NDP learns to live with development of the Tar Sands in Alberta

When left-leaning parties appear close to obtaining power, it seems inevitable that they should move to the centre of the political spectrum or even adopt right-wing policies. This is happening in Canada with the federal New Democratic Party.

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Former New Democratic Party leader, Ed Broadbent, was skeptical that Thomas Mulcair would be able to hold together the NDP caucus. Mulcair comes not from an NDP background but was a cabinet minister in a Quebec Liberal provincial government. Broadbent thought it would be a huge mistake to replace NDP ideology that stressed support for the worker and welfare issues by a strategy of adopting policies simply because they would help members be elected. Mulcair stresses the NDP should concentrate upon being electable rather than stressing ideology. So far Broadbent has been wrong in that Mulcair has been able to keep his caucus functional in spite of his change in emphasis and an influx of a huge number of new MPs after the last election. The election resulted in the NDP becoming the official opposition ahead of the Liberals a huge victory for Mulcair. While for a time it looked as if the Liberals were making a huge comeback they now are stuck in third place in recent polls with the NDP still slightly ahead of the ruling Conservatives.

The latest CBC poll-tracker results, from August 11, show the NDP with 31.9 percent of the vote; the Conservatives, 30.1; the Liberals, 27 percent, all lower than in the last poll. The Liberal support increased after the first leaders' debate but has now fallen back slightly. The big gainer since the last reading was the Green Party led by Elizabeth May which had 5.6 percent support. The Quebec-based Bloc Quebecois had 4.5 per cent. The results are based on an average of several different polls. The seat projections show the Conservative still getting the most seats at 125, with the NDP close behind at 118, and the Liberals 92. The Bloc Quebecois would get one seat, and the Green Party two.

Every party these days seems to have decided that they should project their policies as supporting the "middle class." No doubt this is based upon the view that promoting policies that appeal to this largest group of voters would garner the most votes. The NDP has joined the crowd. No more targeting the poor or working class, since they are a smaller target group and restrict the range of the party's appeal. On issues such as trade, foreign policy, energy development, the NDP has watered down policies to appear less threatening or radical. The party is much less friendly these days to any potential candidate or existing members who take positions that are quite critical of Israel. Now that Alberta boasts an NDP provincial government even the Oil or Tar Sands development is seen in a different light.

Mulcair has moved even to the right of the Liberal party on issues such as income inequality. He rules out increasing taxes on the wealthy, while Justin Trudeau is in favour of an increase. Mulcair sounds like a typical conservative when he criticizes New Brunswick for raising taxes on the wealthy: “How is New Brunswick going to be able to attract and retain top-level medical doctors when they’re going to be told, ‘Oh, by the way, our tax rate is now going to be close to 60 per cent?’”

One of the NDP's star left-leaning candidates is author and activist Linda McQuaig. McQuaig started a huge controversy by stating what for many environmentalists is an obvious fact, recognized as long ago as 2012 by James Hansen, climatologist and former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies who said:"If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate. Canada's tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet's species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk."

McQuaig made reference to a recent study by British researchers in the journal Nature that concluded that:" three-quarters of all Canada's oil reserves and 85 per cent of its oilsands can't be burned if the world wants to limit global warming. The report also concludes that no country's Arctic energy resources can be developed if global temperature increases are to be kept manageable. It adds that about one-quarter of Canada's natural gas reserves and four-fifths of its coal would also have to be left in the ground."This type of environmental discourse may be fine within environmental circles but is to be avoided at all costs within political discourse where the parties are emphasizing "electability."

McQuaig made the mistake of bringing these types of narrative into the political arena during an election campaign. McQuaig said during a panel discussion that a "lot of the oil-sands oil may have to stay in the ground" in order for Canada to meet its climate change targets. This was music to the ears of our Prime Minister Stephen Harper who immediately claimed that the NDP was against Canadian resource development. Instead of defending McQuaig the NDP issued a statement that McQuaig was not citing official NDP policy but referring to the report in Nature.

Mulcair, for his part, said that a Federal NDP government would support Alberta's oil sands development but with much stricter environmental controls than exist at present on any new developments. Mulcair has soothing rhetoric designed to placate both sides and make him electable:“We’re in favour of creating markets for our natural resources, we’re in favour of developing them, but that has to be done sustainably. And sustainable development is not a slogan, it’s something that has to become very real.”Mulcair also defends his policies and contrasts them with Harpers' policies on the appended video.

McQuaig on Ignatieff

This is rather a jaundiced view of Ignatieff but McQuaig certainly is correct to point out that Ignatieff has at times been inconsistent especially on the Israel bombing incident. The Israel incident shows also how Ignatieff learns from his ""mistakes"" to take the most politically advantageous position and can also at least admit mistakes after a fashion. Harper seems at times to lack this facility. Both Harper and Ignatieff share a certain coldness. The Conservatives have tried to soften Harper's image but the Liberals have yet to try to soften Ignatieff. Perhaps they think they need some hardness.
I really do not think that Ignatieff is spineless. It takes a considerable amount of spine to go against your comrades as Ignatieff did in defending Bush. Ignatieff also does have a moral compass although like most politicians this may not be evident as he changes positions for tactical reasons. Ignatieff's moral compass is his humanistic imperialism that stands for the global spread of democracy and human rights. The same ideological strand is found in the neo-conservatives. Ignatieff is for having Canada play the role of helpmate to the US in this mission as described in Ignatieff's book Empire Lite. This morality conveniently ignores the role of economic elements in determining policy and the role of moral ideology as a smokescreen for economic interests.

Good looks, nobel lineage, spineless
By Linda McQuaig December 16, 2008
As a child, Michael Ignatieff probably wouldn't have sounded unreasonable saying he wanted to be prime minister when he grew up.
The newly crowned Liberal leader has always had some impressive trappings: good looks, noble lineage, verbal dexterity, an air of gravitas and an impressive CV of teaching human rights at Harvard.
His self-imposed, decades-long exile from his native land might pose a problem in some countries. But here, where our elite instills in us a sense of inferiority to great powers like the U.S. and Britain, Ignatieff has been forgiven for finding Canada a little confining.
Still, there are some problems.
I'm not just referring to Ignatieff's well-publicized support for George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq and for torture (but only of really bad people).
More broadly, Ignatieff seems to lack convictions, let alone basic human feeling.
In a revealing interview with the Star's Linda Diebel during Israel's 2005 invasion of Lebanon, Ignatieff was asked if his call for a ceasefire had been prompted by the Israeli bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana, which left 28 dead, including numerous children. Ignatieff denied that it was the Qana bombing that had influenced him. "This is the kind of dirty war you're in when you have to do this and I'm not losing sleep about that."
Now, it's okay to note that war is hell and innocent people die. But to say "I'm not losing sleep about that" - after media photos displayed the mangled remains of very small children - suggests a degree of detachment that borders on the unfeeling.
Ignatieff compensated by calling the Qana bombing a "war crime" during a French-language TV interview.
That turned out to be a far greater misstep politically, and Ignatieff struggled to distance himself from his own words. Two years later he was still backtracking, describing his "war crimes" comment as "the most painful experience of my short political career, and it was an error.
Some observers chalked all this up to inexperience.
But does it really take experience - beyond being alive - to feel something when children are bombed to death? To then go full circle and denounce the bombing as a war crime, and then go full circle again and try to retract an arguably appropriate term, suggests the behaviour of someone who flaps wildly in the wind, who cuts and runs in the political heat, who lacks a basic moral compass.
Ignatieff showed the same moral evasiveness in his attempt to distance himself from his support for the Iraq invasion.
Given the scope of the Iraqi tragedy that has unfolded, anyone who played a role in facilitating the invasion has a great deal to account for. And Ignatieff did play a role. From his prestigious human rights perch at Harvard, Ignatieff's eloquent defence of Bush's war plans in the New York Times Magazine in the run-up to the invasion helped sell a preposterous war to the American people.
Rather than taking some responsibility and expressing genuine remorse in a follow-up New York Times Magazine article in 2007, Ignatieff artfully dodged and ducked any blame, absolving academics like himself of any responsibility for promoting the war. As a mea culpa, Ignatieff's piece was long on mea and short on culpa.
Media commentators here have been quick to hail Ignatieff as a natural leader, strong and resolute.
He does have good curb appeal. But beyond the measured phrases and chiseled features, the royal stuff inside may be more Jell-O than jelly.

