A Voice for Freedom

The Northwest Passage isn't exactly the type of vacation property many people are in the market for. It's essentially composed of ice, snow, and freezing water. The eco-alarmists will tell you that water's going to rise by 16.7 feet in the next 3.78224 years or somesuch, but there's nobody around to notice anyway. And yet, this frigid strait, this corridor which is useful only to trading ships, relatively hardy whales, and the occasional politician looking for a solitary swim with his fellow cold-blooded bottom-feeding blowfish, has become the first major international relations hurdle Stephen Harper will have to climb.

With Frank McKenna as his go-to guy.

The Passage is claimed by Canada, but most of the international community does not recognize the claim and considers it neutral waters. Harper plans to back up the Canadian claim to this territory by increasing our military presence in the area. I'm of two minds about this. It's good to see Harper showing some backbone, but the last thing he needs to do is stand up to the United States on a non-issue just so that he can convince the Canadian people he's not too friendly with the Americans. The US ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, had this to say: "There's no reason to create a problem that doesn't exist. We don't recognize Canada's claims to those waters. Most other countries do not recognize their claim."

Harper responded with this: "The United States defends its sovereignty; the Canadian government will defend our sovereignty. It is the Canadian people that we get our mandate from, not the ambassador of the United States."

I'm guessing our man Steve was one of those kids who enjoyed poking the neighborhood Alsatian with a stick.

What he says is true, but apparently he'd neglected to switch on his brain's "tact" module that morning. Here's a phrase from the handbook given to Americans serving in Britain in WWII: "it is militarily stupid to criticize your allies."

And it's not important anyway. This isn't the waterborne Sudetenland, for Christ's sake. The US isn't approaching our territory with imperial intent. They don't want the Passage - who would? - they (and most of the world) just want us to recognize it as neutral territory. We'd still be allowed to run ships through it, and there's precious little else we'd want it for.

I know this may seem strange, but I say it's a bad idea for our new government to antagonize the United States just to appease the lefties, especially when one of Harper's campaign promises was to make relations better!

Pick your battles, Steve-O. Pick your battles.

Given the bull that's been thrown around on my comments pages recently, I think there are a few things I should explain to everybody, and I've started a new post because comment pages are getting too long.

Things about the site and/or yours truly:

1: Commenters would be advised to keep their profanity to a minimum. Not only is it the hallmark of a weak argument, but it's also unseemly and unwelcome. Be warned that from now on, there's a zero-tolerance policy on what I determine to be obscene use of language (that's not the same as having an obscene point of view - I will not censor based on ideology). So think long and hard before you add that final "f**k" to your three-paragraph comment, 'cause I'll have to delete the whole thing.

2: When I mentioned that Harper was the first Western Prime Minister in 75 years, I had forgotten about Diefenbaker - though he was born in Ontario, he lived in Saskatchewan much of his life. I should have said "the first Albertan Prime Minister in 75 years". I did not, and do not, count Joe Clark's nine-month term in office, since it was not enough time to effect any change, though I suppose technically I should.

3: Contrary to Rynando's spouting off about the Calgary Sun, I happen to get my news from many sources. I use news from USA Today, the New York Times, the Times of London, Fox News, CTV, and the National Post, along with other Canadian local papers depending on what news they're carrying. I refuse to read the Calgary Herald because of their bigoted attitude towards Alberta sovereigntists. Of course, I get a good deal of news from other bloggers as well. And as for Rynando's interesting opinions about the Sun, it is quite a respectable news source, with damn near half the market share in Calgary, and is only a "tabloid" in the technical, British sense of the word, meaning a newspaper with half-size pages - not in the more common American "alien baby weds Elvis in secret ceremony aboard nuclear submarine where AIDS was invented by the US Army" sense. The Sun is not balanced, but neither is any other newspaper - it's just that the Sun tends to the opposite direction as most. Nevertheless, the fact that it is my favorite read doesn't mean it's my only one.

Things about Conservatives/conservatives:

1: we aren't all the same. I can't tell you how many left-of-center folks I've run into who think they can identify my entire view of life from the fact that I'm a conservative. Essentially my belief system is this: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (pursuit being an important word; as Ben Franklin said, "you have to catch up with it by yourself"). I happen to be pro-gay rights and gay marriage, which puts me at odds with those I might refer to as tending more towards paleoconservativism. I am also against abortion after approximately one week into term (that's based on scientific facts I won't bother to explain); that puts me at odds with some, though by no means all libertarians. I suppose I am closest to the ideology of neoconservativism, especially on foreign policy, but disagree with the idea many neoconservatives have that an aggressive foreign policy is diametrically opposed to the small-government ideals of libertarianism, which I also vehemently support.

