It’s the Political Executive, Stupid!

Andrew Coyne's piece in last Saturday's Post "In Defence of the Charter" (subscription required) points to a careful balance between institutions in a parliamentary system. Specifically, there should be a balance between Parliament, personified in the Commons, and the authority of the Courts. The Charter, in his view, correctly ensures that the Commons will not legislate without limitations.

All this is sound at face value, but it is more complex than that, or perhaps much simpler. Coyne overlooks the traditions that have brought the parliamentary system in Canada, for better or for worse (mostly for worse), to where it is today. The question is not whether the Courts should or should not offer limitations to Parliament. Limited government is the hallmark of free government, and no one argues against that.

The crux of the matter lies elsewhere. It’s in an understanding of the parliamentary system in the absence of a charter. The Charter is not a sine qua non of Parliament. It is a new arrival but also a novelty introduced into our parliamentary arrangement. Coyne tacitly acknowledges this fact by pointing out that what Charter critics decry is "the whole system of written law." He also claims that Charter critics find problematic the concept of "judicial independence," which in my view is less correct than the previous point -I'll return to that later.

While Coyne is right that there exists a tension between the powers of the state going rather far back, as exemplified by his anecdote about James I and Sir Edward Cook. But the example is not well fitting. Parliament is no King, and the Courts are no Edward Cook. The issue is not so much that there ought to be a counterbalance to the power of the Crown, nor is it that Parliament behaves like a Monarch, for it does not. The example misses the centralising developments that have taken place in the Canadian parliamentary system since at least Pierre Trudeau (This is well documented in Donald Savoie’s Governing from the Centre, and in Jeffrey Simpson’s reader’s-digest version, The Friendly Dictatorship). The example is not well fitting because there is no Charter at the time of James I, which is a clear indication that the problem is not the Charter. Put differently, the Charter is not a precondition for the tension between institutions to occur, or for one to overwhelm another. Nor is Charter a prerequisite for limited government.

The Parliamentary system may offer some balancing of powers, but it is not and has never been meant to offer the kind of checks and balances that our Southern cousins established in their written constitution. Not because we want unlimited government, but because Parliament once upon a time was supreme as the heir of Royal power. Yet, the supremacy of Parliament has been kidnapped by a powerful political executive. Pierre Trudeau said that MPs are nobodies a few metres from the Hill. In a majority government, MPs are now nobodies when they are right on the floor of the House.

In the parliamentary system, Parliament is the traditional defender of people's rights, whereas now it has been painted as the enemy. We need to ask why? Parliament defended the rights of commoners against abuse of authority from the Crown and from Courts that were often interested in preserving the advantages of their Peers. The principle of judicial independence (Act of Settlement, 1701) does not appear in a vacuum either. In some respects, it came as a result of the actions and/or perceptions of courts acting in the interests of a specific class, as opposed to the interest of the community or individuals.

The Long Parliament notwithstanding, the Commons, later armed with the principle of responsibility, became the check on state power, and not the other way around. What is most interesting is that as the power of Parliament in Canada has diminished in favour of courts and the political executive, Parliament has been painted as the potential violator and oppressor of people's rights. This is not a coincidence. In part this is self-inflicted, for the citizens' perception that parliamentarians are useless and corrupt is in part warranted (never more than now), but not necessarily true as a blanket statement. And even if it were all true, it does not condemn necessarily the institution itself but some of the people who populate it (notwithstanding the nonsense that all MPs are the same). What is more, the decline in legitimacy of Parliament, given these perceptions, begins and ends with voters. If there is something wrong with parliamentarians, it is the duty of those who place them there to do something about it. To appeal to the Court to right the existing and perceived wrongs in the stead of citizens is to erode the fundamental fabric of free government.

Ultimately, given the recent emasculation of Parliament, the question is not whether the Court can effectively limit the power of the Commons, but whether it can limit the power of the political executive. And it is here that the principle of judicial independence comes to play. Considering would-be judges’ track record of donating to the party in power; considering Justices of the Court joining victory celebrations with litigant interest groups; considering allegations that judges in Quebec were chosen on the basis of party loyalty; and considering that it is the political executive that selects Supreme Court Justices without input from Parliament and without other input than that of selected interest groups and technocrats, the independence of the judicial is smack at the centre of the question. Judicial independence does not simply mean that the judiciary must be at arms length from Parliament, however. It also means that it must be independent of the executive, litigants before courts, as well as pressure groups. The problem for a conservative is not “judicial independence” but the (lack of) independence of our judiciary.

However, this is only a “conservative problem” insofar as conservatives have become nearly the only critics of the new arrangement. In reality, it’s a problem for parliamentary institutions; it’s a problem for the whole country.

And yet, courts have enjoyed unprecedented legitimacy in Canada of lately (Witness the fantastic levels that it has reached in the view that the greater the number of courts affirming something, the better it is. Democratic Judicialism has arrived). But Judges are not simple interpreters and guardians of the laws. They have become interested parties (politicians) bent on changing our polity for our improvement. They have in some instances become benign law makers, usurping the power of Parliament while they model the country in their own images (The standard authorities on the issue are The Charter Revolution and the Court Party, by Morton and Knopff, and Brodie's Friends of the Court). Courts serve to limit legislatures, which is fine, but few are keen in seeing the development of courts as legislatures, which is how they have acted in recent circumstances (Egan 1995; Eldridge v. British Columbia, 1997 (pdf); MvH, 1998; and Vriend v. Alberta, 1996). The Charter has become an instrument to undermine Parliament in the name of defending rights.

