So needing a break from other tasks, I sat down to regain some of my youth.  The song I chose was Phil Ochs’ Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon, itself Ochs’ own rework of his original Here’s to the State of Mississippi.  My lyricist heart got little satisfaction or really any exercise in the end.  I was amazed at how little needed to be changed from a song about Richard Nixon to make it a song about Stephan Harper.   My political soul soared though.  This little exercise in a very few minutes brought home to me the reasons for my nagging discomfort with the Harper government.  I had watched it all unfold before:  The lies, the religious fakery, laws changed quietly, almost secretly through Order in Council.

How many thought after Watergate that government would never be able to get away with such shenanigans again with the watchful eye of the media ready to pounce at the first sign of government subversion and abuse of power.  Yet here we are, thirty-seven years after Nixon’s ignoble resignation.  Is it because of our delusion that Canada is somehow more moral than the United States?  Or is it just because the media we trusted to raise the warning is now owned by a handful of men who create our leaders for us?

Whatever the cause it seems so little changes.  Like lemmings we blindly we run merrily to our demise again and again.  So here it is.  The words are all Phil Ochs except for the name and a few minor adjustments to make it fit more snugly to Stephan ‘Milhous’ Harper.

Here’s to the State of Stephan Harper

Here’s to the state of Stephan Harper.

Where underneath his borders

The Devil draws no lines.

If you drag his putrid tar sands

Nameless toxins you will find

And the fat trees of the forest

Have hid a thousand crimes,

And the calendar is lying

When it reads the present time.

[Chorus]

Oh here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of.

Stephan Harper: find yourself another country to be part of.

And here’s to the schools of Stephan Harper.

Where they’re teaching all the children

That they don’t have to care,

All the rudiments of hatred

Are present everywhere,

And every single classroom

Is a factory of despair.

There’s nobody learning

Such a foreign word as “fair.”

[Chorus]

And here’s to the laws of Stephan Harper.

Where the laws are set in secret,

Proroguing every day.

He punishes with income tax

That he don’t have to pay,

And he’s tapping his own brother

Just to hear what he would say.

But corruption can be classic

In the Stephan Harper way.

[Chorus]

And here’s to the churches of Stephan Harper (and Billy Graham).

Where the cross once made of silver

Now is caked with rust,

And the Sunday morning sermons

Pander to their lust,

And the fallen face of Jesus

Is choking in the dust,

And Heaven only knows

In which God they can trust.

[Chorus]

And here’s to the government of Stephan Harper.

In the swamp of their bureaucracy

They’re always bogging down,

And criminals are posing

As advisors to the crown,

And they hope that no one sees the sights

And no one hears the sounds,

And the speeches of the prime minister

Are the ravings of a clown.

[Chorus]

Make it happen Canada!

I know that many out there will think my little choo-choo has finally gone around the bend.  Have I slipped into madness?  To think that the government staged burning police cars and smashing windows is just insane, right?  And that is exactly why governments get away with it.  It is insane.  But let’s look at the most important evidence:  the motive.

The first measure of the veracity of a conspiracy theory is motive.  This is where most conspiracy theories fall apart.  If their is no compelling reason to conspire to do something why go to all the trouble and risk?  Take the Kennedy assassination for instance.  This conspiracy has been around for 47 years now but the problem with every scenario is the why.  Kennedy was in trouble politically.  Why waste a bullet and drawing all that attention on a president that was about to become another one term wonder.  But in the case of the G20 the motives are strong, compelling and multiple.

First there was the enormous cost of the security operation.  While it certainly is the least important of the motives it is still compelling.  An election is almost certain within the next 5 to 12 months.  Having spent over a billion dollars on security how could the Conservative party face the electorate if nothing very notable had happened?  This is a variation on the old saying ‘What if they threw a war and nobody showed up?’ In this case what if they spend all this money and the protesters don’t cause enough damage.  With Canadians suffering economically the Conservatives could not afford to be seen to be spending money frivolously.  Especially not after FakeLakeGate.  The only way to be sure that the protest would get out of hand and frighten Canadians was for police agents to physically start the process.  After all you can’t trust a bunch of tree-hugging, hippie, leftist peaceniks to start a decent riot now can you.

This brings us to the second motive:  frightening Canadians.  In the pages of this blog and billions of others around the globe people like me have been warning of the impending security, financial and environmental reckoning.  Even the Pentagon report to the Bush administration stated clearly that this planet will not be able to sustain a population of more than 3 billion people by 2100.  That is less than half of today’s global population and less than a third of the 9.1 billion projected for 2050.  The Pentagon estimate I should add is the most generous of all I have encountered.  Most others estimate a maximum sustainable population of around one billion and a few even less.  The lowest estimated sustainable population for 2100 that I have come across was approximately 100 million.  Today there are a few hundred thousand climate refugees.  Within a few short years there will be millions and then billions.  James Lovelock suggests we built barricades and heighten security if we happen to be among the fortunate to live in a part of the globe that will still support human life.  To do this we must end this dalliance with democracy.  But we may not have to worry about that.  The financial and security reckonings may preempt the ecological.  Spillover from Iraq or Afghanistan or more likely both has the potential to draw in major powers resulting in large fast population reduction with the added turmoil, dislocation, lingering deaths of such a war destabilizing much of what survives.  And the financial meltdown has only begun.  It will play a role in the timing and ferocity of planetary ecological degradation and destabilization of global security.  The unwavering faith of our leaders in the American economic model shows their intellectual inability to conceptualize anything else thanks to a battered and bankrupt education system rather than the strength of the system.  Laissez-faire capitalism is a chimera.  It has failed every time it has been attempted.  But this time it has been pushed farther and the very institutions that society had created over the centuries to protect itself from the worst consequences have been systematically dismantled or undermined by the priesthood of the New Right.

