[This being my last post here before the election, let me take this opportunity to offer kudos to Greg Morrow for making this wide-ranging debate possible. His efforts are more than appreciated.]

[If anonymous editorialists can get away with this stuff, my last-minute endorsement is just as authoritative and probably will be just as effective --DD]

The only serious choice for electors on Tuesday is Jack Layton’s NDP. We (that’s the royal “we”: my co-blogger Marie Ève is on her own here) say this after considerable soul-searching and a critical examination of what each party has to offer. Given that we’re smarter than the Ottawa Citizen and the Globe and Mail, more principled than the Toronto Star, and a lot nicer than the National Post, we expect that our endorsement will have a serious reception.

It’s not that we believe that Jack Layton is the perfect leader. He sometimes appears too interested in scoring debating points, and at other times the “light and lively” label might, with some reason, be applied. But knowing Jack as we do, we would indeed buy a used car from this man, and drive it with confidence down the highway of the future.

True, he has not been tested with the responsibilities of government, except at the municipal level. But we can think of another candidate in another election campaign in another country who has similar experience, and is considered to be a serious contender for the second and even the top office in the land. Lack of government experience should never–repeat, never–be a bar to high office. Indeed, such experience can be a positive disadvantage: the wiles and tricks of governmental back-room dealings have poisoned the political culture of the established parties in Canada, and, when allowed to erupt into public consciousness, have offended the nation.

Jack brings a seasoned career as an MP to the table, and candidates who, by and large, are no worse than the candidates of other parties. For every slur about alleged “Islamists” or “truthers” flung at individual NDP candidates, too often without any foundation at all, the NDP could point to the extremist connections of, for example, Conservative hopeful Peter Kent and the far-right Coalition for Canadian Democracies, in which he holds executive office. Provincially, NDP governments have ruled responsibly, and–with the notable exception of a certain now-Liberal candidate–have handled the financial side of the job with prudence, without tearing up labour union contracts to do so.

More importantly, however, the NDP has a human face, and it isn’t ashamed to show it. The Conservative Party tries to appeal to the inner stockbroker; the Greens court small entrepreneurs who want a different type of conservatism. The Bloc makes its pitch to narrow regional interests that the québécois themselves have long outgrown, and the Liberals chat up anyone who’s listening. Only the NDP actually stands consistently for people–ordinary, working people and their families.

Whether this includes bolstering health care by hiring more doctors and nurses and investing in cancer research, or offering a Child Benefit and a children’s nutritional plan to hard-pressed working households, or investing in social housing, or protecting the environment with measures that are easily understandable and will work, the NDP has a detailed, well-thought-out platform.

The NDP stands foursquare against so-called “social conservatism” and the smoldering bigotry in some Canadian backwaters that has been fanned into flame by the Harper conservatives. The latter want small, non-intrusive government–unless it comes to women’s reproductive choice and people with a non-heterosexual orientation. They want everyone who comes to live in Canada to be just like them–a frankly horrifying prospect. The NDP recognizes the importance and the desirability of immigration and diversity, and believes that every citizen of this country, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity, is a first-class citizen.

The NDP will also put some substance behind Harper’s empty and self-serving “apology” to our First Nations, with a comprehensive plan to invest in aboriginal and Métis education, health, and skills training. And it will put an end to Canada’s shame on the international stage by signing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In foreign policy, Canada will chart an independent course, not merely wait for signals from the White House. In the Middle East, the NDP will work for solutions, rather than turning Canada into a blind adherent for one side of that many-sided conflict. As for our foreign military adventures, which even Stephen Harper has by now thought better about, the NDP will return our military to peacekeeping roles and defending our sovereignty in the Arctic.

But more important than any of these specifics is vision. The NDP is only party that looks forward–not backward like the Conservatives and the Bloc, not nervously everywhere like the Liberals, and not merely with a focus on the environment, as important as that is, like the Greens.

It’s not that the NDP has a completely unclouded view of what is to come–but that’s to be welcomed. We have had our fill of blueprints and grand schemes over the past century. Nor, if the NDP comes to power, can we be certain that it, too, will avoid opportunistic betrayals of people and principles, as the Bob Rae government in Ontario so amply demonstrated. Rather, the NDP offers us hope–possibilities for ordinary citizens to be heard, be involved and be effective.

The NDP will modernize our electoral system so that every vote counts. It will abolish that expensive house of patronage known as the Senate. It will implement legislation to force would-be floor-crossers in the House of Commons to resign first and run in a by-election. It will look for a non-confrontational, cooperative partnership between the federal government and the provinces and territories.

The NDP will also make government more accountable–by strengthening the Access to Information Act, enforcing the abandoned provisions of the Accountability Act, and establishing rules and guidelines for ethical behaviour by government, parties and politicians.

In a time of economic crisis and a worsening democratic deficit, we do not need more of what we’ve had for two years–autocratic micromanaging, secrecy, attacks on independent government watchdogs, and an ideological agenda borrowed from the extremist wing of the US Republican Party. Nor do we need the “what do we do now?” approach of the Liberals, never seeking solutions on behalf of Canadians as a whole, but looking only and always for advantage and power for itself. The NDP has a more workable and effective environmental platform than the Green Party, and a more inclusive view of Canada than the insular and out-of-date Bloc Québécois.

The NDP is not all things to all people, and it does not offer either a perfect leader or perfect policies. But Jack Layton and his team can be trusted to get the big things right. In the midst of current global uncertainty we need not only strong and thoughtful leadership, but the ability to empathize with the Canadian public–and to listen. We need, in other words, a humane approach as well as a hard-headed one. Only the NDP offers both of these qualities to an alienated electorate. Tomorrow, vote not just for change, but for change that could make a difference.

[Crossposted from Dawg's Blawg.]

