The Shotgun Blog
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Friday, October 12, 2007
Don't Question Their Patriotism!
"Timing of genocide resolution questioned" is the headline of an article in Time Magazine on the Democratic House resolution about the Armenian genocide. That's a mild way of putting it. Why, you might ask, has this resolution come up now? Time doesn't quite come out and say it - but I will. This is a deliberate attempt to insult Turkey in order to cause a breach between the United States and that nation which will, in turn, undermine the ability of the United States to win in Iraq. As I recall, there used to be a name for acts designed to give aid and comfort to the enemies of a nation.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 12, 2007 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (35) | TrackBack
Bronco's squandered millions
The Calgary election is set for this Monday, October 15th, and incumbent Mayor Dave Bronconnier still expects an easy victory. This is despite the fact that Bronco's pet electrical commodity trading juggernaut Enmax has lost millions of taxpayers dollars in order to undercut competition under the guise of increasing market share.
The market share in this case would include customers in Edmonton, Lethbridge and Red Deer, as well as to private industry and even the federal government.
The fact is, Enmax is not merely trying to increase market share but it continually attempts to prove itself to Calgarians by offering cheap power. This a political stance and is fiercely guarded by the Mayor and his handlers.
You can read about it here at mayoral candidate Sandy Jenkins' campaign blog (disclosure: I am Sandy Jenkins' campaign manager), and you can read the peer-reviewed paper on Enmax by the U of C's Aidan Hollis here. The gist of it is that Calgarians are short hundreds of millions of dollars in order to subsidize residents of Edmonton and the federal government, as well as to earn political capital.
This is unconscionable and Bronconnier must explain his continued support for Enmax.
I'm asking you, dear reader, to expect accountability from both the mayor and Calgary's media and that you demand answers from both.
Posted by Rob Huck on October 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack
Liar wins Nobel Peace Prize (like that's never happened before)
Al Gore's junk science environmentalism has inspired millions of, er, heated arguments, made little children cry, ruined countless first dates, and contributed to one high profile divorce.
So of course he wins a "Peace" Prize.
Another Alfred -- Nobel -- endowed his famous prizes as a "Winchester House" style conscience sop. He'd invented dynamite, to blast away rock during mining. Naturally, dynamite's until-then unmatched ability to blast away human beings was also discovered shortly thereafter, to Nobel's eternal shame. Luckily, he didn't live to see the prize handed out to Arafat and Jimmy Carter...
If Al Gore is a decent man (and they jury's still out), thirty years from now, having admitted he was wrong about global warming, he will endow a new prize of his own, to be presented annually to a man or woman who tried to undo the incalculable damage he'd done with An Inconvenient Truth.
I hereby nominate Bjorn Lomborg as its first recipient...
Meanwhile, I can think of no better way to commemorate this special occasion than by directing you to Hugh Hewitt's classic litany of Gore's lies, "Gorelero" (which only goes up to the year 2000.)
Here's a sample:
In the fall of 1968 Al Gore claimed that he'd influenced the nomination acceptance speech of Hubert Humphrey through conversations with a Chicago Sun columnist. Al Gore asserted he was Humphrey's ghost writer, but the columnist said that he had nothing to do with that speech. Al Gore's claim wasn't true.
In 1987 Al Gore told the DesMoines Register as he began his Presidential campaign that his youthful reporting had led to the indictment and imprisonment of several people, but that wasn't true.
In August 1987 the Los Angeles Times reported that Gore had bragged that half of his Presidential Campaign staff were women, but it wasn't true.
In February of 1988 the Washington Post quoted Al Gore that he been shot at in Vietnam. It wasn't true. That claim was shot down by Newsweek in December of 1999.
Etc.
Then come back and unload here in the comments.
Posted by Kathy Shaidle on October 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (54) | TrackBack
"Atlas Shrugged": 50 years later
(Cross-posted from Burkean Canuck).
Depending on whether you believe the New York Times or the Ayn Rand Institute, the 50th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged was either October 12th or October 10th. If the latter, the title of Ayn Rand's, er, Alisa Rosenbaum's bestseller serves as the perfect reaction to the Ontario general election results.
Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Ayn Rand. However, she was an important popularizer of a number of first principles of social and political theory, as well as economics. Ayn Rand understood the power of literature and film to serve as vehicles for ideas -- something (sadly) the socialist and social democratic Left understood all too well, and the free market and constitutionalist Right understood too little for far too long. She introduced many students to ideas that for a long time seemed "verboten" in far too many university lecture theatres and seminars.
Rand popularized a number of ideas that had been around for awhile. Once introduced to the ideas she highlights, budding political philosophers and economist are well-advised to turn to others (as I wrote, here). The best analysis of Ayn Rand's deficiencies may still be Whittaker Chambers's withering critque, published about two and a half months after the publication of Atlas Shrugged:
It is, in sum, a forthright philosophic materialism. Upperclassmen might incline to sniff and say that the author has, with vast effort, contrived a simple materialist system, one, intellectually, at about the stage of the oxcart, though without mastering the principle of the wheel. Like any consistent materialism, this one begins by rejecting God, religion, original sin, etc., etc. (This book's aggressive atheism and rather unbuttoned "higher morality," which chiefly outrage some readers, are, in fact, secondary ripples, and result inevitably from its underpinning premises.) Thus, Randian Man, like Marxian Man, is made the center of a godless world.