2: In Canada, most conservatives also identify with the reform movement, calling for serious attention to be given to addressing the total lack of real democracy in our country. Between an unelected Senate and Supreme Court, the party discipline system, and the Notwithstanding Clause, we have absolutely no checks on what our Prime Minister can do. If a PM wanted to, he could turn Canada into a police state in about six seconds. This puts the average Canadian conservative's views in opposition with classical conservativism, which supports maintaining the status quo. It also, ironically, means we support a few of the same actions - such as passing the Federal Accountability Act - as the socialist NDP.

Things about the Albertan independence movement:

1: It's not about the money. Sure, we're rather annoyed with the fact that $11 billion is taken from us each year without any of the political favors coming our way in return, like the kind Ontario gets for its yearly $25 billion (exemption from the Canadian Wheat Board, for example). But there's more to it…

2: Make no mistake, Alberta gets the short end of the stick politically. Our votes don't count for much in elections, and neither do Saskatchewan's, Manitoba's, or the territories', for that matter. With Quebec out of the picture as a swing province thanks to the BQ, that leaves only Ontario to essentially control the outcome of every House of Commons election. That would all be fine, if we had a regionally equal - and elected - upper house. Instead, we have the Canadian Senate, filled by patronage appointments and secure in its impotency. The result: our province's interests and opinions need never even be considered in Ottawa. We have no voice. "Screw the West, we'll take the rest" - that was the well-known "unofficial" Liberal campaign office motto in 1984, and it has not ceased to be their attitude.

3: The biggest issues are neither economic nor political; they are societal and cultural. Eastern publications, when they say much of anything about Albertans at all, never cease to look down on us. Whether it's the Toronto Sun - a supposedly Tory-friendly paper - running an article insulting Stephen Harper for wearing a cowboy hat or some rag of a magazine calling us "the province everyone loves to hate", Toronto media is at the forefront of the propaganda campaign against Alberta. The politicians continue that campaign, as Paul Martin did by attempting to paint Harper and Premier Ralph Klein as being in collusion working toward some dark end involving the end of all public health care in Canada. Harper's Albertan origins were used against him yet again in the last election, when Martin claimed that his "Albertan values" were not the values of the average Canadian and he was therefore a dangerous choice for Prime Minister. Jean Chrétien said that he "[liked] to do politics with people from the East". He called Albertans "a different type". Then he skipped Calgary on his campaign tour. There is a strong regional divide in this country, but you are sadly mistaken if you think Albertans put it there.

Here's what Al Gore had to say about Harper's election:

"The financial interests behind the tar sands project poured a lot of money and support behind an ultra-conservative leader in order to win the election...and to protect their interests."

"Ultra-conservative"? Give me a break. Stephen Harper is the Ford Taurus of the political world - mostly reliable, medium everything, and available in both blue and red, but unlikely to ever be called "ultra-" anything in serious conversation.

And the oil companies had nothing to do with Harper's victory. It was the Liberals' financial practices that won the Conservatives the election, not the Tories'.

Oh, and I'd like to challenge those Liberals who complained about the National Rifle Association "interfering" in Canadian politics to come forward and make the same comments about Al Gore.

Take a look at this story from CTV.ca. The article is a discussion of the transition to Tory government; the picture at the top of the page is this:



With all the thousands of stock photographs of the Houses of Parliament I'm sure CTV has at their disposal, they had to pick the one that looks like Guy Fawkes came back for a reunion world tour. And people claim the media isn't slanted!

CTV also mentions that paper shredders have been running hot in Parliament Hill offices the last few days. Apparently that's normal.

Anyone who's proud of Canada's socialized medicine should talk to Isabel Keen, an 83-year-old woman who recently spent five days being treated in hospital hallways because there weren't enough beds. The Calgary Health Region apparently experiences this sort of thing almost every day. And it'll be 2010 by the time their current expansion plans are finished. That's a big help for all the people who are going to get sick over the next four years.

If people like Mrs. Keen had somewhere else to go, things wouldn't be in such a horrible state. But they don't, because the illegal Canada Health Act is still blocking any sort of attempt to create choices in healthcare.

And Harper still refuses to deal. Earth to Tories: this is not an issue you can ignore. Ralph is continuing to push the "Third Way", and sooner or later the Feds are going to have to either give in or try to exert their will on the territory of the provincial government. Either way, things are going to get messy.

"Ontario wants in!"

That was the comment made by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty when he found out we were about to have a Western Prime Minister for the first time in three quarters of a century. Perhaps he's scared that the various regions of this country will be treated equally under a Tory government. Perhaps he's afraid that his government will no longer be able to count on imported wealth from the colonial backwater of Alberta.

Despite McGuinty's contemptible ethnocentrism, however, it should be noted that the new government includes more Conservative MPs from Ontario than from Alberta. Rest assured, Dalty, we ain't gonna rustle ya.