It was a pleasure, I’ll confess, to wake up this morning to the flensing of Mike Duffy for his disgraceful, boorish, unethical behaviour last night. And it was a relief to see that one solid Canadian value–fairness–is still so vigorously in effect.

In a way, the treatment of Stephane Dion by CTV sums up the election campaign as a whole: its peculiar nastiness, a rotten import from the south that the Tories, since the day they mocked Jean Chretien’s facial disfigurement, still imagine will play well up here. And maybe in little jerkwater hamlets like Delisle it does, but not among civil Canadians.

The Conservatives are all over this soft lob from Duffy, of course. Earth to the CPC: we aren’t buying it. Decency still counts for something, even during an election campaign. Dion is starting to look positively magisterial compared to the cold-eyed autocrat you want us to support for his “leadership” qualities. The awkward, gangling, nerdy fellow from Quebec might even have a shot at being the next Prime Minister. And this, despite the last-ditch smarmy interventions of oh-so-wise journalistic talking heads whose corporate groupthink has helped to paralyze the body politic for decades.

What a desperate, contemptible move by a party whose fortunes have waned so rapidly over the past few days. And don’t blame all of the latter on the incredible shrinking economy. Canadians are rightly worried: indeed, in the words of one financial commentator today, “Even panic is starting to look like a realistic response.” But in such times we want reassurance–not bizarre suggestions that we spend money on stock bargains. We are looking for a sympathetic connection and a comprehensible plan.

Instead, when a man is asked an ambiguous question that would pose a challenge to most of us even in our first language, we’re treated to petty, slimy personal insults. If Dion in now in sight of a minority victory, this shameful little episode might just push him past the finish line. And if that happens, while I shall never vote Liberal in my life, I’ll be cheering.

As the Conservative ship is listing badly and taking on water, few will shed a tear other than the tears of frustration we’re now seeing on the anxious faces of the party faithful. Captain Harper, navigating between sea-monsters–on one side, the so-con Scylla, on the other, the latte-sipping, artsy-fartsy, vaguely treasonous Charybdis–has finally fetched up on the shoals of the economy.

His was a missed opportunity of historic proportions. Under our antique and undemocratic electoral system, the Cons only had to corral 40% or so of the votes of those who bothered to turn up at the polls (maybe a quarter of the electorate), to rule unimpeded for four ghastly years. The goal wouldn’t be easy to achieve, but it was hardly out of reach.

“Strong” (read autocratic) leadership, therefore, almost inevitably became a key issue. There are always people who seek the vicarious thrill of sadopolitics–jailing 14-year-olds, sending troops off to fight foreign wars, poking culture in the eye, sticking it to the CBC, dissing the “liberal” media, bullying and firing bureaucrats, and crushing anyone else who gets in the way. For the Conservatives there is no shortage of targets, as we have seen: it’s been high noon for nearly two years.

And then four things happened.

First, the handlers decided to let the Conservative basement kids loose. The results were some serious gaffes that could have derailed the campaign. The machine was soon back on track, and by itself this difficult start could have been overcome, but it left questions in many people’s minds. Nevertheless, the polls, if not the pollsters,* were looking pretty good, especially in swing ridings (now renamed “battleground riding’s” as our psychological deep integration with the US continues).

At the same time, though, the strategists decided to make Harper kindler and gentler, all blue sweater-vest and proud father. This was, as Citizen columnist Randall Denley pointed out at the time, a serious blunder. Nobody was fooled. His core constituency, in fact, didn’t want a kind, sweet man in charge. And his opponents were not taken in by the palpable insincerity of the new election-ad Stephen.

On the hustings, the real Harper has seemed even more tightly controlled than usual, almost paralyzed. His performance in the leaders debates was extraordinarily poor: he sat there, often speaking in an emotionless monotone, while his strategists hoped the other leaders would overplay their hands–which to some extent, of course, they did. But he suffered for it.

Debates don’t usually decide electoral matters, of course. But crises, on the other hand, test political leaders to the core. There is simply nowhere to hide. Faced with a cataclysmic economic meltdown, Canadians wanted clear, decisive answers, and they also needed a sense of connection.

But Harper failed spectacularly to connect with the public, musing aloud instead about buying up stock bargains. Yes, as he said defensively, keeping one’s head in a crisis in important; but at times like this, people want heart as well. He hasn’t done all that well with the head part, as it happens. But it’s the man’s utter lack of empathy, I think, that has sealed his party’s fate.

One can feel the ground shifting. The Globe and Mail, decrying his lack of leadership on the economy last week, today published a cartoon mocking his aloofness. The Ottawa Citizen went further: its cartoon portrays him as a child begging at the door. His supporters are resigned to another minority government at best–don’t be fooled by the brave rhetoric. They’re flailing mightily, but they know the awful truth.

Margaret Wente gave him a tongue-lashing this morning that would have brought a rhino to its knees. There’s an almost incredulous chorus of shock and disapppointment, and much grumbling and second-guessing, as the man behind the curtain is finally revealed. Even the conservative Economist now refers to his poor leadership on the environment and his “inner oilman.”

The polls indicate another minority government–possibly even a Liberal one. Harper has managed an impossible feat–making Stéphane Dion look good in comparison. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory–because another Conservative minority government is as much a defeat for Harper as a Liberal win–he has dashed the hopes of his party and his constituency. How much longer will he lead it?
_______
* Pollster silliness continues unabated. The CBC suggests that his decline in the polls has ceased, because the latest poll indicates a one-percent increase over the last one. The margin of error is 2.7%!

Governments should be accountable to Canadians all the time, not just during election time. One of the key elements of a functioning democracy between elections is transparency and on-going government accountability to Parliament and to the people of Canada. Two new watchdog positions—a Parliamentary Budget Officer and a Public Appointments Commissioner—were created recently with substantial input from my own MP, Paul Dewar. Their respective mandates would allow them to shine a bright light on government expenditures and appointments.