Government officials may deny the inevitability of these events.  They may assist their lackeys in the main stream media to foster confusion.  But at the highest levels they know as well as I do that these events will take place.  Their plan or assumption is that they will be among the survivors and the rest of us be damned.  To do that they must heed Lovelock and end democracy.  To seize power arbitrarily would trigger a backlash.  Too messy and uncertain.  Much more effective to convince Canadians to surrender their rights and freedoms in the name of security.  A quick survey of the letters to the editor in support of the police actions in Toronto should prove beyond a doubt that the tactic is working.  Canadians seem more than willing to surrender everything they say they fought for in the world wars and are supposedly fighting for in Afghanistan.  What irony to send troops half way around the world to fight for a value we do not prize at home.  The G20 events in Toronto had a powerful effect on the unsophisticated and uninformed.  We will see the anti-terrorism laws renewed expanded when they next come up for review and we will see a general and substantial increase in police powers over the next five years.  The G20 protests will be as powerful a symbol in the hands of Canadian elites as 9/11 was to American elites as they stripped the liberty from Land of Liberty.  They needed it and they got it because they did it.  As simple as that.  Any who question rising authoritarianism will be shown pictures of burning police cars as Americans who question are shown the images of 9/11 and in an earlier generation on another continent those who questioned were reminded of the Reichstag fire until the die was cast and they could be silenced more effectively.

The final motive is chaos.  In chaos it is a human tendency to cling to the known rather than fly to things we know not of as Shakespeare might say.  New economic ideas, new ecological initiatives and new diplomatic peace initiatives all take a leap of faith.  It always seems risky to move in a new direction.  And it is risky but better risk swimming for shore than cling to a sinking lifeboat.  Is it a surprise to anyone that those who benefit most from the status quo should want to disparage alternatives.  By painting the protesters as the lunatic fringe, the current elites can assure the support of the timid which is most Canadians who face the challenges of day to day living.  As Otto von Bismarck said  so eloquently ‘A man who relies upon the state for his pension is not likely to rebel against that state.’ By the time most Canadians realize that their comfort is no longer exists it will be too late.  In this way the political and economic elites of this country smear their opponents and solidify their support.  It is a bold stroke.

So there you have it.  The motives for the government to commit insanity.  I suspect that many remain unconvinced.  They will say that this is too Machiavellian.  After all these are good people, good Canadians.  We just don’t do these kind of things or have these kinds of motivations.  To those I say this.  To deny that the above is plausible is to deny:

• that there were no Residential Schools;
• that there have been concentration camps in Canada (1914-18, 1930-36, 1940-46);
• that Canadian POW camps at the end of World War Two allowed Nazi officers to hold courts martial and execute German prisoners under our protection with guns and bullets supplied by the camp administration;
• that over a million Canadians were spied on and blacklisted by the RCMP during the Cold War.  The information gathered shared with the United States.  Many had their lives and / or careers destroyed.   Several committed suicide or died prematurely from stress.  Their crimes included subscription to the wrong journals, activity in their trade union, support for the United Nations, support for peace, etc.;
• that there was no Maher Arar;
• there is no Omar Khadr.

The list could go on but I think you get the picture.  So before you judge me mad you must first explain why our government should be trusted given the track record.

Conservatives are often the culprits in both countries though not exclusively as the reference to Clinton shows.  It is not really that the Liberals are all that chaste.  But Conservatives are always lecturing us to be choirboys, seemingly forgetting that being a choirboy can be hazardous to your virginity.

Some of us are old enough to remember the Gerda Munsinger Affair that scandalized the Conservative government of John Diefenbaker.  Apparently Gerda had done the rounds of the Conservative party leadership including the minister of defence.  She was rumoured to have connections to the East German secret police.  The story was disseminated in the early 1960s, likely by the Kennedy administration who worked tirelessly to oust poor old Dief and install the more likable (at least to Kennedy) Lester Pearson.

More recently there was the scandal over Maxime Bernier leaving secret documents at his girlfriend’s home.  Pundits at the time wondered why he would risk his political career by dating a  woman with biker connections who had once worked as an exotic dancer.  Ah! our intrepid media, a brain trust if there ever was one.  I can give you two very large reasons up front it you would like.  If the reporters don’t realize why they should talk to their cameramen because they always seemed to place the reason front and center.