What defeated Soviet, Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism? Unfettered capitalism? Put in Chambers's terms, was the leading bastion of Marxist materialism defeated by the leading bastion of free market capitalist materialism? Was the Cold War victory traceable to Ronald Reagan's leading a country whose economy allowed him to outspend the Russians on defence?
Or, is the end of the Cold War attributable to something else?
Posted by Russ Kuykendall on October 12, 2007 in Religion | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Thursday, October 11, 2007
An Afghanistan Commission? Bah.
Frankly, I’m deeply disappointed by the reports that the Prime Minister will be appointing a commission to examine Canada’s options in Afghanistan. In particular, I have a strong aversion to the idea of warfighting by consensus – that’s just asking to lose. Seriously, while I’m sure Pamela Wallin is a (insert generic complement here), does anyone seriously think that she has anything of value to contribute in the field of military strategy?
Of course, perhaps I’m being overly harsh. We can’t forget how General Grant’s military plan was devised by a committee led by Horace Greeley and Charles F. Adams – or how the plans for Operation Overlord were originally drawn up by Walter Winchell.
I’m deeply mystified by the idea that the government ought to consider the Afghan mission a political liability. Last I checked, the Tories were (at their highest) at 35% in the polls and the Afghan campaign stood at around 50%. Even if the campaign’s popularity were to descend to the level of the Iraq War in the United States – that is to say, with support somewhere in the high 30’s or low 40’s – amid our present political topography an election fought amid such numbers would probably still yield a Conservative majority or, at the very least, a stronger minority.
Not, please God, that I am suggesting that we ought to fight wars according to the dictates of Ipsos-Reid. It is a continuing source of amazement to me that we consider the views of a homemaker and part-time hairdresser from Peoria, Illinois on Iraq or the angry and ill-informed opinions of some electrician’s apprentice from Langley, British Columbia on Afghanistan to be in the least bit worthy of consideration.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 11, 2007 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (43) | TrackBack
Then Sue, Johnny
Now, I'm not a lawyer like some people but, so far as I know, a story which is "false" and "made up" rises to the level of actual malice on the part of a news organization. One might think that a highly-successful litigator might well take action against a news organization which was spreading a vicious and entirely untrue libel across the entire world.
I'm just saying. It's probably also worth reading his exact words carefully:
"The story is false. It's completely untrue, ridiculous"
"I've been in love with the same women for 30-plus years and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known"
Just reading it very carefully - I don't see anywhere where he specifically denies any sort of relationship with the woman in question. And, further, reading all of this in a lawyerly way, "the story is false" could mean any number of things. Similarly, telling us how much he loves his wife isn't actually all that relevant to the accusation at hand.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 11, 2007 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth “A political film” packed with “alarmism and exaggeration”: London Judge
Don’t take it from me; take it from Mr Justice Burton of the High Court in London (h/t National Newswatch - Canada’s finest news aggregator), who has ruled that Al Gore's whackumentary “An Inconvenient Truth” is riddled with errors, alarmism, exaggerations, and inconsistencies, and may be shown in UK classroms "only if it was accompanied by new guidlines to balance the former US vice-president’s ‘one-sided’ views.”
In the judgement, Burton identifies nine particular problematic points that must be addressed in the classroom along with the presentation of the film. My favorite - debunking the Drowning Polar Bear myth, which is the favorite battering ram of Canada’s pro-Kyoto humanity-haters:
Gore: Referred to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears were being found that had actually drowned “swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice”.
Judge: “The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.” That was not to say there might not in future be drowning-related deaths of bears if the trend of regression of pack ice continued - “but it plainly does not support Mr Gore’s description”.
(Cross-Posted at Flaggman's Canada)
Posted by Neil Flagg on October 11, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (73) | TrackBack
Of All the Bloody Promises…
Dalton “I won’t raise your taxes” McGuinty is great at making, and breaking, promises.
Now, fresh after an election victory, McGuinty decides to make more history by actually keeping one of his election promises! I suppose there’s a first for everything?
Of all the bloody campaign promises, why did McGuinty have to choose giving Ontarians an extra statutory holiday as the one to keep?
Basically, McGuinty’s promise is not one that he needs to find the money for. Instead, the cost of this promise will be paid for by Ontario businesses, as they pay their staff to take the day off. I suppose keeping promises is easy when someone else has to pay the freight? Well, that is the Liberal way, so I shouldn’t be surprised!
Given the current economic situation in Ontario, is this really a wise decision? Our manufacturing and tourist industries are facing some serious challenges. How is mandating another paid day off going to help our businesses to compete?
As much as I would personally like another vacation day, this is one promise I would rather McGuinty did not keep.
Cross-posted at www.exactlyright.ca.
Posted by Dave Hodson on October 11, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Looks like Jesus isn't PC
But that had been coming a while.....
AXED, WORKER WHO OFFENDED MUSLIMS BY PUTTING PICTURE OF JESUS ON A WALL
Gareth Langmead, 40, was stunned to be sent home from Manchester airport after putting up the image of the Sacred Heart.