Courts have immodestly and immoderately moved to fill in the power vacuum that Parliament has left, and have set themselves as the protectors of the community against the supposed choking power of parliament. But the power of parliament from which they defend us is truly a straw man. The actions of the Court serve more to justify a power grab for itself than to strengthen the polity. They know well that legislatures are weak; they know well that power resides with the political executive. But they can not very well set themselves as our protectors against the power of the political executive because it is the executive that elevates Justices to their power. With a few exceptions, the Supreme Court has become a willing extension of the PMO’s power.

In The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Montesquieu understood the point of distinguishing not just the legislative from the judicial, but also from the executive. Judgement joined to legislation would make things arbitrary, as Coyne too recognises. But joined to the executive, Montesquieu argued, it would become oppressive:

Nor is there liberty if the power of judging is not separate from legislative power and from executive power. If it were joined to legislative power, the power over the life and liberty of the citizen would be arbitrary, for the judge would be the legislator. If it were joined to executive power, the judge would have the force of an oppressor.

It does not mean that judicial review should not exist. There is a difference between review and activism. I may decry judicial activism, regardless of its ideological bent, but not review. Judicial activism links directly to the personalities in the court itself, and it is more likely to occur when the other state institutions are either too powerful or too weak. The vigour of the Canadian Parliament has been sapped by the political executive, and has left a vacuum for the Court (although the McLaughlin Court has been more modest than previously).

The post-Charter activism of the Canadian Court has been a direct result of the immodesty of its members. It has weakened Parliament with the encouragement of a powerful political executive. The court has become a proxy of the federal executive power, and the Court has consented to advance the PMO’s agenda when the two coincide. Insofar as the executive does not dare to advance on its own agenda in the political arena for fear of a backlash from voters, the courts have lent to it their power. Since the executive chooses the members of the Court, their coincidence in policy is almost assured, thereby by-passing Parliament. Arguing that Parliament should not rule without limitations becomes a distraction to the central problem of lopsided power in the Canadian State. It is not the power of Parliament that Canadians should fear.

The real question is not, as Coyne argues, about defending or attacking the Charter (It’s not the Charter, Stupid. Nor is it the stupid Charter. It’s the political executive!). It must be the restoration of Parliament’s place, and the limitation of the power of the political executive and its "legal" arm, the Court. Parliament needs to recover its legitimacy (and the auto-parts magnate simply does not posses the tools to achieve it). But Parliament is not going to retrieve its place for as long as it remains weak, and for as long as the political executive and the courts continue to undermine it.

PS: There may be no blogging on the long weekend, so I’ll wish you all a Happy Dominion Day!

In the storm of outcry over the “abuses” of al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Charles Krauthammer brings a sobering voice here and puts a couple of things into perspective.

In March the Navy inspector general reported that, out of about 24,000 interrogations at Guantanamo, there were seven confirmed cases of abuse, “all of which were relatively minor.” In the eyes of history, compared to any other camp in any other war, this is an astonishingly small number. Two of the documented offenses involved “female interrogators who, on their own initiative, touched and spoke to detainees in a sexually suggestive manner.” Not exactly the gulag.

The most inflammatory allegations have been not about people but about mishandling the Koran. What do we know here? The Pentagon reports (Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, May 26) — all these breathless “scoops” come from the U.S. government’s own investigations of itself — that of 13 allegations of Koran abuse, five were substantiated, of which two were most likely accidental.

Let’s understand what mishandling means. Under the rules the Pentagon later instituted at Guantanamo, proper handling of the Koran means using two hands and wearing gloves when touching it. Which means that if any guard held the Koran with one hand or had neglected to put on gloves, this would be considered mishandling.

On the scale of human crimes, where, say, 10 is the killing of 2,973 innocent people in one day and 0 is jaywalking, this ranks as perhaps a 0.01.

Update: Via Tom at the Politic, see also here

Fellow blogger Brock on the Attack has a rather interesting set of maxims by which all conservatives in Canada should live, in his estimation, if they want to beat the Liberals. It is entitled “Where Do We Go From Here?”

Here are a few premises by which conservatives need to start to learn to live by:

1. Canadians are not stupid.
2. Liberals are not evil.
3. We are all more the same than we are different.
4. Tolerance of others is a foundation of good character.
5. Anger and revenge rarely serve your interests.
6. Be confident in your own ideas; don't ride other people's coat tails.
7. Lead by example.

At first, I thought it was a parody of some sort. His is a popular blog, it seems, and his posting has received many, many congratulatory comments for his insights. Someone named Warren K directed praise to him, and another gentleman offered Brock a place in the Green Party.

In the spirit of healthy and friendly debate, I thought of posting my own western alternative recommendations to Brock’s:

1. Some Canadians are not stupid. There is plenty of evidence to this effect. These days, they are most likely to be found in Quebec and in the West.
2. Martinistas and Chretienistas are typically crooks. You don’t need the Hubble telescope to see it.
3. The Harper Conservatives are very different than the crooks, and they should keep it that way.
4. Tolerance includes dislike of what you tolerate, otherwise it could not possibly be called tolerance. It would simply be called liking, leaving no room for disliking, which is intolerant.
5. Anger properly directed is often necessary (see numbers 1, 2 and 4) as well as salutary.
6. Inspiration may be a good thing, but let’s not get carried away. Warm fuzzies are how crooks take advantage of your feelings.
7. Do what you say you’ll do, but say nothing too touchy-feely.

I suspect that no WKs or Greens will try to praise these.

I agree that in the public perception (read Ontario) the CPC needs to be more than Liberals minus corruption, but how does that square with “more the same than we are different”?

