#60 British Photos for Canadian Art

Canadian embassies around the world used to be showcases of Canadian culture. The paintings and other artworks that were proudly displayed were displaced under the outgoing Prime Minister, sold off for short term gain (probably figuring into deficit reduction somewhere) and replaced by — oh yes — large portraits of Queen Elizabeth.

Now I will give you that the woman is officially Canada’s head of state, even though the practical application of that role is played out by the Governor General for day-to-day affairs. But she is British, not Canadian. Actually, she is from some long line of inbred aristocrats from all over Europe who hid their German ancestry during World War I by changing their name to that of their principal residence.

Back to the art. The embassies not being enough, there was a plan afoot to sell a pair of Alfred Pellan paintings that hung in the Lester B. Pearson Building (which houses Foreign Affairs) in Ottawa. What happened was that they were removed and placed in storage, the wall they had hung on designated as “the Sovereign’s Wall” in time for a visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

The Pellans continue to be in limbo somewhere, in storage with unreleased press releases announcing their impending sale, but no action, I suppose until the outcry shows signs of going away.

It’s just sad to think that Canadian culture is being shown as portraits of a British monarch all over the world, instead of showcasing the amazing talents of so many Canadian artists.

Further reading here. 

Take those artworks down!
We have dozens of copies
of the Queen to show

#59 Honour ME!

Canada doesn’t particularly have the best record when it comes to the rights and recognition of women. At one point, the back of the $50 bill featured the “Famous Five” women, who sued to have women recognized as “persons” who could be named as senators in Canada. They have subsequently been replaced by the image of some kind of military equipment as a new series unrolls. But they are not the owmen I wanted to talk about this time out.

One woman in particular, Thérèse Casgrain, is the person I want to talk about. She was an activist, a women’s suffrage campaigner, a politician and, arguably, the first female leader of a political party in Canada (the Parti social démocratique du Québec, the Québec wing of the CCF, predecessor to the NDP). She was named to the Senate by then Prime Minister Trudeau in 1970, a time when all the appointments didn’t necessarily come from the ruling party. She died in 1981.

In 1982, the federal government created the Thérèse Casgrain Volunteer Award, discontinued by the Mulroney government in 1990 and relaunched under the Chrétien government in 2001. In a world where everything is partisan, you wouldn’t expect this award to last through the current, outgoing government.

In fact, after a government commissioned poll that cost us all $51,000 showed strong resistance to naming an award after the Prime Minister (perceived as too partisan), the government did just that. The Thérèse Casgrain Volunteer Award was quietly disappeared and the new Prime Minister’s Awards took their place, sweeping notable woman who would have merited such an award under the carpet of history.

I guess we should just be glad he doesn’t carry the title of Commander in Chief….

Further reading here. 

She achieved great things
worthy of remembrance, but
she was no PM

Hors série : niqab-o-manie

Pour entendre les commentaires, on penserait le niqab une costume transmissible, les quelques femmes qui le portent des vies de transmission de l’extrêmisme. Pourtant, elles demeurent une minorité miniscule de musulmanes dans notre pays.

Laisse-moi me placer dans ce débat. Je suis autant dérangé par l’idée qu’une femme doit se cacher du regard des hommes que l’ensemble de mes voisins. Ceci me semble à l’encontre de tout ce que nous (ou certain-e-s entre nous) avons travaillé depuis longtemps, pour améliorer la place des femmes dans notre société. Je suis également athée — je considère que la religion a fait beaucoup de torts dans notre histoire, dans l’histoire du monde — et je me sens mal à défendre l’exercice de la religion dans n’importe quelle forme. Oui, il y a certainement des croyants qui sont fidèles à l’expression de leurs croyances et qui contribuent au bien-être de nos communautés — il y a même beaucoup de ces personnes. D’autres nuisent au développement et au bien de nos communautés par des expressions de haine et d’intolérance au nom de leurs dieux.

Il y en a qui vont dire que le niqab n’a rien à faire avec l’Islam, que c’est une tradition obscur d’une tribu quelque part dans le monde. Mais je vais aborder la question comme si elle porte sur la religion, car toutes les critiques portent sur l’influence de l’Islam et sa « subjugation » des femmes. [Personnellement, je n’ai pas vu de religion qui ne relègue pas les femmes à un rang inférieur, mais c’est tout une autre histoire.] Donc, prenons pour acquis que ça fait partie d’une religion, même si ce n’est qu’une petite partie de cette religion.

La liberté des croyances religieuses

Je vais répéter que je suis athée, mais je tiens à ce que notre société protège le droit aux fausses croyances des adhérent-e-s des religions. Ce n’est pas gentil — je pense que ces personnes gaspillent leurs énergies et leur argent — mais je défends leur droit de le faire si elles le veulent. Je défends ce droit jusqu’au moment où ça empiète sur un droit de quelqu’un d’autre. Je ne considère pas que nous ayons un droit à la similarité, un droit de ne pas voir ce qui est différent, donc j’ai de la misère à voir comment que la costume ridicule d’une autre personne empiète sur mes droits. Notons que pour les fins de sécurité de la population, il n’y a pas de revendication de ne pas s’identifier ou de maintenir le visage couvert sur les pièces d’identité, peu importe ce que les images et les messages qui circulent sur les médias sociaux prétendent.

En effet, je défends le droit à l’erreur, jusqu’au point où l’erreur touche les droits d’une autre personne.

La place des femmes

Je trouve complètement ridicule l’idée que le Parti conservateur  du Canada soit le grand défenseur des droits des femmes ou de la place des femmes dans notre société. J’affirme ma propre croyance que les femmes doivent être partout dans notre société, et visiblement partout.