I always knew Betty Davis eyes were a popular look but Sarah Palin hair?

Now we have the dynamic duo of scandal, Rahim Jaffer and wife Helena Guergis.  Allegations have been brought to the prime minister’s attention of some shenanigans by Ms. Guergis and she was asked to resign from cabinet and was at the same time expelled from caucus.  Although no official word has surfaced as to what specifically she is supposed to have done rumours abound.  The only observation I will make is that having a minister resign is a common tactic to ease pressure and embarrassment for the government.  But also expelling the member from caucus in one fell swoop is not an every day occurrence.  Whatever this is Harper must think it makes him and his government, which is the same thing, look really, really bad.  I can hardly wait I am so excited with anticipation.

In the meantime, let’s have a look at her husband Rahim Jaffer a former Conservative MP from Alberta, land of cold hearts and toxic waste.  Apparently, Mr. Jaffer was internalizing some toxic waste of his own last September when he was pulled over by Ontario police.  He was speeding, drunk and cocaine was found in his car.  In a plea bargain the more serious impaired and drug possession charges were dropped and he pled guilty to the lesser charge of careless driving.  Wait for it.  That’s not the best part.

The reason for pleading Mr. Jaffer down was the Crown’s decision that conviction was unlikely.  Why you might ask?  Well the Ontario Keystone Cops refused to let the man see his own lawyer on request and made the poor man get naked.  That’s right, naked.   Now I know we hear constantly in the media that there is a shortage of cops out there and the workload is getting pretty heavy.  Dalton McGuinty says these little slip ups will happen from time to time.  But really now, give these poor guys some R and R and let them see their wives and girlfriends once in a while.  We can’t have police roaming the highways looking for some unsuspecting speeder to fulfill their fantasies.

Now I could be interpreting this wrong.  After all I am reading it in a CBC report where the wording could be read another way.  The actual quote is “… repeatedly denying Jaffer access to his own lawyers and a strip search after he was pulled over on a rural road …”.  So was Jaffer asking for a strip search.  Maybe he’s thought the silhouette of his body in the moonlight would bring a soft sigh and a warning rather than arrest.  Either way our police need to find better ways to relieve the tension.  Perhaps that could be a new use for those tasers they are so fond of.

Of course, even if the Crown had moved forward on the cocaine charges Jaffer could have used Richard Hatfield’s defence.  Hatfield, then Conservative premier of New Brunswick, was found at Fredericton airport with a bag of marijuana in his luggage.  He denied it belonged to him and had the police dust the bag for prints.  When his weren’t found charges did not proceed.

So thank you for being consistent, Conservative party.  Hypocrisy is what you are best at.  Good thing cause you aren’t good for anything else.  The Liberals may be slimy, power-hungry spawn of Satan who would pimp their mother for a vote, but at least they admit it.  The Conservative choir may sing like angels but up close there cassocks smell of booze and stale sex.

Such is the dilemma of the Canadian people this fall.  Michael Ignatieff vows he will bring down the government at the first opportunity.  An easy vow to make knowing the NDP is in no shape for an election and would be inclined to support the Harper government rather than fly into debt they cannot pay.  Actually Layton and the NDP had been using the same strategy vowing never to support the Conservative government in the knowledge that the Liberals at that time feared an election.  And so the brinkmanship and the nonsense continue.  Caught in the middle of the sandbox, surrounded by surly children each wanting to be King for a day or however long a government lasts these day, is the Canadian people.  Mired in recession, casualty counts from an unpopular war rising and being shafted by the so called friend (U. S.) that dragged us into this mess, Canadians are in no mood for childish behaviour.

The sad thing is that minority governments can be the best government.  Forced as they are to compromise in order to govern, history has supplied us with numerous examples of successful minority governments.  Much of the social safety net we are so proud of today was the result of minority government as were our national anthem and our flag.  Minority government can also be full term government as in the Davis minority in Ontario during the early 1980s and the King federal government of the early 1920s.  Both of those lasted four years.

In this round of minorities the egos of the players get in the way.  Mr. Harper strikes at Mr. Ignatieff’s narcissism and lengthy sojourn to the land of the drive-thru gun shop.  Mr. Ignatieff parries and replies with a thrust at Mr. Harper’s dogmatism.  The King-makers are the 2 court jesters.  Painted harlequins they prance around the two main party leaders, now getting smacked aside, now being embraced and cajoled.  Their patrons laugh and sneer at them at caucus meetings and use them as they wish in the House of Commons.  They stand as the most fitting symbol of the current state of Canadian politics:  parliament would be funny if so many people weren’t getting hurt.

Arguing that we should avoid an election now because we would just get more of the same begs the question whether we should ever again bother with such an ineffective, expensive farce.  More of the same is what we will get for the foreseeable future.  Even if one of the head knobs were to form a majority government, nothing much would change except that the opposition parties would feel even more secure in mugging for the cameras, portraying themselves as the great champion of the Canadian people.  No my friends Canadian politics has changed.  We can hope that Harper’s Hamlet and Ignatieff’s Laertes politically die on each other’s swords but the hope is probably vain as who might follow may be no better.  No my friends we must come to the realization that the only lions left in Rome are in the arena.