The CPC also needs far more than I’m-okay-you’re-okay. None of that will impress conservatives here. We can find inspiration in activities such as reading, music, poetry, and religion. But from government, we want ethical, responsible and limited government. In light of what The Meatriarchy was saying about Albertans and Ontarians here, it may well be that our vision of conservatism are not compatible with urban Ontario. Resorting to image improvements, make-overs and self-help slogans for the sake of hiding the differences only accentuates the differences and underscores the inevitable.

Joe Comuzzi, minister responsible for economic development in Northern Ontario, has resigned his cabinet seat today in order to avoid being pushed into voting for the homosexual marriage legislation of the Liberal government, the G&M has just posted on its website. He has not left the Liberal Party, according to the Globe. He will sit as a backbencher. His bio information has been quickly removed from Paul Martin’s web page page, but reports that he will sit as independent are not confirmed.

The resignation was somewhat anticipated since last week. NP report here.

While there has been speculation that other Liberals in Cabinet might do the same, it seems unlikely now. Announcing the decision this late was probably calculated to cause the least possible damage to Martin and to encourage the least number of dissension. Comuzzi has also been vocal about Adscam.

Of interest: Fr. Raymond de Souza wrote about political duty and conscience here.

“The man with his head in the sand,” from the National Post’s editorial this morning:

Our Health Minister’s attitude is a disgrace. Nearly a year into his tenure overseeing medicare, he has delivered nothing but hot air — clinging to familiar rhetoric about the evils of “two-tier” care and issuing hollow threats to certain provinces he accuses of violating the Canada Health Act, even as private clinics pop up left and right in Quebec. Now, no longer content with demonizing members of other parties who dare to suggest deviating from the crumbling status quo, he’s trying to silence doctors.

Related:
Comrade Dosanjh

After the nearly two inches of rain that we have received in the last 24 hours, Alberta Environment has issued flood watches for the Highwood and Sheep rivers, again. This is the third time in about as many weeks.

Update: State of Emergency is back on along the Highwood river.

A fellow blogger, The Meatriarchy, is back after a short pause. Yesterday’s post has some interesting observations about Calgary and Calgarians.

I have over the past few weeks had the occasion to speak to many folks in Calgary. Their feelings toward Toronto and the East are barely concealed below their friendly Albertan manners. Some don't even bother to hide it.

Alberta is at this point in our history far more alienated than Quebec pretends to be. They are also, with oil at 60.00 a barrel (or closing in on that figure) enjoying unprecedented economic growth. [...]

If you are down on your luck and need work go west. But leave your Eastern attitude behind.

I am trying to figure out a way to move to Calgary and still work from home. A house midway between downtown and the Rockies would suit me fine. Especially if I could have horses. Lately I have been desiring horses. I don't know why. I don't think it is merely the horse but the imagined lifestyle. I just don't want to own one here in Ontario and have it stabled somewhere where I go by once a week and ride it for an hour.

[...]

I told someone in Calgary this week that Calgarians should all spend at least two weeks a year in Toronto. Torontonians should in turn spend two weeks a year in Calgary. I think it would go along way towards healing the alienation of the West and would do wonders in allaying this irrational fear that Torontonians have of the west.

You can read all of it here.

Sounds like he has been talking to the right people here.

I do think that it might do a world of good for more Torontonians to come out west. My brother in law from Montreal used to be a first class, ultra Quebec separatist until he visited us in Calgary a few years ago. He came to the realisation, he said, that Canadians don’t hate Quebeckers, and was amazed at how friendly people were to him, even though many of them knew that he was a Quebec separatist. In light of that, all things being equal, visiting Torontonians might come to their own realisation that Westerners don’t have horns or tails. That might be a good thing.

Maybe I am wrong, but I fear the other way around might not work so well. Albertans may come to have some sympathy, perhaps, for people having to live in such smoggy, crowded, noisy conditions, unable to see stars (real ones), and so on. I can only speak for my self, but every time I go to TO (or to my old stomping grounds in Montreal for that matter), I thank G-d for the day that I decided to head west.

My TO visits have not made me connect to nor understand TO any better. I do enjoy some parts of the city and my friends there. But I can’t see myself being drawn by it nor my visists making much difference about my read of Toronto voters in general. I have not spent two weeks a year there, however. That may be it. I suppose that this says more about me than it does say about Toronto. Perhaps my Alberta readers can say a few things about their impressions in this regard.

In any case, good to see Meatriarchy blogging again. I sincerely look forward to learning that he is in his new acreage in West Bragg Creek or thereabouts after he moves to Alberta, between downtown Calgary and the Rockies, where he will be riding and flaunting his new horses and cooking in his new natural gas turbo-charged 20, 000 BTU BBQ. May it be so!

Via lgf, a Washington Post two-part report on the rapid of growth of China’s military might, its technological development and acquisition, the prospect for an invasion of Taiwan, and the potential for a new fascism rising.

“We may be seeing in China the first true fascist society on the model of Nazi Germany, where you have this incredible resource base in a commercial economy with strong nationalism, which the military was able to reach into and ramp up incredible production,” a senior defense official said.

If China is the awaking dragon, we all know who will have be the modern-day St. George.

Ujjal Dosanjh, the vote-entrepreneur federal Minister of Health, is upset that the Canadian Medical Association wants to talk about alternative delivery of health care in Canada during their annual meetings, the Post reported.

”I am extremely disappointed,” the Health Minister said. ”I am wondering where Dr. Schumacher wants to take the CMA. I am disappointed that he wants to take the CMA in a direction where he sees a private health care in Canada.”

