Now, admittedly, this concept might be better if more of the people in the blog’s photos actually said what they were doing to help the 99%, besides writing statements on paper. But the spirit ain’t bad.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has its share of problems, namely, the lack of any coherent demands, the lack of focus, and the general sense of a movement with lots of gripes but few answers. But they’re not wrong to point out the negative consequences of large income disparity in the US. And while the income gap isn’t nearly as dramatic in Canada, there’s a strong sense that we’re moving in that direction.

The fact is, while these people claim to be in the so-called 1% of Americans, and most of us aren’t, we’re pretty much ALL of us part of the luckiest 0.00001% in the world – we hit the mother of all jackpots just by being born here in Canada, having enough food to eat, a roof over our heads, security and safety and education and healthcare and the chance to grow to be an adult. It’s worth it for all of us to think about how we can do more to give something back.

(Not for nothing, but this goes back to my long-standing call for Quebec to raise university tuition for those who can afford it and increase bursaries and financial aid for those who can’t. More access to opportunity benefits everyone. Just sayin’.)

I’m only a casual observer of the ins and outs of Ontario politics. Unlike the minefield of the Quebec political landscape, Ontarians are more traditionally divided along left-right lines. For the most part, I think McGuinty has been a decent-to-good leader, and I’m relieved that Ontario dodged the Hudak bullet. But this was far from the resurgence of the Liberal banner that people at the federal level were hoping for.

It’s worth noting that the turnout for this election hit a record low – just the latest example of a disturbing trend showcasing widespread disillusionment with the political process.

“We deeply regret to inform you that the Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, passed away at 4:45 am today, Monday August 22. He passed away peacefully at his home surrounded by family and loved ones,” the statement read.

Layton led a party that I often didn’t agree with. I wasn’t a big fan of him as a politician, either. I mocked his used-car-salesman demeanour, his debate tactics, his party’s habit of apologizing for extremism or drawing false moral equivalencies, and even his moustache.

All of that aside, though, his death is a tragedy, just as any death from cancer is a tragedy. It also comes at a time when the country is, more than ever, in the iron grip of a Conservative party that is doing frightening things to our political landscape. The NDP’s historic gains in the May election, which vaulted them into official opposition status, meant that Layton was expected to play a major role in doing whatever he could to keep the Tories in check. Now, of course, this duty will pass onto someone else.

Canadians of all political stripes – left, right or the kitchen sink – will mourn Layton’s passing, and rightly so. I didn’t always agree him, but  even where we disagreed, I recognize that he was acting for what he believed was his vision for Canada. My condolences to Olivia Chow and to the rest of Layton’s family and friends.

You can read the text of Layton’s last letter to Canadians here.

Well, sort of right. We’re a smaller country with a smaller economy, so of course the total number is proportionally smaller as well. But what you may not know is that Canada’s public debt has been steadily rising over the past five years, and now sits at an all-time high of $564 billion dollars. That’s nearly $17,000 per Canadian – which, granted, is much lower than the $46,000 per American that our neighbours to the south are on the hook for. Still, that’s 17 grand for every man, woman and child in Canada, and I suspect that if you were asked to pull our your chequebook, you might balk at coming up with that amount.

This happened on Stephen Harper’s watch – the same Stephen Harper who got elected on a fiction of being good for the economy. As you can see by the chart below, the previous Liberal governments had balanced the budget and were steadily lowering the public debt each year… but the Conservative government since 2006-07 has increased it to its all-time high levels and is continuing to spend:

Sure, you might argue, the Liberal government years were years of relative economic prosperity in the world, while the Tory government has been navigating Canada through a global recession. But how, exactly, does building more federal prisons, buying military fighter jets, and pouring money into the Harper government’s promotional campaigns constitute responsible spending during recessionary times?

What’s happening in the US ought to serve as a cautionary tale for us Canadians on how debt can spiral out of control and severely weaken our economy when irresponsible politicians are at the helm. Of course, liberals and conservatives (and NDPers) will never agree on where to spend and what to cut. But anyone who voted conservative because they believe that Harper is good  economy needs a bit of a reality check. As the Tory government has shown time and time again, a balanced budget is not a priority for them. And Canadians will be paying the price… to the tune of almost $17 grand apiece – and rising.

Oh, I heard all the platitudes. It won’t be so bad, people said. Give them a chance. They’re not so scary. They won’t do anything that they didn’t do as a minority (not like that was very reassuring, either).

Yeah, right.

In politics, it’s customary to review the “first 100 days”. Unfortunately, Harper and his cronies have been so busy doing shit, that waiting until 100 days for this review seemed excessive.

(And yes, I know it’s not really the first 50 days of majority government. The 41st Parliament only convened on June 2nd, which is in fact less than 3 weeks ago. That’s a frighteningly short period of time in which Harper has already managed to do an awful lot of damage. But it has been 50 days since the election, so I think the post title is appropriate.)

Let’s look at what’s happened in the 50 days since the May 2nd election, shall we?

• Workers’ rights have taken a serious beating, with back to work legislation being tabled against Canada Post, and threatened against Air Canada (who struck a deal to avoid it). In the case of Canada Post, arguably the legislation is against the crown corporation, which has locked out the workers. And those of you who know me understand that I have rather ambiguous feelings about labour unions that have too much power. But, especially in the case of Air Canada – a private company with competitive options for the consumer – the Tory government’s swift response against any labour rights whatsoever crosses the line even for me. There’s a happy medium in there, and this ain’t it.
• Senate appointments for three Tory MP candidates who lost in their ridings called into question not only the appointment process itself, but Harper’s own promises to reform it. Canadians didn’t even blink. Beyond that, he’s threatening to abolish the Senate altogether if they don’t cave to his extortion cooperate with his reforms.
• Asbestos exports are once again being defended by the Tories, who apparently feel that cancer is okay as long as it happens to people in other countries.
• Job cuts in the public sector are coming pretty much right away. One of the first areas to be hit? Auditors. Cause, y’know, Harper doesn’t want anyone actually noticing how badly he’s been cooking the books – and how badly he plans to continue doing so.
• And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that Harper is about to appoint two judges to the Supreme Court – something that will have ramifications for decades.

When you consider that there are still most of 5 years to go in his term, and that nothing prevents him from being re-elected, it’s downright terrifying.

While hate crimes remain primarily motivated by race (and black Canadians remain the most-targeted by hate crime), the data also showed the number of reported hate crimes perpetrated against Arabs and West Asians doubled (to 75 from 37). There was also a 71 per cent increase in hate crimes committed against Jewish people.

Statistics Canada analyst Mia Dauvergne says two factors might have influenced the result: While there may have been a real increase in hate crimes, it is also possible that more crimes are being reported as police forces across Canada set up special hate-crimes units.

Regular readers of mine know of my general discomfort with hate crime legislation. We also know that these are the kind of statistics that, on their own, don’t mean very much; how a crime is reported is less about what happened and more about the circumstances involved.

But if this trend continues, it’s very disturbing. Especially when it leads to fostering of secondary hate, such as resentment between minority communities who are vying for the dubious label of “most victimized”.

The good news? He can’t be elected as long-term leader.

1. The right moves further to the right. The Tories, after spending five years walking all over Canadians as a minority, now get to walk all over Canadians even more as a majority. Harper believes – as he should, with these numbers – that he has a mandate from Canada to impose his agenda and move the government rightward. Forget the Shit Harper Did; what about the Shit Harper will do?
   
2. The left moves further to the left. The official opposition is now the NDP, not the Liberals. The same NDP who has campaigned on anti-Israel platforms; who cozies up to the labour unions; who believes that quota systems will provide equality.  The NDP is positioning itself as the de facto Tory alternative, and with nearly three times as many seats as the Liberals, it clearly believes that it is the voice of the left – or the potential leader of any merger or move to unite the progressive parties. Ironically, the jubilant Layton doesn’t seem to grasp that he had more power in fourth place in a Tory minority than he does in second place in a Tory majority.
   
3. The middle disintegrates. The Liberal party is in shambles. They lost over half their seats and most of their star MPs. They lost official opposition status. They will have to regroup and rebuild. And the common sense centre, the great balancing force against polarization, is severely crippled. Moderation is what suffers in this outcome.
   
4. A weaker official opposition. A Harper majority is a scary enough prospect. But now 102 NDP MPs – many of whom are complete political rookies – will be heading to Ottawa to serve as the official opposition. Even seasoned Liberal MPs would have had a hard time keeping the Harpers in check. There’s no way that inexperienced political neophytes from the NDP will be able to pull it off. Harper’s now got a majority with no strong opposition; he can basically do whatever he wants and get away with it.
   
5. Bloc collapses, but sovereignty gets a boost. The big news of the night was the Bloc Quebecois’s collapse from 47 seats to 4 amidst the Quebec “orange crush”, and Duceppe’s defeat and resignation. It should be good news for federalism? Right? Wrong. I’ve never seen so many Quebecers feel disenfranchised and alienated from the rest of Canada. This is going to provide a huge boost to sovereignty. I’m about as staunch a federalist as it gets, but even I have to admit that I see their point. Quebec voted overwhelmingly left-wing progressive NDP; the rest of Canada (except for Newfoundland) voted overwhelmingly Conservative. Is there any point in arguing that we’re not different here in La Belle Province?
   
6. Human rights? What human rights? With as many as four Supreme Court seats opening up to be stacked by Harper-crony Conservatives during this term. Abortion rights, gay marriage, rights of women, rights of minorities, immigrants’ rights… you name it, it’s on their agenda for attack.
7. No more funding for arts and culture. That is, unless the Calgary Stampede is your idea of a cultural event.
8. Technology and innovation? Not on Harper’s watch. With important issues facing our country around telecom consolidation, internet billing and metering, privacy, digital rights management… the only party who didn’t respond to Canadians’ concerns about internet and digital policy is the one now holding a majority in Parliament. Four or five more years for the rest of the world to advance while Canada lags behind? Will we even have an economy when Harper is done with us?
9. Canadians get slapped around; claim we fell down the stairs. We have a government who ignores us at every turn, walks all over us, and breaks the law with impunity. We get a chance to toss it out on its ear. Instead, we go crawling back to it. Domestic abuse on a grand scale, anyone? Basically, we’ve just sent Harper a message that he can get away with anything. And he will.
10. Harper plans to reward his “base”. The Alberta-native social conservative movement has been waiting a long time in minority to get rewarded for its efforts to put Harper in power. All this time, he didn’t revisit socially conservative issues because he didn’t have a mandate and knew that the opposition wouldn’t let him get away with it. Now, all these interest groups want their pound of flesh. Our flesh.