The Good

The Summit of the Americas held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago focused among other things on the exclusion of Cuba.  President Obama appears ready to engage Cuba but on what terms.  A return to pre-Castro Cuba is not an option, at least for the people of the island.  Fidel Castro was an icon of the 20th century.  His legacy will live on in Cuba for generations to come.  Some people hate him, some people love him.  Castro has done marvelous things for Cuba.  Did he make mistakes?  Yes, of course he did.  But the benefits to the island far outweigh any negative. 

It is true that elections as we know them have not been held in Cuba since Castro marched into Havana to seize power January 1, 1959.  Oh wait, elections hadn’t happened in Cuba for a long time prior to Castro occupying the presidential palace.  So maybe U. S. hatred of Cuba wasn’t about democratic ideals.  I know, it was about land reform.  How dare Castro distribute land legally owned by faceless American corporations to those greedy campesinos.  Or maybe it was the public education or health care that offended the moral sense of America.  Whatever it was, for the sake of the Cuban people, I sure hope the Americans don’t get their way and dismantle it. 

The Bad

I have always wondered what the Castro revolution might have looked like had it not faced the enmity of the world’s most powerful state since its infancy.  All states while under siege from a foreign power centralize authority and keep a fairly tight reign on political factions.  For example Canadians should read the War Measure Act.  To think that U. S. behaviour did not affect Cuba would be naive to the extreme.  With the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its patron and source of much of its foreign capital.  The island has been facing economic hardships since the 1990s, not because Castro’s economic policies were flawed, but because the United States won the Cold War. 

People will follow anyone who offers them bread.  Castro gave them bread but much more in the bargain.  While he was forced to keep tight political control he did not sink to using death squads as most American supported Latin American regimes have done.  Cuban jails hold political prisoners as does America’s today.  Just ask Leonard Peltier of the American Indian Movement.  Barak Obama has a chance here to show that he is truly a different kind of American politician.  Can he reach out America’s hand in friendship without clenching the fist and forcing a wad of America political culture back down the throat of Cubans.  A minor incident gives me some inkling of what is to come.  When questioned about a book he received as a gift from Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, Obama made a joke.  The book was a chronicle of the abuses of the South American continent by American and European powers.  I know that would leave me laughing in my

The Ugly

armchair.  (The book is The Open Veins of Latin America:  Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano) 

Our intrepid leader, Stephen Harper, in his usual right off the hay wagon style said that he supported warming up relations between Washington and Havana but reassured his supporters back home that he was still an anti-communist conservative.  I must have missed that class back at university.  The one where we studied pro-communist conservatives because I have never heard of them before.  It just shows that none of us are as smart as we think we are.

For the Cuban people, Fidel Castro passing from the political scene, should be and I suspect is for most, a moment of reflection.  Fidel’s health has been failing in recent years.  He has had to hand over political control to his brother Raul although I suspect he is no farther away from the levers of power than his health forces him.  Raul reminds me of those reasonable facsimiles one could send in instead of actual boxtops to receive a baking soda submarine.  He is just not the real thing.  Regardless it is not Raul that the Americans have to deal with, it is the legacy of a giant, Fidel Castro.

I confess the whole thing has me a bit confused.  Global warming is a crisis and we need to deal with it.  The problem I have is that I hear a lot of talk but don’t see much action.  At least I don’t see a lot of improvement.  Sympathetic magic is a concept used by modern witches.  The theory is based on Like produces Like.  Well this looks like the environmental plan decided on by our social and political leaders.  If we talk about it long enough and wish for it hard enough then maybe the fairies of fate will grant our wish.  I can see the coven meetings in Ottawa now with Stephen Harper as High Priest complete with stag horns with John Baird his faithful familiar. 

The other problem is that each solution is being pitched as THE solution.  Whether it is the demon spawn of macho muscle cars with the little veggie car that could or a new coloured box weekly set out at the curb, do this and all will be well is the pitch.  Reality dictates that none of these really is THE answer and ALL of these are the answers.  We must comprehensively change the way we live and the way our societies are structured.  That is something none of our leaders want to talk about. 

Recycling helps and it is a good thing to do.  It is starting now to expand but more has to be done and fast.  One of the saddest facts of the recycling program is that most of our recyclables end up in landfill anyway, just not our local landfill.  Out of sight, out of mind.  (I believe most of my recyclables are land-filled around Hamilton, Ontario which should annoy some of my colleagues )That’s not going to get us anywhere.  There is not yet a strong enough market for the materials.  The way to change this is to not offer a choice between products from recycled materials and new materials.  If it can be made from recycled material, it MUST be made of recycled material.  If we want to be serious about this process that must be our mantra. 

