. Chiarelli was fiddling while this monolithic new city burned.

A little while ago, it seemed like the city had been freed.  Mr. Chiarelli resigned and, although it made way for criminal mastermind Lex Luthor to become mayor, the city was better for it.  Lary O’Brien’s time as mayor has not been without controversy, and it appears that he won’t secure a second term.  In a fitting, circular development, one of the leading candidates to replace Mr. O’Brien is Jim Watson, former Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing… and the man Mr. Chiarelli replaced as Mayor in 2001.*

Before declaring his candidacy for mayor, Jim Watson had been the MPP for Ottawa West-Nepean, essentially the same riding that Mr. Chiarelli first represented back in 1987.  On Thursday, Mr. Chiarelli won a by-election and, once again, will be replacing Mr. Watson.

So it’s 1987 again, and, just like Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys, Bob Chiarelli’s political career appears to be immortal**.

*Okay, technically, Mr. Chiarelli replaced Allan Higdon, but that doesn’t really count.

**Yeah, yeah, I’m mixing my undead metaphors.  Deal with it.

It’s my health, it’s my choice. Well that’s dandy…

So Danny Williams is not one of my favorite people. He ranks up there with Jack Layton and Al Gore in my books. Granted, a lot of that has to do with his ABC Campaign which violates the so-called 11th Commandment, even in light of his achievements as a “conservative” in Newfoundland & Labrador.

It’s obviously no secret, and isn’t really news anymore that Mr. Williams chose to leave the country to obtain surgical services he claims were not available in Canada. I honestly don’t know the truth of that, but I do question it.

His defense? “It’s my health and it’s my choice.”

You know what? I agree. Yes, I agree with Danny Williams. My problem though, is that there are few other Canadians (Newfoundlander’s notwithstanding) who have that choice. Why? Because they can’t afford it.

And that leads me to the point of this post. I don’t think we should be demonizing Mr. Williams for taking that choice. In fact, I think we should be unabashedly using him as a prime example of how a Public/Private Health Care System could work.

Mr. Williams is a perfect example of how someone who has the means can take advantage of a private health care provider’s services without taking up space in the public ‘queue’ as it were. He can certainly afford the higher costs associated with such care, and in his own words, he was only doing what was best for him. Fabulous!

Unfortunately, there are many others who can, and exponentially more who can’t. For those who can, why can’t they get that service in Canada? Why do they have to take their money and spend it outside the country? And even then, that’s assuming they do. For the rest of those who can’t, they have to wait behind those in front of them ‘in line’. Those who if they had the option in Canada, might not be there at all, thereby shortening the lines.

So, what’s the problem? Why can’t we perform more procedures in Canada in order to lower the wait times? It’s called Salary Caps ladies and gentlemen. Something that isn’t as harshly mandated in the United States where physicians are allowed to earn more.

As I understand it, once a Canadian physician earns up to their “cap” anything they do after that is pro bono, assuming they choose to work for free. I don’t know many people who would work for say, half a year at their job for pay, and then volunteer their time and skills for the second half of the year. Would you?

What I see as a solution, is to remove Salary Caps on a private service care/practices and allow them to earn as much as they care to work for here in Canada, but require them to provide a certain number of hours in the public system while continuing the current limits in Public Care earnings.

Basically, let them work in the public system and collect up to the maximum allowed under the Canadian Public Health Care System, and then allow them to continue to earn additional wages in the private sector.

That kind of opportunity would draw more doctors to Canada instead of the reverse, and allow them to provide more care on a continuing basis to more people over longer periods of time as well as reducing the backlogs.

Anyway, just my thoughts.

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Further this post from this story:

Updated 4:30pm – Feb 23/10

“This was my heart, my choice and my health,”

“I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics.”

“I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time,”

“If I’m entitled to any reimbursement from any Canadian health care system or any provincial health care system, then obviously I will apply for that as anybody else would,”

“But I wrote out the cheque myself and paid for it myself and to this point, I haven’t even looked into the possibility of any reimbursement. I don’t know what I’m entitled to, if anything, and if it’s nothing, then so be it.”