The simple notion of discussing private delivery is enough for the minister to voice his strong opposition and “extreme” disappointment. That is quite the reaction. From Dosanjh’s position, much like with the Romanow report, there should be no room to talk about other ways of doing things. The State’s way is the only way. Dosanjh, however, speaks now in spite of the Supreme Court decision in the Chaoulli case just this month, and in spite of the presence of dozens of private delivery outlets in Montreal, one in which Paul Martin himself receives care.

Johel Johanessen has already remarked that Dosanjh “sounds” like a communist in his fierce opposition to “market reforms.” But it is much worse than that. One may legitimately be opposed to specific ideas or alternatives, but still leave room for others to voice theirs. The essence of pluralism in free societies is the openness to debate. Dosanjh is clearly opposed to debate, and dislikes the prospect of people discussing ideas that are opposed to his view. To be sure, both attitudes are in communion with the Bolshevik model, and one does not have to exclude the other.

Dosanjh’s fondness for repressing freedom of expression has been documented and may be rooted in his communist past (See here and scroll down to Ujjal Dosanjh: Architect of Repression). Dosanjh traces his communism to the political heritage of his grandfather. Given his penchant for statism, his distaste for variety of views, and his desire to impose one single solution to all, his behaviour is fairly consistent with the Bolshevik modus operandi. Paul Martin has chosen well.

And just like the Soviet Communist Party brass and apparatchiks, Dosanjh will impose one system for the masses and embrace a superior one for the Party elite. Paul Martin’s personal physician, Sheldon Elman, is the CEO of Medisys, a conglomerate of for-profit delivery that operates in and out of Canada. See profile here. Long waiting lines, substandard services, months waiting for necessary procedures, and death in waiting areas are not things that Paul Martin will have to see at the Westmount Square clinic that he visits in Montreal.

Perhaps that is what Paul Martin meant when he said that he would “fix medicare for a generation.” Did he mean a “Liberal” generation?

In the meantime, I’m almost willing to bet money that we are not likely going to hear Dosanjh mention the names Medisys or Elman in his diatribes any time soon. There is no Communist like an old communist.

Related:
1. Two Standards
2. Tooth and Nail-less Hypocrisy

The G&M reports that a man broke through a first line of security at the Vancouver airport, was spotted and followed but was then lost in the crowd. He could not be located in the terminal at all. Security searched the airport, emptied planes that were waiting to take off, inconveniencing thousands, but they could still not find the man.

In the meantime, he was sitting in mid air on the plane that he was scheduled to take to Toronto, which he boarded apparently undetected, breaking another line of security. Authorities did not know where he was until he landed in Toronto.

It’s nice to know that all that airport tax is being put to good use.

David Warren’s “Letter to Quebec” in the Ottawa Citizen today (subscription required, but also available here) assesses the political situation of the country in this way:

We don’t get the degree to which you [Quebec] are tired, not only of the corruption, but of the sheer malice of the Liberal party.

They are getting about equally tired in the West.

And according to the polls, we, in Ontario, have decided the Liberal party must stay, for reasons of “national unity.”

In other words, the Liberals have become the separatist party of Ontario.

In other words, the Liberals have set things up with Ontario so the only way to shake them off is by leaving the country.

Canada’s most talented people do that every day; now it becomes the turn of the provinces.

As you perhaps noticed, my analogy was incomplete.

Ontario is in some sort of weird old Mormon or Arabian marriage, in which there are several wives. Were it not for the oil dowry that came with Alberta, we would have trouble paying for them all.

That Alberta also, increasingly, wants out of the marriage should be no surprise to either of us. There is nothing in it for them, whatever. We just take their money, they get nothing in return, unless you count spousal abuse.

The Liberals and our “national” (i.e. the Toronto) media dump all over Alberta.

They use the word “Canadian” specifically to exclude them.

Warren pretty much has captured the essence of it. It’s Ontario (which really means the urbane and enlightened in the province) who has separated from the rest of the country. They’d find any and all excuses not to vote for an Albertan. Harper was first too icy and stern, then he was too angry and scary. He has a hidden agenda to wreck the country, they say.

Ontario has come to live in a “reality” that does not conform to the country in their embrace of the Liberal Party. A corrupt and illegitimate government, to them, is better than one led by an Albertan for no other reason that he is Albertan (thought Harper was born in Ontario). Perhaps the time has come for Ontario to make effective their separation with the rest of us. Loving crooks and what they do is not a value that Canadians elsewhere want to pass on to their children. Perhaps it’s time for Ontario to leave the country.

Soil from the grave of serial killer Ed Gein has been bought and sold on e-bay. See here.

The entrepreneurial spirit never ceases to amaze.

Michael Coren offers a different point of view on why Live8 concerts are worth supporting.

It may be nauseating to see concert promoters, pop singers and TV executives suddenly pretending to care. It doesn't matter. It's the cause that is important. The cause of human beings who, but for the chance of geographical birth, could be you and me.

Africa is also becoming an example to the developed world. Poor though it may be, it possesses an ethical sense that is evaporating elsewhere. The miracle of the continent is that so many of its people lead such moral lives in such challenging conditions.

Rock stars and celebrities will come and go, but there will always be judgment of how we treated those who could not help themselves. For God's sake, do the right thing. Rock on.

(my emphasis)

I could not disagree that Africans are worth helping, and I agree with the reasons that Coren enumerates. But I still don’t think that Live8 is it. I don’t think that simply forgiving debt and pumping more money into corrupt regimes is the way to go.

With the release of Karla Homolka expected within the week, the media frenzy may have already began. The Toronto Star had an artist play with one of Homolka’s images to project/speculate what look she might choose for herself. She is expected to change her appearance when or after she leaves prison. See here

Among other speculations floating around is that Homolka might be spirited out of prison by helicopter, or driven and escorted to her new dwelling by police.