Bosses are said to have ordered the car parks supervisor to be escorted off the premises after the Muslim complained.Mr Langmead was only reinstated three days later after an investigation found that his action was not intended to be “malicious or provocative”.The row comes a year after BA check-in worker Nadia Eweida was suspended for wearing a cross at Heathrow. Yesterday friends and union representatives backed Mr Langmead.One friend said: “He’s really gutted about this. “When he found the image in an office drawer, he thought it would be nice to pin it up. “In the end he was treated like a criminal and walked off the premises. He wasn’t trying to annoy anyone.He is Christian and it is a Christian piece of art. What is wrong with that?” Unison union official Glyn Platt said: “Suspending him was an over-reaction – this could have been dealt with informally.“It would have been more appropriate for someone to have had a quiet word with him, or to ask him to take the picture down if it caused any offence, rather than take any action. “There are no guidelines on what should or should not be pinned on a wall.”It is understood that Mr Langmead found the picture while cleaning out an office. He felt unable to throw it in a bin because of its religious importance and could not take it home in case that was seen as theft.It is understood the co-worker who complained alleged that hanging the picture was an “act of provocation”.
Posted by Leah Dowe on October 11, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBack
Biased Media
Look at this report by the infamous Associated Press: Myanmar Dissident Dies Under Questioning
Yes, it's just a simple questioning when it comes to brutal governments like Burma, Cuba, Syria or Iran but it is definitely a case of torture when it comes to Americans, Canadians and allied nations treating TERRORISTS in Gitmo, Afghanistan or Iraq. This is a prime example of hypocrisy of the mainstream media.
And one more reason why I have no trust in the media any more. Totally pathetic and biased! Don't you think?
Posted by Winston on October 11, 2007 in Current Affairs, Media | Permalink | Comments (93) | TrackBack
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
John Edwards Scandal?
So, we have a story which is slowly seeping into public life - rumours of an affair by Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards. Now, naturally, the National Enquirer isn't, in and of itself, sufficent proof of anything - but there's a little more on this. Just for a start, Mickey Kaus seems to be pretty sure of it .
Most of the speculation swirls around a woman named Rielle Hunter (a forty-four year-old filmmaker, formerly named Lisa Druck). A few weeks ago, Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post began asking questions about the odd disappearance of a series of web videos that she directed for the Edwards Campaign - making $114,461 in the process.
All of this is interesting in that it ties back into a brief item that ran on Page Six in the New York Post about a month and a half ago:
WHICH political candidate enjoys visiting New York because he has a girlfriend who lives downtown? The pol tells her he'll marry her when his current wife is out of the picture.
Leaving aside the grim implications of anticipating a moment when "his current wife is out of the picture" - there's this from an interview posted on Ms. Hunter's recently-deleted website ("RH" is Ms. Hunter):
JM: But I'm saying it's more extreme. I'm just curious why...
RH: ...I'm in New York?
JM: I suppose our reasons could overlap. Let me give you an example. Here in New York, a premium is placed on what I do. It's one of the few places in the country where being a writer is respected and admired.
RH: Oh so you're here for the love�for the recognition and the love?
JM: It's not why I'm here. I'm playing devil's advocate. But I like being here more than in LA, partly because in LA what I do is not terribly highly valued. So you tell me what you're doing, and I would think it's not particularly valued here in New York.
RH: What you were just saying is very human. We're naturally going to be drawn to places where we're loved.
Now, obviously, there are a lot of women in New York - and this is nothing more than circumstantial. But, still, it's interesting.
The Enquirer article, which holds back the name of the woman alleged to be involved, mentions that:
"The affair started about 18 months ago," a friend says the woman confessed to her. "When they met at a bar, sparks flew immediately.
Now, of course, there are a lot of politicians and women that this could apply to. But, what's interesting, is in a Newsweek article from last December:
The Webisodes are the brainchild of Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker who met Edwards at a New York bar where Edwards was having a business meeting.
Actually, in view of what's being discussed now, this (from the same article) is probably even more amusing:
In the midst of a short theme sequence that begins each Webisode, the camera lingers over the former senator's behind as he tucks a starched white shirt into his pants.
So, what we have here is circumstantial - but it strikes me as pretty strong.
1) We have rumours of an affair going back sometime. The first public hints appear as far back as August.
2) What circumstantial details we have - New York, meeting in a bar, wife anticipated to be out of the picture - match up here.
3) We have a strange and rushed effort to cover up these entirely innocuous videos - with the Edwards campaign attempting to control access to them.
4) We have a mystery party archiving these videos and then later anonymously releasing them - indicating that someone knew enough about something to decide to keep a copy of these things lying around just in case.
Now, I'll note, I don't think that this has any real bearing on John Edwards ability to be President. I think that John Edwards should't be President because he's a scum-sucking, ambulance chasing fraud and phony, not because he might be cheating on his cancer-stricken wife.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 10, 2007 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (34) | TrackBack
Words of Wisdom on Election Day in Ontario
I realize that people in Ontario will be voting on whether to adopt MMP (Megalo - Maniac Partyhacks), but if they were voting only for members of provincial parliament, they would be staying home in droves. Here is why, succinctly put by Joseph Shumpeter in his diaries so many years ago (from Cafe Hayek):
Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with keeping in the saddle that they can't bother about where they go.
A sad truth about the two major parties in Ontario.
Posted by EclectEcon on October 10, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (81) | TrackBack
Communist China and the GOP Presidential debate
In a wide-ranging debate in Michigan, the Republican candidates for President (well, some of them anyway) actually brought up Communist China. Here's my take on what was said.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on October 10, 2007 in International Affairs, International Politics | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Letting you know we care
I thought you would like to know that at least one of our candidates takes the needs of the Canadian people into account. The following was Rudy Giuliani's objection to Hillary Clinton's plan for "universal" health care (Campaign Spot - NRO): "If we institute HillaryCare, there will be no place left for Canadians to get health care."