Il y a une question importante des choix que font les femmes musulmanes qui ont décidé de porter le niqab, ou le voile intégral. Plusieurs dans notre société prétendent que ces femmes se font imposer le niqab par leurs maris ou leurs pères, alors que les femmes porteuses de niqab insistent qu’elles l’ont choisi pour elles-mêmes, parfois à l’encontre de la volonté de ces hommes dans leurs vies. Si c’est imposé, c’est clair pour moi que c’est inacceptable. Mais comment est-ce qu’une commande de ne pas porter le niqab diffère d’une commande de le porter? N’est-ce pas aussi contraignant d’interdire que d’imposer?

Mais comment distinguer entre la femme contrainte de le porter de celle dont le port du niqab est un choix? Je trace un lien avec les autres domaines sociaux dans lesquels j’ai eu un peu d’expérience. On ne peut pas forcer quelqu’un de chercher l’aide. Notre rôle comme société est de s’assurer de l’offre d’aide avec des ressources nécessaires, de le faire connaître par la promotion de ces services dans tous les coins de notre société, et de rendre accessible les services d’aide par un accueil sans jugement.

Si le niqab est le symbole de l’oppression d’une femme, est-ce que ça va aider cette femme qu’on la repousse des services de l’état et d’une place dans une société où elle peut voir d’autres femmes vivant sans les mêmes contraintes qu’elle? Est-ce qu’on dirait à une femme victime de violence physique de revenir chercher de l’aide quand ses contusions soient guéries?

Le cas de la cérémonie de citoyenneté

Deux tribunaux se sont prononcés dans ce cas. Si la Cour suprême du Canada accepte d’entendre le cas, je n’ai aucun doute que le résultat soit le même. Ce n’est pas une décision qui affirme le droit de porter le niqab, encore malgré tout ce que vous avez lu dans les médias et sur les médias sociaux. Les deux décisions portaient sur le défaut du gouvernement fédéral de suivre les règles pour faire adopter une obligation de prêter serment à visage découverte. Le ministre de la citoyenneté et de l’immigration a envoyé une directive fondé sur ses pouvoirs ministériels qui dépassait ses pouvoirs en vertu du règlement dûment adopté et entériné. Il aurait pu suivre les règles pur changer le règlement comme il faut, mais non, ce n’est pas l’approche des conservateurs. Ils préfèrent couper les coins ronds et ensuite pointer un doigt accusatoire aux tribunaux « activistes » qui les rappellent à l’ordre.

Notons que cette femme a bien découvert son visage pour se faire identifier lors de l’examen et afin de se faire identifier avant la cérémonie. Mais ce n’est pas l’histoire que nous présentent nos politiciens.

Le jeu politique

Je suis profondément déçu des propos et des actions du Parti conservateur et du Bloc québécois sur cette question. Ils essaient de provoquer la peur de l’autre et de scorer des points sur le dos des quelques femmes qui portent le niqab au Canada. Je suis également déçu que cette stratégie semble fonctionner.

Tenons-nous un discours sur la santé et la sécurité des femmes? Non. Le gouvernement sortant a annulé le financement des centres de recherche en santé des femmes et de plusieurs ressources à l’intention des femmes. Ce même gouvernement refuse de prendre au sérieux la disparition et le meurtre de plus de mille femmes autochtones dans ce pays. Mais le sort de quelques femmes…et d’une femme en particulière…en niqab les mobilise non pas pour sauver ces femmes, mais pour les ridiculiser et les exclure.

Et le Bloc québécois? Qui aurait soupçonné qu’une cérémonie pour prêter serment à la reine d’Angleterre aurait autant de signifiance pour ce parti indépendantiste? Tout ce qu’ils vont réussir à faire, à part de victimiser davantage ces femmes minoritaires, est de faire élire le gouvernement sortant pour un autre mandat, tout en étant écarté de la carte électorale. Bon débarras.

Je vous laisse avec la meilleure réponse aux deux côtés de ce débat : les niqabitch.

#58 Badmouthing the Chief Justice

Beverly McLachlin was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1989 and was named Chief Justice of the court by then Prime Minister Jean Chretien in 2000. She is the longest-serving Chief Justice of this court and not given to slips of protocol.

Curious, then, that the outgoing Prime Minister, following a series of defeats of his government’s legislation before the court and swirling speculation about the eligibility of Marc Nadon (previous article), decided to publicly accuse her of trying to interfere in the process of nomination of a judge.

Now, as pointed out before, the Canadian process of judicial nomination has not been particularly political in the past, and there is a list of people and organizations who are generally consulted before a nomination is announced. This list includes the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, particularly the Chief Justice. Chief Justice McLachlin maintains that she called to signal the possible ineligibility of the prospective nominee, which would fit into her role. Commentators seem to be in general agreement with that.

Who can say what fit of pique made the Prime Minister lash out publicly in this manner, but he ended up in the wrong (again), having wasted a bunch more time and money (ours) in the process of trying to prove himself right. Will it ever end?

Further reading here. 

A helpful phone call
transforms to interference
in the callee’s mind

#57 Civil What?

Another aspect of the Supreme Court of Canada that is often misunderstood outside Québec is the requirement that three of the nine justices come from the Bar or the courts of Québec. This is not the language question, as discussed in yesterday’s post. No, this is about the system of Civil Law that is in force in Québec.

The rest of Canada operates under Common Law, derived from the legal tradition of England, but The British decided in 1763, after defeating the French, that Québec would be better integrated into the British North American colonies if it were allowed to carry on the continental tradition of the Civil Law. (I say continental, but you should know that Scotland, too, is a Civil Law jurisdiction, so the British knew that the accommodation could be made.)

So then the Prime Minister proceeded to appoint to the Supreme Court, to one of the vacant Québec seats, Mr, Justice Marc Nadon, of the Federal Court of Appeal. The problem began with not having consulted the Québec Bar, the Canadian Bar or the Chief Justices of the Québec Court of Appeal and the Québec Superior Court (these are federally-appointed judges). It continued with the Prime Minister picking a fight with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada when she tried to offer advice prior to the appointment (more about this tomorrow).