Bulking up Pentagon North

McQuaig perhaps over-dramatizes the situation by isolating the 490 billion figure. This is over 20 years but then it still represents close to 25 billion a year quite a bit in the Canadian context. Also, as the article notes spending has risen 27 percent since 2001 about 4 per cent a year. This is not a huge increase and our equipment needed to be replaced or upgraded but there is no good reason we have such a large military and budget. Much of our military budget is used to help out what are basically U.S. endeavours such as in Afghanistan. We are no longer peacekeepers but are junior partners in U.S. imperialism. Our armed forces are completely incapable of defending us against the U.S. or Russia the sole or main threats to our sovereignty even if we increased their size and budget. Cutting military expenditure would leave more funds for spending on health care and other social needs but don't expect the main parties to campaign on such a platform.

Bulking up Pentagon North

Oct 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Linda McQuaig
With the prospect of a Harper majority hanging menacingly over the country, the mind inevitably turns to the question: Just what is the "secret agenda" lurking behind the friendly sweater?
Actually, I don't believe there is one. The truth is that Stephen Harper has already laid out an agenda that would fundamentally change this country – in ways most Canadians would oppose.
While this agenda is not "secret," my guess is few Canadians know about it. That's because Harper, realizing it would be unpopular, unveiled it when Canadians weren't paying attention – in fact, we were sleeping. Sometime in the dark of night last June 20, the Harper government posted a plan on the Department of National Defence's website – called Canada First Defence Strategy – to spend an eye-popping $490 billion over the next 20 years on the military.
Given all the recent buzz about the size of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in the United States, it's striking to note that Ottawa quietly announced a plan to spend nearly half a trillion dollars on the military, almost in passing.
Steven Staples, a defence analyst with the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute, says that Canada's military spending is already 27 per cent higher than in 2001.
"The focus of the defence lobby now is on getting contracts signed as quickly a possible," Staples said in an interview. "They want to make it impossible for future governments to get out of these spending commitments."
It's hard to imagine an agenda with more profound consequences for Canadians, beginning with a dramatic reordering of national priorities. Public health care? Child poverty? Fighting global warming? Fine causes, to be sure, but sadly the cupboard will be bare.
The Conservatives won't even have to look mean-spirited as they say no. There just won't be any money left. It will all be sucked into bulking up Pentagon North.
Harper knows Canadians would balk at this shift in priorities, if they got wind of it. In a 2008 pre-budget survey conducted for the finance department, Canadians were asked which of 18 different issues they considered a high priority. "Increasing spending on defence" ranked last.
There's a rich irony in this ramped-up military spending. In the election campaign, Harper has accused Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion of "reckless spending" for his plan to invest $70 billion in infrastructure over the next 10 years.
Meanwhile, Harper claims to be a thrifty economic manager, even as he quietly plans a massive spending spree on military hardware.
Clearly governments can rack up deficits just as quickly acquiring tanks and killing insurgents in Afghanistan, as they can building public transit or a clean energy grid here in Canada.
While the election campaign has focused on economic issues, the military and its combat role in Afghanistan have actually been the centrepieces of the Harper administration.
Harper has tried to reshape the way Canadians think about Canada, weaning us off our fondness for peacekeeping (and medicare, for that matter), and getting us excited about being a war-making nation, able to swagger on the world stage in the footsteps of the Americans.
In fact, the U.S. has shown where big military spending leads. As the "defence" sector expands, jobs and economic prosperity become linked to war preparation. A bulging defence sector becomes a built-in constituency for war.
Forget trying to figure out Harper's "secret agenda." The really frightening, far-reaching agenda Harper has in mind for us is already posted on the Internet.
Linda McQuaig's column appears every other week. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca

The National Post, Neo-conservative policies, Statistics Canada

This is an excerpt from an article in the Star by Linda McQuaig. McQuaig once wrote for the National Post! This article shows how the richest have managed to increase their share of income after losing share earlier in the century. It should also be noted that welfare state entitlements have also been erode by neo-conservative policies. The Post is representative of mainstream media that support neo-conservative and neoliberal policies.

Neil Brooks, a tax professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, notes that during this era the share of income received by the richest 1 per cent actually declined – from about 20 per cent in the early part of the century to about 7 or 8 per cent by 1980. The rich didn't like this, and have been waging a kind of class war ever since, convincing governments to impose "neo-conservative" policies like lower minimum wages, tighter monetary policy, less social insurance protection, open markets and shifting the tax burden from capital to labour.
The results have been grim for many Canadians, but spectacular for the rich, particularly the very rich. During the last quarter century, the richest .01 per cent of Canadians saw their real incomes rise on average from $2.9 million to $5.9 million – an increase of $3 million!
Those defending the neo-conservative policy package typically argue it's been necessitated by "globalization" – even though many European countries have avoided this path and are competing nicely in the global economy.
As the class war rages on, embedded journalists over at the Post are busy defending the neo-conservative cause. In his column last week, the Post's Terence Corcoran suggested StatsCan had distorted the picture by using data on individual earnings, rather than on total family incomes, where there have been some modest gains among the non-rich since 1980.
This is curious, coming from the Post. Total family incomes include social transfers – but the Post typically argues for reduced social transfers. The family income data show how important social transfers are.
Furthermore, family incomes have mostly risen because, with far more women working than in 1980, families now typically have two incomes.
So let's get this straight: Even as neo-conservative policies have helped the ultra-rich increase their incomes by an average of $3 million, the Post thinks Canadian families should be content with earning a little more than they did 25 years ago – by working twice as much.
Luckily Canadians have the Post to help them see how really well they're doing in this neo-conservative age.

