Canadian Musings

Some (such as Paul Wells, for example) have started wondering aloud whether Mr. Martin might make overtures to the likes of Mr. Layton in order to hang onto power. Wondering if Mr. Layton might accept a cabinet post in exchange for political support in the House of Commons.

But why just Mr. Martin? Could Mr. Layton turn down, say, an offer to become the new Minister of the Environment under a Harper minority government? Mr. Layton's platform promises fiscal responsibility; I'm sure Mr. Harper would oblige, and contain the growth of the Environment Ministry budget to within the 3% cap goal for all departments.

I'm a political junkie and I've been bored by the Canadian federal election for about three weeks already. It really has been a terrible campaign by the Liberals: they have attempted to lie their way back into power.

It's a well-tested formula in politics: if your opponent is relatively unknown, then try to paint them in as negative a light as possible. They have to fight back to correct the misperceptions, but some of the mud sticks. And if they throw mud in response, they look like mudslingers while you come across as educators. Absolutely filthy tactics. No wonder the Liberals have adopted fearmongering and lies as the cornerstone of their campaign.

The media haven't been any better: they willingly carry the lies from the Liberals, and rarely carry the corrections when they come out. Or at least, not with the same vigor. After all, who wants to admit they were being used as a mouthpiece of misinformation? Better to deny the correction than to admit the error.

So there have been a lot of predictions regarding how the seat count will come together, and who will govern as a result. My numbers are thus: 110 Liberals; 120 Conservatives; 23 NDP; 55 Bloc Quebecois.

But information on who is leading in what ridings has been extremely difficult to find, mostly because of all the data available on who is leading. That is, there is a lot of misinformation around being published by either well-meaning, ill-informed, or perhaps in some cases even malicious individuals. Folks suggesting, for example, that in the middle of all the scandals a riding will suddenly find tens of thousands of Liberal voters to unseat an MP from another party. Too few predictions have any credibility; don't put any money on mine.

Let's say a leading Republican figure from the U.S. decided to tell Canadians to not vote for the Liberal party. How loud would the howls of contempt be? How many would decry such interference in Canadian affairs?

Yet the same folks who would howl the loudest have been completely silent over Mr. Moore's idiotic comments attempting to interfere in Canadian domestic affairs. We've long known that these folks are hypocrites.

Mr. Moore, shut up already. Nobody cares except your zealots.

The Maher Arar inquiry is now underway. And I'm still far from convinced what exactly is going on in this case.

My skepticism started when Mr. Arar chose to sue the United States and not Syria. It seems to me that if I were tortured, I would want to sue my torturers first.

Today, Mr. Arar is not expressing interest in finding out what happened to him. Rather, he wants to learn how the intelligence agencies share information.

Again, call me a skeptic. There's just something about this that stinks. Certainly, every terrorist wants to learn how the intelligence agencies share information. And if I were tortured, I would think that I would want to know how the decisions were made which selected me for such treatment, not the mechanics of how information is shared.

After all, I know that they share information. If I'm innocent then I want to know where the false information came from, and who failed to confirm the facts. I wouldn't care how the information is shared.

Mr. Arar may be innocent. He may have associated with terrorists. The problem is that at this time, we do not know.

If you're like me, you've been busy with summer fun and election stuff. I had the pleasure of attending a candidate's event yesterday, and have been doing more cycling around town. And following other blogs, such as Andrew Coyne's gathering place.

But this election is definitely getting into its dog days. Reporters are bored, treating Mr. Layton to buttons with pictures of crossed-out cows (no bull...). And whether you suspect we'll get a minority this, or a minority that, or even a Majority government, it's all just so much speculation.

And if you feel like it's a bit of a Time Warp, well, Mr. Coyne might well agree: as he notes in Canadian politics today ... It's just a jump to the left. And a step to the ri-ight. Put your hands on your hips, and bring your knees in ti-ight. It's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insa-ane. Let's do the Time Warp again! Let's do the Time Warp again!

One more differentiator between liberals and conservatives: the former tend to the emotional while the latter get tied up in logic.

Makes me wonder if anyone has studied the Myers-Briggs Types of various political party loyalists and voters. One might assume that no party has a lock on introverts or extraverts. Do Intuitives and Sensers fall to particular allegiances? Perhaps, Thinkers align with Conservative parties and Feelers with Liberals. And are there similar statistical matches among the Judgemental and Perceptive?