Toronto, of course - the center of the McGuinty's government, the socialist cause in Canada, and, if you ask most of its residents, the Universe - was one of three cities in Canada which completely shut out the Conservatives - the other two were Montreal and Vancouver. This lead the mayor of Toronto to make a rather interesting comment: "It's very clear the people in cities, in the major cities, voted for parties that in the last Parliament, had delivered programs for the people that live in cities."

Actually, despite what the CBC would have you believe, the Tories did quite well in urban areas, and not just Edmonton and Calgary. Though undoubtedly it is true, by and large, that rural areas are more conservative in nature.

It is also true, by and large, that rural areas have lower rates of theft, assault, rape, drug crimes, prostitution, murder, etcetera, etcetera. I'll leave it to you to draw whatever connections you may or may not prefer.

Remember Chrétien's famous line from the 2000 election campaign? "I do like to do politics with people from the East. Joe Clark and Stockwell Day are from Alberta; they are a different type."

This was the same year that Chrétien refused to bring his campaign to Calgary - Canada's fourth-largest city and its biggest population center in the 4000 kilometers between Vancouver and Toronto.

Fear and contempt of the West has been rampant in all points east of Thunder Bay for decades now, and it's shown clearly in our last few Prime Ministers. Now, to the great satisfaction of some of us "different types", Eastern politicians are going to have to learn to deal with a Canada that has a place for Westerners as equals.

I'm looking forward to shoving that fact in a few people's faces.

The new google.cn, Google's hot-off-the-press Chinese search engine, has finally launched, and been greeted by quite a bit of flak from the western world. And why not? Google China censors results based on words like "democracy" and "Tiananmen Square", and it's easy to say that they've sold out.

But with all the arguments that have been flying around, one has to wonder why it is that the Chinese government has for the most part escaped attack. Have we become so complacent with the world that we're not even going to take the time to deplore the Chinese for requiring Google to take part in their dictatorial schemes?

It's amazing how few westerners care about China these days. We buy their goods, we travel to see their sights, we study their history, but most of us don't seem to be phased by the idea that fully one quarter of the Earth's population cannot find information on "democracy" on the World Wide Web.

It isn't because Google is at fault that they are being attacked. It is simply because scapegoats have always been easier to find than solutions.

The HRDC's Orwellian database. Various corporations in Quebec. Senators' Mexican getaways.

We all know a lot about where the Liberal government sent our tax money. But did you know they also sent it to criminals?

A prison guard somewhere in Ontario (he refused to give his name to the reporter who wrote the story in the Toronto Sun) has let some rather shocking news out: the Canada Revenue Agency has been sending money to inmates at Canadian prisons.

The CRA's energy rebate program is designed to help low-income families deal with the rising cost of energy. In 2001, a similar program saw only 18% of the money spent actually reach the people it was designed to help. Where did the rest of it go? Some of it went to people doing time. This time around, the same thing is happening.

One person who received $250 has 23 convictions on his record, including armed robbery, and is currently fighting deportation from Canada.

"I'm delivering money to criminals that's been stolen from me and other hard-working taxpayers in Canada," the guard in question commented.

You'd be surprised what else people are allowed to do from prison. Regardless of whether they're serving six months for theft or 20 years for murder and sexual assault, inmates often receive welfare, tax refunds, and worker's comp, and are frequently implicated in telemarketing scams and other types of fraud - which guards are not legally allowed to report, since it means violating their oath of secrecy. And, of course, we are all keenly aware that sociopaths of all shapes and sizes are still allowed the vote in this country. The Elections Act of 1906 contained a clause which relieved criminals of their right to vote; this has now been overturned.

Inmates have been interviewed who said they were planning to vote for anyone but the Conservatives. They're afraid the Tories will make life harder for them.

Witness the Canadian criminal-as-victim culture.

Here's hoping those inmates were right about the Tories.

Harper dropping his kids off at school before beginning his first day as Prime Minister.

The question on many an Albertan's mind this year is going to be as follows: fine, so we've got a Tory government - but what are we going to see in terms of permanent, far-reaching democratic reforms to our government system?

Harper has already been talking about "rebuilding this great country". The first step toward this looks to be the Federal Accountability Act. Likely to be backed by both the NDP and the Bloc, this dreadfully needed piece of legislation is a promise to move toward what has been known in the past as "open government"; perhaps most importantly, it will increase the powers of the Auditor General.

But this single point, ladies and gentlemen, is far from what is really needed. We'll likely be waiting at least until the next election to see anything big.

And we need something big: a new constitution. Canada needs a constitution which is powerful, unitary, accessible, and ironclad. Such a document would include a Triple-E Senate - Elected, Equal, and Effective; elected Supreme Court judges; abolition of party discipline; a built-in bill of rights with no possibility for override; and regularly scheduled elections. The new constitution would also require clear definition and enforcement of provincial rights and responsibilities - making laws like the NEP and Canada Health Act illegal - and the inclusion of the provinces in decisions which concern them, such as the Kyoto Accord - either through cooperation with the provincial governments or a required fraction of yes-votes in an elected Senate. As the case of Alberta has shown us, decentralization is the only safe alternative.