Unfortunately, the Conservative government has seriously undermined both functions before they have even had a chance to be put into operation.

There is at the present time no Public Appointments Commissioner. The office has been deliberately kept vacant. Prime Minister Stephen Harper abruptly made that decision this past May, after a friend of his, Gwyn Morgan, was found to be unsuitable for the position by the House of Commons Government Operations Committee. Mr. Morgan, a Calgary oilman, had made disparaging comments about immigrants, multiculturalism and unions in a speech to the Fraser Institute, a conservative think-tank. In Mr. Harper’s opinion, Morgan’s plainly intolerant views should not have disqualified him from one of the most sensitive positions in Parliament. The Committee, thankfully, disagreed.

But Mr. Harper’s decision means that it’s still business as usual—unvetted patronage appointments with no Parliamentary oversight whatsoever.

The duties of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, technically an officer of the non-partisan Library of Parliament, include carrying out independent analyses of Canada’s economy, finances and planned government expenditures. Another crucial part of the job is to provide an objective analysis of departmental and agency spending estimates, when asked to do so by parliamentary committees reviewing those estimates, such as the Senate National Finance Committee and the House of Commons Finance and Public Accounts Committees.

The first appointee to this post is Kevin Page, who appears to be very well-qualified for the position. But, in keeping with the Conservative government’s smoke-and-mirrors approach, his office has been given a paltry operating budget of $2.5 million, which will simply not permit him and his staff to do the work with any degree of thoroughness. Mr. Page himself has graciously tried to make the best of this tiny allocation, but questions have been raised about how this sum will permit him to serve all 308 MPs, and the various committees that will call on him for assistance.

An expert on the workings of government, Sharon Sutherland, puts it this way:

“If MPs want to have at their service a challenge function to both the Finance Department and to the expenditure budget, and if all the political parties make full use of the function, even assuming the Budget Office uses only available data, it will find itself out of funds pretty quickly. Even to perform an interpretive function, it will need to hire experts, and it will have to work with academic economists who charge huge fees.”

A responsible and responsive government should be accountable in fact, not just in theory. Two steps in the right direction have now been taken, with the establishment of a Public Appointments Commission and a Parliamentary Budget Officer. But these two steps forward have been countered by two steps right back: an unfilled office in one case, and a grossly under-budgeted one in the other. Canadians, pressed by an economic downturn and shrinking public services, have a right to know what our government is doing on a day-to-day basis. They deserve far better than this.

The operatives of the “big tent” parties–the Liberals and Conservatives–have been busy flinging unidentified substances at the Greens and the NDP for harbouring candidates of odd and unsavoury views. The latest one of these to drop is Andrew McKeever, whose misogynist and pro-war comments finally forced his resignation. He’ll never be missed–at least by me.

But these same operatives are strangely silent when some of their own are exposed. Take Liberal candidate for York Centre, Ken Dryden. Please.

Ken wants to seal off Gaza, the largest open-air prison in the world. Here he is, on the record:

“In front of a split audience in the sanctuary of the Beth Emeth synagogue on Wilmington…the ex-hockey guy’s eyes hardened as he advocated no truck or trade with the ‘terrorists’ in the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza.

“Then he offered this shocker: ‘Stop all aid that flows into Gaza. While that may seem a harsh measure that will hurt Palestinian civilians… it is the right thing to do at this time.’”

[H/t Alison via PSA]

80% of Gazans rely on humanitarian assistance to survive. The implications of Dryden’s words are very clear. We have heard no howls of outrage by Jason Cherniak as yet. Maxed out, Jason?

Dryden joins Conservative hopeful in Thornhill, Peter Kent, an executive official of an extremist anti-Muslim organization, Canadian Coalition for Democracies. His colleagues there have called for bombing Iran and wiping Islam from the face of the earth. “Muslims,” declares his CCD President, Alastair Gordon, have “small minds” and “no humanity.”

The article in Toronto’s NOW magazine continues:

“One reason the Liberals probably won’t pay a price for the Tories’ dedicated loyalty to the Israeli government is that the Grits hold exactly the same position now. Aside from Michael Ignatieff’s musing – and then step-down – about Israel committing “war crimes” in Lebanon, the Libs’ policy has generally morphed from bipartisan to Israel-positive.

“Sure, Dryden did some hand-wringing at the meeting about how awful it is that Canada is no longer seen as the exponent of diplomacy and the honest broker it once was.

“But as even B’nai Brith exec VP Frank Dimant admits, the parties have no real differences. Dimant points to his friend Irwin Cotler, the Lib MP for Mount Royal and former justice minister, as a case in point.

“‘His positioning on Middle East and Jewish issues in general is very close today to where the Conservative party is,’ says Dimant, described by Embassy Magazine as one of the top foreign policy influencers in Ottawa.

“But this consensus on Israel is a worry, says former ambassador to the UN Paul Heinbecker, particularly because of international law. “We tend to accept the argument that Israel is a democracy – ‘Who are we to criticize what the Israelis do? [Whatever] the Palestinians do is ipso facto wrong’ – I’m thinking of Hamas. This is not an approach that leads anywhere except to more deadlock.”

“But pushing for a more complex view of the Mideast isn’t for the faint of heart. Steve Scheinberg, a retired Concordia history prof and Canadian Friends of Peace Now activist, laments that his group lacks the resources to lobby politicians for a view counter to mainstream Jewish orgs.

“‘I don’t think the Conservatives are that interested in the Middle East per se,” he says. “What I think they are interested in is winning some Jewish votes and money.’” [Emphases added. --DD]

Vile comments and questionable associations might be seen as mere political pandering, in other words. But I have no reason to think that the personal beliefs of Ken Dryden are not in sync with his public utterances, nor that those of Peter Kent are in opposition to the organization that he helps to lead.