The new energy efficient light bulbs being championed by David Suzuki solve one problem but create another.  No plan to dispose of the mercury contained in them is presented along with the songs of praise.  We cannot afford solutions that create problems elsewhere.  The global biosphere is an wholistic system.  The goal is to save it, not sweep the problems under a different leaf.  Suzuki and other proponents of these bulbs make two arguments in their defense.  Their long life means that the mercury is contained for perhaps a decade or more, there will be fewer light bulbs land-filled and therefore the impact will be minimal.  I forget.  How many billions in a minimal?  Their lifespan is impressive providing nothing goes wrong.  No incompetent handyman clips one with a ladder.  No child disobeys a parent and plays ball in the house.  No roof leaks.  You get the picture.  The second argument is that the amount of mercury is minimal.  (See my previous question concerning minimal)  We are told the mercury content is no more than that found in a watch battery.  That really isn’t very much but I have only owned about a dozen watches through my life.  Disregarding the ones that I had to wind that leaves three.  I am currently wearing one and the other two, sentimental mementos of times gone by, are resting sans batteries in my jewelry box to be taken out only in those private moments of tears and scotch.  I have only ever replaced the battery in one of them.  But light bulbs?  I got light bulbs coming out the ying yang.  I counted 35 in my little semi-detached.  Multiply that over the billion or so people in the industrialized first world and we are talking impact.  The other problem I have with Suzuki’s argument here is that it is dismissive.  He doesn’t argue that it is not a problem but that we shouldn’t worry about it.  That is straight from the playbook of the idiots that got us all into this mess in the first place so excuse me if I am not real receptive to it. 

As for the demon spawn mentioned above, hybrid cars, they show minimal carbon saving once all factors including manufacturing are considered.  Transportation is the toughest environmental nut to crack.  No one wants to give up their car.  Actually I do.  I can’t wait until I retire and go back to a car-less life.  Right now I would get rid of my vehicle if there were a viable public transportation option.  Currently we are spending billions, maybe trillions, of tax dollars to bail out an industry that must disappear if we want to spare this planet the horrors of an environmental holocaust.  The only answer is the disappearance of the private automobile.  Remove one or two lanes from the current multi-lane highways and dedicate them to public buses.  Move the terminals to major highway interchanges with local systems feeding them and voila public transit is faster and more convenient than private vehicles.  Eighty percent of the automobile traffic currently on the roads must be gone withing twenty years.  Let’s get over it and move on.  While there will be a transition of jobs with the change over, there need not be any net loss of jobs.  The naysayers seem to believe that if we eliminate the private automobile that the world will come to a stop as the people of this planet fall into a stunned silence, immobile for the rest of eternity. 

David Suzuki and others are supporting the creation of a carbon tax as a means to really get serious about the environment.  It does hold promise to reduce carbon emissions.  A carbon tax is a means of rationing by price.  That has been done successfully before .  However, in every case it has meant and will again this time that those at the bottom will shoulder the burden of lifting the world out of the crisis while those on top sail through their privileged lives with barely any inconvenience.  Heaven forbid that the people David socializes with, or he himself, pitch in.  Case in point, Suzuki was in the news this morning as part of a convention on Global Warming and winter sport I believe.  It really doesn’t  matter what the conference was about, it is the conference itself that was the problem.  Participants travelled many miles, most in airplanes to get to it.  Why?  Why couldn’t it have been done virtually given our current communications capabilities?  This would have made a gigantic carbon saving but Suzuki wouldn’t have the pleasure of staying at a luxury hotel and hobnobbing with his pals.  Before you start putting more pressure on the working class and those on fixed income to fight the good fight one more time, you should maybe enlist yourself and spend a little time at the front.

A better answer would be direct carbon rationing as suggested in George Monbiot’s book Heat(click on page on sidebar to see review).  Decide up front exactly how much carbon we can afford to expend each year and divide it up equally.  If I don’t use all of mine because I am careful and conserve I can sell the left over credit to some wasteful slob with money.  And trust me he will pay dear if he wants it.  (Actually let me thank George Monbiot for the alternative solutions he presented in his book which I have borrowed here.)  Publicly controlled rationing has also been done successfully in the past and it is fair and democratic.  But then I keep forgetting, most people don’t really believe in democracy, apparently including David Suzuki, the Verdant Prince.

Anyone who has ever sat in on an Anglican Church Board of Management meeting will be familiar with the words, ‘We’ve never done it that way before’.  Change is a scary thing to most people.  So why should we change our electoral system.  We have elections.  Governments get created.  So what is wrong?  In the United States, which uses the same system, the answer is a simple nothing.  America has a very narrow political culture and this is reflected in their two party political system.  The United States lacks a genuine conservatism and an indigenous socialism.  All Americans are some shade of liberal, from the classical laissez-faire liberalism of a George Bush to the reform liberalism of a Ted Kennedy.  With only two parties in play the single seat plurality system works just fine because it mimics a majoritarian system.  Once the universe of ideas expands the system begins to break down and cause problems. 