McQuaig: Dion Caves, Harper Raves.

Some commentators think that it was Harper that caved. However, Harper did achieve an extension of the mission to 2011 and it will include combat and staying in Kandahar. No doubt the required extra troops and equipment will be found. As McQuaig points out we will be helping the military-industrial complex. Why we should sacrifice for what is basically a U.S. war and one that is illegal in the first place

Dion caves, Harper raves

Harper trumpets plans to divert ever-larger sums to armaments.

Dateline: Tuesday, February 26, 2008

by Linda McQuaig

In a defining moment for Canada, Jean Chrétien resisted US pressure and kept Canada out of Iraq.

Now Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, in another historic moment, has shown that Chrétien's display of backbone was a one-time Liberal offering.

We're supposed to believe that the Taliban are incited to violence by our wavering, rather than by our military presence in their country.



Dion's capitulation to the Conservatives and to the pro-war wing of his own party means that Canada will continue to fight America's war in Afghanistan until 2011 — despite clear public sentiment against the war.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper showed last week how he plans to use this Liberal acquiescence to advance a hawkish agenda that goes well beyond extending the mission in Afghanistan.

A triumphant Harper trumpeted the emerging "bipartisan consensus" on Afghanistan to a gathering of the Conference of Defence Associations, an influential military group that would warm the frozen heart of Dick Cheney.

The military men and defence contractors attending the event were delighted as Harper outlined plans to divert ever-larger sums of Canadian taxpayer dollars towards military spending, and to further Canada's transformation from peacekeeper into big-stick-carrying war maker.

The Liberal capitulation also seemed to embolden the military brass in their efforts to convince Canadians to be done with this annoying business of debating the war, once and for all. Both top Canadian general Rick Hillier and US Admiral William Fallon suggested that Canadian wavering risked inciting more Taliban violence.

Strangely, we're supposed to believe that the Taliban are incited to violence by our wavering, rather than by our military presence in their country. Indeed, we're supposed to believe that Afghans — renowned for centuries for their fierce resistance to foreign occupiers — would somehow lose their resolve, if only we'd forego the Canadian parliamentary debate.

Hillier's attempt to stifle debate seemed like a textbook example of what former US president Dwight Eisenhower had in mind when, in his famous parting address, he warned that the "unwarranted influence" of a military industrial complex risked endangering the democratic process.

Back at the Conference of Defence Associations, Harper thrilled Canada's own mini military industrial complex with talk about how countries without big militaries "will be ignored by everyone," and how military clout is the key to influence in the world.

Really? If swaggering around with a big stick was the way to impress others, George W Bush would be a respected world leader. Odd that Harper thinks we're keen to jump into those cold footsteps — even as Obama warms up off-stage.

The military crowd was also delighted by Harper's promise to top up his huge military spending increases by raising the annual automatic increases from 1.5 percent to 2 percent, starting in 2011.

So, even as we're finally pulling out of Afghanistan, we'll be ratcheting military spending higher still.

That's because Harper is already envisioning more wars after Afghanistan. As he told the gathering, peacekeeping won't be enough, since "it covers only a limited portion of the security challenges we face in today's international environment."

All this signals the deepening of the tentacles of a military industrial complex into the soft haunches of Canadian democracy, as increased spending on the military and on the production of military hardware tie our economy more deeply to war, just as Eisenhower warned.

Perhaps Dion will find an issue he can win an election on. In the meantime, he's helping Harper transform Canada from a respected player on the world stage into a stick-wielding loudmouth, braying at the world from a protected perch inside the American empire.

Journalist and best-selling author Linda McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment. As a reporter for The Globe and Mail, she won a National Newspaper Award in 1989 for writing a series of articles, which sparked a public inquiry into the activities of Ontario political lobbyist Patti Starr, and eventually led to Starr's imprisonment. In 1991, she was awarded an Atkinson Fellowship for Journalism in Public Policy to study the social welfare systems in Europe and North America

Junior partner in Global War.

This is originally from the Toronto Star but I took it from Rabble. Insofar as the war in Afghanistan is a clash of cultures or represented as a war against Muslims this is surely just a convenient ploy to get support from the populace many of whom can be sold this bill of goods. As Pilger's article shows the reasons are elsewhere. Not only was the US a great support of jihadists when they were useful to fight the Evil Empire's client regime in Afghanistan but the US is still a big supporter of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia which is nothing if not Muslim.

Junior partner in global war
>by Linda McQuaig
January 9, 2008
For Canadians, watching a televised debate of Republican presidential candidates, like the one last Saturday night, can be a bit like observing an inscrutable species.

Baffling as it is to us, all the candidates reject public health care and celebrate the excellence of the U.S. health-care system, apparently regarding the fact that millions of Americans lack basic coverage as a minor flaw in the system.

Even more disturbing, the Republican presidential hopefuls seem to see the West as engaged in an all-out war against radical Islam in what sounds awfully like a crusades-style “clash of civilizations.”

This is instructive for Canadians. Much as Canadian political leaders and commentators emphasize the notion that we're in Afghanistan to help with “reconstruction” and to improve the lot of women — goals Canadians readily support — we can perhaps get a better sense of the real nature of what we've signed on for by listening to these leading Republicans, who come from the same political pool as the war's architect, George W. Bush.

And while Canadians like to think of Afghanistan as a very different war than the one in Iraq, the Republicans clearly see the two wars as simply twin parts in America's battle with radical Islam.

The view of the Republican candidates is strikingly similar, for that matter, to the view expressed by a U.S. general, Thomas Metz, who gave the keynote address at a conference (which I attended) at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto in January 2006.

Metz gave the high-level conference of Canadian soldiers and military think-tank experts what amounted to a pep talk for fighting the Muslim enemy. The audience included one of Canada's top generals, Andrew Leslie.

“The Islamic faith is not evil,” Metz told the gathering. “But it's been hijacked by thugs ... Most of the Islamic world believes the suicide bombers of the World Trade Center are now in the land of milk and honey.”

Metz noted that there are almost 1 billion Muslims in the world. Then, engaging in some freewheeling speculation, he added that if only 1 per cent of Muslims are radical “that's 10 million radicals.”

The general's message seemed to be that Canadians are engaged in a war, not against a small group of extremists, but ultimately against millions of Muslims.

Will this mentality change if the Republicans lose the White House next year?

In the Democratic debate that followed the Republican one on Saturday, there was plenty of criticism of the disaster in Iraq. But the candidates shied away from seriously critiquing the ideas behind Bush's “war on terror” or his doctrine of pre-emptive war.

Ironically, the strongest critique came in the Republican debate, from candidate Ron Paul, who challenged the notion that terrorists hate Americans “because we're free and prosperous.”

Paul suggested instead that it was “because we invade their countries and occupy their countries, have bases in their (countries). And we haven't done it just since 9/11 ... we have done that for a long time.”

Paul's argument that terrorism was a response to American foreign policy was quickly dismissed by the other Republican candidates with a resounding chorus: terrorism is purely the product of irrational, freedom-hating Muslims.