There is a further issue here, however–perhaps the key one–that needs to be spelled out. Do Liberals and Conservatives really think that the significant complement of Jewish voters in York Centre will be swayed by calls for crimes against humanity? Is the Thornhill candidate’s leadership position in an extremist organization expected to appeal to them? Do these voters, en bloc, want to starve a civilian population to death, or throw Islam into the rubbish-bin of history, or bomb Iran?

Isn’t this selling Jewish voters a little short, in fact–indeed, a lot short? Isn’t the implicit assumption that Jewish electors lack humanity and tolerance–anti-Semitic? Come on, Cherniak, get on this. We can’t clean up the darker corners of the establishment parties all by ourselves.

Shorter Brian McGarry, Conservative candidate in Ottawa-Centre: “Don’t like the arts cuts? Have a baby, li’l lady.”

[H/t Queer Thoughts and Kady O'Malley @7:41:42]

Buckets has a twelfth question for Peter Kent. Now let’s pluck a few more statements from the bubbling stew of extremism that is the “Canadian Coalition for Democracies,” on whose Board the Conservative candidate for Thornhill sits:

• Islam and the terrorism it promotes must be religated [sic] to the ash bin of history, much like what we had to do with National Socialism in Europe in the last century. –Naresh Raghubeer, CCD Executive Director [NB: This quote was subsequently taken down by CCD--presumably the mask slipped just a tad too far--but nothing disappears entirely on the Internet. --DD]
• Just by looking around the world, who could be blamed for concluding that Islam is a savage, barbaric, primitive, cruel, despotic religion… –Alistair Gordon, CCD President*
• Maoists, Muslims – small minds, big ideas, no humanity. Interesting how Canada kowtows both to the Muslim world and to Mao’s China, while marginalizing those who should be our natural allies… — Alastair Gordon, CCD President**
• Louise Arbour – Islamist mouthpiece at the UN … When you thought Canada’s unprincipled foreign policy, based primarily on being anti-American, could not sink any lower, we have the idiotic statements of Canada’s own Louise Arbour… — Alastair Gordon, CCD President
• There are all sorts of things that one cannot do on an airplane, including push-ups in the aisle and yoga. If these imams are so devout and pious, then it is their duty to avoid travel if it interferes with their piety. It is not the duty of the traveling public or airline operators to accomodate their rituals, especially when thier own safety is at risk. –Alastair Gordon, CCD President [The imams in question were praying in the airport, not on a plane. --DD]
• Well, it looks to me like Sid Ryan [the President of CUPE Ontario] just confirmed that CUPE’s boycott of Israel is plain, old fashioned Jew-hatred, not unlike that of his socialist mentors, the National Socialist (Nazi) Party of Germany. –Alastair Gordon, CCD President

There you have it. The religion of Islam is “primitive” and “barbaric,” and should disappear from the earth. Respected jurist Louise Arbour is an “Islamist mouthpiece.” CUPE’s Sid Ryan is a Nazi.

Thirteenth question: Does Kent, a member of CCD’s Executive Committee, endorse these extremist statements by his fellow CCD executive members?

[H/t Canadian Observer]

_____________
*There seems to have been a little judicious housecleaning over at CCD Central. This quotation no longer appears at CCD, but is quoted here. Readers who are interested will be able to find a message numbered 8319.shtml with an indicated follow-up by Gordon that has been removed. The next message is 8321.shtml.

**Another message down the memory hole. This was once message 2429.shtml. Message 2428.shtml still exists, as does message 2430.shtml. Gordon’s missing words are quoted here.

Bloggers have attracted a bit of teeth-gnashing from some establishment pundits today.

The topic is the recent spate of candidate immolation that has been sparked in some cases by bloggers on the job.

The Ottawa Citizen’s national editor, Andrew Potter, and a former speechwriter for Paul Martin, Scott Reid (not to be confused with the Tory MP of that name) are in a snit. Kady O’Malley, bless her, manages to avoid this kind of thing: “[W]hat are the three things you need to be a blogger? Your laptop. Your basement. And your virginity.”

That’s Scott Reid, setting a new benchmark for lameness.

And here’s Potter:

“What worries me, though, is that we’re seeing the “democratization” of politics, in the most literal sense of the word: The people — the great idiocratic mass of mouth-breathers out there frantically swiping the drool off their keyboards as they Google around for “dirt” — are running the campaigns now. There aren’t war rooms anymore, directed by parties with smart, educated, responsible adults in charge — it’s Hobbes’ state of nature as imagined by Mike Judge.”

Yup, democracy is too precious to squander on the people: that “idiocratic mass of mouth-breathers.” Heaven forbid that the reign of mainstream journalists be threatened by the rabble. I like that notion of war rooms with “smart, educated, responsible adults in charge,” too–the ones who gave us pooping puffins and insults to the family of a dead soldier.

O’Malley makes the glaringly obvious point, in fact, that the press has fallen behind this rabble in nailing down what she calls “candidate eruptions.” But her next comment–that, unlike us, journalists need to worry about “boring, grownup stuff like contributory defamation liability, which is so non-Web 2.0″–is simply foolish and uninformed. One needs to ask where she’s been lately: bloggers are all-too-aware of the sweep of our defamation laws, as some have found to their cost, and we observe precisely the same standards in this respect as the media hacks who miss so many good scoops.

In fact, speaking of standards, here’s Reid piping up again:

“I actually think it’s A-OK for the media to maintain a few measly standards that separate them from the likes of ‘chubbylover69′ and the rest of the self-defined blogosphere press gallery. One of my pet peeves is the habit of mainstream media ‘reporting’ on bloggers who have posted rumours without source or sense of motivation.”

Yeah, that must hurt, Scott–not only do the mainstream journalists miss some great stories, but some of the press–in particular the National Post–actually acknowledge the work we do. And that’s not based upon rumour-mongering, but on hard facts and solid research that you folks are too lazy, too incompetent or too constrained by deadlines and groupthink to investigate for yourselves.