That’s just dandy Mr. Williams. While you may have the means to simply write a cheque without worrying if you’re entitled to any reimbursement, very few other average Canadians share that same laissez-faire approach. And I’m definitely certain that you’re not alone in wanting to get in and out and back to work as soon as possible, you’re exploiting an option that most Canadians don’t have.

Perhaps you aught to advocate bringing these choices to Canada. Put your mouthiness to good use and you might actually earn some conservative forgiveness from the rest of the country. Not, I’m likely to believe, that you’re looking for it…

Liberals Look to 2006 Strategy After 2008 Disaster?

The Liberals, and their cheerleaders in the Toronto media, simply don’t get it! From a strictly strategic point of view, I’ve seen this time and time before in the business world — a former market leader, trounced by a new and innovative successor, tries something new for the sake of new and falls flat on its face before coming to the conclusion that the bland, old ways of doing things can work again if only the effort is really sincere.

Enter Lawrence Martin, whose political insights are so honed, that he’s joining Frank McKenna in giving the Tories the upcoming Red playbook months before the next election! Misjudging 2008′s election results as too ideologically fought, the Liberal Party of Canada has, following McKenna’s lead, abandoned the principle notion for the good ol’ strategy of fear-mongering. “Just bring out Harper’s old quotes!” they say, as if that is some magical panacea that will bring the Liberals back above 100 seats in the Commons.

Just as Yahoo!, Eaton’s, Sony and MySpace all found out though, times change! It’s one thing to, for example, refer to a 1997 quote from the Prime Minister about our need to get rid of the Canada Health Act, but another to follow the argument though on why this means the incumbent entering his fourth year in office needs to be turfed. Garble up the “second tier” quote as they will, the Liberals will also have a hard time explaining how their leader was more recently condoning the use of torture.  This isn’t 2000 anymore…for that matter, it isn’t even 2006 anymore where the Liberals could still rely on a certain level of incumbent comfort among the electorate.

In this new era, it is the Tories who can, and have been, making the arguments against the unknown and untested. Unlike the Liberals though, they haven’t been tied down with a scandal as big as the Chretien-era AdScam issue, and still have some degree of principle over the Liberal Party. The best that a Liberal scorched earth campaign could do is, perhaps, spook a few voters in Toronto, for all the good it will do. The rest of the country, nay world is concentrated right now on the bread and butter issues. Chretien survived the Somalia Inquiry without a scratch; Harper will get by these torture issues just fine. As for what will win the election — taxes, jobs, stability — what have the Liberals said, other than a leader’s musings last April in Cambridge (Ontario, not Mass.; just needed to make that clear!) about the need to raise taxes. That’ll be a winner…for a 2nd tier party competing with the NDP right now!

Stelmach, Riders & Drivers: Weekend In Review

Just a few short points tonight:

First, I hear that Unsteady Eddy managed a 77% leadership approval tonight in Alberta, and that many APCs who are loyal to Stelmach believe that this puts the wind at their backs. Well, we here in Ontario made a similar mistake not so long ago too, and my warning to my Alberta cousins is that if you don’t correct the leadership problem, the electorate has a way of doing it for you!

Next, I won’t go into details here for obvious reasons except to say that my poor Hyundai Accent was hit on the driver’s side yesterday by someone who was running late to take a relative to get an H1N1 shot — now I know there’s been some sniping from both sides over the shot recently, but as at least one victim of the panic caused by this disease, I strongly urge everyone to calm down! Nothing circumvents road safety and it’s better to arrive late to an appointment than not at all!

On the bright side, the Accent protected me extremely well, and as much as I already loved my little Korean car, I’m extremely amazed by it now and highly endorse it to everyone out there. On the not-so-bright side, since yesterday I’ve witnessed about 20 separate cars in Waterloo region driving with downright criminal insanity (and I have passenger witnesses for these too!) — a car that almost clipped over a motorcycle in order to do a sharp 10 degree turn into the lane three spaces over; another bozo leaving the local Costco by pulling up to the right turn-only lane and then clipping a van in order to drive straight through into the parking lot across the way; and, the worst was my girlfriend and I seeing a car literally staring at us across the Westmount and University intersection tonight, attempting to turn righ (yes, it was driving in the wrong direction and would have to cut across the three eastbound lanes to do so). Perhaps it’s time to review just how flexible our licensing system is, given the responsibility of operating such a dangerous machine.