The silver lining is, it’s only 4 or 5 years. The question is, will we recognize Canada after all that time?

• The NDP will win 10 seats in Quebec. With polls showing an NDP surge in support, this could be the breakthrough that Jack Layton was looking for. I don’t, however, believe that Gilles Duceppe’s seat (my riding) will be one of them. I think he’ll hold onto his seat here, albeit by a slim margin.

• The Liberals will under-perform. No, it won’t be a  total collapse, a la Progressive Conservatives circa Kim Campbell. They’ll hold onto their safe seats and maybe even steal a couple from the Tories in places where the anti-Tory vote goes Liberal. But the surge in NDP support in Quebec will mostly be at the expense of the Bloc, everywhere else in Canada it will mostly come at the Liberals’ expense.

• NDP/Liberal vote splitting will help the Tories. A cynic would say that the Harper camp is exaggerating the groundswell of support for the NDP, in a classic divide-and-conquer strategy in order to try and engineer a majority. I’m not quite that cynical, and I think the NDP’s support has emerged for a variety of other reasons. But I do think that the Conservatives will pick up a handful of seats due to NDP/Liberal vote splitting. That being said…

• The Conservatives will be held to another minority government. I think that there’s enough anyone-but-Harper support out there, helped by initiatives like Project Democracy, to stave off the dreaded Harper majority. I hope.

• The Greens will once again fail to pick up any seats. Their support has stagnated and there aren’t any ridings where their candidates are demonstrating a lead – or even a close second.  The party began as a sensible alternative to the status quo, but has shifted more and more towards the fringe, policy-wise, in the past few years. And with all the mainstream parties (except for the Tories) making environmental issues a big part of their platforms, there are fewer reasons than ever to vote Green.

Remember to vote!

4 out of 9 of Canada’s Supreme Court Justices have mandatory retirement dates within the next five years. Guess who appoints Supreme Court Justices? That’s right, the Governor-General in “consultation with” (read: direction by) the Prime Minister.

And who do you think Harper will stack the courts with, given the opportunity? Given his government’s record, I only shudder to imagine.

The Supreme Court wields an enormous amount of power. And to show what can happen with years of stacked appointments, we need only to glance at our illustrious neighbours to the south, the United States:

Think it couldn’t happen here? Think again:

Pro-life supporters successfully influenced an as-yet unannounced government decision to deny funding to Planned Parenthood, says a Conservative seeking re-election.

Brad Trost, incumbent for Saskatoon-Humboldt, addressed the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association’s annual convention Saturday and thanked its members for their help in killing federal funding for the group.

In a recording of the speech, obtained by the Liberals and provided to the Toronto Star and Le Devoir, Trost claims a number of parliamentary victories for the pro-life movement, including a decision to deny funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

This is all part of a decision that was rendered by the Conservative government to exclude abortion funding from its maternal health plan for developing nations. Having denied access to abortion to women in other countries, now the government is setting its sights on our rights as Canadians.

And, lest you think that it’s only women’s reproductive rights that are under attack, rest assured that Stephen Harper doesn’t discriminate like that; he’s determined to attack all women’s rights.

But don’t worry, Stevie. You may hate women, but women hate you too:

Now here’s hoping that more Canadian women get jolted out of apathy and turn out and vote.

(Hat tips: Kirsten, Andrea, and the good people over at ShitHarperDid.com.)

Read the platforms here:

• Liberal Party of Canada
• Conservative Party of Canada
• New Democrat Party of Canada
• Bloc Quebecois (in French)
• Green Party of Canada

Then, when you’re done, check out the candidates in your writing. Read up on their voting records, if they are already MPs. Read their blogs, find their  Facebook pages, check out anything they’ve written or published. Make sure you know who you’re voting to send to Parliament on May 2nd.

An uninformed electorate gets the government that it deserves. So get informed.

BMO’s survey compared 11 items, including golf balls, Blu-ray movies, running shoes and cars.

There is no denying Canada is smaller and that means less competition, which in turn means higher prices.

But Michael Mulvey, marketing professor at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, also noted some of the biggest difference in prices between the U.S. and Canada are in the areas where there isn’t free trade, such as telecomunications.

I’ve ranted about the higher telecommunications prices before. Those are due to price-fixing by the corrupt CRTC — something not mentioned in this study.

But for consumer goods where actual competition exists, how do we explain the price gap?

Taxes, for one thing. The study is comparing pre-tax prices, so you might think that’s not a factor. But there are taxes all the way down the chain of distribution, not just at the end-consumer point. That 15% you pay in combined GST and QST is merely the tip of the iceberg. The higher taxes down the line help pay for our essential social programs, like medicare, but they do make things more expensive.

Another factor that is mentioned by the study is the size of the country, and the fact that distribution and shipping is more expensive when you have a sparser population in a less concentrated area. This helps explain why prices would be more in, say, Yellowknife. It doesn’t explain why something retails in downtown Toronto for 20% more than it does across the border in Buffalo, NY.

The rapid rise of the dollar is another factor. When the Canadian dollar was worth 60 cents US, we understood the price gap. Now that it’s above par, it’s frustrating to see this gap. But the price adjustment period takes longer to catch up than the loonie takes to rise in the first place. The gap is closing somewhat — just more slowly than we might like.

But the main reason is merely supply and demand. In a market economy, prices are less about what something costs to produce and more about what the market will bear. We pay more because we pay more because we pay more. It’s circular. If people stopped buying things that were too expensive, the prices on them would drop. They would have to.

Lots of people would like to complain, protest or mobilize to correct this. What they don’t understand is that these prices aren’t being fixed by the government, and the economy cannot – and should not – be centrally managed in order to make people happy.

We do have choices. We can drive down to Burlington or Plattsburgh, shop in lower US dollars, and come back across the border — and pay duty (or not, as every good Canadian knows the tricks of how to avoid that at some point. Not that I’m endorsing that, mind you.) We can order online and pay the extra shipping charges, though the vast majority of US online retailers won’t ship to Canada, frustratingly enough.

Finally, a little perspective: Prices are higher in Canada than they are in the USA, but they’re lower here than they are in a lot of other places in the world, including South America, most of Europe, some places in Asia, or Australia. We constantly compare to the Americans because we’re so close; it’s hard not to get jealous and feel like the outsider with our face pressed to the glass when we get American ads on TV, radio or digital media splashing prices around that are inaccessible to us. But if you saw what people were paying elsewhere for the same items, you might appreciate our prices a bit more.

If, like most Canadians, you don’t happen to live in a swing riding, here are the top 10 reasons why you should go out and vote anyway:

10. The polls can be wrong. Even if you think your riding is a “safe” seat – either for your candidate, or for an opposition one – the polling data could be wrong. Your vote may well count more than you think.

9. Parties get funded based on the number of votes they get – roughly $1.75 per vote. By voting for your favourite party or candidate, you’re funding the party and strengthening it for future elections.

8. Voter turnout keeps falling, and was at a historical low of only 58.8% in the 2008 federal election. That means that the Tories were voted in by only 22% of eligible voters. To elect a government that truly represents the population, the population has to turn out and vote.

7. Get your issues heard. Voting for a certain candidate sends a message to other candidates and parties that your issues are important. This might affect how they vote on key issues in Parliament.

6. If everyone assumes that their vote won’t count, then maybe they’ll all stay home and your vote will actually count more than you think. Candidates have lost supposedly “safe” ridings before because of this. It could happen again.

5. Second place doesn’t matter? Sure it does. A strong second-place showing could mean momentum for a candidate or party next time around. It could lead the party to target the riding for more funding or election spending, believing that it is “in play”. It could buoy more people to vote for that second-place candidate next time, in the belief that there’s a chance of beating the incumbent.

4. Egypt. Tunisia. Bahrain. Saudi Arabia. Iran. Libya. All the people in the world out risking their lives to demonstrate for the right to vote, which we so casually take for granted.

3. Voting is a right, a privilege, and a responsibility of living in a democracy. Take it seriously.

2. If you don’t vote, you forfeit your right to complain.

1. If you don’t vote, you don’t get any chocolate cake.

• Vote Compass: An online quiz on issues that is supposed to help you see which of the major parties holds views most similar to yours. Surprisingly accurate for such a short quiz.

• How’d They Vote? Contains a running database of all federal MPs and their voting history in Parliament. A good way of knowing where your local MP stands on issues.
• Cyberpresse 2008 Interactive Map: Google Maps interactive overlay for every riding in the country, showing the 2008 vote breakdowns by polling district. Fun to play with, and shows just how close some of the ridings were.
• Election Prediction Project: The folks at EPP are at it again, making riding-by-riding predictions based on commentary and past results, rather than trying to extrapolate popular support percentages like the pollsters. They have a decent enough record that their site is worth a look.

If you know of any other useful sites or tools, let me know.

• 4 out of 5 of the party leaders are unchanged. Only Iggy is new this time around, though his post-election political days are probably as numbered as Stephane Dion’s were.
• The party positions and platforms are largely unchanged since 2008 as well, at least on the big issues.
• Elizabeth May is once again angry about being excluded from the debates – and, like last time, I predict she’ll probably get her way.
• Jack Layton is still sporting his used car salesman ’stache.
• The Tories are once again sitting in comfortable minority-government territory, at once unlikely to lose and unlikely to form a majority.

So remind me again why we’re going to all this expense and trouble?

I would love to see the Tories get the boot. Between the long-form census debacle, the convenient-for-Harper prorogation of Parliament, corruption scandals, arts funding cuts, attacking women’s right to choose,  social engineering in the guise of economic policy that punishes anything other than the “traditional” family values, and Harper’s megalomania, the reasons abound. I simply cannot believe I live in a country where we keep electing this party.

Unfortunately, the only hope for replacing the Tories, the Liberal Party of Canada, is still in shambles. Ignatieff’s personal popularity is fairly low (no doubt made worse by those horrible Tory attack ads), the vote-splitting on the left bolsters the NDP and Greens at the Liberals’ expense, and the Bloc is standing at nearly 50% popularity here in La Belle Province.

My vote, which I have no problem saying will be for the Liberals, is a wasted vote, since I live in Gilles Duceppe’s riding and unless he gets morphed into an alien and starts singing Vegas showtunes in the shower, he’s going to run away with it here. But I will still trudge out and cast my ballot – on my birthday, no less – even though I know it won’t do any good at all.