“Our foreign policy is irrelevant,” harrumphed Rudy Giuliani, “totally irrelevant.”

Canadians watching the debate probably suspected that U.S. foreign policy isn't totally irrelevant to the rise of terrorism. But then, we don't make these wars, we just fight in them.

Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.

Auditor: Isotope production at risk.

This is from the Star. Again there is no mention of the big company that peddles the isotopes MDS Nordion. There was a huge media blitz about the shortage of isotopes and ALL parties in the parliament passed a bill re-starting the reactor even though the AEC in doing so would be operating in violation of their licence and against the safety regulations.
No mention of MDS Nordion and its profits!
For some time things have been very much out of kilter at AECL but the government seems paralyzed and unable to act. Why? They do not intervene to correct the situation but to start up and unsafe reactor and protect the profits of MDS Nordion. Perhaps the next step is to privatize the reactors themselves on the grounds that government operation is all screwed up- --which of course is true enough as the article shows.


Isotope production at risk, auditor finds
TheStar.com - Canada - Isotope production at risk, auditor finds

Two reactors seriously behind schedule, over budget, report says

January 10, 2008
Richard Brennan
OTTAWA BUREAU



OTTAWA–Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is falling short in its efforts to ensure facilities are in place to produce enough isotopes to satisfy future medical diagnostic needs, a newly released report says.

Two replacement isotope-producing reactors are eight years behind schedule and untold millions over budget, the report by federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser says.

The auditor's report on AECL, a Crown corporation, was completed in late August, before the November shutdown of AECL's Chalk River reactor over the safety concerns of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The report points to the lack of back-up reactors to produce isotopes even though the existing Chalk River reactor is "well past the end of its originally intended useful life."

It also expresses concern over the need to replace other aging facilities at Chalk River and to develop a new generation of Candu nuclear reactors.

The report was given to the AECL board of directors on Sept. 5 and also to Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, an official with the auditor confirmed.

The Chalk River reactor, run by AECL, was shut down on Nov. 18 for routine maintenance, but an inspection by the regulatory staff found that mandatory safety upgrades – connecting vital cooling pumps to an emergency power supply – had not been done. That put the reactor in violation of its operating licence and AECL opted to keep it shut.

The result was a worldwide shortage of radioisotopes used for medical diagnosis and treatment, prompting the government to pass legislation ordering the start-up of the reactor.

This week a spat between Lunn and Linda Keen, safety commission president, erupted in public.

Lunn, in a Dec. 27 letter to Keen, threatened to have her fired. Keen, safety commission president for seven years, responded Tuesday, accusing Lunn of serious political interference in an independent agency, which she suggested could have a chilling effect on all arm's-length agencies.

Yesterday, Keen refused to comment on the controversy during a break at a commission hearing in Oshawa. The hearing dealt with a number of issues, including an update on the situation at Chalk River.

Arthur Kroeger, a former deputy minister of natural resources and chancellor at Carleton University, said yesterday "there are a lot of people going to be concerned about the prospect of politicians manhandling an agency responsible for nuclear safety."



Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said Lunn should be "fired," but doubted that will happen given that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was the first to publicly attack Keen's credibility.

Dion said at the very least Lunn should be called before Parliament's natural resources committee to explain his "incompetent" handling of the file.

Lunn has not spoken publicly about the Chalk River matter since it leaped into the news last month.

Bernie Shaffer, a retired senior federal government lawyer and legal adviser to the nuclear safety commission for years, said the Conservatives have violated long-standing expectations that government won't stick its nose into the business of independent agencies except on broad policy matters.

"Gary Lunn is not the boss of the commission," he said.

Shaffer said it is the commission's mandate to act on matters of nuclear safety and not concern itself with the production of radioisotopes. "Nuclear safety is job one," he said. "I think they are basically using Linda Keen as a scapegoat."

McQuaig: Downplaying Mulroney's Offence

As McQuaig suggests there could very well be a connection between payments by Schreiber to Mulroney and the Airbus contract but I doubt that this will ever be established as fact. Both Schreiber and Mulroney agree to deny it. Of course that should be a signal to reporters that it might very well be true but it seems not to be! The is from Straight Goods.

Downplaying Mulroney's offence

Far from digging for facts, media seem to be looking for excuses for PM accepting cash.

Dateline: Tuesday, December 11, 2007

by Linda McQuaig

The media often are accused of fanning the flames of controversy. But in the drama surrounding Brian Mulroney, it seems to be trying at times to bring a raging fire under control.

With some notable exceptions — such as investigative journalists Harvey Cashore, Linden McIntyre, Greg McArthur and commentator Andrew Coyne — there's been a surprisingly blasé attitude from some leading journalists and media commentators toward the startling implications of the Mulroney-Schreiber saga.

It is irrelevant if a benefit is received after the official has left office, if an agreement was made while the official held office.



In an extreme example of journalistic indifference, Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner suggested that the $300,000 cash payment former prime minister Mulroney received from lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber shortly after leaving office is "greasy and dubious but it barely raises the needle of public significance above zero."

And last Thursday, when TVO host Steve Paikin asked political scientist Heather MacIvor what she found newsworthy that day — a day of explosive testimony — MacIvor responded: "I'm not sure there was anything particularly newsworthy."

MacIvor apparently didn't find newsworthy testimony that suggested the payments to Mulroney came from a Swiss bank account, which contained "success fees" from projects advanced under the Mulroney government, including the $1.8 billion sale of Airbus aircraft to Air Canada. Later in the show, MacIvor, who teaches political science at the University of Windsor, commented that her students couldn't understand the "beating up on poor Mr Mulroney."

Perhaps they don't understand because their political science professors don't explain why the public might be exercised over a former prime minister accepting envelopes full of cash from a man who had been a notorious lobbyist.

Schreiber testified that Mulroney had been told he would receive funds from a lobbying firm representing Airbus after he left office. If Schreiber's allegations are true — and they have not been proven in court — it suggests that Mulroney may have agreed while he was in office to accept what amounts to a secret commission. Canadian law prohibits government officials from accepting secret commissions.

It is irrelevant whether a benefit is only received after the official has left office, if an agreement was made while the official held office, according to Fred Fedorsen, a criminal lawyer who has handled cases involving secret commissions.

Meanwhile, on CBC's The National, Rex Murphy complained that we're paying too much attention to Schreiber, a man fighting extradition. "Why are we listening to Schreiber?" Murphy asked.

Well, the reason we're finally listening to Schreiber is that his allegation about the $300,000 payment to Mulroney — long ignored by the media — was recently demonstrated to be true, when Mulroney admitted to belatedly paying tax on the money.

For years, Mulroney had been evasive, even suing the government when it attempted to investigate him and downplaying his dealings with Schreiber.

After confirming the $300,000 payment earlier this fall, Mulroney spokesman Luc Lavoie switched tack, explaining that Mulroney had been short of cash and his family had certain lifestyle expectations.

That should clear up any remaining controversy.