Proponents argue that the single seat plurality system (SSP) or first-past-the-post is preferable because it can produce a majority government with a minority of the vote.  The underlying assumption here is that majority governments are better governments because they are more stable.  The evidence in Canada shows that SSP fails to deliver on this approximately half of the time.  Half of all elections since 1921 when Canada’s political landscape began to expand beyond the Conservatives and Liberals, have resulted in minority governments.  Most of those minority governments have lasted two years or more with the odd exception.  Some like Mackenzie King’s 1921 minority lasted a full four years.  Provincially in Ontario, the only province with a healthy multi-party system, the final Davis Conservative minority government lasted from 1981 to 1985.  It is difficult in the face of the evidence to argue that minority government is inherently unstable.  Minority governments have often shown themselves to be very legislatively active as well.  Many of our most favoured policies such as our current health care system were the product of minority governments.  So good policy gets passed and elections are not held every other day, so what is so terrible about minority governments?  Of course you have to know how to govern.  A minority government forces compromise, negotiation and cooperation among the parties.  If you are a simple minded ideologue who cannot fathom that other people might have ideas and you must always get your own way then yes a minority government would be a problem (Not to mention any names but we all know who we are talking about here).    But those sorts of people should be discouraged from public office anyway.  Look what happened to Germany when they elected someone like that in the 1930s. 

The most consistent problem facing Canada is unity.  At times it has reached crisis level as in 1995.  SSP contributes to and exacerbates this very problem.  Our current system rewards regional parties and punishes national parties.  Let’s look at the 1993 election results.  The Bloc Quebeςois received 13% of the national vote to win 54 seats in the House of Commons and become Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition (great irony); the Reform Party received 19% of the national vote to win 52 seats just behind the Bloc; the Conservatives received 16% of the national vote to win 2 seats.  Now you don’t have to be a mathematician or a political junkie to look at this and know that something is wrong.  The two regional parties (the Bloc in Quebec and Reform in the West) received 27  and 26 times respectively the number of seats in the House compared to the Conservatives with 3% less and 3% more respectively of the popular vote.  Therefore in our system it pays to focus on a regional agenda fanning the flames of distrust between the West and Central Canada and between English and French Canada.  If there ever was evidence of the absence of character of our elected representatives this is it.  Our electoral system is tearing our country apart and they refuse to change it because they receive petty personal benefits from it.  Any parliament can change the electoral system in a matter of days if they want to.  It requires only a simple majority vote in the House of Commons and Senate.  Shame on them that they have so little regard for the nation they purport to represent.  

The more obvious and general problem with SSP is its distortion of democracy.  Democracy is supposed to mean rule by the people or the mob depending on your view.  Aristotle, from whom I derived the name for this blog, saw democracy as the best of the worst systems of government.  It appears today that many who claim to defend it are really supporting what Aristotle called a Polity, rule by the many.  In reality we are actually an elected Oligarchy, rule by the wealthy and powerful.  SSP supports this system very well.  Proportional representation would weaken but not undermine it.  As you know from my previous post no electoral system meets my standard for democracy.  But proportional representation (PR) is a step in the right direction. 

The critics of PR say it leads to perpetual minorities but I have already established that minority government does not necessarily equate to bad government.  They argue, even in the face of the historical evidence in Canada that minority government in this country is relatively stable, that should PR be adopted this would break down and elections would be a constant fact of life.  The example of choice is invariably Italy.  Now it is true that at some times Italy changes prime ministers more often than I change my underwear.  There coalition governments have been known to be quite fragile.  But that is the result of Italian political culture and not proportional representation.  Anyone familiar with Italy knows that North Italy and Southern Italy are almost two different planets.  Critics never seem to want to talk about Sweden or Germany or The Netherlands, only Italy.  Governments are stable in stable political cultures and unstable in unstable political cultures.  So there is no reason to believe that Parliament Hill would become a grand national game of musical chairs because we adopt PR.

Does the tail wag the dog in PR systems?  This is another common argument.  Proportional representation gives too much power to small parties.  I have alluded to something of that difficulty in my previous article on the upcoming Israeli elections.  Yes smaller parties become necessary partners to form governments in this type of system.  This can be a problem in Israel particularly because it is a pure proportional system.  The entire country is one single constituency so that even a party with one or two percent of the vote can win a seat.  If we were to adopt PR here in Canada it would be absurd to attempt to make the entire country one large political constituency.  As now we would divide the country up in numerous constituencies, much larger than our current ridings.  For example we might take six of our current ridings and meld them together.  In that new riding the vote would be counted and six seats would be apportioned to the parties.  This is but one example.  We might divide Canada in any of a number of ways but divide we must.  If we take the six example I have used a party would need at least 10% of the vote in the enlarged riding to receive one of the six seats.  So in Canada we are not talking about parties with one or two percent seating members in the House.  Smaller parties would still have influence and a voice but would not wag the dog.  And as much as larger parties need the smaller parties to form governments the smaller need the larger to influence policy so it is in both interests to compromise, negotiate and cooperate. 

Proportional representation would benefit Canada by easing our regional tensions and expanding our democratic culture.  Liberals, Greens or NDPs in Alberta would finally be recognized and have MPs who sympathize with and share their views to appeal to as would Conservatives and NDPs in Quebec.  There is only one real argument against adopting this system:  The self-serving pettiness of the people who have the ability to make the change.