No, I’m not a huge fan of Michael Ignatieff. I liked Stephane Dion a lot better, even though he failed to rally widespread support. But I’d much rather have a party in power that I agree with ideologically on most points, as opposed to one that I believe is steadily taking the country in the wrong direction.

The CBC has launched a short but fairly accurate online tool to help you gauge your political positions vis-a-vis the major parties. Check it out. And make sure you vote, because if we’re paying for this pointless election anyway, you might as well get your voice heard.

(Even if I do sometimes wish I could vote for the onion ring.)

Last week, the CRTC ruled that usage-based billing, the model used by large Internet providers such as Bell Canada and Rogers Communications to charge customers extra for exceeding monthly download limits, will apply to smaller providers, too. Until now, those smaller providers could offer unlimited Internet packages; the ruling means they no longer can.

There have been hints already from Industry Minister Tony Clement that the federal government may quash the controversial ruling, and the prime minister has asked for a review of it. But the government’s blunt ultimatum to the CRTC suggests any review would be pro forma.

This was a terrible decision by the CRTC – yet another in a long line of them that have backed Big Telecom’s demands over the rights of the consumer and the marketplace. Usage-based billing would have stifled innovation and choked off advancement, it’s true. But let’s not forget that, thanks to the CRTC, Canadians pay the most in the world for cell phone plans, pay for incoming text messages (despite another Harper campaign promise… anyone remember that?), and enjoy tons of lovely censorship of TV and radio. All because the CRTC is supposed to protect the interests of all Canadians, but only protects the interests of three: Bell, Telus and Rogers.

As for the government, let’s not forget that this is one decision, taken under overwhelming public pressure, in the face of hundreds of other decisions that have gone against consumer interests. The real solution isn’t to review this one decision; the real solution is to review the CRTC’s overall mandate and existence.

And I’m not even talking about the ads that were pulled.

A man slipped away from the scene of a week-long armed standoff in Newfoundland and got a lift out of town to buy smokes while police guarded what turned out to be an empty house for nearly 16 more hours, the RCMP said Monday.

The Mounties said the man snuck past their security perimeter on Friday night after they gathered on one side of his house to pump water into it with high-pressure hoses in an effort to resolve the standoff in Bay Bulls, N.L.

“In essence, we had one side of the house fully covered and positioned and another side that wasn’t,” Sgt. Boyd Merrill said in an interview.

Right, because it’s not like it would ever occur to someone to try the other door.

This is the kind of amateur-hour tale that you might expect from a small, underfunded local police department, not from the highly-trained and professional RCMP. I don’t think that this is quite what they meant by the Mounties “always get their man”.

(Please, no Newfie jokes, or Red Rabbit and Damian Penny might get together to kick your asses.)

Under the portability requirement, every Canadian is entitled to full medical coverage, no matter where he or she lives, and provincial health insurance plans are supposed to be good anywhere in the country.

But that tenet is showing cracks at the Quebec-Ontario boundary. Quebec patients are turned away or pay out-of-pocket for medical services outside their home province, essentially denied portability.

[ . . . ]

And physicians inside Quebec have their own issues to contend with. Louis Godin, head of the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec, says the government needs to resolve the problems in its home province before appeasing doctors elsewhere. Two million Quebeckers don’t have a family physician. Meanwhile, in the four faculties of medicine, 250 family-medical spots remained vacant over the past four years because doctors are paid roughly 30 per cent less than their counterparts elsewhere in the country. There’s a lack of medical infrastructure, especially along the boundary, which has resulted in a number of doctors moving to private clinics or simply picking up and leaving for other provinces.

Basically, what this means is that there are much longer waiting lists for elective procedures inside Quebec, due to a severe shortage of doctors and resources. So people go to Ontario to get health services. If they pay up-front and ask to get reimbursed by RAMQ, they’ll only get part of their money back — if they’re lucky. And many doctors in other provinces will refuse to see Quebec patients, because they’re strained enough meeting the demand from the local populace, and because of the bureaucratic roadblocks that get thrown up when they themselves try to bill RAMQ for their services.

This is an inevitable consequence of a system that makes federal promises but relies on provincial jurisdictions to carry them out. Quebec’s healthcare is a mess, and understandably, the rest of Canada doesn’t particularly want to enable or subsidize the mess.

If the Quebec government were truly serious about fixing healthcare, it would pay doctors as much as they’re getting paid in other provinces, make more spots available, and commit funds for infrastructure and services, to stem the steady tide of doctors across provincial borders. Canada already has a hard enough time hanging onto doctors who are seduced by the private salaries and perks south of the border in the US. But this inter-province competition needs to stop.

Of course, it won’t happen. Quebec will point a finger at Ottawa, at once demanding more funding, and then loudly decrying it when it’s offered as “interference” in a provincial matter. Biting the hand that feeds — nothing new for La Belle Province.

So if you’re living in Quebec and are one of the rare few with a family doc, consider yourself lucky. And if not, well, best hope you don’t get sick anytime soon.

Unlimited wireless data plans are almost unknown in Canada, and that’s a strategy telecom carriers elsewhere are starting to emulate as they look for ways to cope with booming demand and capacity limits.

BCE’s Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus Corp  – Canada’s “Big Three” telecoms – command profit margins that are the envy of the industry. They have an historical advantage over their peers because Canadians accept that they have to pay for as much capacity as they use.

Or, maybe it’s because the CRTC is more interested in protecting those profit margins that are the “envy of the industry” than in protecting consumers, in our price-fixed, oligopolistic market.

And it’s got consequences. Less affordability translates to lower smartphone penetration, which means companies have less incentive to stay ahead of the curve on wireless development, which means Canada will – as usual – continue to lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to innovation. That’s bad news for everyone… unless, of course, you happen to be an executive at Bell, Rogers or Telus.

We’ve lagged behind the rest of the world long enough. We’re supposed to “accept” things that are unheard-of in the rest of the world, like punative three-year contracts with ridiculous cancellation fees, “system access fees” of $8.95 a month, being charged for incoming voice minutes and even text messages, and ridiculously high data plan pricing. Us Canadians don’t “accept” that we have to pay as much for data as we do; we’re forced into it because we have no choice. That is, no choice other than opting out of owning a smartphone entirely, which is the choice I’ve made.

Instead of admiring our market, the world should be mocking it. And instead of protecting the anachronistic, anti-competitive marketplace, the government should scrap the CRTC and throw the doors open to real competition. Until then, consumers and businesses will be the big losers.

But there is little chance a private member’s bill would be able to get through the Commons and Senate by the time the 2011 census process starts in March.

I’m not sure which is the saddest part of the story here: The Conservative disdain for and lack of understanding of the far-reaching implications of their decision? The fact that this is the first time in years that I can remember that the Liberals actually did something I can support? Or the fact that our government apparently can’t get even a single thing done in five whole months?

Terrorism as a fame vehicle? Somewhere, William Hung is wishing he thought of that.

The same Georges Laraque who, after two woeful seasons in a Habs’ jersey, thought this would be a logical career move?

And to think people were taking the Greens seriously last election, even predicting that they would win seats. How far they have fallen…

That is, until the Tory government dropped its inexplicable bombshell decision this month to abolish the mandatory long-form census in favour of a voluntary version.

The public outcry over this move, fuelled in large part by the angry resignation of the head of StatsCan, has all of a sudden made the statistician into a folk hero, a lone crusader for level-headed facts in the face of a government that seems to think that listening to the people is, well, voluntary.

Kevin Liban in the National Post hits the nail on the head on the Harper government’s failures:

But after four and half years of governing Canada, the Prime Minister still doesn’t know how, or maybe, care to, go through the tactful political efforts it takes to win friends and influence people. This is, and appears destined to remain, his weakness, believes Tom Flanagan, the University of Calgary political scientist and Mr. Harper’s former chief of staff and organizer. There was the sudden, surprise announcement to cancel taxpayer funding to parties — which almost brought down the government; the sudden, surprise announcement to cancel subsidies to Quebec artists, that may have cost him a majority government; the sudden, surprise announcement to prorogue Parliament. All without warning; all without consultation; all without properly preparing the ground in advance with notice, persuasion and rationale.

In this case, the government doesn’t seem to have any rationale – at least not any rationale that makes sense or that stands up to the smallest amount of scrutiny. And this decision, which comes out of nowhere and will have ramifications for years to come, has made us a laughingstock in the world and has sparked angry protests from all sides of the political spectrum.

It’s not even a budgetary move. The government wants to send out an additional 10,000 forms to compensate for less people filling them out. In addition to clearly never having taken a statistics class, Tony Clement must have failed basic arithmetic, because sending out all those extra forms will cost more money, not less.

Here are links to an online petition and a Facebook page that have set up to protest the Harper government’s decision.

And, for the West Wing fans, see Sam explain the (U.S.) census to CJ in a classic episode here:

Update 8/4: The new census policy is being challenged in court:

A French-Canadian group has launched a legal attack on multiple fronts against the federal government’s move to scrap the mandatory long-form census.The group has not only asked Federal Court to void the Harper government’s new policy, but also wants an injunction that would keep the new type of census from being distributed this year.

It is also asking the court to fast-track its case so that it can be heard by mid-October, before the government distributes the 2011 census.

Fuck Stephen Harper and the Conservative government for thinking that hosting this summit in a major urban centre was an appropriate use of over a billion dollars of taxpayer money.

Okay, rant over.

The Toronto Star has a photo essay from this weekend. Sometimes, pictures really do say a thousand words.

Team Canada wins Gold - Vancouver 2010

It was the shot heard from coast to coast – Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal to win this hockey game 3-2 and secure the record-breaking 14th gold medal for Canada.

A fitting feather in the cap of what have been incredible Olympic games. And they couldn’t have scripted it any better. Perfect photo finish.

A moment, to salute all our  Olympic medallists.

Now, let the celebrations begin!

Our athletes are impressing the hell out of everyone, on the skating rink, the ski hill, the hockey arena, the bobsled track, hell, even the curling rink. (Is curling even a sport? Debatable. But we are pretty damn good at it. Even if the Norwegians have those awesome pants. But I digress.) The figure skaters have captured our imagination, from the near-perfection of Moir and Virtue to the inspiring courage of Joannie Rochette. And of course, in hockey, our women have claimed gold, while the men have just advanced to the finals against the USA on Sunday, with tonight’s nail-biter of a 3-2 win over Slovakia.

Everywhere, the red and white waves, crowds burst into spontaneous renditions of the national anthem, and the entire country from coast to coast has come together to cheer on our Olympians.

Has there ever been such a display of Canadian patriotism in recent history? Not that I can remember.