It wasn’t the posting of “rumours without source or sense of motivation” (whatever that latter phrase means) that forced the removal of political candidates like Lesley Hughes: it was a few minutes of research and fact-checking that you were unable or unwilling to do. I never thought I’d say this, but Kate McMillan may be onto something with her “Not Waiting for the Asteroid” series. You folks are just too full of yourselves; you’re the voice of an entrenched institution defending your decaying castle.

You’ve fallen down on the job time after time, and bloggers have had to fill the gap–whether it was police involvement in the Montebello riots, the phoney doctorate of Harper intimate Charles McVety, or the unsavoury comments, behaviour and connections of members of the current candidate pool.

I would suggest, instead of this unseemly moaning and stamping your feet, that we have a symbiotic relationship taking shape, whether we like it or not, and we should all make the best of it. Those who think that bloggers are actually going to replace the so-called “MSM” someday are dreaming in technicolour–the bulk of our material, after all, comes from the media. But not all of it does–nor the connections we are able to make, and the research we are able to do while newsprint waits for the presses and the electronic media processes, cans and delivers information at set times. Nor do we fuss about advertisers and owners, and craft (or spike) our stories accordingly.

And the other thing that rankles the groupthinkers no end, of course, is that we bloggers have a refreshing assortment of intelligent takes on current events, offering a wider variety by far than is what is spoonfed to us by a corporate, lockstep media that serves the status quo so very, very well.

I believe we can help each other in the public interest. But small-minded, petty whining by those who feel their privilege slipping away is not the way to go about it. Truce?

Dear Peter Kent:

Given your position on the Board of the far-right “Canadian Coalition for Democracies”:

1) Do you support the CCD’s lobbying for diplomatic and economic ties with the Indian state of Gujurat, where rioters, with government complicity, murdered, raped and dispossessed tens of thousands of Muslims, and where schoolchildren are taught to admire Adolf Hitler?

2) Did you endorse the CCD’s position in favour of firing Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, for chairing a meeting that awarded an Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler?

3) Do you believe, with the CCD, that “many” Members of Parliament are “apologists for terrorists who celebrate the killing and maiming of men, women, and children?”

4) If yes, who are these Parliamentarians?

5) Do you endorse the smearing of David Suzuki by your president, Alistair Gordon, and his irresponsible retailing of the anti-environmentalist lie that a DDT ban killed millions in sub-Saharan Africa?

6) As a member of the CCD Board, what role did you play in the attempted character assassination of Liberal MP Omar Alghabra in 2005–for which your organization later had to apologize and retract?

7) Do you believe, with your colleague David Harris, that Muslim terrorists have infiltrated the FBI and CIA, the State Department, the U.S. Muslim military chaplain corps, the White House, Homeland Security, the U.S. Air Force, Guantanamo, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons–and in Canada, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Quebec NDP?

8 ) Do you take the view, as your colleague Salim Mansour does, that Canada should walk out of the UN?

9) Do you believe that veiled Muslim women at the polls might be engaging in criminal acts including suicide bombing, as a CCD press release suggests? (Are you aware that the current provisions of the Canada Elections Act permit such women to vote without unveiling, so long as they are not relying on photo ID as proof of identity?)

10) Do you support the bombing of Iran, like your colleague David Harris?

In my typically even-handed way, I now turn to the Conservative candidate for Thornhill, Peter Kent, who happens to be a senior member of an outfit called the Canadian Coalition for Democracies.

What is the CCD?

It’s a group that appears to enjoy fomenting anti-Muslim hysteria. The organization even sucked in that indefatigable anti-Muslim campaigner and promoter of campus snitch lines, Daniel Pipes. Pipes was forced to retract comments he made about Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, which had been based upon misinformation received from CCD. (Pipes refers in his screed to Ezra Levant’s further smears of Alghabra, which I dealt with some time ago, and makes additional defamatory remarks that need not concern us here.)

CCD’s legal counsel has been none other than David Harris, whose inflammatory anti-Muslim commentary is notorious in its own right, and who has recently been fussing out loud about “out-of-control immigration.” Harris was in the news last year making some credulous public comments about a hilariously silly “bugged money” story emanating from the US Defence Security Service.

Here is part of CCD’s statement of purpose:

“At CCD, we believe that our foreign policy should reflect our respect for life and liberty. If we want peace, we must support beleaguered allies who share our Canadian values. Instead, many in our past governments have made it their career to condemn and criticize the United States and Israel, while being apologists for terrorists who celebrate the killing and maiming of men, women, and children. [emphasis mine --DD]”

CCD does not name those “many” in previous Canadian governments who have “been apologists for terrorists.” But this kind of shrill, defamatory, McCarthyite rhetoric is par for the course. Check out these CCD media topics for yourselves, and take particular note of the often hateful rhetoric in which they are couched.

Does Peter Kent’s association with this extremist group merit some attention from bloggers and the media–and from Muslims in the Thornhill riding?

[Thx to Firebrand for the suggestion.]

UPDATE: Reader Buckets reminds us that CCD was one of the infamous “42 organizations” demanding the firing of Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin for chairing the committee that awarded the Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Read all about that bogus complaint here.

UPPERDATE: A reader pointed me to this press release from CCD (David Harris), urging political and diplomatic relations with the Indian state of Gujurat. Why Gujurat? Could it have anything to do with the militant anti-Islamism of the government there–documented by Human Rights Watch?

After his recent outpouring of lies and smears about the NDP and its candidates, not to mention his implicit suggestion that uncritical support of the State of Israel should be a qualification to run in a Canadian election, blogger Jason Cherniak may now have a little problem with one of his own.

Here’s Lesley Hughes, running for the Liberals in Kildonan-St.Paul, on the 9/11 attacks:

“German Intelligence (BND) claims to have warned the U.S. last June, the Israeli Mossad and Russian Intelligence in August. Israeli businesses, which had offices in the Towers, vacated the premises a week before the attacks, breaking their lease to do it. About 3000 Americans working there were not so lucky.”