In the end, the Supreme Court declared the appointment unconstitutional because Mr. Justice Nadon was not a current member of the Québec Bar or of one of the two Québec courts that he should have been to qualify. The vote having been six to one, it is certain that some of the justices Mr. Harper appointed himself were on the side of the majority. Oopsie!

Back to the drawing board on a matter that might have run more smoothly if only the rules and the customs had been followed.

Further reading here. 

“But he came from there”
you can hear him say. But that
was too long ago

Dimanche, je marche

Dimanche, le 27 septembre 2015, je participe et je fais une collecte de fonds pour une seizième fois à Ça Marche, activité de visibilité et de financement pour la lutte contre le VIH/sida.

Je marche avec la fierté de pouvoir m’affirmer comme personne séropositive devant ma ville et de pouvoir aussi contribuer aux moyens des organismes communautaires de lutte contre le VIH/sida.

Je marche aussi avec un peu de déception, pour le peu d’attention que notre cause attire du grand public, mais surtout pour l’absence de plus en plus marqué et remarqué des personnes qui, comme moi, vivent avec le VIH. Ce n’est pas une question de santé pour la plupart, au moins pas dans le sens que c’était dans le mauvais vieux temps. Au début des années ’90, quand les personnes mourraient en nombre de cette maladie, l’urgence faisait que les marcheurs étaient là dans les milliers — béquilles, chaises roulantes et tout — les revendications clairs et forts : du financement pour la réponse au VIH, des traitements efficaces, le respect de nos droits.

Aujourd’hui, nous avons presque gagné sur le côté médical — des traitements bien tolérés qui offrent une bonne qualité de vie (pour la plupart) et une réduction de la transmission, sans toutefois guérir. Une multiplicité de stratégies et d’outils pour éviter la transmission du VIH, tout en menant une vie sexuelle épanouie. Mais les personnes vivant avec le VIH sont de moins en moins présentes à cette activité. Santé retrouvée ou jamais perdue, cette activité ne figure pas dans leurs priorités et se classe comme une autre occasion de se faire identifier comme séropo et se faire rejeter, ou bien un jour à côté de la vie « normale » qu’elles mènent. Et nos revendications…un peu moins claires pour le public, centrées autour des questions de discrimination, stigmatisation et criminalisation, difficiles à comprendre quand on n’est pas dedans.

Il y en a qui pose des questions critiques importantes par rapport aux commanditaires d’activités comme celle-ci. Sur le côté des organisateurs, c’est la réalité incontournable d’une ère d’abandon du social par nos gouvernements. Des milliers d’organismes charitables, dont plusieurs attachés à des institutions de nos réseaux auparavant gouvernementales et aujourd’hui sous-financés eux-mêmes, courent après la largesse d’un public de moins en moins généreux et centré sur son propre bien-être. J’ai réagi mal la première année où l’activité ailleurs au Canada prenait le nom d’une banque comme identifiant sans toutefois bénéficier du réseau bancaire pour sa promotion. Non, aujourd’hui, on achète avec des dollars la valeur d’une cause sociale, privée du financement publique, on y attache son nom pour prendre le crédit et l’engagement arrête là.

Ce n’est pas pour dire que le nouveau commanditaire principal de la marche de dimanche n’est pas engagé dans la lutte contre le VIH/sida, et pour des raisons altruistes. Ce commanditaire n’est pas un étranger à cette cause et a été très présent pendant beaucoup d’années. Je vais quand même compter le nombre de mentions du VIH versus le nombre de mentions des commanditaires quand j’arrive et pendant que je marche. Je vais poliment décliner toute offre de gugusse « brandé » qu’on essaie de me donner et me fier sur la promotion des organismes communautaires et leurs messages.

Oh, les messages. Une divergence dernièrement entre les messages véhiculés par les organismes communautaires et les organisateurs d’activités de collecte de fonds ou leurs commanditaires. Les groupes et les personnes rejettent le misérabilisme, affirment les avancés scientifiques et réclament une place d’égalité pour les personnes vivant avec le VIH dans la société. Mais la tendance vers la peur ou la pitié règne dans le monde de la « bienfaisance ». On « vend » difficilement des histoires de réussite; on aide davantage les pauvres victimes. Et ça, c’est une blâme pour notre société et non pas pour ceux et celles qui cherchent à maximiser les ressources pour les interventions qui seront quand même basées sur l’accompagnement vers l’autonomie — bref, les réussites — et non pas sur les échecs.

Je pointe mon doigt aussi à moi-même. Nous n’avons pas pris avantage de toutes les opportunités que nous offre cette activité de rassemblement, cette possibilité de passer un message au public. Un mouvement communautaire conjugué en des douzaines d’entités différentes ne communique pas toujours un seul message clair au public. Et le quotidien de la lutte contre le VIH — mais autant contre la pauvreté, le rejet, l’ignorance et l’hostilité — ne se prête pas nécessairement à un message enthousiaste, uni et positif. C’est ça notre défi pour l’avenir : parler avec une seule voix, ou plutôt avec l’ensemble de nos voix, mais un seul message pour dire que ce fléau pourrait se terminer prochainement, mais il y a un peu d’effort à ajouter sur les succès de nos actions à date pour nous y rendre. J’espère revenir l’année prochaine avec ce message unifié, conséquent avec les réalités du VIH et crié haut et fort par toutes et tous.

Avec tout ça dans ma tête et dans mon cœur, je marche dimanche et je collecte des fonds pour la lutte contre le VIH/sida.

Qu’est-ce que vous faites dimanche?

#56 Just One Official Language for Judges?

Appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada have not generally been the partisan circus that they have been in the looming country to the south of us. With so many declarations of invalidity of their legislation, however, it would be hard to think that the outgoing government wouldn’t want to bend the court a little to have less trouble in the implementing of its agenda.