The Olympics had a controversial staging, a rocky start, and endless debates over cost overruns, podium pressure and everything under the sun. But leaving all that aside, it’s been a pretty incredible couple of weeks. And I have to believe that this has done a lot to buoy pride in the red and white in this country of ours, which, you gotta admit, is really fucking awesome.

There are two more days left in these Olympic games. Whatever happens – in the hockey finals or elsewhere – I’m really proud of our athletes and our country. Go Canada Go!

He and Michael Bublé sang their unique take on the national anthem. He’s done mock tryouts for events. He cheered on Shani Davis of the US speedskating team (which he sponsored) when he won his gold medal. He’s getting more press coverage than some of the top athletes. AP has called him “his own Olympic event“.

I’m not sure which is funnier: Stephen Colbert on his game, or the legions of people who don’t seem to understand that it’s satire.

But, we all know Canada is much cooler than the lame-ass CBC-heritage-moment crap we saw tonight. Way to represent.

So, here’s my top five list of things that they could have done to better showcase what Canada is all about:

5) Joe, from the Molson Canadian commercials. That watered-down imitation preacher guy was just stealing from his material anyway. I mean, Zed, not Z? If I were Molson, I’d sue.

4) A 3-hour Arcade Fire concert. Yes, believe it or not, we have musicians who are more recent than Bryan Adams. How about getting some of them on stage?

3) The Canada-USA gold medal game from Salt Lake City. Get the teams back for a re-enactment. Or, hell, just show video footage on a big screen.

2) Festivals from coast to coast. A medley of acts from everything from the Montreal Jazz Festival to Toronto’s Caribana to the Calgary Stampede.

1) Cirque du Soleil… we friggin’ invented it, why do other Olympic games get to use them and we get some random dude faking flying while held up by wires?

And it hasn’t gotten any better, either. Us Canadians are still among the most vacation-deprived people on earth, ranking dead last among 40 countries studied in terms of the amount of vacation time that the average worker is entitled to receive.

I think I need to move to Finland, France, Lithuania, or Brazil.

In an interview on BNN yesterday, the Prime Minister suggested that prorogation gives him the opportunity to do the serious business of the nation without the distractions of democracy – Commons committees and having to answer those pesky questions from opposition MPs in Question Period.

Yeah, that annoying democracy. Makes it so gosh darn hard to govern when you have to actually, y’know, answer to people.

As much as I sympathize with people with nut and peanut allergies – and yes, you know who you are – I have to wonder, isn’t this a little bit like offering non-smoking areas on flights? I mean, everyone’s breathing the same recycled air everywhere on the plane, right?

I also have to wonder, does “nut-free” refer only to the food, or will slightly-crazy passengers and crew have to change seats, too?

I first blogged about this back in 2003, when media monitoring organisations were sounding the alarm about the virulent antisemitic content being broadcast on Qatar-based Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language station on a daily basis, under the guise of news. The English affiliate doesn’t have quite the same level of bias – certainly, not that much worse than we see regularly from, say, the CBC or the Guardian, or on the other side, from the likes of FOX news. If there’s a demand for the service, and the content doesn’t cross the line, then I have to stand in support of freedom of information.

Besides, this is 2009. Anyone who wants content can get it, regardless of the CRTC’s decision. This decision is really only about whether satellite providers can charge for it, or whether people will have to access it online or through other methods.

I still haven’t forgiven the CRTC for all those years without HBO, though. Segacs to CRTC: this ain’t over, bitch!

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The provincial health minister wants to know if swine flu shots were “inappropriately diverted” to the Calgary Flames while thousands had to stand in line for hours for the vaccine.

Alberta Health Minister Ron Liepert says he doesn’t know where the NHL team got the vaccine, adding that Alberta Health Services is the only supplier in the province. Team president Ken King says the club contacted the department and asked for the clinic.

[ . . . ]

Alberta’s opposition parties say professional hockey players shouldn’t be getting the vaccine ahead of cancer patients and pregnant women.

Or, more importantly, ahead of other NHL teams like the Montreal Canadiens.

The group is circulating a letter of protest and has drawn more than 50 signatures from artists around the world including American writer Alice Walker, Canadian writer and activist Naomi Klein, U.K. filmmaker Ken Loach and American actor Danny Glover.

“Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto,” the letter states.

Same bullshit, different day. But what’s almost more shocking is the response of the festival organizers:

Festival co-director Cameron Bailey responded with a statement defending the program, although he acknowledged “Tel Aviv is not a simple choice and that the city remains contested ground.”

Excuse me? Tel Aviv is “contested ground”???

There are no words.

Something tells me that the record number of unemployed people might disagree with that assessment.

People in Quebec seem to like Iggy: The Liberals are up to 31% here, according to the latest CROP poll. That’s double the Conservative support and only three points behind the Bloc. Definitely a good sign.

If Ignatieff can manage to consolidate the Liberal party base and make some key gains in the west, the next election might not be such a wash. Harper needs to tread very carefully.

At a meeting in Geneva, Canada asked for a recorded vote to emphasize its complaint that the resolution drafted by Arab, Asian and African countries did not recognize that Israel acted to stop Hamas rocket attacks.

After years of waffling in the UN on these one-sided resolutions, Canada is finally showing some moral courage. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals have come out with strong statements on this matter, as they well should.

Unfortunately, the UNHRC is a joke and will continue to be a joke. But Canada is using its seat on the Council to at least register a vote of conscience, which is better than nothing.

(Hat tip: Daimnation.)

The union workers are being offered a 7% raise over three years. Most of the people who rely on public transit for their livelihood would kill for that kind of cushy deal. The people hit hardest by transit strikes are the poor, the elderly, students, and those who have the fewest options. Many of them won’t be able to get to work. Many of them will likely lose pay or even their jobs. But the OC Transpo union still sees fit to hold the public hostage in its attempts to negotiate for more.

Once again, this only illustrates how incompatible unions are with public monopolies. A strike in the private sector targets the employer; a strike in the public sector targets the public. Whatever your stance on labour issues, it’s obvious that the system is broken.

To those of you in Ottawa: Good luck.

A strategist more than an idealist, Ignatieff doesn’t arouse much excitement among disillusioned and disenfranchised voters. He’ll be painted as a neo-con and Harper wannabe by the left and as a boring academic with no new ideas by the right, and his three decades spent in the US don’t exactly bolster his credentials to lead Canada.

The Liberal party’s saviour? Hardly. Better than Rae? Absolutely.

Looks, it’s quite simple: You don’t have to like who’s elected, but you have to respect the will of the electorate. A power grab “just cause we can” is the last thing that the country needs.

Dion, Layton and Duceppe need to back off from the brink, cool off, and find a way to at least give the Conservative minority government a chance to work. For the good of everyone. Because Harper may have been elected by a minority, but that’s more people than the zero who voted for the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition.

Now that Parliament has been suspended, maybe it’s time to lock all four of them in a room together and force them to work out their issues and get back to the task at hand: Running the country.

The Toronto Star had cited Liberal party insiders who said Dion would make the announcement on Thursday and then stay on as leader until a successor is chosen.

But a spokeswoman for Dion said the Liberal leader would make no such announcement on Thursday and that her office would inform the media when Dion is ready to speak.

[ . . . ]

The paper quoted one well-connected party member as suggesting that if Dion didn’t announce his departure promptly, the party should move the furniture out of his office.

“How do you do a putsch on a guy who doesn’t understand he’s being putsched?” the Globe quoted the unidentified Liberal as saying.

Erm… Milton?

Seriously, though, while I think that Dion knows all too well that his days as Liberal Party leader are over, I think it’s disgraceful how he’s being treated by the media and his own party. He led a bad campaign, was the victim of circumstance, and unfortunately has the charisma of a turnip, but I don’t think Dion is a bad guy.

Dion took on the party leadership at a difficult time and dared to lead an environment-based campaign in a time when people were voting with their pocketbook. I think Dion was an ineffective leader, but is overall a smart man, and deserves a lot better than what he got.

Even he knows his time is up, though. This stand is just for the media. I doubt he’ll keep it up for longer than a few days.

(Via Damian Penny).

Update 10/20: That didn’t take long. Dion has announced his resignation.

That’s the number of seats where the Liberal-Green combined vote total was higher than the vote total for the winning candidate.

Of those 17 seats, 9 were won by the Conservatives. The remaining 8 went 5 to the Bloc and 3 to the NDP.

Of course, it’s illogical to assume that all or even a large portion of the Green Party’s votes would have gone to the Liberals. Despite both parties having run on “green shift” platforms, they are quite different, and many people who voted Green did so largely because they did not want to vote Liberal.

And yet… With all the discussions around vote-splitting, I can tell you that Stephane Dion is eyeing those 17 seats today and wondering whether his “friendship” with Elizabeth May was worth it.

As for May, she probably understands a bit better how Ralph Nader must have felt in 2000.

Is a Liberal-Green alliance really such an outlandish idea?

Stephane Dion led the Liberals to one of their worst results in history, and the pundits were calling for his head on a platter even before the votes were finished being counted. He, more than anyone, failed.

Gilles Duceppe set out to prevent a Conservative majority, and that worked. But the Bloc didn’t change its position much since 2006. At best, a neutral result for the Bloc.

Elizabeth May’s Party saw more popular vote breakthroughs, but failed to win a single seat – the stated objective for the Greens in this campaign. May will spin this campaign as a big success, but she, too, failed.

The big winner? Jack Layton and the NDP, who bolstered their support – not at the expense of the Conservatives, but at the expense of the Liberals. In Layton’s book, where power is everything and soundbytes run rampant, this result represents success.

The big loser? The Canadian public. This election cost taxpayers $300 million bucks. This in the midst of an economic crisis. And this, for an election in which only 59% of people voted – the lowest turnout in history.

To quote Don MacPherson in the Gazette:

This year’s campaign was the most negative ever, with the parties doing a much better job of explaining to voters why they should vote against their opponents than why they should vote for them.

So it wouldn’t be surprising if once again, the most popular choice yesterday was “none of the above.”

Voting is our most fundamental right and privilege. Regardless of your politics, make sure to exercise that right today and vote. Remember, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the results.