If nothing is done in response to this situation it undermines the credibility of the entire constitution.  A constitution is just a legal charter or contract.  Some parts are written in a special document and other parts are scattered through other documents and court decisions.  Just like a contract you might sign to buy a house or obtain employment, the rules or conditions specified within must be observed.  Now if I violate a condition of say an employment contract, said contract becomes null and void.  Once I violate one part without sanction, why would I not violate other areas and expect, based on precedent, to avoid sanction?  This is what has happened.  The Supreme Court constitutional decision on conditions for Quebec separation is now void.  The constitution no longer exists.  The Charter of Rights and Freedoms no longer applies because it is part of the constitution which no longer has authority.  These examples may sound far fetched and I don’t expect Quebec to leave today or the RCMP to start violating your Charter rights (at least no more than they do already).  My point here is to drive home that this is serious and has consequences beyond the immediate situation. 

This is the first time that I am aware of since 1926 that a sitting prime minister has made an inappropriate request of a governor-general.  In that case Lord Julian Byng had the strength of character to fulfill his responsibilities and deny the request.  Apparently Michaël Jean does not. 

But who has the power to remove a governor-general?  Certainly, as a representative of the Crown, Elizabeth should have the authority to say I would like someone else to represent me.  Elizabeth is the Queen of Canada (among her guzillion titles).  We are a constitutional monarchy.  Therefore, I suppose we could ask Elizabeth herself to overturn the ruling of her representative.  That is not going to happen.  The British Crown, while nominally our Head of State, is not about to crawl into this can of worms.  The next question then is can the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court remove Jean from office?  I don’t know.  That question will have to be answered by a constitutional scholar of much greater expertise than me. 

Still, something must be done, if we wish to maintain self-respect as an independent state.  Our spineless news media will be of no help as they are already trying to downplay this (under command of their Conservative-buying corporate bosses no doubt).  Since the beginning, through innuendo and suggestion, they have been convincing Canadians that the opposition parties were doing something, if not illegal, then unethical and certainly sleazy.  They have consistently echoed the Conservative assertion that the opposition only coalesced around the cuts to political party funding in the economic statement tabled in the House.  I understand the Conservatives saying that and I don’t expect them to prove it.  It is partisan rhetoric which is equalled by the other side, fair enough.  But if the laughingly self-described objective media are going to print it or broadcast it, then they should have to prove it.  At this point there has been no such tendering of evidence to the public. 

So as everything else it is left up to you and me.  What can we do?  Freedom and democracy are always fought and struggled for from below as John Pilger said in his speech on “Freedom This Time”, (his new book).  It is up to us.  Do we stand up for the rules and attempt to make things right?  Or do we sit back and accept whatever happens?  If we do the former as the news media seems to want us to do we are saying that ours is not a serious country; Canada is a toy, a Disney production, the little country that could; our politics are not serious.  If that is the case, if that is what Canadians feel, then stop the pretense and let’s apply for annexation by the United States.  I can think of nothing more loathesome to me than being an American except being a citizen of a national joke.  At least Americans take their politics seriously.  You know there was an old Russian saying that a peasant did not care who was in the Kremlin as long as he had his vodka and a woman.  So I guess that kind of describes most Canadians too.  You are not going to lose your job tomorrow (and hell next week is so far off) so the case of beer is safely in the fridge for this weekend and I am sure you can all find some warm company (even if some of you have to blow her up first).  So hey there has to be something better on TV than all this political crap.  Well I want you to remember these thoughts when they are loading you onto the train to the gulag in Nunavut like so many Russians or you are watching your entire family being murdered like so many Ukranians.  That’s right, don’t worry about your rights.  If you ignore them they will go away (actually most already have gone with silence from our intrepid media)

But me?  Here is what I am going to do.  Tonight I will write 3 letters.  One to Michaëlle Jean requesting that she do the honourable thing and resign.  The second letter will be to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to request the Court to intervene if it has the power.  The third letter will be to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to request that she remove her representative at once and reverse her erroneous decision.  Maybe, probably, nothing will come of it.  Who the hell am I?  A nobody prof at a small college in the backwaters of Ontario.  But at least I will have done something.  Flo Kennedy once said the worst thing you can do is sit on your ass.  So the question is do you want to stand up with the crackpots like me and do something or would you rather spend tonight nursing a new hemorrhoid?  Your choice.

In the event that Mr. Harper lacks character and chooses to cut and run, I suggest the opposition coalition consider a preemptive strike.  Today, as every day there will be a debate on adjournment.  During that time any member of the House may rise to speak on an issue she/he feels has not be adequately addressed during the day’s proceedings.  The coalition could use this opportunity to bring down the government.  The agreement is in place.  Everything seems prepared to move ahead.  So why wait until Monday? 

I am sure someone is going to scream ‘Where’s the precedent?’.  In 1940, on the day that France surrendered to the Nazis, the British House of Commons at Westminster entertained a motion to adjourn for the day.  The ensuing debate ended up lasting a couple of days as MPs made the argument that the House should not adjourn when faced with the loss of their largest ally on the European continent.  When the vote was finally called Prime Minister Chamberlain did indeed win but the vote was so close that he realized that a large number of his own MPs had voted against him.  The next day he visited the King to resign and the King called on Winston Churchill to form a government.  The rest as they say is history. 