Cheers.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on October 10, 2007 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Health Care for Millionaries
Unsurprisingly, the left has responded to the revelation that the “needy” family showcased by their recent radio address on health care actually owns assets approaching $1 Million with utter rage at the idea of anyone “attacking a twelve year-old.”
To which, the obvious responses are:
1) No one’s “attacking a twelve year-old.”
2) If you don’t want a twelve year-old to be even remotely within the line of fire, then don’t employ them as political human shields.
As a side note – it seems possible that this blog actually helped to move the story. My personal blog entry is the first item to pop up (chronologically) on the Google blog search for “icwhatudo.” And, speaking of our enterprising anonymous reporter, he’s back with some comments on a New York Times story on the issue.
In summary:
1) It’s impossible to dispute the central holding of the original story – namely, that the Frost family holds substantial assets whose value exceed, at the very least, half a million dollars – and which, looking at the numbers, probably approach $1 Million.
2) The Times and others are seeking to dishonestly spin this story by, among other things:
- Disguising the true value of the Frosts’ assets by presenting old “property assessments” as reflective of the real value of their property.
- Performing rhetorical slights of hand, such as noting that the claimed granite countertops in the Frost home are actually concrete – without noting that concrete and granite countertops are substantially the same price.
This whole exercise demonstrates the inherent absurdity of so many government programs. Just like farm subsidies meant to help struggling family farmers end up going to the boutique ranches of celebrities, here we see how a program supposedly designed to help those who cannot afford health insurance instead is used to underwrite the lifestyle of a fairly well-off family who, for some reason, made the choice not to buy health insurance and are now asking the rest of America’s taxpayers to pay the price for their own personal irresponsibility.
Of course, in a sense, this should remind us just how fortunate Americans are – they’re only compelled to pay taxes for some free riders, instead of the whole bloody lot.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 10, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Dion's Surrender
My earlier prediction of a fall election was predicated on the idea that M. Dion was, at the very least, a man with a modicum of courage and sense. And, indeed, while it's still possible that Dion will vote for the Throne Speech - and then bring the government down over some specific issue - it now seems likely that the fall will bear witness to an unending series of humiliating surrenders by our friend Stephanie. Though, for the time being, I suspect that the Liberals will grin and bear it. A rougher and more cynical person than I might suggest that the Liberals should have expected such a fate when they elected an unrepentant citizen of France as their leader.
In all seriousness, though, if Dion really backs down as proposed here, he’s done. He’ll be safe through Christmas, because no alternative leader wants to be stuck in his strategic position over the long fall session. Like the Confederacy in 1865, the Liberals are now demoralized and divided – and Harper means to crush each pocket of resistance. Ignatieff, Rae, and the rest will leave Dion to preside over the ceremonies at Appomattox. But, at Christmas or shortly thereafter, a consensus will be reached (if it hasn’t already) that Dion will have to leave more or less immediately. And then he’ll go because, if this is any indication, he’s not likely to fight particularly hard for his job.
If they fall down on the Throne Speech, we’re done with the threat of an election for the year – barring events. Dion – a poor communicator with a reputation as indecisive – is going to have a very hard time explaining to anyone during the course of an election campaign why, if whatever measure he opposed was so odious, he voted for it before he voted against it.
It’s fight or fold for Dion, now.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 10, 2007 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBack
1995 and 2007
1995: 82 Tories, 30 Liberals, 17 New Democrats.
2007: Probably about the reverse.
Once again, we learn a hard lesson: given a choice between a pale pink and a sharp red, the public will always opt for the latter. It's fine by me (easy for me to say, since I'm an Ontarian): John Tory's always reminded me of the centrist Republican who, when the Democrats proposed burning down all of the buildings in Washington, would respond with a moderate and sensible proposal to only burn down half of the buildings and to stretch it out over four years.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 10, 2007 in Canadian Provincial Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Not Your John Tory Candidate
Today John Tory, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, will almost certainly go down to defeat. Odds are that Mr. Tory will probably be defeated in his own riding, despite some rather heroic efforts by the party's central office and local volunteers. I face both thoughts with no great joy. Regular readers of this space will have noted that I am not an admirer of John Tory, who I regard as being a Red Tory come down from the happy days of Mike Harris. My bias against Mr. Tory is completely ideological. I don't like Red Tories and he is one. There is no personal animosity. From everything I have read, and from speaking with people who have met the man and know him, if only slightly, he is, like his great mentor Bill Davis, an utterly decent and very able man. To say that he would make a better Premier of Ontario than Dalt the Default might reasonably be construed as damning by faint praise. The two men are simply not in the same league.
Continue reading at the Gods of the Copybook Headings
Posted by PUBLIUS on October 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Condolences
To Ted Byfield and family, at the loss of their daughter.
Posted by Kathy Shaidle on October 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack
Che Guevera, 40 years later
The hero to communists and teenagers, rebelling against their middle class parents, has been dead for forty years. To some he is a hero and martyr, to others he is a blood thirsty tyrant. At least this article thinks he is (this is one of the few I could find.)
Exiled Cuban writer Jacobo Machover now lives in France. He said: "He himself assisted in executions. He stood on a platform which overlooked the execution area and put a bullet in the head of anyone that he considered a traitor."