For those unfamiliar with MBTA, it is important to note that these are merely words used as labels; they do not provide useful descriptions of how any individual behaves or acts. Collectively, these categorizations can be interesting in understanding how folks approach certain things but are not a fixed guidebook explaining everything any individual does.

If you scroll down into my archives, you'll find some discussions on perceived differences between liberals and conservatives. Today I add one more.

It would seem that Liberals have come to believe in an Elected Dictatorship model of government: once they take power, the opinions of individual Members of Parliament must succumb to the whims of the Chosen Leader of the Party. By contrast, Conservatives would believe that their perspectives are much more loosely aligned and they remain free (and responsible) to express their own individual opinions: to represent their constituents, rather than their party leader in debates.

And each view expects the other side to hold to the same view on goverment as themselves. They simply can't understand why the other side seems to be so obstinate. And where they have an appreciation of the other perspective, they also disagree with it most emphatically.

Again, I have a hard time placing these views as points on a line. They just seem to have too much orthogonality to them.

Koffi Annan has suggested that the war in Iraq was little more than one country deciding on its own to invade another. These words highlight just how irrelevant the United Nations has become under his watch.

The war in Iraq was initiated primarily over violations of UN Security Council resolutions. It's a common perception that the war was about WMD, and this is basically true. The security council resolutions are primarily about WMD, and the war was about violations of those resolutions. But those details are a bit long-winded, so we boil it down to a quicker soundbite.

And the existence of WMD in Iraq is a documented fact. While there hasn't been a stockpile of weapons found, the fact that a sarin shell, exploded at a roadside, was marked as a conventional device should frighten everyone. After all, it is little wonder that WMD would not be found if they are disguised as conventional devices. The inspectors were never going to be able to inspect every shell in every weapons cache: they had to rely on some traceability of the WMD which Saddam had previously declared.

Does Mr. Annan feel that enforcing Security Council resolutions is unimportant? What message does that send to the world about the role of the UN, as expressed by its Secretary-General?

Or perhaps Mr. Annan feels that the US and the UK should have continued to enforce the no-fly zones in perpetuity while Saddam violated the sanctions which were imposed. The military of these countries was being shot at on a regular basis. At what point would Mr. Annan finally be content to see the violations punished?

Diplomacy is an art, and requires clarity of thought and an understanding of the logical conclusions of one's statements. It is time for Mr. Annan to go.

There has already been some discussion about the recent Supreme Court ruling in Harper on election spending. The more I look at it, the more arbitrary and uneven Canadian "rights" and freedoms appear.

The court acknowledged that fundamental rights were being infringed, but managed to find a way to justify this to themselves. Did they ask Parliament to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause? No. They managed to do it all on their own by creating a principle they call "electoral fairness".

So, are the media gagged by this law? If a national newspaper endorses a party leader, or aligns itself with a candidate's position, is the commensurate cost of publication counted against their spending limit as a third-party participant? If the CBC hosts a panel discussion, are the production costs prorated to the various candidates represented?

It seems clear that if a citizen were to buy an ad in that paper, or on that television station, their spending is limited by this law. If they publish a brochure, the amount they may spend is capped. But if they buy the paper or the network, do the spending limits apply?

Just who is exempt from the law, and who is gagged by it? How will Elections Canada select targets for prosecution under the law? Will they demonstrate an arbitrary application of a law which represents an arbitrary limit on freedom of speech?

This is a mess. What message does this ruling send to the lower courts about the ease with which fundamental rights and freedoms can be set aside? How arbitrary is justice in this country when some rather obscure principle can be cited to override what has been set into our highest law?

And how did we get here? Surely the court didn't make such a foolish ruling because they were embarassed by Parliament's response to their earlier ruling in Libman?

I am very grateful to the thousands of individuals who gave their lives and the thousands more who gave their energies to fighting for freedom over history. Today we reflect especially on D-Day.

But a comment on one of the many websites which catalog the lies being told by Michael Moore made me realize something: as it stands today in Canada, it is not Hitler's actions which are despised; rather, WWI and WWII are considered just wars because the Liberal Left requires it.

In order to fund their social programs, the Left have eviscerated the armed forces over the years. The fact that Canada entered the wars years before the Americans would put the lie to the agenda of painting Americans as rushing to war, so Canadians paint these wars as necessary. And any other wars as wrong.