• Stephen Harper seemed surprisingly nervous. Though his calm tone of voice contrasted well with the others, as it did two years ago, and he had the advantage of incumbancy, his positions lacked the moral clarity that they used to hold. He seemed almost wishy-washy, and he got backed into several embarrassing corners, namely on Iraq, on arts funding, and on a promise not to raise taxes that will surely come back to haunt him. He seemed rattled by May’s presence, and his showing was surprisingly poor, especially compared to expectations. I can respect someone whose views I don’t necessarily agree with, but it’s hard to respect someone who doesn’t show the courage to have those views. He missed chances to take the stance of the right on issues such as foreign policy. But then, he also had a horribly biased moderator (I mean, what kind of question is “do you think Harper is a barbarian?”). And ultimately, he can be declared the winner if only because he won the portion on the #1 voting issue, that being the economy. The rest probably won’t matter much. Still, I was surprised to see him looking so shaky.

• Stephane Dion is obviously the worst debator of the group, and had the worst showing tonight by far. His debate style mirrors the problem plaguing his election campaign: He lacks charisma, leadership ability, and the confidence to get his ideas across. I did like that he talked about standing up for what it means to be Canadian, believing in our accomplishments, and regaining our place in the world. And I also believe that he has better ideas than his debate skills would seem to indicate. But there’s no doubt that he needed to do a whole lot better than he did in order to have any chance of picking up votes tonight. This was a missed opportunity for Dion.
• Jack Layton accomplished something I didn’t think possible: he managed to make me hate him even more than I already do. I will give him points for consistency, mind you. He consistently managed to take the exact views I disagree with each and every time. Quite the achievement. Seriously, though, he was the only candidate who actually managed to get across what he stood for, rather than just spending all of his time attacking the others, and he deserves some grudging praise for that. I still can’t stand his used car salesman smile, his annoying little moustache, and his habit of saying “Exxon” in every second breath.
• Gilles Duceppe had nothing to gain or lose in this debate. He didn’t make nearly as strong a showing as he did in the English debate in the last election, mind you. As expected, he talked a lot about the province’s rights, and issues important to Quebec. He also scored the most points on the arts funding issue and – surprisingly – did a better job of defending environmental rights than either Dion or May. He had one of the best lines of the debate, when asked what he would do first if elected Prime Minister, he glibly said that he won’t ever be PM… and neither will three other people at the table. But mostly, he seemed tacked on, since he didn’t really answer any of the questions with a real policy answer.
• Elizabeth May was impressive. Period. She’s obviously a skilled debator and, though her style seems vaguely reminiscent of our neighbours south of the border, she scored a lot of clear zingers. I disagree with her on a lot of issues, but she did the best in terms of being prepared with statistics, facts and researched answers. She scored a lot of points that way, and she rattled Harper’s cage more than once. Where I felt she missed an opportunity, though, was in getting her party’s message across. The Green Party platform is all about how every other issue is related to the environment and cleaner, healthier, better living. May’s debate style lended itself well to the format, but she scored more points on attack than on ideology. Since people voting Green are mostly doing it out of ideological reasons, I felt she could have been clearer on what she stood for. Still, I think a lot of heads were turned by her showing in this debate. And she certainly had a right to be there, probably even more of a right than Duceppe.

Overall, the debate won’t lead me to change my vote, but then, I wasn’t really on the fence. For undecided voters, I suspect that Dion will have lost ground, Layton might have gained some among people who actually agree with him (read: not moi), and May probably picked up some points. What this will mean for Harper’s chances at a majority, though, is anyone’s guess.

And no, I didn’t watch the US vice-presidential debate.

Here are the top 5 issues being hotly debated south of the border that are thankfully not really on the radar screen in our election:

1. The war in Iraq. Because, well, we’re not actually fighting in it. The war in Afghanistan is, of course, an issue here, but it’s not nearly as divisive as Iraq is for Americans.
2. Terrorism and national security. Canadians are just plain less worried about this issue than Americans are, no matter what side of it they are on. Whether it’s because we’re more rational or more naive, the fact is that most Canadians don’t really believe that there is an imminent threat of terrorism, and the issue really isn’t showing up in our election discourse.
3. Gay marriage. It’s been legal nationwide since 2005. Since then, thousands of same-sex couples have tied the knot in Canada, our wedding industry has benefited from an influx of marriage “tourists” from the US, and everyone else basically yawned and went on with their lives. Even Stephen Harper isn’t bothering to rehash the issue in this campaign, recognizing the futility of beating a dead horse.
4. Abortion. Yeah, there have been a few rumbles, which have mostly consisted of scare-tactics by the Duceppe camp against Harper – who has stated that he has no plans to re-open the issue. As explosive as the issue is in the US election, here, it’s basically a non-issue, just as it has been in virtually every Canadian election campaign since the 1970s.
5. What our candidates look like. While Americans choose between their first-ever African-American president and their first-ever female VP, us Canadians have an election that’s about the candidates’ politics and not about their skin colour or background. Of course, that’s because they’re all a bunch of white guys (except for Elizabeth May). But I suspect that even if our PM candidates were a bit more representative of the country, we’d still manage to talk less about their skin colour or gender than the Americans do. Besides, Kim Campbell won’t exactly go down in history as a great Canadian leader, but I’d still rather have her than Sarah Palin any day.

The economy is, without a doubt, the #1 voting issue for both Americans and Canadians. As it should be. Polls have shown that the other top election issues for Canadians are healthcare, the environment and poverty. We can hopefully expect these issues to dominate tonight’s debate, and the above issues to hardly rate a mention.

Sometimes, it’s good to be Canadian.

The Canadian debate is obviously more relevant to us as Canadians. But for sheer entertainment value alone, the US VP debate is likely to be much more exciting. Start exercising that channel flipping thumb; you may need it.

While my usual philosophy is to tell government to stay out of business, in this case, I think Harper has the right idea. A free market is one thing; illegal business practices are another. The telecom companies are among the chief violators of fair competition, and they have long hid behind the CRTC to gouge consumers at every turn. This is not a big money issue for most Canadians, but it’s one that gets us up in arms pretty quickly, so it’s actually smart of Harper to latch onto the issue in his campaign.

I just wonder if it will be easier for me to sue Bell for charging me hundreds of dollars of bogus fees, after I cancelled my service with them? Yeah, I doubt it too.

“I am not a fan of marijuana use. I have to confess this — I know all politicians are asked. I’ve never used marijuana. I apologise,” said Elizabeth May.

May’s Green Party, of course, calls for the legalization of marijuana in its platform.

And just in time for an election, too! Stephane Dion ought to be all over this news. Except that polls still put Harper ahead, with Dion’s personal numbers trailing those of even Jack Layton:

The Ipsos Reid Poll, in the National Post newspaper, showed 50 percent of those polled viewed Harper as the best leader. Jack Layton, leader of the left-wing New Democrats, followed with 31 percent support, while Liberal Leader Stephane Dion trailed a distant third with only 20 percent.

If Dion can’t even convert real environmental news into polling numbers, it doesn’t bode well for the Liberals. Time for Dion to dust off his resume; his days as Liberal leader are numbered.

In related news, the sky is blue.

So will it be an election this time? Really? Or just more of the same? Does anyone really want an election? I, for one, suspect that all the press about the election campaign going on south of the border has turned the Canadian public off from having one here. Maybe if there were real issues at stake, instead of petty squabbling… but yeah, that’s about as likely to happen as pigs flying.

*Sigh*.

It’s not the unlimited flat plan that people had hoped for, but at 6 gigabytes, it’s pretty close. And so far, it’s only available to people who purchase their iPhone before August 31st. But it’s a whole lot better than the previously-announced plans, which start at $60 and range to $115 per month – gouge-worthy levels.

The problem is, Rogers holds all the cards. Once people rush out to take advantage of this pricing and sign three-year contracts, they’re locked in. And Rogers’ regular rates for data plans are outrageously high.

Meanwhile, Bell and Telus are coming under fire for their decisions to charge for incoming text messages… by the government:

Industry Minister Jim Prentice publicly demanded an explanation from two of the country’s telecommunications giants yesterday about their “ill-thought-out” decision to start charging cellphone customers for incoming text messages.

Here’s a thought: Rather than summoning them in front of a government committee to try to justify their pricing, as these telecom giants are accustomed to doing from their monopoly days, why not open up the market to real competition instead of our current oligopoly-style imitation? That would take care of their cash-grab collusion pricing in a hurry.

First, a story about how Bell and Telus are both going to start charging for incoming text messages. Considering most of the spam I receive is actually from Bell, that shows some nerve. Coupled with my recent notice that Bell’s plan prices are going up yet again, for me, this is finally the last straw. I’ve had it with Bell. Enough. Fini. C’est tout.

Unfortunately, the competition isn’t much better. Rogers, which recently signed a highly-touted exclusivity contract with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada, is charging ridiculously high rates for data, basically pricing the iPhone out of reach of the average consumer. And don’t try to get an iPhone from a competitor, either; there aren’t any.

The competition bureau, of course, doesn’t see a problem here:

“Where consumers are concerned about the plans being offered with the iPhones, we don’t consider this to be a competition issue,” said bureau spokesperson Marilyn Nahum. “We don’t consider the iPhone to be a distinct market.

“It’s a cellphone that competes with other cellphones in the market. If consumers don’t like the plans being offered with the iPhone they can go to the competitors.”

This is nothing new. With only three major carriers in the marketplace, Canadians have been gouged on cell phone prices forever. We pay twice what Americans pay for similar voice or data plans, and several times what Europeans or people in the rest of the world pay. Most of us pay a bogus “system access fee” of $6.95 to $8.95 per month, and virtually everyone pays for incoming voice minutes – a practice almost unheard of outside of North America. Our phones are “locked” to our carriers, we are locked into 2- and 3-year contracts with hefty cancellation penalties, and until last year, we couldn’t even keep our phone numbers when switching carriers.

Don’t expect things to get better anytime soon, either. As long as the major telecommunications companies are in bed with the CRTC, and virtual monopolies are allowed to exist, things are only gonna get worse.

Meanwhile, Bell and I are history. Anyone have an old Rogers phone they want to donate / sell to me at a reasonable price?

Another first for me, as I headed up to Ottawa for the day yesterday to celebrate our nation’s birthday. Here in Montreal, Canada Day is sort of lame, usually overshadowed by the moving day tradition, and the much more high-profile jazz fest. So, needless to say, I was not prepared at the overwhelming display of patriotism in our nation’s capital.

When I woke up in the morning, I’d briefly considered wearing a red t-shirt, but quickly dismissed the idea as cheesy. As it turns out, I would’ve been underdressed compared to the people draped in flags, wearing hats with umbrellas on them, faces painted, you name it.