As we all know, being short of cash is always considered an adequate explanation. Just look at our courts. Judges get soft-hearted whenever someone explains that he was only trying to meet certain lifestyle expectations.

It's an argument that works every time. Just try it.

Toronto author and journalist Linda McQuaig appears fortnightly.

Kid-glove treatment for Harper

Actually from what I have read there is a fair amount of criticism of Harper's position on the environment internationally in the press, although not too many commentator's make much of a connection with the US position. In fact now that Howard from Australia is history Harper can play the chief cheerleader for the US position at Commonwealth meetings as he has done and no doubt at Bali he will play the same consistent tune.


Kid-glove treatment for Harper
>by Linda McQuaig
November 29, 2007
Only a few years ago, Stephen Harper was a climate change denier whose opposition to Kyoto made him too extreme for most Canadians.

Harper is still opposing Kyoto. But now, as Canada's Prime Minister, he's able to do something about it. Indeed, he's playing a pivotal role in thwarting worldwide efforts to deal with climate change.

Odd things happen in politics, but this is surely one of the oddest in recent years. Even as polls show Canadians have become more convinced of the need to take decisive action on climate change, our Prime Minister has taken an aggressive role on the world stage against such tough action.

Last weekend Harper seems to have single-handedly undermined efforts by Commonwealth leaders meeting in Uganda to come up with a communiqué calling for strong action on global warming — a position that would have given momentum to upcoming UN talks aimed at producing a follow-up deal on Kyoto.

Harper gets away with being badly out of sync with Canadian public opinion on this crucial issue largely because of the kid-glove treatment he gets in the Canadian media. Commentators relentlessly flail Liberal leader Stéphane Dion for his awkwardness and ineffectiveness, while saying little negative about Harper.

There was little critical media response, for instance, to Harper's remarks at the close of the Commonwealth summit: “For the first time in a very long time, Canada's voice is being heard and the consequences of our voice being heard is we're getting the changes we want to see.”

We?

Canadians, like reasonable people around the world, recognize that urgent action is needed on climate change, particularly in light of the devastating UN report earlier this month. To suggest that we should celebrate our voice being heard — when that voice is blocking progress on something clearly vital to the public interest — is absurd.

Harper veers from the absurd to the malicious when he tries to blame Third World countries for preventing progress on climate change — a strategy successfully used by Republicans and the oil industry in the late 1990s to get the U.S. Senate to reject Kyoto.

Of course, India, China and other developing countries will have to do their part in fighting climate change. But they didn't cause the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We in the West did — by burning fossil fuels that have allowed us to enjoy the comforts of the modern world.

We can cut back our consumption of fossil fuels dramatically and still maintain comfortable lifestyles.

If we demand similar cutbacks by those in India — where the average person consumes one-tenth of the fossil fuels a Canadian does — we'd condemn them to unending poverty.

That's why Kyoto — like the Montreal Protocol, which has made progress in reversing the Earth's ozone depletion — is based on what John Bennett of ClimateforChange.ca calls “differentiated responsibilities.” The West bears a bigger burden, reflecting its bigger responsibility in causing the problem.

Those wanting to block Kyoto typically try to stir up resentment in the West by suggesting the Third World is getting off easy. There goes the Third World getting a sweetheart deal again.

With the defeat of Australia's John Howard, U.S. President George W. Bush is increasingly isolated in his campaign to block the world from taking meaningful action on climate change. Our Prime Minister is playing a key role in helping him out.

But here in Canada, our commentators know that the big story is Stéphane Dion's lacklustre performance.

Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.

Inequality among Fish and Humans

The War on Poverty has been replaced by the War on Terrorism. The War on Terrorism has had the advantage of keeping people in fear and focused on security. Poverty and even more inequality are not issues that are urgent. For the more liberal minded the environment and global warming are sexier issues than poverty or inequality.
The fact is that the relative gap between rich and poor is increasing dramatically in Canada --as well as many other countries.
A rise in the minimum wage might be of marginal help but the whole capitalist system and a market economy in particular are geared towards the rich. In a market economy your needs will be met according to the number of dollars you have to spend on goods to satisfy them.
While it is true that an increase in the minimum wage does not empirically cause all the difficulties the free market ideologues claim it is nevertheless true that it may encourage technological innovation to replace labour and/ or be passed on in increased costs for products. A company will naturally attempt to keep its profit level stable or even increase it. In a global market increasing the cost of a product may eventually make a company less competitive. There are thus limits imposed on what workers can possibly gain in the system especially with increased globalisation. Those formerly well served by unions in the auto industry for example are now fighting a rearguard battle
as gains made over decades are rolled back. Of course companies will always claim
they need even more concessions to be competitive but in many cases they will at least need some.
The issue really is not one of justice. It is about the nature of the economic system. Solving the issue of poverty is not really regarded as possible. The poor will always be with us. The standard justification of a free market distribution is that it is Pareto efficient--no one could be made better off without making someone else worse off but this does not address the injustice of class relationships within the productive system that gives greater power and returns to the owner of capital (on the whole) than the seller of labor power. There are of course exceptions such as the small business owner who exploits his or her own labor and may do much worse than a unionised worker in certain industries. I have blabbed on long enough!

Inequality among fish and humans
>by Linda McQuaig
October 3, 2007
I recently saw a cartoon that captured an essential political truth. It shows a small fish thinking: “There is no justice in the world.” Next to him, a somewhat larger fish (with mouth open, ready to eat smaller fish) thinks: “There is some justice in the world.” Finally, a very large fish (with mouth open, ready to eat all other fish) thinks: “The world is just.”

This helps explain the view of many in the corporate world. Reaping handsome rewards for their labour, they see a great deal of justice in our economic system and little reason to tinker with things—like the minimum wage—that would redistribute economic rewards, even just a bit.

This contentment among members of our elite, who have considerable influence with government, also helps explain why Ontario's minimum wage is stuck at a paltry $8 an hour. This leaves a full-time minimum wage worker earning an annual income of $16,640—several thousand dollars below the poverty line, and even further below it if she's a single parent.

Given the immense difficulty of living on such a wage, let alone supporting children, this should be a much bigger issue in the current provincial election.

Premier Dalton McGuinty promises to raise the minimum wage to $10.25 an hour—but not now.

There's apparently no rush about this for McGuinty and his Liberals, who did however see some urgency (along with the Conservatives) in raising their own salaries last December—by 25 per cent.

While the NDP promises to raise the minimum wage immediately, the Liberals would let the working poor wait almost three years until 2010 for a chance to live above the poverty line.

Opponents of the raise argue it will result in job losses. But the 2006 OECD Employment Outlook concluded minimum wages at “reasonable” levels have no significant negative impact.

Right wingers also typically argue we'd all be better off if we avoided government interventions like minimum wages and left things to the “invisible hand” of the marketplace. But, in reality, the marketplace isn't a magical domain where the “natural laws” of economics automatically work things out best for all.