Since 2003, two Canadian scientists have called into question the science of the so-called hockey stick authored by Michael Mann, which is used to argue that man-made industrial by-products are causing the planet to warm up. Largely, their findings have been ignored by the Canadian government, including Stephane Dion, the Minister of the Environment, and several international agencies.

This week, the Wall Street Journal cites their work in anticipation of a Senate vote in the United States. The WSJ recalls that

Mr. Mann has never offered a serious rebuttal to the McIntyre-McKitrick critique. He has refused to fully explain his methodology, claiming he’s the victim of “intimidation.” That’s odd when you consider that the sine qua non of real science is independently verifiable and reproducible results.

The week earlier, The National Post featured an article by Steve McIntyre, one of the two Canadian scientists, here. He argues that there ought to be a process of auditing published scientific results, in addition to results simply being reviewed by peers.

Our most publicized claim has been pretty much universally accepted: We show that an unreported step in the original calculations mines datasets for hockey-sticks shaped series. We showed that this method can produce hockey sticks even from random data.

The science that serves as the basis of the Kyoto Protocol is not much science. It has not been replicated, and seems to be doctored. McIntyre and McKitrick demonstrate that the global warmers are unable or unwilling to address scientific concerns. The Planet may be indeed be warming as it has before, but Kyoto is being driven by the politics of doom sayers, and not by science.

h/t: Climate Audit

Paul Martin could spend an entire day sequestered in a hotel with Jack Layton and Buzz a couple of months ago, but he could not find the time to visit Alberta earlier during the flood disaster because he is way too busy running a minority government, McLean’s quotes:

We would have been here [in Alberta] much sooner if, in fact, we hadn’t been withheld by the problems of a minority government

All prime ministers have a government to run; all prime minister have problems to manage. Okay, so the problems of state are far more important than Albertans. We understand that. Where was the Governor General? And where was the Deputy Prime Minister, then? The DPM called Grit Mayor Jet-setter in Calgary and she was also in touch with the Premier by telephone. But where was she?

The GG was probably, in between speeches, luncheons, and highly important high school graduations, also too busy viewing samples for new carpets or new drapes for Rideau Hall.

For a careful look at Martin’s activities that made it “impossible” for him to be in Alberta, see Waking Up on Planet X.

A piece in USA today reports on a Wells Fargo Employee recently fired for his blogging activities.

Google and other major companies are firing and disciplining employees for what they say about work on their blogs

.

The question is not whether people are blogging or not (thought there may clearly be issues with people blogging for entire hours at work). The questions is what people are blogging about. In this case,

Peter Whitney decided to launch a blog on the Internet to chronicle his life, his friends and his job at a division of Wells Fargo. Then he began taking jabs at a few people he worked with.

Publishing what goes on at work may sometimes reveal stuff that companies do not want in the public domain, and that does not necessarily mean trade secrets. An academic in Quebec City got into analogous trouble, though he was not fired, for publishing a novel in which he apparently used characters from work in a setting very much like work.

After the second round of flooding in Southern Alberta last weekend, a tornado or two spotted near Lethbridge this week, storms in Winnipeg, now come the reports of the swings and irregularities of the weather in Europe and in Asia, where drought and battering floods have arrived, respectively.

Following its reports of the Alberta rains, CBC’s National went almost straight on to a report about the cause for the rain. I thought it would be a segment about meteorology, the science of predicting the weather. I imagined that there would a dissecting analysis of how “this system” here moved and met with “this system” there creating the conditions for the perfect rain week.

Silly me! There were no immediate causes in the segment. They are probably not interesting enough, and it might actually require a) some research to explain and b) why bother with all that when you can flog the same ol’ “global warming” which at the same time can explain every variation everywhere on the planet and connect them all. Global warming is causing all these “irregularities” in the world’s weather, a line probably taken right from the Day After Tomorrow propaganda film movie.

The next day, CBC had a segment about ministerial limos idling for 30 minutes to an hour waiting for their respective masters just outside the Parliament building. The statistics de rigueur about how much time of idleness is required to produce x much CO2. They even mentioned the one-ton challenge that their own CBC clown recently promoted at a cost of… Not really sure, but I am almost sure that he didn’t do it for free, or for the environment.

We all know that CO2 and all its sources should be banned, including all life.

Rock Stars often act as though they exist in a higher plane than the rest of us, anonymous peasants. Sting, Bono, Geldof might be okay performers. But who should really care about their political views? What exactly qualifies them to know better than any of us? Didn’t these celebrity-types get the message after the last US election? And speaking of jumped-up celebrities in politics, even the newly-minted blogger Rick Mercer gets the point:

Okay I know I'm a cynical prick about these things but when Bob Geldof tells Canada's Prime Minister to stay at home and skip the G8 summit are we not supposed to laugh our asses off? Did a memo go out that said ageing rock stars are setting the agenda at the G8 now? Would the world be a better place if the Bob Geldofs were running it? I think so. Rock stars know a lot more than just where to score the coke you know.

Surely, if ageing rockers lack the ground from which to tell politicians what to do and when to do it, the exact same and more may be said of overrated TV clowns half as well known.

See Rempelia Prime here.

Bonne St. Jean Baptiste à   tous nos cousins et toutes nos cousines au Québec !

Restaurant owners in Alberta are now able to hire children as young as 12 without first getting provincial approval as a result of what government officials call a “procedural change” in employment practices.

