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Archive for December, 2009

This last week of the year (and decade) has been very enjoyable and relaxing for myself as I’ve just returned home from a visit to my families house in Northwestern Ontario but it appears that it was not the ideal week to check out of blogging. Alot of pretty big news stories these past few days have been unfolding (or continuing to unfold.) In Iran the first week’s anniversary of the death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri coincided with the Day of Ashura and we saw people from all walks of life (not just the priviledged elite of Tehran) come out and protest what is in essence a military junta leading the country. Closer to home the Prime Minister (ever the tactician) has prorogued parliament for the second year in a row. And overseas, deadly attacks continued apace as yesterday brought the deaths of 4 Canadian soldiers and a Canadian journalist, as well as the deaths of at least 7 CIA agents in Afghanistan. If only there was some sort of online, published tool that would be ideally suited to unpacking all of this news. Glory, glory, Halleluja there is and it’s called a ‘blog’. I just happen to have one of those. How convenient.

• Diminishing Returns On Canada's Coattails For far too long, Canada has been content to let her international image and reputation warmly bask in the residual glow of glories and [/caption] good works long gone past. However, our squeaky clean image...
• PBO:"Start Dealing With A Structural Fiscal Problem" (Updated) I'll have more to say on this later today, but it looks like  all of the tax cuts that Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have enacted during their tenure (4 years in...

• My Life as a Volunteer Tax Preparer - Week 6 This was yet another unique week of experiences for me in the volunteer tax preparer office. I had 5 appointments plus I picked up a...
• Things I Think I Think (and Personal Finance Links) Let's dig right in this week... Is this Getting Old? - I think I'm curious if people are enjoying this format or if it's growing...

Parker Donham, writing at Contrarian has a post up Wednesday talking about the rising values of health insurers stock value as reform legislation slowly grinds towards passage in the States. In it, he cites Glenn Greenwald’s article that discusses “the explosion in health insurance company stock prices as the severely watered-down reform bill edges toward passage” and further describes the pending legislation (which passed the Senate Thursday and can now move onto reconcilliation with the House bill) as “a massive public subsidy of the insurance industry.” I love Glenn Greenwald. He is exceptionally lucid. His blog was the first that I really got into and followed regularly, and much of the expansion of my own blogroll has been through links that Glenn has supplied. That being said, I do sometimes take exception to the colour of his descriptions. While he is correct on the merits, I wouldn’t say that it is fair to describe the increase in insurance company stock as ‘explosive’ or the subsidies that the new bill will provide as ‘massive.’ Going in to this whole process, it has been clear from the start that some ammount of subsidies would be going to private insurers as a single payer system style of reform was never on the table from the beginning (my personal belief is this would be the best option, but is was deemed not politically feasible by ‘centrists’); that fact is implicit in the type of reforms that Congress has been attempting (all year!) to enact.

At his blog FiveThirtyEight, the estimable Nate Silver has an excellent analysis (as he always does) of the market valuation of the increase in stock prices that insurance companies have seen as of late. His analysis (which you really need to go read as I will butcher it if try to make it my own) concludes that “the total value added from passage of the bill is $16.04 billion.” For those true believers in the efficient market hypothesis (markets are amazing tools, but I would not consider myself part of this camp) this is the exact market valuation that has been placed on insurance reform. While $16 billion is a lot of money, it is a fraction of the total outlays the bill would provide for over the next 10 years, or it “represents about 3.6 percent of the subsidy.” Nate goes on to add that:

Coincidentally — and it is mostly a coincidence, since the numbers are not directly comparable for a variety of reasons — this compares rather neatly to the 3.3 percent profit margin in the health insurance industry overall.

There can be no doubt that if reform is passed that private insurance companies will receive government subsidies; that is the course of action that has been chosen. While not nearly ideal there is a wide variety of cost savings measures contained within the bill and only time will tell which are the most effective. Claiming that reform is simply a give-away to private insurers is somewhat hyperbolic.