There are some powerful forces out there, however, that wouldn’t put up with a radical departure from the nomination procedure of the past. All of these — bar associations and provincial Ministers of Justice, for example — still need to be consulted and generally to not object to the candidates. In any case, the judges being appointed without a defined end of term tends to lead them to focus on the legal aspects of what they are doing and not a political agenda. A judge appointed by a conservative-leaning government can sometimes surprise with the decisions he or she makes.

It is a bit of a gaffe, however, to appoint a unilingual judge to the highest court, someone who will be dependent on a translator’s interpretation of what is being said, the tone and all. Mr. Justice Moldaver doesn’t arrive without credentials, of course, and would hardly have made it through the rest of the consultation process if he had. The language thing, though, is a problem.

For all of the objections I have had about this government, the thing that it tended to do well, at least on the partisan side, was to make an equal space for French. The Prime Minister usually starts his government speeches in French, as do several of the ministers. There are ministers whose language skills do not extend to the “other” official language, but those who have even a basic grasp always give it a try. Not that any of this made the content of what they were saying more palatable, mind you. So I don’t get this unilingual appointment to the court, unless something else, like his marked disdain for “frivolous” Charter challenges maybe, was a bigger consideration.

I’m trying to figure out, however, if they would ever have dared — or gotten away with — appointing a judge whose only language was French.

Further reading here. 

Oui, monsieur le juge
je comprends qu’il faut attendre
que l’interprète parle

#55 The Charter of 1812?

I know there is nothing quite like the history of the country that took place before the country was a country to get the Prime Minister’s juices flowing, particularly when there are outfits and cannons involved. But there was something that happened when the country was actually taking a step toward officialising its autonomy from the colonial power that actually changed the nature of our parliamentary democracy, and recently, too. That thing was the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, much of which took effect on (just translating for the PM) the 70th anniversary of the War of 1812. And the Queen, the Prime Minister’s favourite gal, was on hand in Ottawa to sign the darned thing to boot.

But no, the Charter anniversary slipped by without so much as a by-your-leave. Maybe that’s because the outgoing government has not actually mastered the art of writing legislation that will pass the test of the Charter when it is challenged before the courts. Oh, they will pretend that it is all about respecting the less favourable attitudes to the process of patriating the constitution in Québec, which was left out of the agreement at the last minute. Not particularly believable in light of so many other things they have done.

No, it was probably the invalidating of their laws that did the Charter in, or that they would like to have do the Charter in. From where I stand, the Charter seems to be the only thing standing between us all and unmitigated disaster on the federal front and even then….

Further reading here. 

 This Charter thing pales
next to the fun bayonets
and British soldiers

#54 Take My Legislative Power…Please!

Cast your mind back…all the way back…to the day before the election writ was issued. I know it seems like forever, but it was only August 1st. That evening, all the way over in Hawaii, the election plans of the outgoing government were dealt a bit of a blow when the secret negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership failed to reach an agreement.

The TPP is just the latest in a whole series of “trade” agreements that promise to bring some unprecedented powers, not really to legislators, but to companies. We already knew that these agreements tend to lower barriers to trade between countries and to ease the transfer of capital from one place to another. They never seem to be the tools of ensuring the free movement of people or the broader application of decent labour standards in the world. Not the goal, I guess.

No, the thing that is hiding in the secret negotiations that threatens the very sovereignty of the country is the right that it will give to companies to argue that any particular piece of government legislation has deprived them of potential profits and that they deserve to be compensated. It doesn’t matter if the legislation or regulation in question is applicable to all companies, Canadian or not. What matters is that the pesky legislation that we might have demanded in order to protect the environment, for example, deprived someone of a profit, so we will all be liable to make giant payments to the company that so “suffered”.

It’s that kind of clause that we all ought to know more about before the country signs the agreement, if that unhappy day aver comes. The outgoing government seems intent on keeping things secret and giving its power away to multinational corporations. I don’t know why.

Further reading here, here and here. 

Delicate, they say
these negotiations to
limit our options

#53 A [Single] Act to Govern Canada

When he was in the opposition, and even before that as a member of the National Citizens’ Coalition, Mr. Harper was of the opinion that omnibus legislation — a single law that provides for the amendment of a number of other laws — was the height of disrespect for democracy. Oh, that tune has certainly changed.

The object of Mr. Harper’s derision of the Liberal government of the time was a law with dozens of pages. His own efforts? Hundreds, even thousands of pages. And with clauses that really have nothing to do with the principal subject matter of the legislation. Everything — from union busting to the curtailing of environmental regulations — has become a footnote in the legislation to enact the budget. This means that, instead of particular clauses being studied by the Employment Committee or the Environment Committee, it all goes to the committee studying the budget.

I don’t know why they don’t just table a single huge piece of legislation called “An Act to Govern Canada” and hide whatever they want in it. That might at least be a little more honest.

Further reading here. 

To avoid debate
just hide the worst of your plans
in a giant law

#52 Fix-o-date

Ah, the fixed election date. It’s that law that was adopted by a vote of all the parties in 2007 and was subsequently followed in…oh…one of the three elections since.

The first time around, with Mr. Harper’s first minority government. The opposition was clamouring for the government to step down and had even come together with an agreement to form a coalition to govern in its place (a practice very common in many western democracies, including members of the Commonwealth) when the Prime Minister, judging his chances to be better at the polls, asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and issue the election writ. Opportunity drove him to disregard his own law, and an attempt to block this in the courts revealed what we all knew all along: the law is unenforceable. It is window-dressing and a sideshow. The important law is the constitution, which sets out a maximum term of five years for any government and would trigger an election whether or not the leader of the day wanted one.

Time number two was even more mercenary. Again judging the polls to be favourable to an elusive majority for his government, Mr. Harper provoked the opposition parties to vote a motion of no confidence and off we went to the polls a year earlier than the law foresaw.