The Globe and Mail’s report on working children made me think of a few of the implications which they do not mention:

a) Morgentaler and others will argue that this is yet another reason to have more abortions so that children do not have to suffer in oppressive restaurants busing tables.

b) We should be thankful, since Canadians do not have that many children, that we do not have that much opportunity to exploit children, which is an extension of point a.

c) Quebeckers among all of us are the most thankful, which is an extension of point b.

d) To me, this can only mean that the sooner I can get all my children into the labour market, pouring water and serving bread to tables, becoming truly productive members of society, the sooner I can retire to the Caribbean.

e) There is another feature of the Alberta Advantage that the provincial promotional materials should include. It could have a slogan such as “Come to Alberta: Our children will work really hard for you.”

f) If we had only started having children ten years earlier, we’d be looking at freedom forty-five by now.

Children between the ages of 12-14 can already work as delivery person for newspapers or fliers, a clerk in a retail store, a clerk or messenger in an office and delivery person for small wares in a retail store. Now, they can work in restaurants under certain restrictions. Reading the Glob, you’d almost think that we have children working in salt mines here. Pfff! We have no salt mines.

Europe is trying to pull its constitution out of the fire into which voters in France and the Netherlands pitched it last month. The deadline for ratification of the document has now been extended from November 2006 to mid 2007. After the decision to extend the deadline, Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Portugal are postponing their ratification processes that were originally planned for this year. The UK postponed its own process of ratification last month.

How exactly these delaying contortions will save the European Constitution is not entirely clear. How do six extra months make that much difference to the fact that the constitution, which requires unanimous approval of member states, has already been rejected by two of them?

Alexandre Kwasniewski, the Polish president, gives a hint: He argued that the previously established deadline is no longer “realistic.” It’s the time frame that is flawed, in other words, not the project, and not the document.

It is not reality that has changed, however. It is the attitude toward it that is shifting in the minds of the technocrats. The rejection of France and the Netherlands is real. The delays will now buy time to find a formula of some sort that can safely ignore or change that reality, manufacture a new one, or at least craft the conditions under which a new reality can come into being.

Put differently, now that it is apparent that no success or victory can be achieved under the initial rules, new rules will need to be presented. In that sense, the referenda in France and the Netherlands would simply be considered warm ups, pilot-projects of sorts. They are not really going to count. The French and the Dutch voters will need to rehearse again until they get it right. It’s referenda Quebec-style.

If the process were a soccer game, it would amount to extending regulation time arbitrarily until the home team scored a winning goal, at which point the game would be irrevocably declared over. Thinking back, we saw vestiges of this attitude just a short few years ago, when Brussels threatened to kick Austria out of the union for allegedly being non-democratic. If the voters of Austria selected Joerg Heider, they might have had to do it again until they chose “correctly.”

What would the aspiring Turks think about the democracy and rule of law that is being demanded of them as a prerequisite for entry to the Union?

To the pantheon of originality or of perfect coincidence. From Bourque via CalgaryGrit, see here.

Jack Granatstein wrote a great little book in 1998 entitled Who Killed Canadian History? Governments and their policies are among the culprits, but there are more. And since it’s a whodunit, if you have not read it, I will not spoil it for you. Burkean Canuck points to further evidence that governments are assassinating our history here. This time, the French Iron Cross that marked the deportation of Acadians at Horton Landing has been removed for no apparent reason.

Marcos, the commander of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) has decreed a state of “red alert” for his “troops” in the Chiapan territory where the (former) rebels have operated since their rebellion began in Mexico eleven years ago, reports Le Devoir this morning. The rebel announcement appears to come out of the blue, and no reasons are given for the rebel mobilisation. However, the Guardian writes:

Marcos said the alert was necessary because when the group called a series of strategy meetings in 1995, then President Ernesto Zedillo ordered a military offensive seeking the rebel commander’s arrest.

The June 19 communiqué is issued in the name of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee. In addition to military readiness, the rebels have announced the closing of the “good government committees” that granted them autonomous municipal government, claiming that they will be going underground. It also issued warnings for foreigners and non-combatants to leave the area.

While no military engagements have been reported as of yet, the announcement increases tensions in Mexico, and raises the spectrum of destabilisation in the Mexican southern.

If the Guardian is to be believed, the “alert” would come as a reactionary fear on Marcos’ part that he will be arrested on an order issued 10 years earlier. Mexico may be a land of wonder, but not to that extreme. Marcos and the Fox administration have conducted bona fide negotiations, Zedillo is no longer in charge, and it seems outlandish that Fox would want to enforce an order from 10 years ago, now. Why now?

My guess is that Marcos may have just found out that the arrest order was never repealed, and is trying to make waves to get it repealed so that a) he can sleep better at night, which is understandable, and b) to remove a stain from his desired record as a national hero.

Does anyone wonder what colour is the sky in Paul Martin’s world? More than a month after Martin made unspoken and future offers to Gurman Grewal (through Tim Murphy) to abstain from voting in the House and eventually to cross the floor, Paul Martin now says that he doesn’t want Grewal in his caucus. Yeah, that’s right. You are reading correctly.

Grewal already said no to Martin and his boys in the PMO and in the Ministry of Health. Didn’t they receive the message? Nobody is that dumb. So what’s the angle?

To come out now and say that Grewal is not welcome may sound a little childish. Considering also that Grewal is down (on stress leave), it seems a bit cheap. Is Martin not the same man who wants the level of civility raised in Canadian politics?

At first sight, it would seem that Martin could go no lower. But there is likely more to it. The Liberals experienced a spike in public support during the Grewal tapes affair. Grewal went on stress leave as a result. That did one thing for the Conservatives and one thing for the Liberals: it took him out of the public eye (good for Tories at the time) and it took him out of the Commons (good for Grits).