Castro uses Che's iconic status to keep the legend of the Cuban revolution alive, to continue to inspire today's young men and women. But outside of Cuba, Che is just as useful a commodity, used to promote causes from anti-globalisation to anti-war.
Posted by Leah Dowe on October 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (41) | TrackBack
Is That Supposed to be a Compliment?
In one of the strangest compliments I’ve ever seen, the Toronto Star reports…
Former NDP premier Bob Rae says “Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals are building on his legacy in government.”
Is Bob saying what I think he’s saying? Bob Rae looks so fondly upon his disasterous days as Ontario Premier, that he actually believes he’s complimenting McGuinty by saying that he’s building on his own legacy.
Bob Rae, who was elected Ontario Premier by a complete accident, is best known for a lot of things, but those things are all bad! Bob Rae, who had a 7% approval rating by the end of his term as Premier, raised Ontario taxes to record levels, ran massive budget deficits, and gave public sector workers (the same people who originally voted him into office) unpaid “Rae Days”.
Is Bob trying to change history on his days as Premier, or does he honestly believe he did a good job?
Howard Hampton said ”Bob Rae is a Liberal – what do you expect from a Liberal?” in response to Bob’s delusions about himself.
In this very rare moment, I find myself in agreement with Howard Hampton’s assessment of the situation!
Cross-posted at www.exactlyright.ca.
Posted by Dave Hodson on October 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack
Monday, October 08, 2007
Come on: how could I not post this?
Mark Steyn writes:
"This is a brilliant piece. Kathy Shaidle should turn it into a book."
I demure demurely (or is that demurely demure?) here.
Posted by Kathy Shaidle on October 8, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
A kingdom of judges
A potential Western Standard cover story from earlier this past summer:
She warned us she was going to do it, and now she’s gone and done it.
On December 1, 2005, Beverley McLachlin, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, told a legal conference in New Zealand that she and her colleagues not only had the power but also the duty to invoke “unwritten values” not actually put down on paper in Canadian law, and then to employ those values as justification for inserting new, formal rights into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “There exists,” McLachlin opined, “fundamental norms of justice so basic that they form part of the legal structure of governance and must be upheld by the courts, whether or not they find expression in constitutional texts.” In other words, the chief justice suggested that, even in circumstances in which it was clear Parliament had purposely omitted certain rights from the Charter, she felt fully justified in believing that her court could override a democratically elected body to insert such rights into law.
That was the warning shot across the bow. A full judicial salvo hit the side of the ship of state on Friday, June 8 when McLachlin and the majority of Supreme Court justices struck down a five-year-old B.C. Liberal government law which had unilaterally rewritten costly health-worker contracts signed by the previous union-friendly NDP government. In so doing, the McLachlin court invented a new Charter right, the right to collective bargaining.
The court said the offending legislation, known as Bill 29, was illegal, but suspended its ruling for a year to give the B.C. government time to figure out how to meet its now-constitutional obligation to collectively bargain a contract that the province’s health-care unions vehemently opposed. No one knows exactly what the government will do. Some observers have estimated that it could cost the treasury up to a billion dollars of taxpayer dollars to satisfy the court’s requirements. Health Minister George Abbott has downplayed the consequences, and has promised to begin consultations with the unions.
But the B.C. government actually has a way, albeit a controversial one, to essentially tell the McLachlin court to get lost: Premier Gordon Campbell could simply have his Liberal government invoke Section 33 of the Charter, the famous notwithstanding clause, which would nullify the court ruling. No one is talking publicly of tripping the Section 33 wire, but British Columbians should be reminded that the province would never have accepted then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s idea of an entrenched Charter in 1982 were it not for the clause’s inclusion. Moreover, if today’s Campbell government truly feels that the democratic rights of the people of B.C. have been trampled by the McLachlin court, it is entirely within its rights to invoke the clause.
The contentious labour legislation which got the government into hot water with the courts led to the layoff of 8,000 unionized health-care workers, according the Hospital Employees Union. Their work was then contracted out and they were replaced with lower-cost, non-union employees.
The Supreme Court based its union-friendly ruling on the fact that Section 2 of the Charter makes freedom of association a Charter-protected right, and that collective bargaining flows from that right. Furthermore, the court declared, “The history of collective bargaining in Canada reveals that long before the present statutory labour regimes were put in place, collective bargaining was recognized as a fundamental aspect of Canadian society.”
The judges continued, “Canada’s adherence to international documents recognizing a right to collective bargaining also supports recognition of that right in [Section 2]. The Charter should be presumed to provide as great a level of protection as is found in the international human rights documents that Canada has ratified.” Finally, the court explained that it felt that that protection of collective bargaining is “consistent with and supportive of” the values and purposes of the Charter as a whole.
Naturally enough, HEU communications director Mike Old applauded the ruling, but would not say how he expected the B.C. government to respond. “You know, I think at this point, both sides are still trying to determine, legally, and in terms of any potential meetings, what we can do,” Old says. He notes that questions have arisen over whether the ruling is retroactive, “and our legal counsel and their legal counsel are looking at those issues.” Ultimately, he says, the government has “a year to untangle the mess that’s been made by Bill 29, and clearly it would be prudent for them to talk to the unions that represent the affected workers as they start [doing this].”
Abbott did not respond to repeated requests from the Western Standard for an interview on the subject, but he told a public-affairs TV talk show in July that he did not think the B.C. Liberal government was under any obligation to tear up the bill and start from scratch. Furthermore, when asked if he believed the laid-off health-care workers had to be compensated, he answered, “No, I do not.”