Feeling very much like a tourist in my own country, I set out with some friends to celebrate in style. Drinks at the absolutely mobbed Byward Market, free concerts on the Hill, a quick stop at the Ottawa Jazz Fest, and a barbecue to cap it all off. I had to drive home before the fireworks, but it was a nice day on the whole.

Still, I think I’ve seen enough maple leaf flags to last me a good long time.

Number of people wearing those cheesy umbrella hats? Loads, though we stopped counting at 47.

Canada Day madness in the Market area

Free concerts on the Hill

The Maclean’s poll discovered an epic lack of global knowledge of Canadian affairs. Andrew Grenville, chief research officer for Angus Reid Strategies, converted the poll’s seven Canadian-knowledge questions to a zero-to-100 scale. Only the Americans passed, with a score of 57.

[ . . . ]

Curiously, there is a huge upside to this blissful ignorance: to not know Canada, apparently, is to love it. “There is a lot of ignorance about Canada but there are also these positive perceptions, kind of like this halo of positive expectation,” says Grenville. “We get the benefit of the doubt. They don’t really know us but they’re pretty sure we’re nice,” he says. “So we get away with a few things.”

Hmmmm, sounds like a certain US presidential candidate, doesn’t it? Canada, like Barack Obama, is well liked despite not being that well known. And Canada, like Obama, gets the benefit of the doubt for it.

Curiously, Canada has been riding this ignorance-is-bliss wave for years, even decades. Barack Obama should take notes.

Trumpeting the service as unique in North America, Air Canada – which had a net profit of $429 million in 2007 – yesterday unveiled a new travel-assistance program, On My Way. For a one-way fee of $25 (flights below 1,000 miles) or $35 (above 1,000), payable when the flight is booked on aircanada.com, the airline will look after alternate flight arrangements and general logistics problems occasioned by flight, traffic or weather-related delays beyond its control.

[ . . . ]

Michael Janigan of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Ottawa wasn’t impressed. He suggested Out Of My Way as a more fitting name.

“It’s part and parcel of a continuing effort to try and make the service extended to you when you buy a ticket less and less. The expectation would be that if you paid for a flight, you’d be rebooked on the next available flight. I’m hesitant to figure what’s next with the airlines. Maybe washroom privileges (for a fee)? We’ll have to wait and see.”

No kidding. First they take away the food. Then they take away the baggage “privileges”. Then they outsource the lost luggage service to India. Now they won’t even rebook you on the next flight if your flight is delayed or canceled.

Air Canada continues to demonstrate that, just when you think it has come up with every possible way to screw its customers, there are always a few more to be found. The next time it claims bankruptcy and begs for a bailout from its financial woes, I hope the Canadian government has the good sense to finally let Air Canada sink, once and for all.

Canada will not take part in a major United Nations conference on racism next year because the event is likely to descend into “regrettable anti-Semitism,” a top official said on Wednesday.

Officials said they believed Canada was the first nation to announce it will not attend the conference in Durban, South Africa.

A similar meeting at the same venue in 2001 was marred when Israel and the United States walked out in protest over draft conference texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state — language that was later dropped.

It’s a strong statement. But an even stronger statement might have been to attend and loudly stand up for what’s right. Boycotts only go so far; if you want to make a difference, you generally have to be sitting at the table.

A Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reporter who covers Parliament will be reassigned because she inappropriately wrote questions for an opposition legislator, the public broadcaster said on Monday.

The ruling Conservative Party — no fan of the CBC — complained that television journalist Krista Erickson had given the questions to a Liberal member of a committee examining the dealings of a former Conservative prime minister.

Whatever your politics, you have to admit that this is a new low for the CBC. Our tax dollars at work.

Hard to say, but I’m betting Harper is sleeping better than Dion, these days.

U.S. Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has been trying to burnish his foreign policy credentials. So it didn’t help when he called Canada’s leader a “president” during a debate Tuesday.

Asked what he’d do about the North American trade deal, Obama said it needs changes, so he’d “immediately call the president of Mexico (and) the president of Canada.”

A mistake worthy of… Dubya Bush.

To some people, this might indicate that Obama should spend more time reading up on the governmental systems of the different countries of the world, particularly the US’s neighbours.

To me, it just indicates that he clearly hasn’t heard Joe’s rant.

Canada’s “elevated” threat level is now the same as that of the United States, and “elevated” is the third of five levels, below “high” and “severe.”

Three other Western countries this year – Britain, France and Norway – also had attack levels bumped up.

Twenty-three, including Ireland and Israel, had levels lowered.

Coming soon: a new Israeli Tourism Ministry ad campaign in Canada, enticing people to visit Israel… for their own safety.

Since my Habs aren’t there, I’m now on the Sens’ bandwagon, so it was definitely a lot of fun being in Ottawa yesterday to see the town celebrate after the Sens beat the Sabres for a spot in the Cup Finals. Lots of honking horns, drinking, flag-waving, cheering, chanting, partying, and a random guy stripping near Byward Market (don’t ask).

I’m still sad it’s not Montreal. But since it can’t, Go Sens Go!

Black youth activists in Toronto are blaming the “Jewish lobby” for the decision yesterday morning by border guards to deny entry into Canada to Malik Zulu Shabazz, a controversial black American lawyer and activist, who had been scheduled to address an afternoon protest rally at the Ontario legislature.

[ . . . ]

Mr. Shabazz, leader of the New Black Panthers, is a notorious figure in black activism in America. Based in Washington, he is a criminal defence lawyer, and helped to organize the Million Man March with Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.

He is also reported to have claimed Jews stayed home en masse from the World Trade Center on 9/11, and to have said, on the topic of police aggression, that “The only solution any time there is a funeral in the black community is a funeral in the police community.”

Ms. Anizor defended her choice of speaker yesterday.

“What’s to blame is the power of the Jewish lobby to influence politicians, to influence media, to influence whatever it took. Because it took one letter, one press release from B’nai Brith [a Jewish human rights group], and the firestorm began,” she said. “You guys [media] are all here because of what B’nai Brith told you… They’ve injected themselves, trying to dictate who the black community can and cannot hear.”

I’m a strong proponent of freedom of speech, and uncomfortable with technicalities being used to shut it down in any form – whether or not I agree with it. But it is my sincere hope and belief that the vast majority of the black community in Toronto has better taste and judgment than Ms. Anizor gives them credit for.

Unionized drivers, mechanics and terminal staff at Greyhound Canada have given the bus line 72 hours’ strike notice after the workers rejected the company’s last contract offer, both sides said on Tuesday.

Unlike public transit, Greyhound isn’t exactly an essential service. There are plenty of other – more comfortable and civilized – ways to get from place to place. But all these transit strikes are starting to feel positively… European.

(Now that Gilles Duceppe’s 24-hour run for PQ leadership is over, he can return to his important parliamentary duties, like attacking Shane Doan. I’d venture to say that Doan, wearing his gold medal, probably won’t much care.)

The issue erupted on Parliament Hill this week as opposition parties criticized Doan’s selection as captain. Members of the Conservative government agreed with them that Hockey Canada should be asked to tell their side of the story and voted with the opposition to schedule a hearing before a parliamentary committee to explain why Doan was named captain.

All this because last year, someone accused Shane Doan of making a derogatory comment about francophones. He was cleared by a subsequent league investigation, not that the accusation was even worthy of an investigation in the first place. And here it is again, the subject of a full-scale government inquiry.

Don’t we have any middle eastern countries to invade or something?

The deal between the Liberals and the Green Party that will see the Libs step back so that Elizabeth May can compete seriously for a seat, is, on the surface, a smart move for both parties. The Liberals have made it clear that, under Dion’s leadership, the environment is their #1 issue. The Greens have always made the environment their #1 issue. So they’re competing for the same pool of voters, and that pool is getting bigger every day as climate change has gradually shifted from being a “polls well but irrelevant on voting day” issue to an issue that can actually affect election results.

But will it backfire? If the Libs move left, will that just open up more space for the Conservatives to make gains in the middle? Conversely, it was arguably the Green Party that – despite a lack of elected MPs – elevated the environment to such a key voting issue in the first place.

The Liberal Party can’t afford to become a one-issue party, even if it is tempting for them to spend the entire next election campaign attacking the Harper government on its environmental record. (The ads are already in the can, I hear). That’s what fringe parties are useful for; bringing single issues to the forefront. But both parties that can govern – the Libs and the Tories – need to campaign on a range of issues representing the broad spectrum of governmental responsibilities. Anything less simply isn’t fair to Canadians.

Stephane Dion is actively seeking female candidates to run for the federal Libs – he’s even stated that he’s willing to use a quota system to ensure “adequate representation”, and to kick out male candidates to make room for female ones.

Here in Quebec, criticism abounded after last week’s election reduced the number of female MNAs from 39 to 32.

Arguments like this have always annoyed me. As a woman, I believe that I ought to have every right and opportunity to do anything a man can do. And I also believe that, unlike in Saudi Arabia, here in Canada (and Quebec), that’s pretty much true.

Women in Saudi Arabia can’t drive, can’t vote, can’t walk out on the street unaccompanied by a male relative, have to hide behind veils and robes, can’t participate in society as free and equal members. Saudi Arabia’s problems run far deeper than simply ensuring adequate representation among elected officials. (For starters, the elections themselves are a sham… But that’s a whole different rant.)

In contrast, here, women are free, full and equal members of society. If barriers still exist – and I acknowledge that they do – they are no longer legal and we are working hard to deinstitutionalize them.

But politicians who rant about not having enough women candidates are not saying so because they truly believe that women are barred from politics or lack opportunities; they’re doing it for reasons that are – no pun intended – purely cosmetic.

And finally, a refreshing perspective on the subject from Brigitte Pellerin in the Ottawa Citizen:

According to something called the Inter-Parliamentary Union (ipu.org), Rwanda ranks first in the world with 48.8 per cent women representation in the national legislature, whereas Canada is 48th with 20.8 per cent. The United States, where we all know women are routinely persecuted by a political class bent on systemic gender inequality, is 68th with 16.3 per cent. So, is the theory that we’d be better off if we were governed more like Rwanda?

[ . . . ]

And if we’re legislating quotas for perspective, then we should also make the proportion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, etc. representatives match their share of the general population, assuming we even know it. And once we get there, shouldn’t we also worry about religious representation? What about race?

Oooh, dear.

To me equality means not caring whether my elected representative is male or female or black or gay or Methodist or whatever. And democracy means letting people elect whomever they think represents their views. I believe enforcing equal representation of women in politics would be wrong, undemocratic, and possibly even counterproductive. I suspect I am not alone.

Nope, not alone at all. I agree completely. And I encourage you to read the whole thing.