Update: Nate has another interesting post up that shows the decline in prices that insurance companies experienced after Senate passage was confirmed.

• Olympic Legacies [/caption] The cauldron in Coal Harbour has been extinguished, the Olympic flag has been lowered and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games have ended. That means  two things; it's time for me to start doing some...
• Reckless Walking? One of the more depressing aspects of my Monday morning commute is the frequency with which there is going to be some sad news relayed on the 8 o'clock news from over the weekend.  This...

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I’m in the middle of getting ready to fly home so I don’t have much time to read and write, but this article’s headline “Top court spurns Olympic ski jumpers”, caught my eye for two reasons. First for it’s inaccuracy; as the article is discussing the possibility of the supreme court hearing a case about allowing female ski jumpers into the upcoming 2010 games, there are currently no female Olympic jumpers to spurn. My second qualm is with the use of  the word ‘spurn’ itself. That term has connotations of contempt built into it. The court is dealing with a legal matter not choosing a lover. I cannot speak to the courts decision with any real authority, but it seems like a rather simple matter; in neglecting to take the case up the court is affirming the lower courts decision that they do not have standing to enforce the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the International Olympic Committee. Personally, I would love to see female ski jumpers in the Olympics and see no coherent reason for the IOC not to include them; the current field of competitive female ski jumpers is much more robust than other sports with female participation at the time of their introduction into the Olympics. My own personal feelings that the IOC have erred in their decision have no bearing on whether the Supreme Court of Canada has the authority to intervene in this matter. From my next to nothing understanding of our charter, I do not believe this is a matter where the court has any standing here. In this particular instance it seems the courts own view seems to have aligned with my own limited one. In no way is this a controversial ruling, nor does it say anything about gender equality in Canada. The real troubling issue is the largely legal vacuum that the IOC exists in, in any country in which it runs operations.

None of this is to say that I think this story should dissappear. On the contrary, one of the biggest themes I’ve hit upon in my short time writing in this here weblog is my belief that the world stage that hosting the Olympics will provide should be co-opted wherever possible, and this is just one more example of this; an opportunity for, as they say, a ‘teachable moment.’T

• Looking Forward, Looking Back [/caption] Today is certainly a big day for Canada at these games as the Womens hockey team will go for gold later this afternoon. Womens curling semifinals have just finished, the men will play later...
• A Mixed Day For Olympic Impressions I strongly believe that judgement on the success of the upcoming Winter Games should be on based upon the actual execution of them, not based upon issues that have arisen at past games. Prior incidents,...

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A short while back on the CBC Radio3 blog, host Tariq Hussein linked to a blog post by Carey Mercer, the lead singer of the band Frog Eyes. In this post he was lamenting the fact that artists performing at events organized by VANOC during the Olympics have been required to sign a contract with the following clause contained within:

The artist shall at all times refrain from making any negative or derogatory remarks respecting VANOC (the organizing committee), the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Olympic movement generally, Bell and/or other sponsors associated with VANOC.”

Putting on my contrarian hat, (not for arguments sake, but because I truly had a differing opinion) I commented that I did not see anything controversial with this contract, as it seems like a very standard business transaction to require that someone you are hiring in a promotional context actually does promotional work. If keeping an anti-Olympic platform is more important to any artist then they do not have to sign the contract. If you’ve read any of my other posts you might already know that I am not oblivious to problems and issues that the Olympics bring/heighten/highlight (extra emphasis on highlight…our cities problems would be extant even if we were not hosting the Olympics.) My reading of the clause in question still leaves plenty of room open for artists to advocate for whatever cause they would like. One can refrain from making “negative or derogatory” comments about the games and their organizers and still promote organizations that work on a given cause ie. homelessness. Something I have argued for previously is for concerned citizens to co-opt the platform the games provide, rather than just maligning them. This is a perfect example of this. If any one has any ideas on how to get in touch with any of the artists slated to perform during Olympic events I would be very interested in seeing if any would want to champion one cause or another that is pertinent to Vancouver/BC (Canadian Indie artists seem to be a pretty caring and compassionate group on the whole.)