I await Cherniak’s denunciation of the Liberal Party for running one of those Troofer anti-Semites he’s been going on about.

Jason? Oh, Jason…?

Is that the crash of a glass house shattering–or the pleasant sound of a Liberal operative being torn in two by conflicting priorities?

[H/t commenter Barbara at Sean In Saskatchewan and The Black Rod.]

Anyone getting a little alarmed about Stephen Harper using the RCMP as his Praetorian Guard?

I don’t put the blame totally on Harper or his Liberal predecessor Jean Chrétien either. The RCMP, long a law unto itself, an elite squad of Canadians whose members are permitted to kill with impunity, clearly fancies itself in this role.

What is happening to this country? Why isn’t continued RCMP wrong-doing an election issue?

Lawrence Martin asked querulously in the Globe & Mail yesterday why immigration isn’t an issue in the current election campaign. He spent a good deal of time citing the former executive director of the Canadian Immigration Service, one James Bissett, who is predicting the usual doom and gloom that the rabid right associates with non-white “ethnic” immigration.

Martin gives Bissett a pass on a possible charge of racism because his son married a Black woman, and his daughter married a Cuban. But that’s needlessly defensive, and immediately arouses suspicions even among those like myself who think that a good racism-free socio-economic debate on immigration is there to be had. Those marital choices were rather obviously not up to Bissett; and we have no information, of course, on the state of Bissett family relations today.

But in any case, here is Bissett himself:

“Either our political leaders do not know that Canada is facing an immigration crisis or they care more about gaining a few more so-called “ethnic voters” than they do about telling the truth about immigration.”

He is, to be sure, somewhat more guarded than this fellow. Or this one. But somehow the message is always the same, however encoded it might be. Immigration is being encouraged for crassly political reasons: to secure the existing [clears throat] “ethnic” vote and import some more Xs for political parties at election time. This is the end of Canada as we know it: nothing less than a crisis is looming.

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A few days ago CBC columnist Heather Mallick did a detailed piece on yet another death of a thousand cuts (pace Gerry Ritz). She examined, in her inimitable way, the current Tory war against culture and its devastating fallout for Canadian artists, our cultural industries and our international presence.

The onslaught continues, and never mind Stephen Harper’s mediocre piano-playing. (That was just aural mendacity for the rubes.) The latest target of the hairy-knuckled hordes is the Ottawa-based Canadian Screen Training Centre.

According to the Ottawa Citizen’s Tony Lofaro:

“The centre, founded in 1981, has been a leader in training people in film and video production, and its annual Summer Institute of Film and Television program has been a bona fide hit, offering practical filmmaking experience to thousands of people. Directors such as Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) and a score of Canadian producers and directors have taught at the institute. One of its famous graduates is Denise Robert, producer of The Barbarian Invasions, the Canadian winner of 2003′s Best Foreign Film Oscar.”

Perhaps Denise Robert hit too close to home. The Centre has now been informed that a $205,000 annual grant from Canadian Heritage will be axed on April 1, 2009, giving fresh new meaning to April Fools’ Day. That grant is minuscule, but it’s 40% of the Centre’s budget. Says executive director Max Berdowski:

“What we do with the level of funding we have is really quite remarkable. But to try and have a 40-per-cent cut in our revenue and still try to do anything that is still of significance is just a non-starter for us.”

He predicts that unless the shortfall can be made up, the Centre is likely to close its doors as early as 2010.

And here is Canadian Heritage mouthpiece Dominique Collin:

“This is a new approach to managing public funds and allows the government to assess a wide and diversified range of programs as a group to ensure they attain strong results and remain relevant.”

Where is George Orwell now that we need him?

Mallick sums up the whole affair better than ever I could:

“The cuts are shameful and cheap. Worse than that, they are spiteful, a character trait that makes me writhe with disgust when I find it in myself. What a government.”

Yup, I’m writhing too. The barbarians are well past the gate–they’re running the government. A-writhe, then, fellow citizens–let’s kick these vandals to the curb on October 14. Or else it’s NASCAR races, game shows and accordions for all eternity.

[Crossposted from Dawg's Blawg]

OK, enough is enough.

“Tories on cusp of majority with 40% support,” shrieks CanWest. And then the fine print:

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have moved within reach of a majority, according to an Ipsos Reid poll, primarily because the party has found new strength in key election battlegrounds in Ontario and Quebec.

The Conservatives have surged to 40-per-cent support, up two points from a week before, according to the poll, commissioned by Canwest News Service and Global National.

Meanwhile, the Liberals have dipped two points to 27 per cent. The NDP jumped two points to 15 per cent and the Greens dropped one point to sit at 10 per cent nationally.

“It seems like this relentless march by the Tories. They’re not really making huge strides, but … obviously they’re moving in the right direction,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Reid Public Affairs. The poll, conducted by phone from Tuesday through Thursday, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. [emphases mine --DD]

For crying out loud. Conservatives “surge” in a “relentless march,” Liberals “dip,” and the NDP “jumps”–two whole points, well within the statistical margin of error. Whom on earth do the pollsters and media think they’re kidding?

And then this:

Still, while the poll shows that Canadians are warming to the prospect of a Tory majority, 49 per cent still say they would be “dissatisfied” with such a result. Thirty-seven per cent would be satisfied, while 14 per cent had no opinion.

In other words, the folks who are going to vote Tory anyway would be “satisfied” with a Tory majority. (I think it’s fair to assume a certain amount of overlap here.) What almost classically British understatement!

That’s it for me. No more polls, which more and more are beginning to sound, in their interpretation if not their methodology, like a certain notorious MASSIVE one. La, La, La, La, Ipsos-Reid, I can’t hear you!