But even with a Conservative majority, it's uncertain how close we'd ever get to a true Confederation instead of the imperial nature of our current setup.

The easiest way for Albertans to get a fair deal is still to leave Canada behind.

Well, they did it. Almost unbelievable; the Tories actually took a minority government. How long they'll hold on to it is a different matter, but let us nevertheless take the opportunity to celebrate the return to our Parliament of intelligence, honesty, and accountability.

Alberta can celebrate one more victory: Anne "Landslide Annie" McLellan, former Deputy Prime Minister under Paul Martin and no small source of annoyance to those of us who expect Albertan MPs to properly represent Albertan issues, has finally been ousted. Whether it was loss of faith in her party or the simple realization that only a sellout would work that closely with the former Liberal PM, people in Edmonton finally figured out there was a better choice. The result was a solid blanket of blue across Alberta, the Libs having been completely eradicated in our province.

There are a few disappointments in this election, though. Foremost among them is that somehow, the citizens of the Newmarket-Aurora riding managed to elect Belinda Stronach again. Would somebody explain to me how this could happen? The woman is a scheming, self-serving traitor who has shown the entire country that she'll do anything for political advancement. She betrayed her constituents by leaving the party under whose banner she was elected; she betrayed the entire country by preventing an election last summer.

Although, I'll admit, it'll be fun to watch her deal with Stephen Harper as PM.

Well, it's that time again. Finally. We all know we were cheated out of an election back in May, when Stronach crossed her constituents...I mean, the floor...and turned Liberal. But as her precious Liberal government looks to be thrown aside tomorrow like so much old baloney, we can forget all about her soon enough.

Still, the Tories aren't likely to take a majority. What does this mean for the country? In a word, zilch.

In order to maintain a minority government, the Tories will have to form a coalition with one of the other major parties. The Bloc hate them, the NDP hate them, and the Greens...let's all just take a moment to laugh. Not at the idea of a coalition, just at the Greens generally.

The Liberals, on the other hand, might actually be a decent candidate. Now, I know what you're all thinking. But the fact is, if the Libs help topple a Tory government right after it gets itself in place, they'll annoy the populace (unfortunate fact: people don't like elections, on the whole; they're loud, tiresome, and go on for far too long given the anticlimactic feel at the end). Not to mention the fact that they know there's little guarantee an election held in six months wouldn't have the same result as this one. So if we're lucky, they'll cooperate long enough for Harper to call another election and beat them senseless to take a majority.

Unfortunately, when right and left get together, two words inevitably come to mind: "status quo". The Libs won't be able to legalize prostitution or work further towards making sure parents hold as little responsibility for their children as possible. The Conservatives, on the other hand, won't be able to reform our government (electing our senators is still a long way off); they won't be able to do away with the illegal Canada Health Act; and they won't be able to take any of the West's issues to Parliament without a major uphill battle.

Harper has already promised to do everything he can to prevent any anti-infanticide...whoops, I mean, abortion...bill from making it to the House of Commons. What's going to be next?

Yessiree, Stephen "Lesser-Evil" Harper strikes again. Maybe after he's been in power a few years we'll have another, more useful Conservative take his place.

For now, let's just watch as our country ceases its descent into "completely buggered" and hovers just below the line of "do we care?"

Wow, I've been gone a while...between finals, going home for Christmas, a spontaneous and not-as-fun-as-it-sounds trip to Costa Rica for New Year's (long story), and getting ready to head to England (where I'm now all settled in for the semester), it's been a big month.

And today I got the news from back home that the Conservatives seem to be in the lead. I'm hugely surprised and quite elated by this, but there's another issue floating around that needs more attention than the latest polls: the issue of the Notwithstanding Clause.

The Clause, it is said by many, is protection against unelected judges taking control of the country. But now I'm going to shock you and say the Tories are dead wrong. These people seem to forget that the Notwithstanding Clause allows our government to (as the Liberals have done many times) throw the Charter of Rights and Freedoms out the window whenever they like. Actually, we don't need it. What we need is a stronger constitution, something concrete and complete which cannot be overruled by anyone. Despite the bull that's been flying around of late, there is only one thing which the Clause does: it allows the Canadian government to override the fundamental rights of Canadian citizens.

"And how do we prevent radical interpretation of the Charter by the Supreme Court?", you may ask. Here's a radical solution: let's elect the judges! Or at least make them go through a confirmation in the House of Commons (not the Senate, since they're unelected as well) and serve a limited term.

The Supreme Court of Canada is too important to be a patronage appointment, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is too important to have an off switch.