• The Colour Red To Bring Notice To Homelessness During Games [/caption] While it will be easy enough to find red (and white) in Vancouver this February, PIVOT Legal Society is hoping that you notice the colour for a different reason, as they kick off a...
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• Olympic Memorabilia Sports Memorabilia -> Autographs: Original -> Olympics -> Summer -> Winter When it comes to sporting events, there are few that capture the hearts and...
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"I love this man!" ~Damian Abrahams. We all do Pink Eyes..

Who are these two beautiful men celebrating with a kiss and just what are they celebrating? On the right is CBC Radio3 host and Canadian music maven Grant Lawrence. On the left, Damian ‘Pink Eyes’ Abraham, lead singer of the Toronto based punk band Fucked Up. Damian (with Grant along for the ride whether he likes it or not) is reacting to the just announced news moments before that his band’s album The Chemistry of Common Life had won the 2009 Polaris Music Prize. The Polaris Prize is an annual prize awarded to an album of Canadian content based solely on the artistic merit of the work; sales figures or mass appeal do not hold sway over the prize. Aside from being one of the most prestigious musical prizes in Canada, the Polaris Prize also comes with $20,000.

Those with an eye and ear on the Canadian music scene may be questioning why I am writing about Fucked Up’s win now; they won the award back on September 21st. If you had the pleasure of watching the Polaris Prize Awards Gala (still available for viewing here) you know that after Fucked Up was named as the winner, Damian (post smooch with Mr. Lawrence) announced that his band would be using the prize money to produce a single in time for Christmas with all proceeds going to some very deserving charities. Just over two months later and Fucked Up have shown to be true to their word; the band, along with some friends have released their version of “Do They Know It’s Chirstmas?” which is available through iTunes here. Proceeds from the sales will be spread across three charities. From Fucked Up’s blog:

Justice for Missing and Murdered Ingigenous Women
Missing Justice is a grassroots solidarity collective based in Montreal that works to eliminate violence and discrimination against Indigenous women living in Quebec. The collective seeks to consult and collaborate with Indigenous communities and organizations to foster understanding and dispel harmful stereotypes commonly held in regards to Indigenous women who are targets of violence. As a collective, our overall strategy for achieving these goals includes popular education initiatives, media outreach, coalition-building, case work, poster awareness campaigns, research projects, information sharing, publishing and broadcasting, political demonstrations, and direct action.

DTES Power of Women Group
A grassroots group of DTES women who work to empower, educate and
mobilize around issues affecting their neighbourhood such as poverty,
housing, and violence against women.

Sisters in Spirit
The main objective of the Native Women’s Association of Canada – Sisters In Spirit initiative is to address violence against Aboriginal (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) women, particularly racialized and/or sexualized violence, that is, violence perpetrated against Aboriginal women because of their gender and Aboriginal identity. Specifically, to increase public understanding and knowledge at a national level of the impact of racialized, sexualized violence against Aboriginal women often leading to their disappearance and death.

In February the band will release their latest 7″ single with this Christmas track serving as the B-Side. All proceeds from the sale of this record will also go to the above charities.

• Lil Harper and the Environment Seeing this news clip* over the weekend got me to wondering about Canada's current environmental policy.  I was getting ready to slag the governments inaction on this front over the past couple years but I figured...
• How Wrong Is It To Contractually Require Promoters To Not Denigrate (Your Product)? A short while back on the CBC Radio3 blog, host Tariq Hussein linked to a blog post by Carey Mercer, the lead singer of the band Frog Eyes. In this post he was lamenting the...

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My thanks to J. Bradford DeLong for raising this piece from his archives. It perfectly outlines what I enjoy about reading blogs, as well as how enriching these first forays into wielding the tool called a blog have been.