And, as always, the real lede is buried deep under the cornfield. 40% of the voters will bring a party close to “majority” territory. Minority rule as usual. Ain’t formal democracy grand?

[Crossposted from Dawg's Blawg]

Will the October 14 election turn on Stephen Harper’s sleeveless blue sweater? The name of Stéphane Dion’s dog?

Two American political scientists, Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels, showed in a 2004 paper that 2.8 million voters cast their ballots against Al Gore in 2000 because of poor weather in their states (p.29). Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 presidential campaign was jeopardized because of shark attacks along the beaches of New Jersey. Picking up on the theme in an article in The New Yorker that appeared at about the same time, Louis Menand makes reference to an earlier commenter:

“The typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field,” the economic theorist Joseph Schumpeter wrote, in 1942. “He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. He becomes a primitive again. His thinking is associative and affective.”

Menand goes on to note:

The most widely known fact about George H. W. Bush in the 1992 election was that he hated broccoli. Eighty-six per cent of likely voters in that election knew that the Bushes’ dog’s name was Millie; only fifteen per cent knew that Bush and Clinton both favored the death penalty.

Achen and Bartels conclude their article on a note of deep pessimism. Their study, they write,

questions the ability of ordinary citizens to assess their public life critically, listen to the proposals for change coming from contenders for public office, and then choose between the candidates in accordance with their own values. Like most survey researchers who have talked extensively to real voters, we believe that few such citizens exist. The present paper is one more item of evidence. The central fact about democracies is that the voters understand little beyond their own and their community’s pain and pleasure, and they think about causes and effects as the popular culture advises them to think. The romantic vision of thoughtful democratic participation in the common life is largely mythical. Democracy must be defended some other way, if it is to be defended at all. [emphasis mine --DD]

The current view of the average or “mass” voter might well be rooted in a pivotal article published in 1964 by Philip Converse, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics.” In it, using data available at the time, he argued that only 10% of the voting population (whom he termed “ideologues”) had a coherent, “constrained” set of political beliefs. “Constraint” refers to the degree to which holding one political position allows us to predict other positions. Those whose beliefs are constrained are not likely, to give a Canadian example, to support massive cuts to the public service and an increase in public services at the same time. But we know that both positions have been very popular indeed among the “mass public.”

Converse has not been without his critics. J.H. Wray*, for example, believed that he greatly exaggerated the gap between the elite and the mass publics. Converse held the view that college graduates would have more coherent political beliefs, but Wray used statistical techniques on Converse’s national sample data, and found very little actual difference. And he made a key point: “An irony of ‘The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics’ is that it tells us so little about the nature of belief systems in mass publics.”

As it happens, Converse, in retrospect, was inclined to agree. Answering Wray, fifteen years after his original paper appeared**, he conceded:

[A]s a Wray quotation or two make clear, I mistakenly assumed that measures of education, political information, ideology or political sophistication would all be sufficiently correlated that any one of them would be a reasonable proxy variable to produce the kind of discriminations being discussed. What has turned out in the interim is that while educational differences fail to yield much of the expected discrimination in constraint as statically measured or in attitude stability as longitudinally measured, measures of political involvement tend, with much greater reliability, to show discriminations in the expected direction, and often quite large ones.

In other words, those who are more politically involved tend to have more coherent political beliefs. Speaking as someone who is not a political scientist, my impulse at this point is likely a “mass” one: “Well, duh.”

In the 1974 election, a photographer snapped a picture of Stanfield fumbling a football on an airport tarmac. It served to depict him as clumsy and inept, despite the fact he had been firing perfect spirals to a reporter for several minutes before the errant toss came his way.

People are susceptible to media images and soundbites at election time. This sort of thing forms part of the non-political calculus by which they make their decisions. It’s not that the reasons for their choice are necessarily irrational or stupid: they simply aren’t political.

Ah, yes, political conservatism, dealt with exhaustively by John T. Jost et al. here (p.369):

Variables significantly associated with conservatism, we now know, include fear and aggression (Adorno et al., 1950; Altemeyer, 1998; Lavine et al., 1999), dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity (Fibert & Ressler, 1998; Frenkel-Brunswik, 1948; Rokeach, 1960)uncertainty avoidance (McGregor et al., 2001; Sorrentino & Roney, 1986; Wilson, 1973b), need for cognitive closure (Golec, 2001; Jost et al., 1999; Kemmelmeier, 1997; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), personal need for structure (Altemeyer, 1998; Schaller et al., 1995; Smith & Gordon, 1998), terror management (Dechesne et al., 2000; Greenberg et al., 1990, 1992; Wilson, 1973d), group-based dominance (Pratto et al., 1994; Sidanius, 1993; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), and system justification (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost et al., 2001; Jost & Thompson, 2000).

Heh. We knew that. But it doesn’t make our task any easier.

What task? Well, if we aren’t going to give up on democracy altogether, cynically exploiting the masses’ alleged fixation on trivial and irrelevant matters, we need to look at an alternative kind of politics. To begin with, perhaps the notion of polarized positions, as Morris Fiorina (cited by Menand) suggests in his book Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, is a polarization of elite, not popular, opinion. As he puts it, “The simple truth is that there is no culture war in the United States—no battle for the soul of America rages, at least none that most Americans are aware of.”

Indeed, this would conform to the opinions already noted that most voters are not motivated by actual political issues. While we might still be confronted by conservative values, then, at least we may not have to penetrate the wall of conservative politics. We face, in other words, a social challenge, not a political one.

Menand himself concludes the same thing: that voting is social, not political:

Fiorina quotes a passage from the political scientist Robert Putnam: “Most men are not political animals. The world of public affairs is not their world. It is alien to them—possibly benevolent, more probably threatening, but nearly always alien. Most men are not interested in politics. Most do not participate in politics.”