Regardless of how the B.C. mess is untangled, the fact remains that a court, already heavily criticized by conservative groups for judicial activism in such areas as homosexual rights, has moved sharply against the wishes of an elected legislature, and as such has raised new questions about the proper role of the courts in modern Canadian society.
“In this case, the Supreme Court is basically saying [to the B.C. government], ‘We think you are governing wrong, so we’re going to create this new right,’” says Gerry Nicholls, senior fellow of the Democracy Institute, an international public-policy think tank. “And this is done without any sort of [public input]. There’s no political party running on this platform. There’s just a group of unelected judges making this decision.”
Nicholls says that, if the ruling ultimately forces the B.C. government to compensate laid-off workers, the effect on British Columbians (and, by extension, all Canadians) would be to have taxation without representation. “We have an unelected body setting public policy,” he says. “And I think when it does that, it’s stepping beyond the line.”
In other words, it’s judicial activism of the sort that has long worried court watchers in the age of Charter. “This demonstrates that we no longer have the rule of law in this country,” says London, Ont. journalist Rory Leishman, author of the 2006 book Against Judicial Activism. He points out that every previous legal ruling, even including one 20 years earlier by the Supreme Court itself, had supported a government’s right to do exactly what B.C. did in imposing a new contract on government workers. “Now, what the judges are saying is, ‘We’re changing the law.’”
Leishman believes that judges, no less than legislatures, are bound to uphold the rule of law so that people can have a clear, fixed idea beforehand about what they can or cannot do. “And so here the government has been snookered,” he continues. “They obeyed the law, and the courts have changed it. And so we’ve got the rule of men, not the rule of law—the rule, I guess, of judges.”
John Carpay, executive director of the Canadian Constitutional Foundation, a non-partisan legal watchdog group based in Calgary, sees an interesting implication arising from the court’s “radical” ruling. If the court truly believes that it can and should create Charter rights based on international agreements and “fundamental” aspects “of Canadian society,” then logically it can and should want to entrench individual property rights in the Constitution. “But you’d have better luck, I think, trying to predict future electoral outcomes in provinces than you could in trying to predict future court decisions,” he says.
What then of the idea that B.C. could invoke the notwithstanding clause? Carpay believes, “This would be a good example of a case where a government could choose to use it, particularly when it involves the expenditure of public funds and the running of the public health-care system.” But Nicholls points out, “Section 33 is really kind of like the nuclear bomb of constitutional politics. It’s there, but nobody really wants to use it.” Ironically, even though a government would use the section to protect democratic rights, he suspects “a lot of people would regard it as being somehow undemocratic to use this to overturn a court ruling.”
Nevertheless, Nicholls agrees that, if the government were to face an unaffordable expenditure because of the June ruling—a fiscal crisis so acute that public health-care were threatened—then, “I think they might be able to use the notwithstanding clause. But it would still be a pretty risky political move, and that’s just basically the constitutional climate we’re in these days.”
For now, though, Premier Campbell has until next June to figure out how to cope with the effects of having nine, veto-carrying activist judges sitting around his cabinet table.
--Terry O'Neill
Posted by Terry O'Neill on October 8, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (71) | TrackBack
Clod Story
The next time that someone talks about the woes of the American sub-prime mortgage market, I encourage you to think of this story. Briefly - a Mexican man making $9 an hour (who, though the story fails to mention it one way or another, appears to be an illegal alien) buys a house for $620,000. When, shockingly, this later proves to be a bad idea he claims that he's a victim and, basically, the reporter obviously wants all of us to feel sorry for him.
Of course, the lenders and the like behaved in an equally stupid and venal fashion. And, of course, the lenders are going to pay as well - the cost of forclosure and the reduced value of the house. Oh well. I suppose the brokers, though, will get away scot-free. To modify Henry Kissinger, it's a pity that they can't all lose.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 8, 2007 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Guilty of owning a souped-up car
Here’s another of my stories that was originally slated to run in the Western Standard:
It was monster machine versus the micro racers, and the outcome was never in doubt: On June 15 of last year, a huge front-end loader in the service of the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General made ragged metal pancakes out of a pair of souped-up Honda Civics that officials had seized on the grounds the autos were being used for street racing. “We destroyed them to ensure that they could never again be used for street racing,” Attorney-General Michael Bryant told reporters.
Street racing is a problem that has vexed authorities for years, but the dangerous practice has been glamourized by the Fast and Furious movie series and taken to heart by a generation of young men for whom the thrill of a car chase outweighs the threat of a car crash. Bryant’s public demonstration was designed to steer street racers off their dangerous and criminal course, but the message never got through.
Despite tougher federal and provincial laws – laws that some critics say actually go too far in cracking down on suspected street racers – street-racing-related accidents and fatalities continue to mount. The Greater Toronto area alone has recorded 38 street-racing deaths since 1999. On June 18 of this year, David Virgoe, 48, was killed when the truck he was driving was cut off by two cars that police say were racing along Highway 400 north of Toronto; three men have now been charged in connection with the incident.
Bryant’s 2006 photo op also drew attention to the power authorities have, under the province’s Civil Remedies Act, to seize and destroy material that is an instrument of unlawful activity. The heavily-modified cars involved had been impounded by York police after their drivers had been stopped for speeding in separate street-racing incidents in 2003 and 2004.