Equality by quota is counter-productive in the long run. It doesn’t eradicate barriers, it merely sets up new ones. Equality really ought to mean equality of opportunity, and that will only happen when we stop electing, hiring people based on their gender or skin colour or language or religion, and start judging them based on ideas, accomplishments, and – what’s that old-fashioned outdated thing again? – oh yeah, merit.

(But that just wouldn’t be, y’know, politically correct).

Layton told about 100 NDP supporters on Saturday that the rise of the ADQ was spurred by a rejection of the province’s two “old” parties.

“They wanted to see something new,” he said of Quebec voters.

Well, yes, that’s true. But the similarities between the right-of-centre ADQ and the decidedly left-wing NDP end right there. People wanted change, sure, but they flocked to the ADQ, not to Quebec Solidaire. Layton might do well to remember that.

The Bloc Quebecois banded together with the Tories to avoid a government collapse. But most people don’t believe this minority government will last more than a few months longer. A friend of mine was just hired by Elections Canada, so if you’re the betting type, you might want to put your money on spring or summer.

All that the Tories have managed to do with this budget is to legitimatize the Quebecois claim of a “fiscal imbalance” and to make an attempt at social engineering. The Tories seem to have forgotten their promises to balance the budget, cut taxes and grow the economy, preferring to tell people that they should drive greener cars, get married, have more babies, and own businesses that don’t grow too big. From a financial management perspective, based on initial impressions, I’d give it a D.

The key question is, will the extra $2.3 billion be enough to elect Jean Charest next week?

Trudeau will run in the Montreal constituency of Papineau, currently held by the separatist Bloc Quebecois. Trudeau, like his father, opposes those who want independence for the French-speaking province of Quebec.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion welcomed Trudeau’s announcement, telling reporters in Montreal that “I’m very impressed by the courage of this young man.”

His public appearances with Dion during the leadership campaign make the timing of this announcement logical. Trudeau and Dion share the same pet issue – the environment – and Trudeau’s public profile will be a welcome boost for Dion in the next election.

Pierre Trudeau was one of the most loved – and hated – Canadian Prime Ministers in history. He was divisive, but he was a larger-than-life legend. Regardless of your opinion of Pierre Trudeau’s place in Canadian history, it will be very difficult for Justin to carve out his own persona away from his father’s shadow. At least Justin has his own credentials and issues on which to run. And he has good taste in music, too – at least, judging by his guest appearances on CHOM when Terry DiMonte lets him plug in his ipod.

As former Prime Ministers’ kids go, Justin Trudeau is probably the most qualified for this job. Certainly more so than Ben Mulroney. So before we bemoan the fact that we’re apparently adopting familial political dynasties in Canada now, à la Bushes, let’s just consider that it could have been much worse.

He is one of only two honourary Canadian citizens (along with Nelson Mandela), yet few know of him. One of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th century, yet virtually unknown in the country that chose to make him one of us. There’s something wrong here.

Why should we still care about Raoul Wallenberg? After all, it has been 62 years since he was arrested by the Russians, on Jan. 17, 1945, and vanished into another totalitarian killing machine, never to reappear.

Here’s why.

In the face of the darkest evil during the Second World War, Wallenberg left his quiet neutral country, Sweden, and went to Budapest, one of the bloodiest places of the war, to save people of a different religion, ethnicity and tradition.

Defying the Nazis, he rushed to death-camp deportation sites, using his consular status to hand out coveted papers with the seal of the government of Sweden.

He rescued those bound for death and delivered them to safe houses where they were protected from the Nazi death machine. He saved thousands – 100,000 people would certainly have been murdered if not for his intervention. Acting alone in Budapest, on his own initiative, he saved more lives during the Holocaust than any government in the world. Sounds impossible, but it is true.

I am constantly amazed at his staggering achievement, and the terrible irony of his life story – the hero rescuer who is himself imprisoned and silenced.

Read the rest. And, if you can, pause for a moment to pay tribute to this man who was truly one of the Righteous among the Nations.

He told the university audience that he would not follow through with a promise by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to reduce the GST to five per cent, from six per cent, by 2011.

“(The GST cut) is $5.5 billion out of the economy every year and it will not transform the economy and it is not a good social policy,” Dion said.

Instead, he would introduce tax measures that would encourage people to choose appliances that conserve electricity, cars that use the least amount of gas and for retrofitting homes to reduce heating fuel consumption.

“We want to make a link between your wallet and the planet,” he said, adding that such measures will be part of the party’s next election platform. ”It’s the way you change the culture.”

This is actually pretty savvy of Dion. The announcement is clear-cut, it’s easy to understand, and it comes at a time when the environment is at an all-time high as a voter concern.

Now, we can argue all we want about whether it’s a good idea to reverse tax cuts to try to use the government for social engineering, or whether the GST cut was a silly idea to begin with, or what the best way really is to help the environment. But whichever side of this one you’re on, the most encouraging sign is that suddenly we have a debate that’s once again about vision and policy, rather than about scandal and character. If this is a sign of things to come, I, for one, find it downright refreshing.

The inflatable fabric roof of Vancouver’s downtown sports stadium, scheduled to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, collapsed on Friday.

There were no injuries, and officials at BC Place Stadium said the incident — which one witness likened to watching a soufflé implode — would not hamper its availability for the Olympics as the roof could be repaired quickly.

The cause of the accident at the stadium, which was opened in 1983 and has a seating capacity of 60,000, was not immediately known.

What is it with these stadiums that can’t keep their roofs intact, anyway?

Still our game.

The EKOS poll, which surveyed 1,022 voters on Tuesday and Wednesday and is considered accurate to 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20, showed the Liberals picking up support mainly at the expense of the left-leaning New Democratic Party.

The New Democrats were at 10.2 percent in the poll, well below the 17.5 percent they picked up in the January election.

The Conservatives have dropped 3 percentage points since January’s election, but the NDP has dropped over 7, demonstrating that the Liberals are primarily making inroads on the left, not in the middle.

Needless to say, this is not a happy development. With the Liberals moving leftward, there’s nobody left fighting for a centrist vision for the country. How long can it be, I wonder, before we start hearing calls to “unite the left” and move to a two-party system like in the United States?

Interestingly enough, support for the Green Party is actually up, indicating that the attention being called to environmental issues is actually outweighing any support that the Liberals under Dion’s leadership (and that of his dog, Kyoto) might be shaving from that camp.

“We made a promise to hold a free vote and we kept that promise. The result was decisive and we’ll accept the democratic result,” Harper told reporters.

Legislators voted 175 to 123 to reject a motion by the right-leaning Conservatives to re-examine the law, which some religious groups and critics say undermines society.

This motion was defeated by an even wider margin than that by which the initial law was passed last year (158-133), indicating that most of the country believes that this has already been decided, and it’s pointless to keep drumming it up. Same-sex couples have had the threat of the law being reversed hanging over their head ever since Harper took office, so hopefully this means that everyone can now get over the issue and move on to things that actually matter.

They’re questioning his loyalty to Canada given his dual French citizenship, his commitment to centrist politics given his left-leaning tendencies, his ability to win support in Quebec given his long history of defending federalism and attacking sovereignty. (If you noticed that the first and third points seem a bit contradictory, you’re not alone).

We’re in that brief wide-open period in politics, when critics try on all sorts of different avenues of attack on a new leader, in attempt to find the ones that will stick the most. But this phase won’t last long. It can’t. The message is too diluted. Sooner or later, they’ll need to come up with a catchphrase, a means of attacking Dion that is equivalent to the Harper-is-Bush attacks heading in the other direction.

I give it about a week.

Eat your heart out, Toronto!

Despite myself, I kind of like Dion, even if he doesn’t have as fun a nickname as Michael “Iggy Pop” Ignatieff.

The quote of the day probably comes from Pauline:

Much is being made of Stephane Dion’s being *everybody’s second choice*. While that is mathematically a good thing, it doesn’t resound well for the future federal election campaign. I can see the bumper stickers now.

I think that Dion has a history as an impassioned defender of Canadian unity, which is good, and could certainly be said to deserve this much more than Ignatieff, in terms of his having paid his dues to the party.

But, like Pauline, I too am a bit uneasy at his foreign policy stances. He’s come out in opposition to the Canadian military role in Afghanistan, and his friendship stance with Israel has been questionable, particularly during the summer’s Lebanon war when he made some worrying statements. Nothing much worse than the rest of the Liberal candidates, really, but a far cry from the staunch friendship I would hope to see from the leadership of this country. Now that he is the leader, he will of course be called upon to clarify some of his stances, but we’ll have to see where he goes with this.

The next campaign is a lock to be about the environment now, thanks to Dion’s impassioned position on the Kyoto accord. And the great losers in the next election could be the Green Party if Dion successfully picks up support from that camp.

Final thought: the Liberal party – or any party for that matter – will think long and hard before holding another leadership convention in Montreal during ice storm season.

Looks like Damian Penny’s early predictions are surprisingly accurate.

But all now rests on what Bob Rae decides to do, and where he throws his support. If he frees his delegates, it’s hard to predict where they’ll vote. If he chooses to back one candidate or the other, it will lock up the leadership for that person.

We’ll know soon.

Update: Rae has released his delegates. With Dion as the current momentum canadidate, and given the strength of the anyone-but-Ignatieff movement in Liberal circles, I think that Dion will take all in the end… but we won’t know until they vote.

Canada’s indigenous peoples are feeling a bit snubbed by Parliament’s decision to recognize Quebecers as a “nation” within a united Canada and not them too.

Native Indian leaders say the vote in the House of Commons, which has helped reignite debate over the role of French-speaking Quebec within largely English-speaking Canada, ignored the peoples who lived in North America before European settlers arrived.

Either Stephen Harper completely didn’t think of this one, or he calculated that there weren’t enough votes among the First Nations communities for it to make a difference. In any case, this is just one more egg contributing to the giant omelette cooking on Harper’s face thanks to this issue that he should’ve refused to touch with a 10-foot pole.

I suppose the Tories need to do this, get past it, and get on with things; Harper is probably even secretly grateful that it’s likely they’ll lose. Despite his personal convictions, the last thing he wants is a divisive fight on the issue and lengthy court battles. Then again, the timing makes me wonder whether he’s just trying to mobilize his conservative base ahead of an election.

In any case, the motion will probably be easily defeated. Here’s hoping people can get over it at that point and get on with things, and that they don’t allow this to devolve into a neverendum-referendum situation. The Quebec sovereignty issue is already one thing too many that refuses to go away. We don’t need another.