Man [sic] may not be a political animal, but he is certainly a social animal. Voters do respond to the cues of commentators and campaigners, but only when they can match those cues up with the buzz of their own social group. Individual voters are not rational calculators of self-interest (nobody truly is), and may not be very consistent users of heuristic shortcuts, either. But they are not just random particles bouncing off the walls of the voting booth. Voters go into the booth carrying the imprint of the hopes and fears, the prejudices and assumptions of their family, their friends, and their neighbors. For most people, voting may be more meaningful and more understandable as a social act than as a political act.

It would be a mistake, however, to leave matters thus. The underlying notion in all this is that the general public doesn’t care about the real issues, or is even incapable of caring, and votes accordingly. But one shouldn’t take this as irremediable ignorance, foolishness or incapacity. It is, first and foremost, indicative of alienation from present-day politics, from a system that encourages public participation only for a very short period every few years.

People might be forgiven for taking the view that no matter who they vote for, the government gets elected. Why learn about the issues? Why delve into the politics that surrounds even what directly affects them? The day after the election it’s back to normal, as though nothing had happened. Do they have any more say in things? Will the promises of the day be kept? (Hands up, all those who think that we’re really out of Afghanistan in 2011 if Harper is returned with a majority.)

At the very least the present estrangement of citizens from their current political system calls for wide public discussion of a kind we’ve never had. Until then, pray for an early snowfall on October 14: some folks will be bound to blame it on the Conservatives.

[H/t frequent commenter John Cross and Marie Ève.]
______________________
* J. Harry Wray. “Comment on Interpretations of Early Research into Belief Systems.”
The Journal of Politics, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Nov., 1979), pp. 1173-1181.
**Philip E. Converse. “Comment.” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Nov., 1979), pp. 1182-1184.

[Cross-posted from Dawg's Blawg.]

Ever get the sense we’re watching a hockey game in slow motion?

September 6: The Tories are in minority territory! A majority is a long way off!

September 13: The Tories are in majority territory! Big lead in three polls! This could be the end of Stéphane Dion!

September 15: The Tory lead is narrowing! A gap has opened up, says Liberal strategist!

Good grief. I can’t wait for Coach’s Corner.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This Declaration was passed overwhelmingly by the UN General Assembly. But four settler states with dismal records regarding their indigenous populations voted against it: the United States, Australia, New Zealand–and Canada.

Thank you for that, Stephen Harper. The frankly racist decision by your government to oppose this Declaration has tarnished our international image, insulted First Nations and Inuit, and shamed us all.

Here is yet another election issue that needs to be foregrounded by the other parties. Harper’s “apology” to Native people was sheer hypocrisy. Your empty words, sir, cannot conceal the actions of your government–this disgraceful UN vote, the destruction of the Kelowna Accord, even the vetoing of a primary school for Aboriginal kids by a Minister whose comments about Aboriginal people simply reek of contempt.

Out of respect, and to atone for being a day late with this, I will now turn the floor over to Les Malezer, a descendant of the Gubbi Gubbi and Butchulla peoples of the region of the Mary River and Fraser Island on the eastern coast of Australia, and the former Chairperson of the Global Indigenous Peoples Caucus on the Declaration, who issued this anniversary statement yesterday:

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Let me say this, I would choose, if I had to, instead [of a vegetable], to be a fruit: Just what I am, sweet and colourful.–Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper’s factual falsehoods–and they are legion, starting with, golly, fixed election dates, and all-party committees to review judicial appointments–have been more than adequately exposed by others. I want to talk about Harper’s image-lies, the soft untruths that are the stock-in-trade of public manipulation.

Start with the current advertisements showing a kinder, gentler Harper: one on a collision course, it seems, with a tougher, nastier Dion. (Will they eventually disappear in a flash of gamma radiation? Stay tuned.) Ottawa Citizen commentator Randall Denley is characteristically blunt: “He’s not a regular guy, so there’s no use pretending.” Indeed, the very fact that the Tory spinmeisters feel compelled to produce these defensive little family clips reveals the substantial gap between image and substance.

Then there’s the promotion of Harper as a “strong leader.” Again, it’s Denley to the reality rescue:

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Leonard Stern is an Ottawa Citizen columnist who once distinguished himself by linking anti-globalization protesters to terrorism: they’re “still several rungs behind Osama bin Laden,” he said, but they’re “climbing the same ladder.”

He’s at it again.

This time, it’s the Green Party:

There is concern that the Greens risk contamination from the anti-Israel virus, a pathogen that turns host organisms into single-agenda vehicles and in the end kills their credibility.

Heavens, no! Surely being opposed to the actions of the state of Israel is something against which we should all be inoculated. But Elizabeth May is letting her guard down, says Stern: she’s permitting candidates like Ottawa South’s Qais Ghanem to run under the Green banner. Ghanem has the audacity to believe that the media have a pro-Israel bias, and he also claims that in North America they are run by a small “oligarchy.”

Neither statement is false, of course: media concentration is a documented fact, and some cause for alarm, and, while you can find critiques of Israel’s actions here and there, they aren’t prominent. Indeed, reporters and editors have been censored, admonished or fired for such critiques by CanWest, which just happens to be the outfit for which Leonard Stern works. (And speaking of “oligarchs“…)

Then Stern introduces this piece of dishonesty, supposedly as an object lesson for the Green Party to ponder:

Concordia University in Montreal is still struggling to rebuild its reputation after radicals took over — by stealth — the student union a few years ago. The university woke up one day and discovered that the union had published a student agenda titled Uprising 2001-2002 celebrating the Palestinian intefadeh and denouncing capitalism.

Where to begin? Radicals did win elections at Concordia, which are open affairs. Certainly they opposed capitalism and supported anti-occupation protests on the West Bank–so do I. Stern makes this sound positively evil–for, as we all should know, Israel can do no wrong, ever, and, as he clearly implies, anyone who suggests the contrary is an anti-Semite:

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