The federal government has gotten involved too, amending the Criminal Code in December last year to increase driving prohibitions against repeat offenders. The Ontario legislature ratcheted up its anti-street-racing campaign this past spring with the unanimous passage of a new law increasing the maximum fine for road racing tenfold, to $10,000, and allowing police to impound suspected racers’ cars immediately.
The Virgoe death prompted a new round of tough talk. Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino opined that anyone going 50 kilometres an hour above the speed limit should automatically be considered to be street racing. Bryant stirred the pot by threatening to seize and destroy souped-up cars, even if they aren’t caught speeding or racing. “Just on the balance of probabilities, if we can establish that a car is being used for the unlawful purpose of street racing, we will seize it and you will never see it again,” the attorney-general said. “We will crush your car. We will crush the parts.”
Seizing and destroying cars caught in the act of racing is one thing, but crushing cars that merely have been modified raises the possibility that innocent hobbyists could lose their wheels. Bryant’s spokesman, Brendan Crawley, says his boss was not announcing new policy in making the threat, but was “simply reminding people of the existing” civil-forfeiture law. He points out that a civil-court judge has to make the final determination on whether a car is actually an illegal street racer.
Nevertheless, the Canadian Automobile Association’s Ontario branch doesn’t support the seize-and-destroy policy. “Specifically, regarding crushing people’s cars, to be honest with you, it’s one that we have a little bit of a hard time with,” says Kris Barnier, provincial affairs specialist. His organization would rather see the OPP put more patrol cars on the road and hold individual drivers responsible for their actions.
Bryant isn’t making any new friends at Karbelt Speed and Custom in Ajax, either. Kevin Dundas, general-manager of the after-market performance-parts supplier, says his industry is looking into the legality of the government’s policy. “Because the wording of that is just ludicrous,” he explains. “The way I’m seeing it is that if anybody has anything on their vehicle that relates to a performance increase, [authorities] dictate that as an intent to street race. Well, that’s insane.”
Maybe so, but when innocent lives are being lost, innocent car owners may yet feel the heat for some time to come.
--Terry O'Neill
Posted by Terry O'Neill on October 8, 2007 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Oh the Horror!
Every year, I routinely receive a Christmas card from my local MPP and other assorted politicians. Often, the card includes an invitation to drop in for a local Christmas celebration or two. I always thought it was a nice gesture, and never really gave it another thought.
However, apparently I was wrong! Apparently, I’m supposed to be offended by this terrible act!
Can you just imagine the horror she must have gone through? Receiving a card wishing you greetings from someone during a holiday time of year! This must be grounds to sue somebody!
What a great way to define Canadians! We’re officially a politically correct people who would never utter a religious reference during a religious holiday. And now, tracking someone’s religion so you may send them holiday greetings is… profiling. How sad. How very, very sad.
A word to Ms. Udow, and other liberal types who want to drain the fun out of life… I’ve had enough of your God damned political correctness. I will not wish anybody “Season’s Greetings” at Christmas, but I will say “Merry Christmas”. If I want to wish somebody a happy Rosh Hashanah at the appropriate time of year, then I will do that too.
By the way… Happy Thanksgiving! (Am I allowed to say that, or will I offend some people with a reference to a holiday originally proclaimed by Parliament to thank “God Almighty”?)
Cross-posted at www.exactlyright.ca.
Posted by Dave Hodson on October 8, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Kind words from Jonathan Kay
The National Post's Jonathan Kay, who was always one of the Western Standard's best friends in the MSM, pays tribute to Ezra Levant for fighting the good fight.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on October 7, 2007 in Media | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Upper hand in the upper house
When the Western Standard closed down last week, we were just about to go to press with a new issue. Several of my stories, representing several weeks worth of reporting and writing, were to be part of that issue. So, rather than letting the stories gather dust, I'll be posting them on The Shotgun, one at a time, over the next few weeks. Here's the first. Enjoy.
Westerners and Easterners alike have never needed to look far to find reasons to show their contempt for central Canada, especially Toronto. From the Maple-Leafs obsessed TV coverage of the Toronto-based CBC to the city’s self-aggrandizing “centre of the universe” pretentions, Hog Town is widely viewed with the sort of animus usually reserved for internecine rivals. The scorn is so endemic that filmmaker Albert Nerenberg decided it was worthy of satire, and thus produced a mock-documentary on the subject, Let’s All Hate Toronto, which was screened in July at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal.
But dislike for central Canada is a serious subject that is linked inextricably to still-festering Western alienation. Ontarians and Quebeckers may discount the West’s frustration or even claim that it is baseless, but recent irritants involving Senate reform—an issue strongly supported in the West but given short shrift by central Canada’s political and media elite—suggest Westerners have plenty to be angry about.
The minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper, which has deep roots in the West, has launched an incremental plan to reform the Red Chamber. One bill, introduced in the Senate itself in May 2006, would limit to eight years the length of a senator’s term; the second, introduced in December 2006 in the House of Commons, would establish a national system for electing senators.
But neither bill has become law; the latter ran into opposition headed by the Ontario-dominated Liberal party and has been stuck since May at second reading, while the former underwent seemingly endless debate and was then sidetracked by the Liberal majority in the Senate, which in late June urged the Harper government to obtain an opinion from the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutionality of term limits. “We had more faith in the ability of the Liberal senators to be reasonable and responsible than we should have had,” says the Tories’ leader in the upper chamber, Senator Marjory LeBreton. “It’s a setback for the Canadian public for sure.”