I am greedy. I want more. I would like a larger college, [DeLong is a USC Berkeley Econ. Professor] an invisible college, of more people to talk to, pointing me to more interesting things. People whose views and opinions I can react to, and who will react to my reasoned and well-thought-out opinions, and to my unreasoned and off-the-cuff ones as well. It would be really nice to have Paul Krugman three doors down, so I could bump into him occasionally and ask, “Hey, Paul, what do you think of…” Aggressive younger people interested in public policy and public finance would be excellent. Berkeley is deficient in not having enough right-wingers; a healthy college has a well-diversified intellectual portfolio. The political scientists are too far away to run into by accident — somebody like Dan Drezner would be nice to have around (even if he does get incidence wrong sometimes). Over the past three years, with the arrival of Web logging, I have been able to add such people to those I bump into — in a virtual sense — every week. My invisible college is paradise squared…

While I am by no means an academic (hell, I did not know who Dan Drezner was, but I can read his blog thanks to the above post) the sentiment rings true. A very Merry to all.

• Fun With The Olympic Budget [/caption] This past Monday, the local 24 Hours newspaper featured an article entitled "Let the Bailout Games begin". While the piece,  by 24 Hours staff writer Bob Mackin does contain many good pieces of factual...
• A Mixed Day For Olympic Impressions I strongly believe that judgement on the success of the upcoming Winter Games should be on based upon the actual execution of them, not based upon issues that have arisen at past games. Prior incidents,...

• Intervention Leads to Insult My mom calls me up and tells me to tune into TLC (The Learning Channel). As I am searching through my Dish TV menu guide...
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Richard Colvin Testifying Before a Commons Committee

Stephen Harper really came into power about five years later than what would have been optimal for him. So many of the decisions and maneuvers he makes seem to mirror the petty and weak actions of the horrible administration of George W. Bush. Earlier this week it was the revelation by the CBC that the Conservative government is looking at reducing the emissions goals for the oil and gas industries that made Mr. Harper appear like Mr. Bush. Ongoing as well is the debate over the transfer of Afghan detainees. The government’s response so far is one that seems more in line with the Bush approach to foreign policy than the incremental positive steps that President Obama has started to push forward on.

It is worth taking a moment to pause and remember what is actually at issue here. No claims are being made that Canadian soldiers tortured detainees.

…they were beaten, whipped, frozen and starved once they were transferred from Canadian military custody to Afghan security forces. [emphasis mine]

The question at hand is whether we continued to transfer prisoners to the Afghans after learning that they were torturing the prisoners we transferred. It is important to remember that prior to 2005 we transferred prisoners to the US. This process was stopped because of concerns that the US was not fulfilling their treaty obligations under the Geneva Convention. If we are knowingly transferred prisoners to an entity that then tortures said prisoners, we have also run afoul of our treaty obligations.

I would consider a Canadian diplomat in Afghanistan raising concerns about prisoner abuse to be a credible voice. Richard Colvin, just such a diplomat claims he did as much from 2006 to 2007. When reports began to come out in 2007 from monitoring agencies like the Red Cross that detainee abuse was indeed being perpetrated by Afghan security forces, the Canadian government quickly renogtiated a new transfer agreement with Afghan authorities that allowed Canadian access to the prisons the detainees would be transfered to. On November 18th, appearing before a Commons Committee, Colvin stated that:

All detainees transferred by Canadians to Afghan prisons were likely tortured by Afghan officials and many of the prisoners were innocent.

The CBC news story from that day also goes on to say:

Colvin said they began informing the Canadian Forces and Foreign Affairs officials about the detainee situation in 2006 with verbal and written reports.

He said the warnings were at first mostly ignored, but by April 2007, they were receiving written messages from government officials that in the future not to put things on paper, but instead use the telephone.

