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Posts Tagged ‘Stephen Harper’

Omar Khadr being interviewd by CSIS in 2003. Photo by: The Canadian Press

Friday was an extremely busy day and things did not all go Stephen Harper’s way. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, held in part an appeal brought forth by the Prime Minister in regards to the ongoing detainment by the US of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr. Previously, a Federal Court had agreed with Mr. Khadr’s petition to the court that his rights guaranteed under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been violated, and ordered the government to begin to seek his repatriation. This ruling was upheld at the Federal Court of Appeals, leading to the appeal by the Government which was ruled upon on Friday. The Court held that the rights accorded to Mr. Khadr under the Charter have been violated but that directly ordering the government to seek his return to Canada was not appropriate, at this time. In sum, the Court decided to “grant Mr. Khadr a declaration that his Charter rights have been infringed, while
leaving the government a measure of discretion in deciding how best to respond.”

So, while the government does not have to immediately seek the return of Mr. Khadr, they are expected to respond in some manner to the Courts ruling that his Charter rights were and indeed continue to be violated. The Globe and Mail described the Courts ruling as a challenge to the Harper government saying that “a legal fist lies beneath [the ruling's] velvet glove.” In it’s ruling, the Court cited both the consistency of “the separation of powers and the well-grounded reluctance of courts to intervene in matters of foreign relations” but also noted that “courts are empowered to make orders ensuring that the government’s foreign affairs prerogative is exercised in accordance with the constitution.” All of this is to say that the matter of the ongoing detention of Omar Khadr is not over. I previously suggested that perhaps President Obama was looking for Prime Minister Harper to help him out in one small matter by seeking the return of Mr. Khadr. And why not? All other western nations, concerned with what we now know were entirely credible allegations of abuse and torture at Guantanamo sought, and received the return of any of their citizens being held in the black site. There is no reason that Canada should not, even at this late time, follow suit.

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Following through with what his spokesperson indicated at the time of the prorogation of parliament,  Prime Minister Harper made five new appointments to the Senate this past Friday, bringing the Conservative Party to a total of 51 seats in the 105 member body. While that number does not represent an outright majority, holding a plurality in the chamber (much as the Conservatives do in the House) will manifest itself with a larger Conservative presence on reconstituted committees once parliament reconvenes, as well as greater sway of Senate’s agenda. Kady O’Malley has a nice rundown on each of the new senators here at the CBC’s Inside Politics blog.

Wasting no time in indicating how this new found power in the upper chamber will be wielded, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson held a press conference on Friday with two of the new senators. Much as they have since first forming a minority government in 2006, it appears the Conservatives will ride the perennially popular stance of being “tough on crime” as much as possible; all 5 new appointees shared the ‘tough’ credential, while Minister Nicholson made sure to colour the Opposition with dread “soft on crime” label. The minister even went so far as to imply that opposition parties, especially Liberal members of the senate, were actively preventing the administration of justice. The Globe and Mail was quick to note that:

In fact, of the 17 crime bills introduced by the federal Conservative government in the last session, only two were held up in the Senate for more than six months. Most died on the order paper when Mr. Harper prorogued Parliament in late December.

As a campaign stance, being “tough on crime” is one of the oldest plays in the book as it is a virtually an unassailable position; who could be said to be against improvements in public safety? But what does getting “tough” mean from a governing standpoint? So far, it seems to consist of widening the scope of, as well as lengthening mandatory minimum sentences. Much of the governments introduced crime legislation on this front has been amended through debate in the House (funny how a minority government will do that.) As has been noted by many others, this does not sit will with Mr. Harper. With the new arrangement of the Senate and most of the uncompleted work of Parliament ‘dying on the docket’ when it was prorogued, some bills are set to be reintroduced in the Senate in their original language when parliament reconvenes. With so much attention being heeded crime and public safety, it is worth taking a moment to take a look at crime levels as they currently stand in Canada:

From the ‘The Daily‘, a regular feature of the Stats Can webpage, here is the overall police reported crime rate, as well as the Crime Severity Index:

Declining Crime Rate: 1998-2008

And from the Juristat report ‘Homicide in Canada 2008′, the homicide rate per 100, 000 people from 1961-2008:

Canadian homicide rate: 1961-2008

• Supreme Court Holds Off From Setting New Precedent, For Now [/caption] Friday was an extremely busy day and things did not all go Stephen Harper's way. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, held in part an appeal brought forth by the Prime Minister in...
• 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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This afternoon will see announcements on two big news stories that are only mildly related. On the political front, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is set to appoint five new Conservative senators later today. In sporting news (and since it’s the Olympics there is some political aspect built in) Canada’s flag bearer for the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

While the reasons for the PM’s prorogation of parliament are myriad, and to a certain extent only known to himself and his inner circle of tactical geniuses, one reason that is clearly evident is the fact that parliament not being in session gives him the perfect opportunity to make some appointments to the senate. While not gaining an outright majority in the upper chamber, the conservatives will have a plurality of members, shifting the balance on key committees as well as their ability to affect the agenda.

The naming of the flag bearer is one that always tends to receive a lot of press. The fact that much attention is heeded the flag bearer itself becomes a story, as in the past many athletes have declined the honour as they thought it would serve as a distraction. As the media loves ‘curses’ there is even a supposed one that descends upon the chosen flag bearer. Of course reality shows that flag bearers have gone on to career performances in the games, suffered great disappointment and everything in between. All the athletes deserve plaudits for their life of dedication to sport, and I’m sure whoever is named as our representative to march in the opening ceremonies they will do an excellent job.

Tune to your regular news sources for updates on both these stories.

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The Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament protest wends it's way to Victory Square (photo by Jess Sloss

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 Stephen Harper’s newest habit of proroguing parliament when it is convenient for him and his government to do so. With excellent traffic co-ordination from the VPD some 2000+ (my estimate, may not reflect reality, awaiting more official crowd estimates) Vancouverites convened at the steps of Art Gallery and marched to Victory Square. There, demonstrators heard speeches delivered from representatives of Fair Vote Canada, the BC Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Council, the Sierra Club and a Conservative angered with his party leader’s crass tactical maneuvering. All of the speakers came at the issue from a slightly different angle, yet all made substantive and important points. As audio and video of the demonstration become available online I will highlight what was said in more detail here. The CAPP Facebook page is a good place to join in the discussion, view photos and some video clips of Saturday’s action.

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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 February!) have come home to roost. What prize have our fine feathered friends brought us? Why it’s nothing less than a forecast return to structural budgetary deficits. A brief historical view of Canada’s budgetary balance and debt in visual form:

*Figures from The Department of Finances Fiscal Reference Tables

What you’ll notice is that for the first half or so of this graph outlays were consistently higher than revenues, ie. we consistently had yearly deficits, hence that ballooning green area, which is the Accumulated Deficit (Debt). For many years we had deficits, so that debt line just kept going up and up. But then things changed. You can see that around 1997 revenues started to exceed outlays. We went from consistently having a deficit (a ‘structural deficit’) to having a surplus. We even used some of that surplus to pay down the debt (the green line going down.) If you’ve actually looked at the above graphic, one of the most important pieces of information is what is not on it, and that is any data from 2009. That’s the time period where all economic graphs you look at have a daunting cliff dive.(Update: I have replaced the original graph in this post with a more accurate one that also includes projections through 2014.) Now look at the most recent points for 2008-9. Revenues have been significantly down in this period. During this same time the government has enacted a series of ‘stimulative’ measures, something I happen to agree with, that equals higher expenditures in 2009 than what has been the trend. That means we are back in a deficit situation. And the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that is going to continue for at least the next four years. That does not jive with Mr. Harper and Flaherty’s assessment of having a balanced budget by that point in time. More to come. I have read that Mr. Flaherty believes that we will be returning to balanced budgets shortly (trying to find a source of this still) and that “the government says it won’t increase taxes or cut provincial transfers to balance the budget.” Clearly when we are facing structural budgetary shortfalls we should decide ahead of time against using one of the two possible mechanisms for fixing this situation. And for some inane reason, ever time I hear this reported on the choices are phrased as either there can be tax increases or cuts in spending. I’ll have to teach those Conservatives a lesson their mothers and fathers should have already taken care of; using both strategies.