PM may be trying to remind voters about the affair while trying to keep Grewal out longer. The longer Grewal stays out of the House, the less Martin has to worry about razor-thin votes on his budget. It’s all about numbers.

h/t: Inkless

Several years ago, as a group of friends, we bought tickets to go see and hear Paco de Lucia. Paco de Lucia is, arguably, the greatest classical and flamenco guitarist alive. Among the fairly varied group of us there was not a single Alberta-born individual (There was an Ontarian, three Montrealers, two Mexicans, and one Iranian).

At the intermission, we got a beverage and commented on the show. The Montrealers, myself among them, ended up briefly isolated from the general conversation. One of the Montrealers was a management student, who had recently arrived in Calgary; she would have been here but a couple of months. So we were interested in her impressions of Calgary. She did not like Calgary, she said, because there was no culture here. Less than a month later, we heard she had gone back to Montreal before even finishing the first semester of her doctoral studies.

Her attitude and response is a patent example of the Montreal snobbery toward Albertans and their culture. Here we were, in a beautiful concert hall, wine glass in hand, chatting with friends, and we had just listened to the first half of what she agreed was a superb show. Whether Paco de Lucia is the greatest or not, he is indisputably among the great classical guitarists. But still, to her mind, there was no culture in Calgary!

If by culture she meant that Calgary doesn’t have a St.-Denis, a St.-Laurent, a St.-Catherine, and a de la Montaigne street, she would be right. She reminded me of those well-known stories of the tourists in Rome or in Paris looking for a McDonald’s or a KFC.

There is no need to enumerate the things that Montreal has which Calgary does not. It’s the attitude that ultimately decides the question. After all, it is said that de gustibus non disputandum est (taste cannot be disputed –or there is no accounting for taste). But the expression that taste cannot be disputed is traditionally a way of evoking acceptance of the tastes and ways of others. To claim that there is no culture in Calgary, is, in that sense, less than tolerant.

For one, there is nothing in the world quite like Stampede. But most central Canadian snubs would not recognise it as culture. As I wrote last week in this series, for many Canadians culture has to be something that the central government has subsidized through the Heritage Ministry, or something that some would be Governor-General speaks about on CBC. Canadians don’t know enough to know that the feds do fund some of Stampede events.

There is more to culture than theatre and music, of course. But it’s not just that. It’s that culture for these snub types typically boils to one kind of music, and it always happens to be the one kind that they like, whatever it may be.

But what is more surprising to me is that in the relativistic culture of their modern world, the same people who will claim that all ideas and opinions have an equal claim to validity will also designate their preferred cultural niche as superior to all others (Did Adriane Clarkson promote Alberta’s cowboy culture in her lavish northern-circumventing tour?). The same people will think Celine Dion, for example, superior to Ian Tyson, even though they cannot make the claim stand.

Western cowboy culture (to reduce it to stereotype) is not just culture, but is a culture unlike most that exist in Canada. It is a culture of skill, of strength, of liberty, of self-reliance, and of courage. I would argue (since I am no relativist) that by the virtues that it promotes, it is superior to the wine-sipping-with-the-pinky-in-the-air culture of sitting on the patio at St. Sulpice in Montreal.

If all opinions are the same, so should be all cultures, at least for the relativist. And so, their attempt to snub the western culture of Alberta makes them not just inconsistent but intolerant. In reality, it shows their shallowness and dilettantism. The culture of the west, Alberta’s culture, is as valid as Quebec’s, or that of any other place. If their over-reaching relativism is to make any sense, sipping beer at Thursday’s is no greater than drinking beer at The James Joyce; Calf-roping in Longview is as valid a cultural activity as is collecting Maple sap in the Monteregie.

If truth be known, two-stepping and Flamenco are branches of the same tree. Many forget that cowboy culture, vaqueros, also traces its roots to Spain.

UPDATE: For an excellent view on Rodeo culture and its meaning, go here.
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Related:

• Multicultural Redneck Albertans 4
• Multicultural Redneck Albertans 3
• Multicultural Redneck Albertans 2
• Multicultural Redneck Albertans

Here are some links to pictures I took in the expedition to Calgary this afternoon. Judging by water marks and debris in several places, the water had already receded about one vertical metre when these where taken. At the crest of the water last night, it would have been much worse. Though we went by some of the neighbourhoods affected, I did not take any pictures of people’s misery. You’ll see enough of that on TV and in the papers, I am sure.

1. The Bow river spills out near Glenmore and Deerfoot Trail just a few feet from the Deerfoot

2. At the confluence of the Elbow and Bow rivers, from the west bank of the Elbow

3. The Elbow river runs through Sandy Beach park -west of Britannia, south of downtown

4. The Elbow river runs through Stanley Park flooding a pick-nick area

5. The Elbow at Stanley Park: Water goes through children’s play ground

6. The Elbow at Stanley Park: Red mark in the background shows the river’s normal course

As the Gomery Commission wrapped up its public phase Friday, the government’s counsel, Sylvain Lussier, “made a final plea … to exonerate Prime Minister Paul Martin and his predecessor, Jean Chretien” reports the National Post. Instead, he tried to pin blame on Chuck Guite and the now disgraced Chretienista, former Minister of Public Works, Alfonso Gagliano. The fall guys have been chosen (nothing new there), and all seems to be so simple.

I want to leave the issue of why the government’s lawyer, paid by the taxpayers, sees the necessity to exonerate Jean Chretien aside. First, because Bill at Strong World has already asked those questions in a forceful manner. Second, because it seems to me that upon a careful reading of Lussier’s arguments, he does try to keep blame away from Paul Martin as the NP says, but they indirectly point at Jean Chretien’s responsibility. To my mind, this is no coincidence. The transcripts of the submission, largely in French, are here.