At least I end this week on a happy note, well…other than a surprise run-in to Christian Conservative today. Anyway, the Saskatchwan Roughriders, breaking a 33-year drought, become the CFL’s Western Division’s first place, regular season team this year. Congrats to the green Riders for a wonderful season, and a well-earned by next week. Being from Hamilton, and having a father who is a die-hard tabby fan, I can only hope that the Tiger Cats get their home field advantage for the next week tomorrow, and to see them in the Grey Cup this year.

The Best For Our Kids According to Who?

Talking about government policy when it comes to kids is downright ridiculous in the modern era. You can’t have a discussion about affecting the way that anyone under the age of 12, er 18, er 25 will grow up anymore without a littering of “our kids”, “the future”, “the best possible” and other vague, all-encompassing yet woefully empty platitudes utterly trashing the conversation.

Such was the case tonight on Steve Paikin’s The Agenda. Paikin’s a smart cookie, and not just because he’s a loyal CFL fan, but I really wish tonight that he had found a better crowd to discuss the massive day care nationalization that Dalton McGuinty is bringing forward than former Mike Harris Education Minister John Snobelen and four professional stateists from various universities. Apparently our education system does need an overhaul as one of said stateists blandly countered Snobelen’s valid question on why we are turning the current batch of toddlers into lab rats by parroting McGuinty’s baseless argument that keeping four and five year olds in school all day is a “Cadillac” system — incidentally, does this mean that it too will be overpriced and eventually brought to an end by less expensive, more efficient foreign models?

As tempting as it is to take this “Cadillac” into the shop for a full inspection, something is pressing me even further tonight: who says what’s best for the kids anyway? This debate isn’t new, as the last provincial election and the recent 2006 federal election both pegged those who think mom & dad know best versus those who want to be tucked in by the all-caring state, even if the policies each side put forward weren’t as dramatically different in practiced. I understand a few wise fellows wrote reports for the Premier to tackle what is best for our kids recently (names aren’t important) about what’s best for our kids. Has anyone bothered to ask how? Were there specific parameters put forward, and why are those parameters important anyhow? Also, while we’re on the matter, why is it “our” kids and not my kid or your kid? Certainly, if we follow the logic through, presuming that I already have a couple million kids of my own scattered throughout Ontario, I should be getting a whole lot more Christmas presents this year than I expected and have some right to tell the rowdy teens who come around on Friday night that they better be back home in 15 minutes, or else!

Where are we drawing the line here? For that matter, while the institution of parenthood exists because adults are essential for the proper upbringing of a child, can we not consult with the little ones to some degree on what they want? I’d love to know how many five year old boys, for example, are eager to have a fully structured day from 7 am – 6 pm where a bossy stranger will tell them when they can play, where they can play and how they can play. Personally, I remember five being a lot more free and, well, fun!

And here inlies the truth of the matter: we’ve been spending too much time telling each other what’s best for the kids (whoever they belong to!), and absolutely no time listening for what’s best. None of us would appreciate a complete stranger (who stands to make a lucrative career out of bossing us around, mind you) going around dictating our lives to us on the premise of “you’ll thank me later”, so why are we putting the next generation through such pains? This explains why parents, the good parents, are such a dramatic improvement over the professionals: they have a vested interested in listening out for the needs of the individual child, and while the day care regime in Ontario hides behind the rare bad apple for why they need to rock the cradle, I have never met a Premier or teacher that has come close to meeting the standard of a faithful mother or father. On that note, I think it’s nap time!

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Matthew Campbell is creator of Election Target, a free, interactive election prediction community, located at www.electiontarget.com. He also needs someone to read him a bedtime story!

Are Liberals suffering from a millstone named Quebec?

It’s debatable I think. The main comparison I’d make is that Liberal fortune is so dependent upon the good graces of Quebec and the Conservatives are not. Liberals can’t obtain a majority government without Quebec and that’s mostly because they don’t have The West, whereas the Conservatives can technically obtain a majority without Quebec, even if that’s unlikely by virtue that they DO have The West by and large.