Colvin mentioned David Mulroney, a deputy minister who is now the ambassador to China, as one of the officials who didn’t want to hear the allegations.

Once again it should be pointed out that no one is arguing Canadian Forces tortured detainees. What is claimed howerver, is that it was known that detainees were being tortured after their transfer to Afghan Forces, that this fact was brought to the attention of military and government officials who in turn ignored this information and detainee transfers continued. Were this to be the case, Canada would be in violation of it’s treaty obligations.

• Anti-Olympic Voice Turned Away At Vancouver Airport [/caption] On Saturday, after undergoing several hours of questioning from Canadian customs officials, Martin Macias Jr., an activist with ties to the Olympic Resistance Network attempting to travel to Vancouver to cover and participate in...
• Walking And Chewing Gum Something that I've tended to think about the current tenure of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is that although his government has pushed through (or tried to push through) much legislation that I personally disagree with...

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Thursday December 17^th, 2009, 6:30pm

Vancouver Art Gallery, Robson Street Side!

Join us as we march with red umbrellas, adopted in 2002 by Venetian sex workers for an anti-violence march, symbolizing resistance against discrimination for sex workers worldwide.

We will be raising awareness about violence against sex workers and the organizations that support us by distributing materials amongst holiday shoppers on Robson Street. Fancy dress and festively decorated red umbrellas are definitely encouraged!

Image from http://www.swop-tucson.org/

The march will be followed by a gathering at the
Lennox Pub/Restaurant (corner of Robson & Granville).

WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!

Questions? Please contact Esther Shannon at (604) 245- 9963

• Canadians Against Prorogation: Vancouver Edition [/caption] January 23rd, 2010 saw thousands of people of all political stripes (as well as those lacking any stripes) from across the country come together in peaceful protest to demonstrate their displeasure with Prime Minister...
• Looking Forward, Looking Back [/caption] Today is certainly a big day for Canada at these games as the Womens hockey team will go for gold later this afternoon. Womens curling semifinals have just finished, the men will play later...

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This Monday’s Metro Vancouver featured a report on an anti-Olympic mural that has been repainted outside a Downtown Eastside art gallery.

SEAN KOLENKO/FOR METRO VANCOUVER

The original removal of this mural in November has been cited by civil rights activists as proof that freedom of expression will be curtailed during the games; City Councillor Greoff Meggs maintains the removal was a mistake made in good faith that is not “representative of  how we want to protect civil rights during the Games. And we’ve been adamant that we do.”

David Eby, the executive director for the BC Civil Liberties Association expressed hopes that the city would treat anti-Olympic messages the same as pro-Olympic ones. If Counc. Meggs assertions at the recent public forum on security and civil rights during the games prove to be true then this should be the case. I have previously said that these games should be judged on their actual implementation, not by supposition on possibilities. The November removal of the mural, or this article in the Globe and Mail certainly left the city and VANOC looking like their claims that freedom of expression would not be curtailed look questionable. Should this mural remain up going forward, it will provide some needed credibility to Counc. Meggs claims.

My own mural would look a little more like this:

however that’s just me. The artist’s point is well taken and most certainly should not be removed from view. Metro’s article points out this space has been used for display since 2003 without incident. Hopefully the temporary removal was just that, temporary.

• Building Towards The Big Hockey Game I am a newer resident of Vancouver, and was only 10 years old when the Vancouver Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in '94 and rioting erupted throughout the streets. I don't...
• I Love the Smell of Beaver Musk in the Cold, Cold Morning Responding yesterday to Stephen Colbert in just the way that we've been looking for was Ted Townsend, the spokesperson for the City of Richmond. In an open letter to Colbert in response to the one...