Over several minutes, Lussier tried to paint for the Commission the proper understanding of the principle of ministerial responsibility, and did a fairly good job (a copy should be made especially available to Bernard Shapiro). For example, regarding the proper relationship between a minister, a deputy minister, and Parliament, Lussier said (in p. 251278, lines 12-15):

C’est le ministre qui rend des comptes au Parlement et c'est le ministre qui met sa tà ªte sur le billot. Donc, il en va de son intérà ªt de s'assurer que son sous-ministre fait [sic] son travail correctement.

Clearly, Lussier understands that the minister is where the buck stops in a government department, and that he is accountable to Parliament. But he is not clear on the reasons why. It is more than just the self-interest of a minister to make sure that those under his authority do things properly. It is the minister’s duty. Resting responsibility on self-interest would indicate, somewhat perversely, that a minister might choose to be or not to be responsible to the House, depending on a pesonal appraisal of his interests. A Liberal interpretation for a Liberal counselor.

Lussier then goes to elaborate why it is that Paul Martin, as Finance Minister and overseer of the state’s treasure, must be exculpated. He did not attend all meetings of the Treasury Board, nor does he scrutinise every line in the budgetary proposals of all ministries. There was an expectation from Finance, Lussier said, that each minister would be responsible for his/her ministries finances (see p. 25683, line 24). This is to some extent reasonable to argue, though I am not convinced that it is enough to exonerate the Finance Minister completely. Whether Martin wishes to admit it or not, his position on the Treasury Board does give him responsibility over the expenses and budgets of other departments. Given the chain of responsibility, he had a duty to know.

Ultimately, the Treasury Board is a committee of Cabinet, which brings the final responsibility to the Cabinet, and to the one that presides over it, the Prime Minister. While the Prime Minister does not become involved in every department, he does express interest in some, Lussier said, and so the line of responsibility is more clearly established to the Prime Minister when the PM has shown such interest in a department or programme. In Lussier’s own words (p. 25682, lines 15-17):

Il [le premier ministre] peut aussi également s'intéresser aux dossiers des ministres. Quand il participe directement dans les dossiers, son degré de responsabilité augmente.

It has been established that AdScam was created with Chretien’s endorsement, and that several of his close advisors, friends and political collaborators, not to mention his Quebec lieutenant, were involved neck-deep in it. Chretien participated in AdScam. There is at least significant circumstancial evidence that points to his knowledge and participation, in spite of the plausible deniability schemes that we have seen Liberals construct through the PMO. No one really believes that Chretien did not know what was going on. No one really believes that Paul Martin did not know what was happening in his own province, blocks away from his own riding. But Lussier’s arguments are crafted in such a way as to leave a trail of hints that points to the Prime Minister of the time.

Finally, the logic of Lussier’s accusation against Gagliano and Guite also climbs all the way to Jean Chretien:

“A minister must accept responsibility even for things they are not aware of,” Mr. Lussier said. “They must also avoid creating an environment in which such things can occur. The minister is obliged to be vigilant.”

The exact same must be said of the Prime Minister in relation to his Cabinet.

In short, Lussier was working very hard deflecting blame from Paul Martin, but not at exonerating Jean Chretien. But the media will not say any of that. Who’s got time to read all that stuff, anyway.

The City of Calgary declared an unprecedented state of emergency Saturday as flood fears prompted by heavy rain forced 2,000 residents to be ordered out of their homes.

Driving into Calgary this evening to see some friends, it was amazing to see the level of the water and the damage in some areas. Crossing the bridge heading North on Highway 2, just past DeWinton, was quite the sight as the river spread into the valley’s flood plain moving very fast and carrying enormous trees and all kinds of debris. It looked more like a lake than it did a river at that point, except for the speed of the water. Lakes don’t usually have trees sticking out in the middle either.

Driving into the city on Deerfoot Trail, still heading north, another shock. At the river bend in the south part of the city, the LaFarge yards were under serious water, and one could see a few cement mixing trucks floating about. The size of those trucks had never made me wonder about their buoyancy when empty, but there they floated. There were spots on Deerfoot where the river came within feet of the road, just north of the LaFarge yards.

Got off Deerfoot on to Memorial Drive West, but had to turn north again when I discovered that the road was barricaded at Edmonton Trail. I don’t know whether the water broke through the banks onto Memorial, but I doubt it. That bank is fairly high. It may have just been a precaution. In Montgomery, in the Northwest of the city (I stopped by to see if our Acadian friends were okay), I stood by on the north bank of the Bow river watching the water go by. That’s when I got a better idea of how fast that water was moving. The noise of the current was eerie. No one there from the neighbourhood remembered seeing the water that high, ever.

Heading north up Home Road from there, looking West toward Canada Olympic Park, one could see the water almost touching the bridges for the trains and for Highway 1. It was impressive and frightening at the same time. I did not dare go further west into Bowness, where, I heard, the river had spilled into portions of the neighbourhood and made a mess of things.

On the way back south a few hours later, I think I saw the water going right over the top of the Glenmore reservoir dam, but I can’t be certain. The water near the Deerfoot had not receded, on the other hand, but it had not gone any higher either. This time, I could see lots of movement on the edge of the water in the LaFarge yards. Trying to rescue those cement mixers cannot be fun.

By and large, the damage and the scare is contained in a few small areas, and most of the city seems to be getting along fairly well.

Recent news reports about Calgary and surroundings here, here, here, here, here, and here. Local stories and experiences, here.

Pictures here and here.