On Steve Janke’s blog post about Michael Ignatieff firing his Chief of Staff, Soccermom made a comment that got me to thinking about this:

Any Quebecker who becomes Liberal leader in the next couple of years will get laughed out of the West.

Now, while most Liberal leaders recognize the importance of wooing Western votes (even if unsuccessfully), doing so earns them the scorn of too many Quebeckers for them to put a serious effort into it lest they lose their support. This is mostly because many (not all) Quebeckers view themselves above and apart from Canada, especially those western places.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love Quebec, it’s culture and it’s people, I just wish that they’d come down from their cross sometime and accept that they are fully a part of Canada and not above or separate from it.

So Liberal leaders become hamstrung from “including the west” too vigorously and end up simply speaking hollow words to Westerners (which comes across as patronizing, and rightfully so because it is) which further wides the rift between the East and West. As a result, in order to achieve their majority governments, Liberals dig themselves deeper into the graces of Quebec by lavishing praise, concessions and money on them. Again, this practice is abhorrent to other Canadians, and especially to the Westerners who don’t hate Quebec but just want the special treatment to end and achieve equality.

Unfortunately, until Quebec officially signs onto the Constitution, this divide will continue to exist and fluctuate. And why should they? They get so much more with really no consequences. Again, this isn’t personal, it’s politics.

Now, the only way I see this changing is if the Conservatives are able to secure a Majority Government without having to be obliged to Quebec for it. Technically, it’s possible; it’s just REALLY unlikely.

If Quebec suddenly becomes not so important to the ever important majority it could spur one of two things, and this is the risk that politicians aren’t willing to take:

1) Quebec becomes aware that it needs Canada

If Conservatives were able to achieve that majority without needing Quebec, it may send the message that the time of blackmail is over for Quebec, at least for the next 4 years. It would no longer have the numerical leverage it has used to hold the rest of the country hostage. This might jolt them into conceding that unless they join the Confederation as an equal partner, they could be handed only what the rest of the country deigns to give them.

2) Quebec fears being ostracized and separates

This is the greatest fear of politicians. We know that practically, Quebec as a sovereign nation would ultimately fail without massive provisions and support by Canada or the United States. The problem is that Quebec would still have to give up part of their absolute sovereignty in order to do that. They want all the benefits without any of the consequences. Our currency, our Passports, our National Defense Organizations, our inter-provincial trade agreements etc. etc. But if they feel that becoming subject to Canada is a worse fate than trying to go it on their own, Separatism could well rise up in sufficient numbers to make it happen.

Legally.

And so, in order to avoid this disastrous event for Liberal fortunes, they continue to bribe Quebec into staying like some fair-weather spouse whom they can’t bear to leave, but can’t afford to keep indefinitely.

Tim Hudak Is Successfully Defining 2011!

Opposition really stinks, as the federal Liberals are finding out these days. It’s even worse for parties that were in power for a longer period of time;just ask the Ontario Tories in the late 80s after they had a 42-year run ended. The problems don’t just stop at the fact that you no longer make the policy or get the big offices, but also because you’re practically ignored by the media, especially during a majority government and especially at the provincial level.

Tim Hudak, who won the Ontario PC leadership this past June, has so far impressed me by indicating, through his actions, that he’s been around long enough to know these challenges and their solutions too! While Michael Ignatieff was dogged all summer with reports that he wasn’t hitting the road and meeting the grassroots of his party, Hudak was. Various community newspapers were peppered with stories during the summer about just who this new, young leader was. In other words, Hudak was defining himself!

Now that the Ontario Legislature is back in session, Hudak has used that momentum to define the McGuinty Liberals. Unlike previous party attempts, Hudak has targeted the bread and butter issues that will most resonate with people: the HST implementation and the e-Health/OLG scandals (say “AdScam” everyone!).

The former, while an interesting issue in that many PC Party members will support a harmonized tax to some degree, has been successfully cast as the “Dalton Sales Tax” by many of the party’s MPPs. It also is an issue that Hudak is wisely building up now, but not too much! This is smart politics — when the HST, Hudak has made himself the defacto spokesman of the backlash forces that the media will turn to.