Here we are at time number three, finally respecting the law, but with a new twist. Because we all knew when the election had to be, there was time to plan a whole lot of pre-campaign advertising and then we got the latest surprise: a campaign more than twice as long as we are used to, all to capitalize on the governing party’s perception of having a lot more cash at hand than the opposition. I know my friends in the USA find it funny that we should balk at a 78 day campaign as being long, since they are pretty much locked in a perpetual campaign for the House of Representatives and about two years every time the President is elected, but I think we have been witness to yet another foible of the changes to the Elections Act: no upper limit on the length of an election campaign.

Let’s fix that after we dump these jerks.

Further reading here. 

I voted a law
and then I ignored it once…
twice! Third time lucky?

#51 Now You See It…Again!

In all of those photo opportunities we looked at in yesterday’s post must have been announcements of spending for things that people actually need, right? New spending on the important programs and infrastructure that support the economy and citizens.

Not so fast. This government has a stellar record in announcing and re-announcing the same money, which sometimes has a disturbing tendency to shrink from one announcement to another, all the while sounding like our needs are just about to be met. This isn’t a trick unique to the outgoing government, as the Liberals did that before them, but this outgoing government seems to have perfected the practice, even carefully wording their announcements to avoid directly saying that it was new money and studiously avoiding any questions about that.

The true measure of that announcing without spending tactic came out in the campaign around the time the Prime Minister was vaunting a “surprise” surplus for last year…accounted for more than four times over by the money that was budgeted to be spent and failed to make it out the door. While it might be a clever communications strategy, it certainly isn’t good government.

Further reading here, here and here.

Our cash announcement
of yesterday is not spent
We announce anew!

#50 Say “Cheesy”

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? But are 2,483 photos worth $2.3 million?

While cutting some budgets and just not spending others, it has to come as a surprise and a disappointment to learn that so much money has been invested in what is essentially the glorification of government announcements. No, $2.3 million is not a huge part of the federal budget, but the symbolism of the expense, and the fact that it seems to have doubled in the last election year (2011) and increased exponentially in recent years make it something that ought to be questioned.

A couple of examples underscore the vanity of it all. The Prime Minister generally has an official photographer on the public payroll. Mr. Harper has three (and they are not in the total, either). Veterans’ Affairs just got caught out returning unspent money to the Treasury while cutting the number of Veterans’ Affairs offices and nickel-and-diming the disability supports offered to wounded and traumatized veterans. The photography bill for Veterans’ Affairs? Over $118,000.

There are other costs to this need to document spending — whether it happens or not. On at least one occasion, someone compromised the security of Canadian forces abroad by publishing clear photos of them, and, in the photo above, firefighters in the Okanagan were pulled away from the fire and stood in a parking lot for an hour waiting for the Prime Minister and the BC Premier to show up for the photo op. Note that this has absolutely nothing to do with the federal jurisdiction. The amusing part of this photo is that a member of the local media, annoyed by the lack of opportunity to ask questions of either politician, captioned the photo “Man in blue suit thanks firefighters”.

As usual, it’s all about image and message and not about substance. Probably a good idea when you get to the substance of what they have done.

Further reading here and here.

The photographer
will be done and paid before
the money’s unspent

#49 Jailed for Words

More problems defending journalists abroad. Mohamed Fahmy was a dual citizen of Canada and Egypt working for Al-Jazeera in Cairo when he was arrested following the coup against Mohamed Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood had taken power in elections in 2012. Fahmy and his colleagues were charged with being members of a terrorist organization (as the new government had designated the Muslim Brotherhood), aiding and funding the group, broadcasting false news and reports of civil strife in Egypt, and operating without a licence.

He was sentenced to 7 years in prison and sent to a maximum security facility renowned for its terrible conditions. His legal team continued its work and eventually got an order for a new trial and for Mr. Fahmy to be released on bail. He also renounced his Egyptian citizenship, hoping to be able to take advantage of a law providing for the deportation of foreign citizens accused of crimes in Egypt.

Then came a new problem. He needed to replace his Canadian passport (in a country with checkpoints under martial law, you pretty much need to have your passport at all times) and the Canadian embassy wouldn’t issue him a new one because of the travel restrictions that are a part of his bail conditions. His legal team, and lawyers in Canada, are pretty clear that Canadian law allows the Minister responsible or the Prime Minister to issue a passport regardless of any travel restrictions that may have been imposed by a foreign court, and in this case, the government has shared its opinion that these charges would not be upheld in a Canadian court.

So why the inaction?

Further reading here. 

Trumped up charges and
the need of a new passport
Canada: (crickets)

#48 Whipped for Words

In 2012, Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was arrested in Saudi Arabia for having “insulted Islam” when he criticized that county’s government. He was sentenced in 2013 to 600 lashes and 7 years in prison, subsequently bumped up to 1000 lashes, 10 years in prison and a fine in 2014. The first 50 lashes were administered in January 2015, and the second set has subsequently been postponed a number of times because of his poor health. His wife fears that he will not survive the punishment.

Generally, this kind of inhumane treatment and violation of the right to free speech ought to concern every government and every country should be using the various levers of international pressure to intervene in the case. Canada, which has done very little, has a special reason to intervene and to advocate on behalf of this man: his wife and children are recognized refugees living in Canada. This gives Canada not only the right, but the obligation to intervene in the interest of reuniting this family in a safe place…here.

Has Canada done anything overt to have this man freed? Has it played a role of assuring his health and keeping his family in Canada informed about the process and the state of his health? It doesn’t seem so.

Has Canada continued to support the sale of Canadian-produced military hardware to Saudi Arabia with ongoing high-level contacts and advocacy on behalf of those companies hoping to make money on war? But of course.

I guess we know where the priorities lie.

Further reading here. 

He criticized them,
earning jail time and lashes
And we? We stood by.

#47 Kids in Jail

Omar Khadr was 10 years old when his family moved to Afghanistan and still under 16 when US forces attacking a house in an Afghan village arrested the wounded youth and subsequently sent him to Guantanamo Bay. Canada refused to ask for his transfer to Canada until forced to do so by the courts, and steadfastly resisted any attempts to have his alleged crimes to be considered those of a child soldier or a young offender.