One might have expected that an unelected body’s stalling of a democracy-enhancing law proposed by a democratically elected government would have been the subject of great national interest. But the Liberals’ delaying tactics on term limits went by with hardly a peep of protest from central Canadian opinion leaders. Similarly, when Harper signed an order-in-council on July 10 to appoint Senate reformer Bert Brown, Alberta’s elected choice, to the Senate—an event that, in the context of the stalling of the Commons bill to elect senators, also might reasonably have been seen to be of national interest—the Ontario media virtually ignored the story.
Indeed, a detailed Internet search reveals that neither the Toronto Star nor the National Post published even a single word on the signing, an omission matched by CBC and CTV national news. In fact, only one paper in Toronto, the Globe and Mail, and one outside the city, the Barrie Examiner, reported the appointment. This, despite the fact Brown was only the second person, after the late Stan Waters (whom then-prime minister Brian Mulroney appointed in 1990), to be sent to the Senate after winning a popular vote in his home province which, in both cases, was Alberta.
It is not as if Canadians don’t want Senate reform. An Ipsos-Reid poll made public in June 2006 found that a plurality of Canadians (44 per cent) supported an elected Senate. Moreover, a December 2006 Decima Research poll found 64 per cent support for Harper’s plan to elect senators. That may be why Harper is still confident his reform plan will succeed. “Liberal senators will not stop Senate reform,” he said in late June. “They will only ensure that they are not part of the reform that is coming, because reform is inevitable and the public will not stomach any longer an institution that functions like that.”
The Tories’ anti-Liberal, pro-reform campaign actually started even before Parliament adjourned for the summer with the launch in May of the “not a leader” web site. The Conservatives contend that Liberal leader Stephane Dion is a weak leader because he is on record as supporting term limits, while the Liberal majority in the Senate opposes them. LeBreton figures she knows why the Liberals are stalling. “They actually think the Canadian public made a huge mistake in January 2006 [in electing the Tory government],” she says, “and that sooner or later they will come to their senses and they [the Grits] will be back to their old, ‘entitlements-for-us,’ selves again.”
Canada’s newest senator recognizes the roadblocks, but is still optimistic. “I’ve gone beyond hope a long time ago,” he confides. “I know—and I don’t need to hope any more—that we will have Senate reform.” Brown, who began campaigning for a Triple-E (provincially equal, fully elected and effective) Senate two decades ago, says he is intent on pursuing his dream. “But I’m realistic enough or, rather, not naïve enough to think I can change the Senate, as one elected senator,” says Brown, who topped Alberta’s Senate-election vote in 2004. “What I can do is help Harper get the other 12 vacancies elected.”
Absent the passage of a federal Senate-elections law, Brown says he will lobby provinces to hold elections on their own. B.C. once had such a law, but let it lapse; the Manitoba legislature plans to strike a special committee to study the subject. “The only real opposition to Senate reform is from premiers who mistakenly believe they have a major influence in Ottawa,” Brown says.
Harper tried to enact his Senate-reform initiatives on an incremental basis, rather than reopening the constitution, with the hope that piecemeal legislation would create the momentum needed to drive wholesale change. It’s a strategy Harper should not abandon, says Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary political scientist who was the Tories’ senior communications adviser in the last election. “I don’t see the prospect of anything else working,” Flanagan says, noting that it also makes good politics because the Conservatives can accuse the Liberals of obstruction in both the House of Commons and the Senate.
Moreover, with the Tories looking for polarizing issues to solidify their core support and recapture the policy magic they enjoyed in the last campaign, Senate reform could have the dual benefit of distinguishing the party from the anti-reform Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and NDP while at the same time not being seen as an obvious right-wing issue, a perception that could turn centrist voters away from the party. If it works, and the Senate-reform policy helps the Tories win a majority, then Bert Brown’s 20-year dream may finally come true.
--Terry O'Neill
Posted by Terry O'Neill on October 7, 2007 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (40) | TrackBack
“Poor” Family Owns Home, Business, Etc.
So, in a typically cynical bit of sappy and brainless emotional indulgence, the Democrats recruited some twelve year-old kid to deliver their Saturday radio address. His name is Graeme Frost and his family is from Maryland. Predictably, he told a sob story (written for him by Senate staffers) about how his hard working parents need other taxpayers to pay for his health coverage.
Then icwhatudo on Free Republic decided to pull some records.
So, to summarize –what he found out about this poor and needy family. It:
- Sends their kids to an expensive private school.
- Own a commercial building which was purchased for $190,000 in 1999. Even using modest figures, it would have to be worth at least $300,000 today.
- Owns a 3000 square foot home, in an area where a 2000 square foot home recently sold for $500,000.
Indeed, working from a Baltimore Sun article on the subject – which mentions that their mortgage payment is $1200 – we can guess that their mortgage on the house is roughly $200,000.
In other words – taking into account the value of the home, the value of the father’s business, the value of the commercial property they own, and so forth minus their mortgage and whatever they might owe on the commercial property (and other sundry debts) an educated guess would suggest that this family has a net worth of somewhere in the neighbourhood of $500,000.
And they want the rest of the American people to foot their bill for their health care?
Oh, and since a picture is worth a thousand words - check out their kitchen.
Does that look like the home of someone who can't "afford" health care and needs everyone else to pay for it for them?
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on October 7, 2007 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (46) | TrackBack