Thanks to this fear, I’ve never had a flu shot, I avoid blood tests like the plague, and I’ve even shied away from traveling to countries that require certain immunizations, which, for a travelaholic like myself, is a really big deal. It’s no use trying to argue me out of it, either; I know full well that there’s no logical basis to the fear, but then, with a phobia, that’s not the point.

Lindsay pointed me to this article talking about a study she worked on that suggests that the simple act of distracting kids can alleviate their fears. But I’m skeptical. A kid – or even an adult – who is truly phobic of needles is likely to just remember the attempt at distraction and be even more distrustful the next time around.

Instead of researching distraction techniques, I’d suggest to the medical and scientific community that they find a way to administer vaccines or take blood that doesn’t involve any kind of needles. Yeah, I know, not too likely… but it would be nice.

(By the way, in case you’re wondering, I’m perfectly fine with heights, and skydiving is awesome.)

Update: Lindsay informs me that, actually, the studies she reviewed excluded kids with actual phobias. That makes much more sense. A run-of-the-mill fear is probably easily alleviated by distraction, but a deep phobia wouldn’t fit that pattern.

But the more important question we should be asking is, why are all the Liberal leadership candidates so unimpressive and ineffectual that they need to whine about by-election timing to deflect attention away from their snoozer of a race?

It was almost 1,000 years ago when Canute, king of England, Denmark and Norway, led his courtiers down to the Sussex seashore. Weary of their flattery, he ordered them to watch as he loudly commanded the waves to recede – and as the waves did not. A king’s powers, he demonstrated, go only so far.

In a gesture almost as futile, but without any of Canute’s wise humility, the government of Canada is fighting in the Supreme Court to make sure Canadians on the West Coast can’t see federal election results from Atlantic Canada until after western polling stations close. As legal causes go, this one is pointless, wrong-headed, arrogant and utterly out of touch with reality.

[ . . . ]

Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees Canadians freedom of expression. There was nothing malicious or even inaccurate about what Paul Bryan did. No one can demonstrate that he did anyone any harm. And in any case, nobody could stop a foreigner from putting results on a website outside Canada.

Information wants to be free, and in this case, at least, the government should stop trying to reverse the tide.

In the last election, I decided to toe the line on this blog and I didn’t post any results until the last poll closed in B.C. But it was an exercise in nonsense, because those results were freely available to anyone with an internet connection and the brains to search for a US-based news or blog source. Not to mention anyone with a telephone and a friend or acquaintance out east.

This law, and the government’s efforts in enforcing it, are completely pointless. I agree with the Gazette: Allow the information to be broadcast, because everyone’s getting it anyway.

Bob Rae, Ignatieff’s chief rival, likened Harper’s comment to being accused of a hate crime, while Gerard Kennedy said Harper had surrendered his ability to act as prime minister for partisan purposes.

“I think that the prime minister’s comments were shameful,” Rae said. “This goes beyond the usual give-and-take of partisan life. It’s an appalling statement.”

He noted his own wife and children are Jewish and he’s travelled often to the Middle East.

Yesterday, Ignatieff insisted he remains a supporter of Israel.

“It is disgraceful that the prime minister is playing crass politics with the issue of the Middle East,” he said.

“The Liberal Party has always been a friend of Israel, and I will always stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel and the Canadian Jewish community to defend

Israel’s right to respond when it is attacked by terrorists or when its neighbours wrongfully deny its right to exist.”

Kennedy echoed the concerns. “I think he (Harper) has given up his sworn responsibilities as prime minister to play for partisan advantage, and I think it is highly unfortunate,” he said.

Kennedy described himself as “resolutely a friend of Israel” but also “a friend of Lebanon.”

Stephane Dion said: “I feel insulted by my prime minister.”

Sure, the Libs are seeing this as a way to try to attack Harper. But personally, I find it refreshing that, regardless of their actual individual positions, all the Liberal candidates seem to feel that it’s politically expedient to come across as being supporters of Israel. In a time when being anti-Israel is more and more “in”, it’s nice to see that the potential next leaders of our country still recognize that it’s “out”. In other words, it’s a relief to see that being perceived as being “anti-Israel” in this country is still bad PR.

Even as they attack Harper for being too pro-Israel and try to spin this into a political point for the Liberals, the leadership candidates seem to understand that they have to prove – or at least claim – to be friends of Israel in order to win the race. Cynical as this may be, it could be a lot worse; they could be trying to prove that they’re the most anti-Israel. (Of course, we’re talking about the Liberals here, not the NDP…)

Harper angered Lebanon and an assortment of other Arab, Muslim and French-speaking states in a meeting to draft a political declaration on this summer’s war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Canada’s rookie prime minister vetoed an amendment to a statement that said the 53-member organization “deplored” the effect of the month-long conflict on the Lebanese civilians it endangered. The amendment was brought forward by the Egyptian delegation and backed by “a majority” of countries at the table, according to French President Jacques Chirac.

“The amendment wants to recognize and deplore the war and recognize the victims of Lebanon. We are able to deplore the war, we are able to recognize the victims, but on both sides,” Harper
said at what was supposed to be a closing news conference.

“The Francophonie cannot recognize victims according to their nationality. Recognize the victims of Lebanon and the victims of Israel.”

Once again, Harper is standing up for what’s right, no matter what it costs him politically. I don’t always agree with him or his party, but I’m finding this incredibly refreshing.

Update: For a well-placed joke, this rumour’s sure making the rounds.

Update #2: Apparently the rumours made the front page of yesterday’s New York Times. Wow, where have I been?

One-sided and disproportionate criticism of Israel has the effect of inflaming anti-Semitism, Tony Comper, president and CEO of BMO Financial Group , warned Monday.

Comper singled out the recent censure of Israel by the Ontario leadership of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and Toronto Conference of the United church of Canada as examples.

“I profoundly disagree with this one-side take on who’s-to-blame-for-what in the Middle East, and find its solutions untenable,” Comper told leaders from the business and legal community at a meeting of the Canadian Club.

Sadly, the truth of Comper’s message will probably get lost, and the whole thing will get written off as another big-business-right versus workers-union-left issue. Anyway, Comper is retiring, so it’s kind of moot. Still, it’s refreshing once in a while to hear someone – anyone – tell the truth for a change.

A new poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid found that now, five years after 9/11, over one in five Canadians believe that the whole thing was a US-concocted conspiracy:

One in five Canadians believes the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden and were actually a plot by influential Americans, according to a poll released on Monday.

The Ipsos-Reid poll found that 22 percent of Canadians, and 26 percent of young Canadians, agree with the conspiracy theory. The number was the highest, at 32 percent, in Quebec, which has shown the least support for the U.S. war on terror.

The poll asked if the events of Sept. 11, “including the thousands of American citizens who lost their lives on that day, were actually orchestrated by a group of highly influential Americans and others as part of a wider global conspiracy to profit from and gain power and who are actually protecting Osama Bin Laden from being captured.”

Objection, Your Honour, leading the witness? Er, not exactly. Though another one of my favourite sayings is that “figures don’t lie but liars figure”, if anything, I’d expect that the blatant nuttiness of this question would, if anything, underestimate the number of people who believe in some sort of 9/11-related conspiracy theory. In all likelihood, there are even more people who would’ve answered “yes” to a question with softer wording. Scary thought.

And here in La Belle Province, next time you’re out for drinks with a few friends, look to the left and look to the right; one of you has been taken in by the conspiracy theorists.

Stephen Harper backed Jason Kenney on his comparison of Hezbollah to the Nazis, claiming it was “fair”:

“Like all comparisons, it’s true in some ways, and not in others,” he said, “but as near as I can tell, both Hezbollah and the Nazi party stand for the elimination of the Jewish nation. So I think that’s pretty fundamental and, in that sense, I don’t think it’s unfair.”

Though Kenney and Harper both have a point, they ought to realize that Nazi comparisons, even when justifiable, tend to obscure the original argument.

Meanwhile, one of the three MPs who originally called for Hezbollah’s legitimization, Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj, has resigned as foreign affairs critic (hat tip: Puck):

All 10 leadership hopefuls condemned the remarks. Scott Brison and Carolyn Bennett said Wrzesnewskyj should no longer retain his post as a foreign affairs spokesman.

The Liberal party has been floundering lately, with no clear voices emerging in this conflict. Wrzesnewskyj’s resignation, and the condemnation of his remarks by the leadership candidates, is the first hopeful sign in a while that perhaps the Liberals might find their moral compass that has been missing now for quite some time.

It seems to me that the problem is one of perception, and of which historical comparison is the most apt. Some, like Kenney and Harper, see Hezbollah as the new Nazi party, and view appeasement as dangerous and ultimately more destructive. Others, like Boris Wrzesnewskyj, Peggy Nash and Maria Mourani, see Hezbollah as the new IRA:

“You want to encourage the politicians of this military organization, you want to encourage the political wing, so that the centre of gravity shifts to them.”

Wrzesnewskyj compared the situation in Lebanon to the decades of sectarian violence by the Irish Republican Army.

“If there wasn’t a possibility for London to negotiate with Sinn Fein [the IRA's political party], we’d still have bombings in Northern Ireland,” he said.

Certainly, Hezbollah (and Hamas, and other groups that employ a political/social/terrorist combination strategy) would like to encourage the IRA comparisons. But there’s one key difference, that the Canadian MPs on their “fact-finding mission” seem to have missed: The IRA had, as its goal, the establishment of an independent Irish state. Say what you will about their methods – and I will condemn terrorism unequivocally – they did have a goal that could be pursued politically, and that would be legitimate if pursued politically. Hezbollah has no such goal. They aren’t vying for statehood or independence of freedom. Their goal is the destruction of Israel. And no matter what means they choose to pursue this goal, it cannot be legitimatized.

They appear to be typical of an alarming number of Canadians who think that compromise, which works so nicely in Canada, can work as well everywhere. But in Canada we don’t have parties, factions or demographic groups dedicated to the utter destruction of other parties, factions, or demographic groups.

How do you compromise with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who says “there’s no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.” What does Nash imagine Nasrallah means when he says: “When the people of this temporary country (Israel) lose their confidence in their legendary army, the end of this entity will begin”?

Meanwhile, Jason Kenney reminds us that foot-in-mouth disease strikes all sides of this one:

Conservative government spokesman Jason Kenney compared Hezbollah to the German Nazi party Tuesday and said opposition Canadian MPs are providing political cover to the banned organization.

Oh, Mr. Kenney, didn’t anyone ever teach you Godwin’s law?