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That’s what Justin Beach is suggesting over at his blog. Justin is a great writer who also happens to run a fantastic Canadian Music News blog, North by East West; I don’t know where he finds the time (NxEW does have a great pan-Canadian team). Justin doesn’t just provide insight and analysis in his postings, he’s usually also contributing ideas on actual ways to enact change. Just the other day he was noting that that Canadians are clearly frustrated with the continual tactical leveraging from Prime Minister Harper, and states:

[...]this seriously begs for electoral reform and Parliamentary reform. The current system is totally and completely broken and there is no sign that there will be another majority Government of any stripe for the foreseeable future and it comes at the worst possible time.

We have serious problems to fix.

As I’ve noted before I also believe that Parliamentary reform is in order, both for the House and Senate. Electoral reform should be a natural partner to that as well. That prompted me to ask in comments “Are there any functional tools that Canadians can employ to attempt to undertake some electoral and Parliamentary reform? Can these things only originate from the House itself?” Today Justin has a post up that begins to answer that oh so important question, what can be done?

[...]the broken Parliament has been an ongoing issue for me and many others. It’s not just the proroguing of Parliament. That’s just the most recent symptom of an ongoing disease. The uniting of the right combined with the fragmenting of everyone else (and Liberal infighting) have allowed 30% of the population to run the country.

There has been talk in the past about ‘uniting the left’ but that’s easier said than done [...] what about the Liberals and the Greens?

[...]the Liberals have ‘the establishment’. They have infrastructure, money and names (and a party logo) that Canadians know [...]What the Liberals do not have is ideas.

[...]The Greens do not have ‘establishment’. Other than Elizabeth May people at large don’t know who they are [...] What they do have is street cred and ideas, lots of ideas. (see GreenParty.ca for examples.)

[...]In the last election the Liberals and the Greens did work together to a small extent. The Liberals did not run a candidate in Elizabeth May’s home riding and at one point and Elizabeth May at one point urged strategic voting to defeat the Conservatives. She also supported the idea of a Liberal/NDP coalition – so I think it’s safe to say that the door is open if Ignatieff has the courage to walk through it.

I like the idea on the merits, but am skeptical about the viability of this coming together; I suspect the Liberals will be inclined to stay in a holding pattern, railing against the Government when they can, holding off an election as long as possible and hope that circumstances such as bigger and continuing budgetary deficits eventually change electoral fortunes back to at least a Liberal Minority. I can appreciate where Liberals would take a stance like this from a strategic standpoint, but I do not respect it. Ideas being floated by people like Justin is at least a start on some change; we as a nation most certainly need it.

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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 (cuts to the CBC, cuts to arts funding, “tough on crime” legislation), by and large the government has been competent (there have been exceptions to this though too.) Being one who has never had much love for the media, Harper had made no public comments on his recent prorogation of the Canadian parliament until he recently deigned to sit down with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge for an interview:

At 5:24 into the piece, Mansbridge asks the PM about his decision to prorogue the current parliamentary session; in a very casual manner, and apparently doing his best to dissuade me of my belief in his government’s competency, Harper says “coming off an extraordinary year [2009][...]we want to take some time to recalibrate the government’s agenda, both on the economy and on some other matters.” What kind of government is not capable of evaluating what you’ve done in the past, realign goals for the future and govern at the same time? Not one worthy of governing in my opinion. Unfortunately this video clip cuts off without showing Harper’s comment that since the controversy about the transfer of Afghan detainee’s isn’t on Canadian’s radar at large it’s not something that his government is going to be concerned with. To see that as well as Mansbridge’s logical followup question “Just because it’s not an issue in polls, does that not make it important?” you can view the full clip here.