Rather, it's a real-life domain, governed by a set of man-made laws—laws that establish property rights, that determine workers' rights to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike, and that also set out whether strikers can be replaced or forced back to work.

The nature of these laws—or interventions in the marketplace—determines whether the overall balance favours workers or employers.

In the last few decades, the balance has shifted sharply in favour of employers. Governments, under pressure from the corporate world and its academic and media supporters, have slashed social programs and taxes —and utterly failed to defend collective bargaining and other labour rights.

Indeed, one indication of this anti-worker shift is the way minimum wages—a government intervention that favours workers—have been allowed to decline in value. (In 1976, Ontario's minimum wage was worth the equivalent today of $9.97.)

All this has contributed to the dramatic growth in inequality. A Statistics Canada report released last week showed that, while real incomes remained essentially unchanged for low income (and most other) Canadians between 1992 and 2004, those at the very top enjoyed explosive income growth. The average personal income in the top 0.01 per cent actually rose from $2.5 million to $5.9 million!

From this vantage point, it's possible to imagine how one might think “the world is just.”

Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.

Linda McQuaig on Ignatieff's apology.

I find this article the best yet on the subject. Her criticism is right on the spot. To think this guy was one of the top contenders in the Liberal leadership race and is still a very important figure in the party.

Ignatieff's article: rich on mea, slim on culpa
>by Linda McQuaig
September 10, 2007
Selling the American public on the need to invade Iraq was not easy. But George W. Bush got some crucial help from a number of prominent intellectuals. Probably none was more helpful than Michael Ignatieff.

Some four and a half years later Iraq lies in shreds, and Ignatieff, no longer a professor at Harvard, has other things on his plate. Now deputy leader of Canada's Liberal party, he has a good chance of realizing his dream of becoming prime minister of Canada in the not-too-distant future.

Distancing himself from his embarrassing Iraq war endorsement is a necessary step in that direction, and this explains his very public recanting of his support for the war in a much-talked-about article in the New York Times Magazine last month.

But Ignatieff's long and meandering mea culpa—notably rich in mea and slim on culpa—is intriguing for reasons beyond its implications for Ignatieff's own future. His thinking typifies that of many mainstream politicians, academics and media pundits in the U.S. (and Canada), and his recanting of support for the war is a rich exposition of what he and other members of this important elite have refused to learn from the U.S. failure in Iraq.

At one level, Ignatieff's piece is a transparent and almost amusing attempt to remove any blame for the Iraq debacle from his own shoulders—and in the process from the shoulders of all the other public intellectuals who played such a crucial part in the machinery of war.

Ignatieff contrasts politicians, whose ideas have real consequences, to those in academic life where “false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with.”

This notion that “useless” ideas—such as voicing support for an upcoming military invasion—can be harmlessly entertained inside the academic world, would be worrisome enough if students were the only ones subjected to the ideas.

But, of course, Ignatieff reached out to a much wider audience, writing in support of the Bush administration's planned invasion in no less prominent a place than the New York Times Magazine.

And while the war-hungry Republican crowd in the White House aroused mistrust in the public, Ignatieff undoubtedly had the opposite effect—with his impressive credentials as a liberal thinker and writer, even a human rights activist who served as director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

Given his position, reputation and deft turn of phrase, Ignatieff made the case for war—and indeed for U.S. global hegemony—more compellingly than anyone in the White House possibly could. “The 21st imperium,” Ignatieff wrote in the New York Times Magazine in January 2003, “is a new invention in the annals of political science, an empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are money, free markets, human rights and democracy enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known.”

If anyone was an enabler for the Bush administration, it was this smooth, savvy, erudite intellectual in whose skillful hands an increasingly aggressive U.S. military empire was repackaged as a vehicle for human advancement.

But in addition to finding no real blame to be shared among himself and other like-minded intellectuals, Ignatieff also doesn't find much fault with the Bush administration and its war planners—other than they didn't seem to plan very well.

So while he now retracts his support for the war, Ignatieff still fails to raise any objections to the notion of Washington waging an aggressive war in defiance of international law. He just seems to regret that the venture turned out so badly.

Ignatieff criticizes himself for failing to ask the hard questions. “I let emotions carry me past the hard questions, like: Can Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror?”

This is the only “hard” question Ignatieff mentions, and it is one that conveniently shifts the burden of the Iraq disaster to the Iraqis themselves—for failing to get along.

A more basic question apparently doesn't even occur to Ignatieff: What right does the United States have to invade and occupy another country?

Ignatieff's failure to address this more important question is typical of other prominent intellectuals, media commentators and politicians—both Democrats and Republicans—who now oppose the war, but only because the Bush administration made a mess of it.

One suspects that, had Washington succeeded in subduing Iraq and installing a pro-U.S. government to run it, there would be little criticism of this lawless exercise of U.S. military power.

Ignatieff muses now about the naivety of thinking that “a free state could arise [in Iraq] on the foundations of 35 years of police terror.”

But this suggests Ignatieff believes that creating a free state was the Bush administration's goal in going into Iraq. (In fact, there's no evidence that the administration cared about establishing a “free” state there, although it clearly wanted an Iraqi government that was pro-Washington.)

Ignatieff goes out of his way to disparage those who were skeptical about Bush's stated motives: “They opposed the invasion because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong.”

With this swat, Ignatieff reduces war critics to cartoon characters, incapable of seeing nuance. He chooses to ignore that many war critics in fact argued that oil was one of a number of motivating factors, and that, while America isn't “always and in every situation wrong,” it is very wrong in this situation.

Given the horror of what has unfolded in Iraq—hundreds of thousands of deaths with no end in sight—anyone who played any role in facilitating this immense tragedy has a great deal to account for. Rather than stepping forward, taking some responsibility and expressing genuine remorse, the cowardly Ignatieff swivels and ducks, hoping the responsibility can be fobbed off elsewhere.

Ignatieff's mea culpa isn't a mea culpa at all. Neither he, nor his fellow intellectuals, nor the war planners inside the White House are held responsible for anything beyond lack of foresight—failure to see in advance that the invasion might not work as well as hoped.

The lesson Ignatieff has learned is really no lesson (beyond perhaps that next time Washington should invade a country where the people are less prone to sectarian strife). The invasion of Iraq may be an overwhelming catastrophe, but the imperial assumptions that lie behind it—at least as far as Ignatieff is concerned—remain intact and unchallenged.

Having gotten this messy business out of the way, Ignatieff can now move on to more pressing matters like becoming prime minister of Canada.

Linda McQuaig's article first appeared in the Guardian

Invisible Afghan Casualties

What also raises questions about whether our mission in Afghanistan is noble is the fact that the original campaign that ousted the Taliban and strengthened the Northern Allians warlords was illegal and part of the US imperialist strategy masquerading as a war on terror.
McQuaig fails to mention Bomber McNeil who IMHO is deliberately pursuing an air war that produces many civilian casualties. It is designed to show civilians that if they even allow the Taliban to take refuge in their homes or villages that they will be bombed mercilessly.
Of course as McQuaig mentions casualties are used as a means to whip up support for the troops and this comes down to supporting the mission. There is psychological warfare against the minds of Canadians and casualties together with phrases such as this: the dead soldier had believed in the mission or that we must stay in order that they not die in vain. If your mission was not justified in the first place then the death should be blamed on a bad policy of having the mission in the first place. The cure is to get out immediately as the NDP among others suggests.