As for the scandals that have rocked McGuinty, Hudak’s announcement that calls for a public inquiry is only being delayed by the Liberals because they saw what a similar inquiry with a similiarly corrupt scheme did to their federal cousins about six years ago! The consistent and continued calls though will dog the government so long as this issue remains at the forefront of provincial political coverage (and McGuinty has done nothing to help his team by keeping the legislative agenda a ho-hum one at best!).

It’s therefore good to see that Ontario has an Opposition leader that truly opposes; who will go out on a limb to define himself but is smart in picking his battles. This will go a long way to telling us how the 2011 election campaign will play out; both HST and e-Scam will be on the agenda. As for Hudak, his next move will likely be to build up a team for that campaign, and then build up an alternative vision of how Ontario should be governed. Time will tell how this will look, but so far this blogger likes what he sees!

What about Parliamentary Supremacy?

The only reason any Westminster system requires the services of a “supreme court” is to satisfy the condition of Locke’s separation of powers doctrine that there be a “Federative” branch of government to adjudicate disputes between different levels of government. With news today that HM The Queen has formally opened The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, devolution, at least, as taken a significant next step toward a respectable form of federalism.

Unfortunately, The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, like The Supreme Court of Canada, is now a court with the insidious pretence that its justices are not political actors, be they now the wiser appointed and benign overlords of all the realm. As the website of the court now, boldly, proclaims:

Courts are the final arbiter between the citizen and the state, and are therefore a fundamental pillar of the constitution.

The Supreme Court has been established to achieve a complete separation between the United Kingdom’s senior Judges and the Upper House of Parliament, emphasising the independence of the Law Lords and increasing the transparency between Parliament and the courts.

In August 2009 the Justices moved out of the House of Lords (where they sat as the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords) into their own building on the opposite side of Parliament Square. They will sit for the first time as a Supreme Court in October 2009.

The impact of Supreme Court decisions will extend far beyond the parties involved in any given case, shaping our society, and directly affecting our everyday lives.

For instance, in their previous role as the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, the Justices gave landmark rulings on the legality of the Hunting Act 2004 under European law, and whether or not a schoolgirl could be prevented from wearing traditional cultural dress.

Since Magna Carta, the High Court of Parliament, as it were, has been—and let us hope it remains—the final arbiter between the “citizen” and the state. Consider that a “citizen” is a “citizen” explicitly because he is the “subject” of a State. And “subjects,” being subjects of limited means in comparison to the state, can readily be subjected to the injustices, intentional or not, of that state.

What The United Kingdom has lost is far greater than any advance for federalism would have warranted. It has lost the explicit recognition—at the very top, anyway—that adjudicating the law is always part and parcel of legislating the law.

It was for this reason that John Locke held the Legislative branch of government to be supreme over all others. What we call Parliament was a necessary public conversation between the Executive and those who write the law as well as interpret the law. Take one aspect out of the mix and you will get power run amuck; so much for the balancing act that a separation of powers doctrine is meant to provide.

But, anymore, few learned men consider reading Locke a worthy endeavour. For whatever reason—maybe the American revolution and the cultural dominance of The United States—Montesquieu’s formulation of Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government wins wider popular recognition; those who understand the consequences of putting his formulation into practice a much smaller constituency.

It was to temper “legislating from the bench” that, for centuries, by the Law Lords sitting in the Upper Chamber of Parliament, the justice system of The United Kingdom tipped its hat toward Parliament. Being part of Parliament, the fact that the decisions of the Law Lords carried political consequence, that the adjudication of justice can, indeed, be effected by the idiosyncratic disposition and perspective of the adjudicators was lost on no one. The final court of appeal avoided even the appearance of being oracular.

New Labour seems to prefer change for the sake of change, especially when trying to win respectability for its love of big government. This is certainly not the first time it has looked across the pond and adopted the worst, the intellectually laziest, that Canada has to offer; be it the incoherent cult of “multiculturalism,” or, now, the larger, the more significant evolutions of our own constitutional history.

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