Something I find rather interesting is to compare our PM’s assertion that the government needs two months to ‘recalibrate’ and that they are focused on the economy, not silly little things like the rule of law and how we adhere to international treaties, with the constant criticism that President Obama faces in the US that he is not ‘focused’ enough for his decision to deal with the terrible legacies Bush left in the GWOT, healthcare, the economy, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan and whatever other issues an effective executive needs to deal with. The blogosphere in the States makes the easy analogy that one can walk and chew gum at the same time to illustrate that good governments needs to be multifaceted, as we are a multifaceted society. It’s a shame our PM either feels that is not the case, or crassly makes that case to defend his current politicking.

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Senate Chamber, Centre Block, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada (photo by Montrealais, used under Creative Commons Attribution and ShareAlike license)

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 by way of Kady O’Malley) with parliament not in session, the Prime Minister will be able to appoint at least 5 new senators and possibly as many as 13 depending on his willingness to get out the old parliamentary playbook again. Five new Conservative senators would give them a plurality in the upper house (did you know that there are still 2 PC Senators?) along with more bargaining power on the allotment of Senate committee seats. If Harper invokes Section 26 of the Constitution Act (only previously successfully done by Brian Mulroney to allow passage of the bill that created the GST) then he could appoint 8 additional Senators to the 5 seats that are currently unoccupied, thus giving the Conservative Party an outright majority with 59 seats out of a total of 113 (there are 105 ‘regular’ seats with Section 26 allowing the temporary addition of 8 Senators, with attrition then being in effect until the Senate returns to the ‘normal’ level of 105 seats through retirements.)

This benefit is by far the most likely prize for the PM; shutting down the House to continued criticism on the handling of the transfer of  Afghan detainees and delivering a budget clean of opposition injections when Parliament reopens are ancillary bonuses to being able to get legislation that has cleared the House through the Senate unmarred by those lefty Liberals and NDP’ers (don’t forget the rump PC’ers!)

This puts me in an interesting position; while I don’t agree with the means that Harper is using, I can sympathize with the ends he is trying to reach. As one who spends far too much time enveloped in US politics, I have developed a healthy fear of an overly powerful Senate. Now obviously the two bodies are very different but as time goes by it increasingly seems that the Canadian Senate is also becoming a place for legislation passed by our elected representatives to go to die. My wikipedia tells me that “[...]as a matter of practice and custom, the Commons is by far the dominant chamber. Although the approval of both houses is necessary for legislation, the Senate rarely rejects bills passed by the directly elected Commons.” I need to do some more looking to qualify my feeling that the qualifier ‘rarely’ is becoming less appropriate as time goes by, but I certainly do feel that is the case. If any readers have info that supports or refutes that feeling it would be much appreciated. In my own humble (am I allowed to add considered?) opinion, Senate reform is something both the US and Canada need (the US much more so than Canada, but why shouldn’t we get ahead of a growing problem ourselves?)

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PM Harper outside Rideau Hall last year after his first request to prorogue parliament (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

Amidst reflecting on the year gone by, looking forward to the coming one and forming resolutions that will more often than not be forgotten by February, the end of 2009 also brought the opportunity for Canadians to once again delve into relatively obscure parliamentary procedural processes as the Prime Minister (who executed a similar tactical play towards the end of 2008) called (literally!) for Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean to prorogue the current parliamentary session; that is, end the session without actually dissolving parliament. When this tactic was performed at the end of 2008 (extra emphasis on ‘tactic’ as it is strictly crass politicking) the reasons were rather obvious; a pending confidence motion in the House that the Conservative government was not going to survive would have either triggered an election just months after the last one, or brought about a Liberal-NDP governing coalition. Neither of these options were acceptable to Mr. Harper, so he flexed some of the arcane powers of our parliamentary system through prorogation, saving his government through the lackadaisical holiday season, enabling him to deliver a budget when parliament reopened that focused on the output gap the country was enduring amidst the recession that we are just moving into recovery from (albeit a jobless recovery.)