Invisible Afghan casualties
>by Linda McQuaig
September 6, 2007
It's often noted that each death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan erodes public support for the war. What is infrequently noted is the way, with each death, the Canadian media seems to ratchet up its support for the war.

On one level, the media's approach seems understandable. Canadians are deeply moved by these deaths, and the media accurately records this grief.

But something else happens in the process. There's an almost irresistible inclination to suggest that the death hasn't been in vain.

Late last month, Canadian soldiers Mario Mercier and Christian Duchesne were killed in Afghanistan. Both men were fathers of three children, making their deaths particularly heartbreaking.

The only possible comfort is the notion the men died for a worthy cause. To suggest otherwise seems to dishonour them.

The agony of each death can only be tolerated if it's deemed to be for a cause worthy enough to send more soldiers to their deaths.

The problem is that each killing then provides fresh momentum for continuing the war.

In order to honour the dead, the war is elevated to a noble cause; criticism of the war is discouraged.

This partly explains how the U.S. stayed in Vietnam until some 57,000 American soldiers were killed.

A similar process is underway in Iraq.

One way to prevent this pro-war momentum from setting in here would be for us to demand that the casualties we inflict on Afghans also be treated with some attention and respect.

Instead, our government and media celebrate the number of “Taliban” we kill, without any understanding of who these individuals are and whether they are simply local villagers fighting—as Afghans have done throughout their history—to resist foreign armies. Whether we admit it or not, we are a part of a foreign army over there.

More surprising is the disrespectful way our government and media treat even Afghan civilian casualties.

There's been minimal coverage here of the repeated pleas from Afghans—including President Hamid Karzai—for an end to the U.S. and NATO bombings that have killed countless Afghan civilians. (And they are literally countless; we don't bother counting them.)

As part of the NATO force over there, Canada is surely complicit in these war deaths.

Yet our media tend to make short shrift of them, even raising doubts about whether they really take place. Last week, the CBC reported that Afghan elders “alleged” that up to 18 civilians were killed by coalition troops in Helmand province.

The CBC quoted a NATO spokesperson who charged that the civilian casualties were being deliberately exaggerated by the Taliban for propaganda purposes.

But how do we know NATO isn't playing down the casualties for propaganda purposes? How does NATO even know who's being killed in its bombing raids?

Incidentally, that same day the New York Times reported that in a telephone interview, Afghan elder Hajji Agha Muhammad said the air strikes had killed 12 civilians, including six children ages 3 to 6 (and injured an additional 12).

Surely, this is not a story to be passed over quickly—as the CBC did—with a brisk denial from NATO. If true—and why should we assume that “Afghan elders” are lying?—it is a story of immense importance, and not only because it raises questions about the prospects of us ever winning popular support in Afghanistan.

More importantly, it raises questions about whether what we're doing over there is really all that noble—or even justifiable.

Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.

McQuaig: Tax Phobia Benefits the Wealthy

At those average prices agents must do quite well on commissions for sales. You would think that there should be other ways as well that Toronto could raise money. Maybe there should be Hogtown Lottery! A voluntary tax on the poor and working class such as lotteries, bingos, etc are always popular and keep alive the Canadian Dream.


Tax phobia benefits the wealthy
>by Linda McQuaig
August 9, 2007
It seems almost incomprehensible. Despite the urgent need to find a solution to the global warming crisis, the City of Toronto is contemplating deep cuts to our public transit system—one of the few public programs that move us toward a solution.

But we're told there is no choice. Otherwise, the city would have to raise taxes.

The proposed cuts to Toronto's subway system—and other vital city services—illustrate how truly short-sighted our rigid obsession with low taxes has become. We've adopted the notion that the highest duty of politicians is to keep taxes low, rather than to make our society—and our world—work better.

The Toronto example is particularly compelling, partly because there is a viable alternative available in the land transfer tax proposed by Mayor David Miller. But city council deferred a decision on the tax last month, following an aggressive anti-tax campaign orchestrated by the Toronto Real Estate Board, which claimed the tax “targets people who can least afford it.”

In fact, just the opposite is true. The tax—imposed on property sales, with higher rates on bigger properties—targets people most able to afford it. A top rate of 2 per cent applies on properties worth more than $400,000.

Essentially, it amounts to a small tax on the enormous wealth accumulating in the hands of the privileged minority who own property in Toronto.

The truth is that there's a largely invisible class line that runs through the city, separating those who own homes from those who don't.

Of course, not everyone who owns a home in Toronto is rich. But the possibility of owning even a modest home—unless you bought when prices were lower—has increasingly moved beyond the reach of most city dwellers.

A household typically needs an income of $106,000 to afford a standard, two-storey Toronto home—which puts it out of the reach of roughly 80 per cent of Toronto households, according to Michael Shapcott, an analyst with the Wellesley Institute. Even a standard condo is unaffordable to about 60 per cent of households.

Of course, those who bought when prices were lower can maintain their homes on lower incomes—and can cash in and trade up.

Homeowners, particularly those at the upper end, have seen their personal wealth rise dramatically in the hot real estate market of recent years. They've been aided by the Canadian tax system, which permits the profit, or capital gain, from a house sale to go tax-free—unlike income from employment or from other capital gains.

So while a construction worker earning $50,000 pays tax on his income, a homeowner receiving a $50,000 profit selling his house pays nothing. The bigger the profit—and profits on Rosedale mansions can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars—the bigger the tax saving.

So it's absurd to suggest, as some realtors have, that the land transfer tax would put home ownership out of reach of ordinary people. Home ownership is already out of reach of ordinary people, due to the dramatic price increases, which are partly fuelled by the generous tax treatment of home ownership.

For that matter, realtors' fees are a bigger stumbling block for home buyers. The average Toronto house—which sold for $381,963 in June—would face a land transfer tax levied by the city of $4,244. The realtors' fee was $19,098.

So is it really such a tough choice for the city: either cut vital public services that affect us all—or impose a small tax on the city's privileged homeowning elite?

Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.

Black's National Post: Neoconservatism with Cleavage

McQuaig was the National Post's token leftist but she was hardly just a token. The Post gave her a national platform. Black kept her in spite of claiming she should be horsewhipped! McQuaig's analysis of the Post seems right on. Even with Black long gone the Post right wing tradition carries on. The Post is no longer very flashy but it is just as right wing as under Black if not moreso.

Post was wolf in sheep's clothing
>by Linda McQuaig
July 16, 2007
Listening to Conrad Black being interviewed by Peter Gzowski on the radio a number of years ago, I was surprised to hear Black suggest that I be “horsewhipped.”