Because, after all, if there were any reason to go to war, we would need a strong military. If we admitted to the evils which exist in the world, we might not spend as much money on their socialist agenda. To protect their funding, they must convince everyone that there is never a reason to go to war. It is not out of a sense of righteousness that men such as Saddam Hussein would be allowed to stay: it is out of a sense of fear for their own pet projects. It is not that they have looked at Hussein and at Hitler and said this one is far worse, it is that they dare not look for fear of conclusions they could not escape.

After all, if it really were about not supporting a regime change in Iraq then the Canadian goverment would be pressing for Hussein to be returned to power, and the new regime would not be recognized. So the lies continue in order to confuse the issue.

Then, of course, there is the little problem of the evils which are carried out around the world. So, many excuses are raised, time and again. Make it all about us, the left says, and we'll just ignore those suffering under oppression globally. And we'll salve our hearts by sending a few tokens to a few sick people, so that when the dictators steal the supplies for themselves we'll be able to say we did our part. Twist the truth so that America gets the blame, as if having police is the cause of crime.

Today, when we remember our gracious war dead, we should be sickened by how we have let their legacy rot.

Got a stain on your democracy? Call Team Martin: He'll clean up your government.

But you've gotta pay in advance, and the price is only a few dollars more than all of your money.

What better way to avoid worrying about the high cost of goods, than to not be able to afford any!

I think Mr. Martin's campaigning from the short bus.

Today, the world mourns the loss of a true leader. It isn't enough to recount his contributions to ending the cold war. Or the economic growth his policies spurred (confounding the consensus of the day).

There are minor reminicenses, too: how, one day, one reporter didn't hear a word of Reagan's speech because in strong winds not a single hair on The President's head would move.

What better symbol of his strength of will, his determination, his commitment to the country and the world. We will miss him.

It's well known that Dalton McGuinty has announced a fixed date for the next Ontario election, with the intention of having regularly scheduled polls thereafter.

One of these days I've gotta look at the legislation he's drafted and find out what happens if a minority government gets in, and falls on a confidence motion.

Something has been bothering me about Mr. Martin's coziness with Bono since before he became Prime Minister, but it's only recently that I've been able to put it into words.

I have all sorts of respect for the cause which Bono has adopted: there are many people who are suffering through no fault of their own, and when things can be done to help our fellow human beings we are duty-bound to act.

But Mr. Martin, somehow, has decided that the Government of Canada doesn't have enough international aid resources at hand that it must funnel its contributions through a private agency.

And even if Canada isn't putting enough money into foreign aid that it has its own staff, one would think that the United Nations, of which Mr. Martin claims to be such a fan, just might have a contact or two who could help.

CNN continues to campaign on behalf of the Democrats, maintaining a veil of balance to minimize criticism. Today, Wolf Blitzer found the need to interrupt the news conference which was delivering the information (or at least as much as can be made public at this time) about Jose Padilla, and interject with venom from one of Padilla's taxpayer-funded defense attorneys. So rather than getting the full story and then allowing time for any additional information from the other side, CNN chose to prevent the government from having their say while the defense lawyer contributed no facts to the discussion.

At least the show, Crossfire, has some degree of balance. Too bad Carville fails to see the laughter when he talks about the Republicans as trying to advance their ideology: I can't name anyone more ideologically centered than Carville himself.

UPDATE (June 2): An American in Toronto notes that Fox has made available a transcript of the Justice Department briefing online.

So the US Justice Department announced today several of the reasons behind the detension of Jose Padilla as an Enemy Combatant. In short, he has committed himself to mass murder inside the United States on behalf of Al Quaida, an organization which has declared itself at war with the US. Whether he would have proceeded with the plans to detonate a nuclear device (unlikely), a radilogical "dirty bomb" (more likely), or seal and blow up one or more hotels and/or apartment buildings (most likely), he was under orders from an enemy of the US.

It is time for John "Verry" Skerry to acknowledge the correctness of what the Bush administration is doing.

Martin was looking for the perfect photo-op speaking in front of teens, showing how much he wanted the youth vote. But his shallowness was obvious to his audience, even if the mainstream media (presumably wanting to not upset the Liberal campaign managers and get themselves cut off from future events) ignored it.

Thanks to Paul Wells for linking to an eyewitness report.