After enduring “enhanced interrogation techniques” (read: torture) and terrible treatment in detention, Khadr finally decided to plead guilty under a plea deal that would see him spend one further year in detention at Guantanamo before being transferred to Canadian custody, although ministers of the outgoing government denied that there were any guarantees that Canada would accept him.

The outgoing government has fought every step of the way, as Khadr was repatriated to Canada, eventually transferred from an adult maximum security facility to a medium security and then a minimum security facility, and eventually released on bail as he appeals the conviction by the US military tribunal.

On his release into the custody of one of his lawyers, Canadians were finally able to see a polite, mild-mannered young man, and not the vicious terrorist portrayed by every statement of the government. It is a wonder that a young man so terribly mistreated for almost half of his life did not emerge more bitter than he appears to be. A wonder as well that the Canadian courts can have found that he was tortured, his rights violated, and yet no one in power has paid for the Canadian complicity in all of that abuse.

Further reading here. 

We were complicit
in torturing a youth, then
fought his release. Shame!

#46 Friends Let Friends Break the Law

Almost since its inception and, yes, following wars it did not start but were foisted upon it by neighbouring states, Israel has occupied territories that were designated for the creation of a Palestinian state. It certainly isn’t the fighting back that I would object to, but various strategies and tactics used in the “management” of the occupied territories effectively under its control would make the Israeli state a war criminal in a world without Security Council vetoes.

Nobody wants the Palestinian resistance to be violent. What do you do when faced with things like collective punishment (destroy the homes of families of suspected terrorists, no matter who is living there), authorize and subsidize the building of illegal settlements on occupied lands, carve up the territory into small pieces, with secure highways for your illegal settlers and endless checkpoints for the occupied population and a wall built on their land to keep them out of yours. And that’s a short list that could expand to itemize many other things that Israel should not be doing.

So short of armed struggle, what does one do? There is growing support of the BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) movement, a peaceful way to tell the occupying power that it is doing wrong. Entirely peaceful, and easy enough to end if and when the harm ends. Western European countries have insisted that goods manufactured in the illegal settlements on the West Bank be identified distinctly from products of Israel. Students are demanding that their universities divest themselves of holdings in companies that profit from the occupation. Don’t agree, don’t boycott, right?

Not so fast. Our outgoing government has decided that the BDS movement is hate speech and ought to be prosecuted as such. But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that they feel threatened by a peaceful response to anything, right?

Further reading here. 

Bombs we understand
But combatting injustice
by boycott? Hate speech!

#45 At the Kiddie Table?

At the United Nations there are a couple of places for nations to vote. The General Assembly is the most egalitarian — everybody votes, no vetoes — but of course the decisions of the General Assembly are often ignored. We should know, as our outgoing government’s particular foreign policy has put us in the minority “no” position far more often than I would care to count. We seem to be becoming a bit of an outlier there, not even abstaining (as many western nations do) from resolutions condemning the latest trampling of the rights of Palestinians by Israel in its ongoing illegal (contrary to a number of UN resolutions) occupation of the territory that should be the Palestinian state by now.

The Security Council is the big table, which is ironic, as it is a smaller table, but its decisions are supposed to be followed. In fact, they are enforced by UN peacekeepers, which is something that Canada used to do, remember? The Security Council has 15 members, including 5 permanent members with vetoes (the “victors” of World War II — The US, Russia, the UK, France and China) and 10 others elected to 2-year terms by the members of the General Assembly. Usually, when Canada has had a chance to propose its candidacy it wins. Not so any more.

For the first time, in 2010, Canada presented its candidacy and came third (of 3) in the first vote for the “Western European and Other” group, then second (of 2) in the second vote. You need two-thirds of those voting to get in. Germany succeeded on the first vote and neither Canada nor Portugal succeeded on the second. Trailing anyway, Canada withdrew. We have notably not presented our candidacy at either of the subsequent opportunities.

Ad Busters produced a short video, based on a true incident, that illustrates what is happening to Canada’s reputation.



Further reading here. 

Losing to former
brutal coloniser shows
change in them or us

#44 Crime and Sociology

Since Steve and the boys (probably) didn’t read the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he likely missed this recommendation:

41. We call upon the federal government, in consultation with Aboriginal organizations, to appoint a public inquiry into the causes of, and remedies for, the disproportionate victimization of Aboriginal women and girls. The inquiry’s mandate would include:
     i. Investigation into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls.
    ii. Links to the intergenerational legacy of residential schools.

Not that he hasn’t heard the calls for this coming from across the country, mind you, he just hasn’t paid them heed. For Mr. Harper, the disappearance and/or murder of well over a thousand aboriginal women is a question of crime and not something bigger. Each one an individual crime, certainly not something to be linked to a broader malaise in our society that we might have to do something about in a preventive kind of way. That, he thinks, smacks of “sociology”, which is apparently a dirty word to him.

But when two individuals take it upon themselves to attack two different members of the Canadian Forces in two different cities using two different means, it is part of that broad thing we call “terrorism” and we must immediately strip all Canadians of certain rights in order to mobilise ourselves against this looming threat.

Chercher l’erreur, as we say in French.

Further reading here. 

It’s a legacy
of what we did. We need to
stop and make it right

#43 Probably Didn’t Even Read It

For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.”

— From the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

 
I doubt the Prime Minister, who didn’t bother to show up for the launch of the report (his minister sat when everyone else stood in flagrant disrespect), has even so much as skimmed this report or its recommendations. I probably shouldn’t be so cynical, right? After all, the Prime Minister is a busy guy, why would he find time to read the report of a commission examining the harms done over the course of more than a century to the cultures from whom our ancestors misappropriated this land, attempting to assimilate them and to wipe them out of existence?