I knew he was angry about two lengthy articles I'd written about some of his business dealings, and I wouldn't have been surprised to hear him attack me, even urge that I be fired. But horsewhipped?

Of course, it was all part of Black's larger-than-life persona that included a high sense of self-drama that was always colourful in its excessiveness. Black also once described me in an article as a “not very bright, leftist reporter” — for which a number of people urged me to sue him for libel. This was an intriguing idea, especially given Black's own penchant for slapping intimidating lawsuits on journalists who took an interest in investigating some of his questionable business practices.

But there was the problem of proving his attack had damaged me. In truth, it's hard to imagine where my career as an anti-establishment author would be today without such colourful swats from Canada's most flagrant and widely detested business tycoon.

But if Conrad Black has been good for my career, his impact elsewhere has been less benign. He used his ample resources to create the National Post, a vehicle that helped him push the mainstream debate in Canada considerably to the right. Black relentlessly used the Post as a platform for himself and a host of like-minded commentators to ridicule the Canadian taste for equality and strong public programs, to denigrate what amounted to the Canadian way of doing things.

Black liked to present the Post as an irreverent, scrappy upstart of a newspaper that shook up the staid Canadian media scene and challenged the establishment with its “take-no-prisoners” approach. The only problem with that image was that, far from challenging the establishment, the Post was — and is — the establishment.

It may well have been a scrappy upstart, but from the beginning it was an attack-dog fighting on behalf of Canada's financial elite, who have never been shy about defending their own interests. Could anyone seriously argue that, before the Post came along, we had heard insufficiently from business on the subject of the need for tax cuts, free trade or deficit reduction?

Of course, before Black started the Post, the message of the financial elite had been championed relentlessly for decades by The Globe and Mail. What the Post added was a sassy new look to the staid corporate message. It offered up the same old thunderous voice of Big Business, but now cranked up to deafening levels, with even less attempt at “balance,” and with more zing, including shots of celebrities in low-cut dresses. Its pages sparkled with a new brand of ultra-right journalism: neoconservatism with cleavage.

If the Post had a target, it was never the establishment, but rather the powerless. I recall how the Post, under Black, came out guns blazing against a court decision favouring a group of secretaries, file clerks and librarians who had waged a lengthy battle against the federal government for failing to follow its own pay equity laws.

The Post fearlessly called for a total repeal of pay equity laws, to prevent this sort of fairness from ever intruding into the Canadian workplace again. That'll show those uppity girls.

So much was Black part of the Canadian establishment that he managed to escape legal problems here for years, and would have likely escaped them entirely, had the U.S. authorities not eventually caught up with him.

In Canada, Black got a soft ride at the hands of authorities. He was investigated here in connection with a 1982 takeover bid of U.S. mining firm for possible violations of our securities laws. Two staff investigators of the Ontario Securities Commission recommended the commission lay a total of 26 securities charges against Black, his firm Norcen Energy and president Edward Battle.

But the decision whether to lay the charges was in the hands of the commission's eight-member board, who were all well-connected members of the Canadian financial elite. In the end, they decided not to prosecute one of their own.

Having been cleared by the establishment, Black went on bankroll a newspaper that loudly trumpeted the rights of the affluent, while posing as a scrappy upstart taking on the establishment.

Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.

McQuaig on Canadian Prisoners in Afghanistan

Linda McQuaig is a long time left leaning author and commentator. This article is about a week old but is worth reprinting I thought.


Afghan furor shows we're slipping into U.S. orbit
>by Linda McQuaig
May 11, 2007
It was almost enough to revive one's faith in Canada as a functioning democracy, not to mention a member of the civilized world.

After two weeks of unrelenting pressure — led by the media and the opposition parties in Parliament — the Harper government was forced to abandon a deal that made Canada complicit in torture in Afghanistan.

Before we go farther, let's emphasize that the much-improved deal governing the treatment of our detainees in Afghanistan came about despite the sustained and determined efforts of the Harper government to thwart such monitoring of human rights.

For more than a year, the Conservatives had been content to hand over detainees to Afghan custody, despite ample evidence — including from Canadian officials — that Afghanistan routinely tortures those in its custody.

Even after controversy erupted over the situation last month, the Harper government was evasive and unco-operative, dismissing detailed reports of torture as mere “allegations of the Taliban.” This dismissive approach was echoed by The Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente who made clear that her sympathies lay with Canadian military leaders, not with Afghans who reported being hung upside down and punched so hard their teeth fell out.

“I have deep sympathy for our military leaders,” wrote Wente, explaining what she saw as the difficult bind our generals are in. “They can fight a war. Or they can babysit 'our detainees' ...”

To Wente, ensuring that our detainees aren't tortured — a requirement of the Geneva Conventions, which Canada has signed — is the equivalent of “babysitting” them.

Then there was our top general, Rick Hillier, whose fingerprints are all over the original deal, and who made light of the furor last week by diligently trying to divert attention onto the flashy arrival of the Stanley Cup and a group of NHL old-timers in Kandahar.

First stop for the hockey celebrities was the local Tim Horton's that Hillier famously brought to Afghanistan. Sadly, it seems Hillier's taste for Canadian traditions doesn't necessarily extend beyond hockey and doughnuts to include respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Surely it doesn't need to be noted that torture is among the lowest forms of human depravity. While it has lost its acceptability in civilized circles in recent centuries, it's made a disturbing revival under U.S. President George W. Bush.

Invoking the atrocities of 9/11 as a justification — as if there were no atrocities on this scale in history — the Bush administration has demonstrated a comfort level with torture that would befit the most brutal medieval king.

If we needed any evidence that Canada was being sucked into this maw of depravity by our involvement in Bush's “war on terror,” we've now got it. Indeed, the detainee transfer agreement that Hillier signed with the Afghan government in December 2005 had overtones of Bush's “extraordinary rendition” program, under which terror suspects are handed over to a brutal country for detention and interrogation.

In both cases, there was clear knowledge that torture would occur, and no steps taken to prevent it.

That 2005 deal, put in place during Paul Martin's Liberal government reign, also illustrates how far we've drifted from our European allies in NATO, who insisted on considerably more stringent monitoring of detainees they handed over to Afghanistan.

All this suggests a chasm between the values traditionally espoused by Canada — fairness, decency and the rule of law — and the nefarious post-9/11 set of notions in which the leader of the “free world” is given a free hand to do as he wants with “evil-doers.”

The Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin wrote last week that the “new Canada has abandoned the independent strain we had” and that, in our growing closeness to Bush's America, we are “consorts now.”

That sort of subordinate role is clearly what the Harper government, as well as some élite military and media types, have in mind for us.

But it doesn't seem to be what the Canadian public is willing to accept.

This Afghan saga reminds me of the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian engineer tortured in Syria. In both cases, Ottawa tried to downplay a growing scandal about Canadian complicity in torture. But Canadians demanded accountability and eventually forced Ottawa to abide by the rule of law, not the lawless ways of the Bush administration.

It seems that, while our political leaders may be comfortable accommodating Bush, most Canadians have yet to develop a taste for toadying.

Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.