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With the second week of the Copenhagen conference underway a post about the goings on in the ongoing discussion of climate change is merited. I know that I haven’t been following the Canadian media’s response to ‘Climategate’ as much as I should, but I was still surprised and saddened when a link to this blog posting was sent to me. The US blogosphere has been afire since a series of emails that were hacked from servers at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were posted on the internet in late November. Apparently these emails not only debunk all existing climate research, but also expose a vast conspiracy by the world’s scientific institutions to forge and falsify evidence of global climate change. On the one hand it is relatively easy to highlight any number of falsehoods that climate change deniers fabricate. Unfortunately it is harder to compete with the volume and ferocity of many of those voices crying FOUL (and more!) in response to a selective reading of an email exchange from more than a decade ago. Look, they are so organized they even have a Facebook group!

So, to attend to my first claim; it is easy to demonstrate falsehoods and disingenuousness in the stance that many have taken in response  to these emails. Not until these emails came out had I heard so much about the CRU at East Anglia. If they were the only scientific body doing climate analysis, did not subscribe to any kind of peer review process and were demonstrably falsifying data then there would be a big problem. None of these things are the case. First, from Bradford Plummer at the New Republic:

CRU isn’t the only group in the world tracking global temperature trends. As Michael Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois, points out, there are at least three other groups, including NASA, NOAA, and the Japan Meteorological Agency, that have been analyzing surface temperature data for well over a century (there’s a fair bit of overlap in what raw data they use, but they all have their own ways of analyzing it).

He was even kind enough to include a chart with each of these groups datasets plotted on it:

Global Temperature Departures

I’m no statistician but that sure looks like an upward trend to me. Plummer goes on to say:

[Y]es, climate scientists should take pains to be as transparent as possible, and some of the CRU e-mails cut against that. That needs to be remedied. Georgia Tech’s Judith Curry also has a sharp take, noting that good-faith engagement with skeptics can be a positive thing. But there’s no evidence that climate data has been fudged, and even if there was a smoking gun in the CRU e-mails, the basis for what we know about man-made climate change still comes from a vast array of sources.

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones has a good post about a common tactic that deniers use quite frequently.

• Oh Yeah, That Whole Senate Thing [/caption] In my haste to post on the prorogation of parliament, I completely forgot to mention one of the more tangible reasons for Mr. Harper to do so; Senate appointments. As I understand it, (mostly...
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I strongly believe that judgement on the success of the upcoming Winter Games should be on based upon the actual execution of them, not based upon issues that have arisen at past games. Prior incidents, ie. the removal of homeless people to the suburbs that took place during the ’96 Atlanta Summer Games, should inform and educate the approaches to making the Vancouver games a success, but not be the basis for applying any number of labels to these games.

Two areas of concern (including those who are for, against or on the fence about the games) are how housing bylaws are enforced and the treatment of the homeless. The front page of today’s Metro Vancouver featured two articles side by side about this very issue.

In potential good news, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu announced on Monday how the department plans to move forward with enforcement of the Assitance to Shelter Act. Chu indicated that the farthest officers will go to bring a homeless citizen to a shelter would be to use “minimal non-forceful touching.”  This would only come if an office believed someone on the streets was at risk of imminent serious injury or death. Should one refuse assitance to a shelter, Chu says “we will withdraw the contact immediately [and] explore other tactics to ensure the person survives the extreme weather.” Should this enforcement scenario actually hold out I believe it may be sufficient until the Assistance to Shelter Act can be challenged in court. If this truly is all that the police will enforce it seems that there is no need for the additional legislation whatsoever. At the risk of appearing very naive, I will take the VPD at their word, for now. I can only hope that we don’t soon hear of  ”circumstances changing” and the need to “re-evaluate” their enforcement strategy.

Contrasting this is a story that is unambiguously disappointing.

The eight tenants of the home on East 11th Ave. and St. Catherines St. received notices two weeks ago that their tenancy was being terminated so the landlord’s family could use the house.

But Sue Brown, a Simon Fraser University student who rents a room for $580 a month, said the house is being advertised for rent during the Games at sporteventsrentmyhouse.com.