The Prime Minister made a lot of his government’s apology in 2009 for these harms, but he has really done nothing else. Well, nothing good. Just more attacks on the autonomy of First Nations people, personal attacks on those who dare to denounce what the government is and isn’t doing, but mostly a whole lot of nothing.

Reading the report — even just the recommendations — is really the least he could do. But that’s where I’m mistaken: he is doing even less than that.

You can find the report and other related documents here.

Further reading here. 

“Sorry” won’t cut it
when there is so much to do
to repair the harm

#42 Let Her Drink Tea

Attawapiskat is a community with numerous challenges. It entered Treaty 9 in the 1930s (very late) and many of the members of the community only moved into the town in the 1960s. The town has problems with the quality of water (even boiling it will not render it safe for human contact) and with housing. The Wikipedia article linked from the beginning of this post estimates the cost of building a single home in the community at $250,000, in part due to the remoteness of the community and difficulties related to transporting building materials.

The response of the outgoing government was typically simplistic and vindictive. They’re managing the money badly, they said, ignoring the fact that management under the Indian Act and under the co-management arrangement imposed on the community tied the community’s hands and left a lot of decision-making power outside their control. We’ve sent $90 million to that community since we came to power in 2006, said the Prime Minister, conflating all of the spending on health, education, social services and housing to make it sound like it was for housing alone. According to my own quick and dirty calculation, that amounts to less than $9,700 per person per year, which is less than half of what my subsidized HIV medication costs, so I can’t imagine how far that might go in a community where (again from Wikipedia) six apples and four small bottles of juice cost $23.50.

In the face of yet another winter of suffering and a state of emergency declared by the Attawapiskat council, Chief Theresa Spence went to Ottawa to plead on behalf of her people. She camped on Victoria Island in the middle of the Outaouais River and began a hunger strike to try to get a meeting with the Prime Minister. Crickets from 24 Sussex Drive. A couple of offers to meet with lesser officials and some scolding from others, but no meeting.

Just another indication of the seriousness with which the outgoing government has treated the issues of deplorable living conditions in First Nations communities.

Further reading here. 

Too “proud” to meet her
but vindictive enough to
vilify the Chief

#41 Here’s a Pittance, Make Do

The historical treaties between the Crown and the First Nations leave almost as much to be desired as our terrible track record in adhering to them. I remember being alarmed when reading reports of the treaty commissioners in the context of my Law School course on Aboriginal Peoples and the Law. Paraphrasing: “Today we ran into another band that had not yet signed the treaty for the area. They seemed reluctant to sign until we rolled the cannons forward.” I guess that’s what passed for “freely entered into” at the time, right?

While more contemporary treaties have done a better job — backed up by the hovering threat of land claims decisions in the courts that would be much more fair to First Nations peoples — there are still a lot of problems with the federal government’s assumption of its responsibilities under the constitution to assure the health, education and welfare of First Nations peoples on reserves. And the public complains like these communities are getting some kind of golden treatment living without clean water, isolated in the corners of their traditional lands into which we have pushed them and recovering from a long and ill-advised attempt to erase their cultures by taking their children away for re-education by people who often abused them.

How golden is the treatment? Watch Wab Kinew explain what’s wrong with our perceptions of First Nations and how little the federal government spends on those vital services (bear in mind that New Brunswick is also not spread across the remotest parts of the whole country).



Leaving aside how dreamy Wab Kinew is, how do we go about repairing many decades of damage and ensuring access to all the services to which everyone in Canada should have access? Not by refusing to sit down and talk about it like this outgoing government has done.

Further reading here. 

Have you ever solved
a problem by refusing
to talk about it?

#40 Clouding the Issue

Accountability is an important thing, no doubt about it. That’s why organizations and companies have audited financial statements, and these have to be accessible to the members (or shareholders) and funders, when there are any. That’s the way it has been for Indian Bands (federal structures imposed on First Nations by the very outdated Indian Act). These bodies have dutifully filed their audited financial statements with Indian Affairs and they are available as well to band members, either through the federal department or directly from the band.

There’s always been a certain amount of overreach in this, like there is for the financial reporting requirements the federal government applies to all organizations it funds (I can’t speak for the subsidies to companies, which I suspect have lighter requirements). Why, for example, should I have to account to the federal government for the totality of my insufficient funding when the federal government supplies a very small part of it? Surely they need an accounting of the money they provide, but they require an accounting of the totality of it. It being easier and less costly to produce a single global audited financial report, that is what they get.

Playing on bad perceptions of First Nations, the federal government moved to make Indian Bands post their financial statements on publicly accessible websites, under pain of having their funding withheld if they failed to comply. Do companies have to do that? Companies that receive subsidies from the federal government? Nope. Just the people we like to demonize while we provide insufficient funding for their health and education — but that’s another story, to come.

We are probably lucky that the deadline for the posting of these things fell within the enormously long electoral campaign, as many bands had “failed” to comply, and I don’t think that withholding funding to first nations people during the election campaign is something that the government wants to do. Look out on October 20th, though, if the government doesn’t change.

Further reading here. 

We took all the land
We mete out pittances, now
you account for them!

#39 Blue Doesn't Match Our Outfits?

ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, the Islamic State. Whatever you call it, it seems pretty clear that none of us like them, and with good reason. Does this mean that our best strategy is to throw in with the biggest intervenor and ignorer of the world community and start bombing?

In the past, Canada demonstrated a preference to participate in actions sanctioned by the United Nations rather than bypassing this important world body to go the unilateral or the multilateral route outside the UN. No longer, it seems. I wouldn't actually be surprised to find out that we had done something similar to what has been uncovered in Australia in the last couple of weeks: a government that claimed to be responding to a call for assistance from the US in the fight against Daesh was shown to have begged the US to ask them for assistance.

Canada invented the idea of peacekeeping and the Prime Minister of the day won a Nobel Peace Prize for doing it. We used to be the largest contributors to that program but we have fallen to something like 51st. The Prime Minister even ridiculed the idea of putting more emphasis on humanitarian aid to the region as “dropping winter coats on them” versus his own plan of dropping bombs on them. Bombs are cold comfort to the millions of refugees fleeing their homes.

