Segacs's World I Know

The number of hate crimes reported to police increased by 42% between 2008 and 2009:

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”.

Hockey’s coming back to the ‘Peg:

The True North Sports and Entertainment group announced on Tuesday that they have completed a deal to purchase the Atlanta Thrashers and move them to Winnipeg in time for the 2011-12 season.

And, right on target with the wish-I-could-punch-him asinine comment is Gary Bettman:

“Hockey in Canada has never been stronger,” said Bettman. “We get to be back in a place we wish had not left in 1996.

Considering the source, that’s rich.

Meanwhile, Vancouver kicks off the Stanley Cup Final against Boston tonight, aiming to not only kick some serious Bruin ass, but to bring the Cup home to Canada for the first time since the Habs did it in ‘93. And with history on their side and the stronger record, I see no reason why they shouldn’t pull it off.

Go Canada!

ETA: If you’re American and reading this, and you happen to be a bit confused about this whole hockey thing, Pete McMartin wrote you a primer.

The bad news? Bob Rae is the interim Liberal leader.

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

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech to US Congress yesterday. Among other things, he spoke about Iran, Bin Laden, Obama’s ill-advised comments on the ‘67 borders, and Israel’s desires for – and obstacles to – a lasting peace with the Palestinians.

The full speech is available to watch on video here.

Or, you can read the text of the speech here.

Well, the votes are in, and Stephen Harper has his majority government.

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?

I want to write a long, rambling blog post about why tonight’s election had the worst possible results for Canada. But I’m too depressed. I’m going to sleep. Hopefully I’ll still recognize Canada in the morning.

Barack Obama gave two very impressive speeches this weekend: one funny, and one deadly serious.

First, there was his speech at the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner, where Obama held the floor like a seasoned comedian and managed to get his digs in at Donald Trump while he was at it:

Does he have the Colbert Report’s writers on his speechwriting staff? Because that was one brilliant piece of satire.

Then, tonight, his address to the nation on the death of Osama Bin Laden struck all the right notes, inspiring some Canadians to comment on my Twitter feed that they wished they could vote for him tomorrow instead of one of our guys:

Say what you will about the man, but he certainly has the gift of oratory. Why can’t any of our politicians give speeches like that?

Bin Laden’s death may not mean much in the grand scheme of the so-called “war on terror” in practical terms. But cynically speaking, it’s likely to give Obama’s re-election chances a big boost.

Ten years later.

Dozens of terrorist attacks, including Istanbul, Madrid, London, and last week in Marrakech, later.

2,340 coalition casualties in Afghanistan, including 155 Canadians, later.

Thousands of Afghan civilian casualties – too many for any body or organization to properly count – later.

Osama bin Laden is dead, says the President. It’s been almost ten years since the September 11th attacks, and since the world’s largest manhunt was launched for the man responsible. In those ten years, the world has changed so much that it’s almost unrecognizable.

Ten years ago, bin Laden’s death might have actually struck a body blow at the terrorist infrastructure. Today, it will probably make little more than a dent. After all, they’ve had ten years to reorganize and restructure, to recruit and train. Ten years during which Osama was little more than a figurehead, and the network has decentralized. Ten years for other international terror groups to “step up” and grow up.

(Oh, and ten years for the US to invade Iraq, for there to be civil war – and now reconciliation – in the Palestinian territories, for governments to change hands in western nations and for massive rounds of civilian unrest and protest across the middle east. A lot can happen in ten years.)

At best, this announcement will give Obama a temporary bump in the polls as he kicks off his 2012 re-election campaign. At worst, it will make bin Laden into a martyr among his followers and trigger additional attacks. In all likelihood, it will make very little practical difference.

It does feel like the end of an era, in a way.

With about 36 hours to go until the polls open, it’s time for me to post my totally unscientific, personal-opinion-only musings about the election and what the likely outcomes will be:

• 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!

I give this a week. Ten days, tops.

Rival Palestinian groups said they reached an agreement Wednesday on reuniting their governments in the West Bank and Gaza after years of bitter infighting that weakened them politically and caused the deaths of hundreds in violent clashes and crackdowns since. Even as the tentative agreement revived hopes among Palestinians that they might be able to form a unified front, unity between the rival groups Fatah and Hamas appeared unlikely to jump start negotiations with Israel for an independent Palestinian state.

There’s no way that Hamas and Fatah will be able to avoid going at one another.

Update: Why this deal is bad news for Israel.