In the summer, the provincial minister of housing argued that no new legislation was needed to protect renters as the province did not want to impede on opportunities for owners to charge obscene rent to tourists during the games. I am someone who makes pro-Olympic arguments about the economic benefits that the city will experience, but I did not find the minister’s reasoning very compelling. To often renters are overlooked; despite not owning their residency, it is their home. After the province opted to not provide any protection to renters, the City stepped in with a bylaw that “forbids landlords from renting properties during the Games if they’ve had tenants living there since June 1, 2009.” When presented with the scenario that Ms. Brown is faced with, Celine Mauboules, a housing policy planner with the City had this to say:  ”Technically, (this landlord) wouldn’t be allowed a licence [...] If the tenants came to us and said, ‘Here’s the ad (online),’ we could seek an injunction or potentially fine the owner.” That ‘technically’ that she opened with does not engender much confidence. More importantly, the City is now aware of this, even it was not brought to their attention by the tenant. Is the city seeking an injunction? Will this landlord be denied a permit to rent their home during the games? Will there be follow up to see that they are not renting without a permit? These are questions that must be asked. One hopes the answers will be more encouraging than I fear they will be.

• Building Towards The Big Hockey Game I am a newer resident of Vancouver, and was only 10 years old when the Vancouver Canucks lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in '94 and rioting erupted throughout the streets. I don't...
• Fun With The Olympic Budget [/caption] This past Monday, the local 24 Hours newspaper featured an article entitled "Let the Bailout Games begin". While the piece,  by 24 Hours staff writer Bob Mackin does contain many good pieces of factual...

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For far too long, Canada has been content to let her international image and reputation warmly bask in the residual glow of glories and

Van Doo's Paratroopers in Part Said, 1956

good works long gone past. However, our squeaky clean image is quickly diminishing in the worlds eyes.

Post World War Two, this countries most prominent moment on the world stage arguably came during the Suez Canal Crisis. For his leading in role in organizing the first UN Emergency Force that was then deployed to Egypt, as well as spearheading negotiations amongst the disputing parties, Lester Pearson, then the Minister of External Affairs and later to be Prime Minister, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When the prize was announced, the selection committee stated that Pearson had been responsible for “saving the world.”  Since that time, Lester Pearson has been considered the father of the modern day idea of peacekeeping, and peacekeeping has been a central pillar of ‘Canadianess.’

As the leader of a minority government from 1963-1967, Pearson also oversaw several other key developments in how Canada is perceived, both by herself and the world. The adoption of universal health care, an open immigration system and the current Canadian flag were all realized during Pearson’s tenure as Prime Minister. Pearson’s work has also helped foster the image of Canada as a helping, caring nation. The still as of yet unrealized goal of developed nations contributing 0.7% of their Gross National Income (GNI) towards  official development assistance (ODA) was born of out of a commission that Pearson headed for the World Bank in 1969. Tying these accomplishments together presents a rather typical viewpoint of Canada; a nation of peacekeepers that provide the basics of healthcare to all their citzens. A country that provides high levels of aid to the world, works for the betterment of the planet and also actively encourages immigration into it’s expansive borders,  where new citizens are charged with both assimilating to the tenets of a liberal democracy, while also retaining elements of the culture from ones homeland. Unite all the people who hold those ideals under the red maple leaf and you get: Canadians. These giant progressive leaps forward have served as the foundation for Canada’s stellar international reputation for decades.

Canada’s claim as a peacekeeping nation has been severely undercut by the realities of how many boots we have we have on the ground that are available for peacekeeping missions. As of October 2009, Canada ranked 56th amongst nations with 179 military and police personnel attached to peacekeeping missions. Those numbers put us just ahead of Cote d’Ivore, Cameroon and Zimbabwe. Of course Canada’s contributions to the NATO mission in Afghanistan have severely limited the numbers of bodies that could be made available to peacekeeping missions, but our contributions have been on the decline well before the start of the quagmire in Afghanistan.

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