Since the PM has once again decided to ask the GG to end the current session without dissolving parliament, (in much less dramatic fashion this time; in 2008 the news camera’s were on hand to watch Harper go “cap in hand” to Rideau Hall, but he is more battle hardened now and this time around simply called Ms. Jean to make his request for prorogation) it begs the question; to what end is he executing this parliamentary sleight of hand? I’m not aware of any positioning from the opposition that would indicate they are about to defeat the government. I’ve heard people speculating that the PM wants the House shutdown during the Vancouver games to avoid embarrassing dissent in the Commons, but this does not seem very plausible to me; I do not see any evidence other than that Canadian Members of Parliament overwhelmingly want the Games to be a success (and why shouldn’t they?)

CBC’s longtime political reporter Don Newman has an interesting take on the PM’s move that strikes me as more likely. He suggests that prorogation is Harper’s opening gambit in a ploy to gain an outright majority in the House of Commons:

Get ready for a spring election. That is phase two of Stephen Harper’s newest plan to try and secure a majority government. Phase one came this week, when for the second time in just over a year, he asked Governor General Michaëlle Jean to prorogue Parliament and schedule a new session for March 3. [...] If Parliament returned as first planned on January 25, his administration would again be under fire over how much it knew about the torturing of Afghan detainees by the government in Kabul. He also knew that, with a budget to be delivered on March 4, all those previous weeks in the House of Commons would have been filled with opposition suggestions for what to put in it.

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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.

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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.

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This is the third in a series of posts highlighting the merits of governement supporting artistic endeavours.  I talked about Canada’s government funded public broadcaster, and more specifically CBC Radio 3 here and about Canadian Content, or CanCon broadcasting rules here.  This post will look at direct subsidies for Canadian art, music in particular.

There are many aspects of the social sphere where it has been decided that to allow ‘pure’ market forces to exert complete control over these areas would lead to undesired consequences. Policing, firefighting, emergency paramedics, K-12 education and health care (as long as you are not in the US) all fall into this category.  Arts and culture do as well.  Canada’s close proximity and interconnectedness to the US, the worlds largest cultural exporter, make this a necessity; if our artists were unsupported by the government, the dynamics of the 300 million strong marketplace to the south would trump our 30 million every time.  Thankfully our government still supports our artists and musicians.  The primary mechanism for directing public funding towards Canadian musicians is the Canadian Music Fund.

The Canadian music industry includes a wide range of creators and entrepreneurs who create, produce and market original and diverse Canadian music. To help the industry meet new challenges, the Government created the Canada Music Fund. The Canada Music Fund (CMF) is the primary tool implementing the three major objectives of the Canadian Sound Recording Policy, which are:

• to enhance Canadians access to a diverse range of Canadian music choices through existing and emerging media;
• to increase the opportunities available for Canadian music artists and entrepreneurs to make a significant and lasting contribution to Canadian cultural expression; and,
• to ensure that Canadian music artists and entrepreneurs have the skills, know-how and tools to succeed in a global and digital environment.

One of the central vehicles for delivering funding is the group FACTOR, a not for profit organization that has “been managing federal funds since the inception of the Sound Recording Development Program in 1986 (now known as the Canada Music Fund Council).”  FACTOR has grown considerably since it’s inception and aides musicians in many facets:

Whether an artist is looking to record a demo, full length sound recording, market and promote an already existing album or showcase and tour domestically and internationally, funding is available. FACTOR supports many facets of the infrastructure which must be in place in order for artists and Canadian labels to progress into the international arena.

FACTOR started out with an annual budget of $200,000 and is currently providing in excess of $14 million annually to support the Canadian music industry.

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