Canada is facing a crisis.  We may be on the edge of a new Great Depression.  Hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector while the government boasts of the creation of low paying part time jobs in the service sector.  Even the restructuring bail out being considered in Washington for North American automakers contains further job losses which they euphemistically call downsizing to increase profitability.  Heaven help us if we call a spade a spade anymore.  We need these sweet sounding phrases so as not to think about the fact that we are destroying people’s lives.  We are mired in a foreign war which is draining wealth from our economy while providing no positive return for Canada or Afghanistan.  None of our allies are dumb enough to take over and relieve us.  Maybe that alone should tell us something. 

So enough.  Stand up like a man Mr. Harper and take your medicine.  Better to go down in flames than linger on a pathetic weasel.  If you don’t have the stomach for it then the opposition coalition should put you out of your misery.  Mr. Dion, Mr. Layton and Mr. Duceppe act now before the vermin slips the trap.

So what comes next?  The Liberals and NDP are talking coalition.  They would still need the support of the Bloc Quebecois in order to govern but the Bloc, at least at this point, will not be a part of the coalition government.  The Conservatives are going to argue, if it comes to that, that a coalition is unconstitutional and that the governor-general should call an election instead.  Most Canadians are unaware that nothing of our governing system is in the Constitution.  The only vague reference in CA1867 (formerly the British North America Act) is in the preamble where is mentions forming a government similar in kind to that of Great Britain.  Our current governing system does reflect, in its basic structures, the Westminister model of government.  The prime minister was not even mentioned in the Constitution until the 1982 amendment.  So what Mr. Harper is hanging his hat on is something called constitutional conventions.  These are unwritten bits of the constitution.  A constitutional convention is another way of saying tradition.  Those practices that have arisen and stood the test of time are understood as constitutional by the courts.  It is equal to the precedent concept.  While the courts do recognize them, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be overruled if it seems that they have outlived their usefulness or are in some way injurious to the society.  They are much easier to change than anything that is actually written into the constitutional documents. 

Are there precendents?  The closest would be the Liberal-NDP Accord in the Ontario provincial legislature in 1985.  This was not a coalition.  In exchange for the passage of specific legislation, the NDP committed to not defeat the government on a confidence motion for two years.  At the time the Conservatives held the most seats in the legislature but were finding it impossible to govern as a minority.  When Frank Miller resigned as premiere, David Peterson, with the Accord in hand, presented the lieutenant-governor with the option of allowing him to form a government, thus avoiding an election so soon on the heels of the last.  The other precedent that comes to mind is the Union Government of 1917 but in that case the coalition was arranged prior to the election and ran as such.  There are other examples of deals between parties to support a minority government such as the ‘Shopping List’ presented by the NDP to the Conservatives and Liberals in 1972 (for those of you who don’t remember or are too young to remember the Liberals won the bidding).  So all in all while there is no direct precedent, a federal coalition government in no way contridicts what has gone before.  We have a history of cooperative efforts between parties and a coalition would be just another level up. 

It would create a greater constitutional crisis for Canada if the governor-general were to deny the request of the Liberals to form a coalition.  Another fact that Canadians don’t fully understand is that we, the people, do not elect the prime minister.  We elect a person in our riding.  That person belongs to a specific party in most cases (leaving independents aside for the moment).  When the seat count is added up the party with the most seats usually forms the government.  That’s right, usually.  While there is not an actual vote for prime minister the House of Commons nonetheless does make the choice.  A prime minister remains in office as long as she/he retains the confidence of the House.  At any moment, whether in majority or minority, if a prime minister loses on a confidence vote she/he must resign.  Of course this has never happened in a majority situation in Canada and is not likely to.  But it is a real possibility in minority.  On the other hand, if a party leader can provide proof that they would enjoy the confidence of the House, the governor-general would be hard pressed to deny them the opportunity.  This is the situation which appears to be forming up.  Therefore, if Stephane Dion (providing he is still leading the Liberal Party) approaches Governor-General Michaëlle Jean and proposes a coalition government with the NDP supported by the Bloc with all parties in agreement, her only answer can be to give him the opportunity. 

Is all this hullabaloo necessary?  Probably not but it was inevitable.  Stephen Harper had shown himself incapable of working in a minority situation in the last parliament when he had even fewer seats.  Now with the scent of majority in his nose there would be no dealing with him at all.  Stephen is one of those people whose look matches their personality.  He really is just as anal as he looks.  Hell you couldn’t pull a needle out of his butt with a backhoe.  Anal retentive people tend to be control freaks unable to compromise and successful minority governments are all about compromise.  And in the end that is what a democracy should be. 

We must wait to see how this all plays out.  The Conservatives may find a compromise or the opposition parties may get cold feet before the December 8 vote in the House of Commons and all this speculation will be for naught.