I think most of us would be more comfortable with an approach that combined force with compassion for the civilian victims of all of this, and in a context of international consensus.

Further reading here. 

We used to be known
by the blue on our helmets
Bombs have muddied that

#38 Thank You for Your Service

So we have already seen how the outgoing government (I continue to get a little thrill of anticipation saying that) likes militarism, yet wants to save a few bucks by closing Veterans' Affairs offices. Surely they are doing better with the actual benefits, right? Wrong.

This military-friendly government has also managed to try to “contain” the cost of compensation to returning veterans who return damaged (injured physically or mentally) from their experiences in the field. The lfelong pension approach seemed too generous, I guess, so how about we replace it with a lump sum payment? The Prime Minister even defended it as the most generous in the world, despite easily findable information showing that the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States are much more financially supportive of their injured veterans.

While we're at it, why are there horror stories of amputees havng to return each year to demonstrate that they are still without their lost limbs? How about all the stalling on the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder and actually providing support for that?

You have a heck of a bad record when your military has counted more suicides among its returning soldiers than combat deaths in Afghanistan. Cannon fodder, I think they used to call that.

Further reading here and here.

We sent you into
danger and when you got hurt
we tried not to pay

#37 Ecologists = terrorists, right?

Sticking with the theme of not funding anyone who might criticize your retrograde policies, let us look at the case of environmental organizations. Not only is there some degree of concern that the anti-terrorist law is so broad as to allow the targeting of any dissent or civil disobedience, there is also the fact that Revenue Canada seems to be auditing those who take positions on issues to determine whether they are straying too far into advocacy to retain their charitable status.

Before we even get to those particular levers, there is the more direct one. Cut the funding. You can't have some tree-hugger telling you that cutting down trees is bad for the trees when the experts around the cabinet table have determined that it is more in the interest of the country to have jobs than to have trees, breathable air or drinkable water, right?

And the best approach to cut someone with a long track record of well-evaluated federal funding? Pronounce some of their activities not fundable and snip away at the funding until the existence of the organization becomes unsustainable. Bonus points if they can't turn to charitable funding because they are “too political”.

That's how to govern with a really brown thumb.

Further reading here. 

The trees, the water
the air we breathe: criticize
and lose your funding

#36 Cutting Women's Health

You have to wonder whether there is something else behind the decision to cut the Women's Health Contribution Program, especially when it comes from a government whose ranks include oh-so-many pro-lifers, you know, the people who care more about “the unborn” than the already alive.

The research centres and communication networks the program used to fund before it was cut in 2012 studied issues like the impact of reducing environmental regulation on women's health, access to care for mothers and pregnant women who use drugs...all the favourite issues of the current regime.

They certainly don't like to have people demonstrating how their decision have negative impacts on anyone, and they certainly don't like to fund health programs for people they don't appear to like very much. You just know, too, that this is the kind of work they would find “too political” to be done by a charitable organization, further hampering the groups' abilities to find funding elsewhere.

Further reading here. 

If you want to show
the bad things our choices do
use your own money

#35 A Minister “Shirking” Duty

For a government that likes to glorify the military, one would think they might take better care of returning veterans.  Having offices across the country has been a method of ensuring accessibility to services for veterans of Canada's military, but the Tories seemed more interested in investing in the hardware of war than taking care of those who returned after having responded to the call of duty.

Veterans don't take these things lying down. As you can imagine, they are fighters and mobilized for protests all over the country. They even sent a delegation to Parliament Hill to meet the minister and present their grievances with the plan to “rationalize” services into fewer service centres across the country. This led us to the crazy spectacle of the minister responsible trying to avoid meeting with them, even almost running away, on live TV. A true act of bravery for someone who used to wear a uniform, even if it was a police uniform.

Further reading here. 

Faced with a phalanx
of media and vets, the
minister retreats

#34 Some of Your Health Matters

How about this mean cut? An announced end to most of the health coverage for refugee claimants awaiting determination of their claims, with a few exceptions that were in themselves cruel twists on the health front.

First the program: it covers people who have claimed status, but not yet received an initial determination. Once they have some status, even if the process is ongoing, the provinces in which they live provide health coverage for them like any other resident. That the federal government, in particular Citizenship and Immigration Canada, would cut all basic health coverage, excepting only the treatment of diseases which could represent a danger to public health (i.e.: to the citizens who matter) is abusive. People with diabetes would not have access to insulin, because their dying would cause anyone else to contract diabetes, for example.

This attempt to severely limit coverage had a particularly perverse effect in the HIV field. When Canada first started mandatory HIV testing for all immigrants, long-term visitors and refugees (notably under the Liberal government of the day), there was a Ministerial undertaking that HIV would not be considered as a “danger to public health” (it isn't contagious like, for example, tuberculosis), but admission or refusal of people testing positive for HIV would be determined on the basis of an evaluation of the burden they might represent for the health care system. That determination doesn't apply to refugees, as they are covered by international treaties we have signed that require us to offer protection to them.

So therein lies the catch-22 in HIV: HIV treatments would be covered by the federal government under the Federal Interim Health Plan because HIV is a danger to public health. If we stood up to object to that characterization of HIV, we might be putting in jeopardy the coverage of certain people's treatment. If we said nothing, we might be seen as accepting that independent applicants for immigration with HIV might be excluded from the country because they represented a danger to public health.

We found out in the usual way that the government just wasn't listening anyway. We wrote to both the ministers of Health and of Immigration and got no answer from the latter and a form letter from the former telling us that this health benefit program was not in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health and she would not intervene.

Luckily, the courts did the job of ordering the program back into existence. Another reason for the government to hate the courts, I suppose.

Further reading here. 

You've come fleeing war
and what we have to offer
is war on your health