Election #3 Maxime Bernier and the Leadership Debate

Canadians like to think that they are a fair-minded people. In fact, much of our public persona around the world is based on the assumption that we treat people fairly, that everyone has an equal chance to succeed, that we do not discriminate against anyone. And in general, much of that is true. Or at least we try to make it true in a general way. There are, of course, thousands of examples where we have failed miserably to even come close to those ideals. On the other hand, there are times when our desire to appear to be fair causes us to make absurd decisions that while they may be fair for one individual are irresponsible and sometimes dangerous for the rest of us.

The Leaders' Debates Commissioner has decided that Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party has the right to participate in the leadership debates scheduled the first weeks in October. It is not that long ago that the Green Party were not allowed to participate in such debates in spite of the fact that they had earned votes in every part of the country because they did not have a seat in the House of Commons. Bernier and his party which was just created a few years ago and therefore has never garnered any votes at either the federal or provincial level now gets to spew his near racist, isolationist, right-wing conservative hate messages on national television. He gets to act like he has something useful to say - most of which will be toxic to any reasonable debate. As noted by NDP leader Jagmeet Singh “It is wrong that Mr. Bernier be given a platform to promote an ideology of hate that spreads prejudice and disinformation.” (Global News). The fact that he has people running for his party that clearly identify themselves with the far right/neo-Nazi movement should be grounds alone for him being blocked from participating in the debate.

It is more than slightly depressing that a political party that suggests that we need to reduce the number of immigrants allowed into the country and whose economic principles are based on the theory that we can all be successful if we only tried a little bit harder can be created and given substance in 2019. We really should be better than that. It is infuriating that in our desire to ensure that everyone gets the opportunity to participate in our democratic election, we are forced to accept the irrelevant and harmful garbage that comes out of his mouth.

The singular advantage of him being on stage with the other party leaders is that we will get to see who speaks out the loudest against his proposed policies. If I were the Conservative Party strategist, I might be worried about Bernier snagging some votes from the far right of that party.In the meantime- perhaps we should stop being so fair.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5913569/singh-debate-commissioner-letter-bernier/

Election #2

In the last handful of elections, various political parties have devoted considerable energies to perusing the social media websites of candidates from other parties in the hopes of finding either some racist, sexist or homophobic comments made in the past or some incident that suggest that the candidate has racist, sexist or homophobic leanings. Frequently when such comments or activities are found and circulated to the press, the candidate either voluntarily or at the request of their party withdraws from the contest. Not only can such disclosures be embarrassing for the party but I suspect that it can be expensive to replace the signs and campaign literature. Frequently it seems to me that such disclosure does not serve the public good.

What an individual said or did 30 years when they were young may not reflect on what they feel or believe today. Young people are vulnerable to peer pressure. There is an almost overwhelming need to belong. It is not surprising therefore that sometimes, some people say or do things that in hindsight were profoundly wrong. Sometimes things are said or done that are culturally normative or because of the lack of exposure to different opinions or attitudes. Sometimes people are jerks. They say or do hurtful things because they just do not think or perhaps even recognize the impact of those things. But those things, no matter how terrible they may have been, may not define who the person is today. The issue should be - what have they done since? Is there any indication that they have continued with those attitudes or have they changed? Does the individual have a track record of being engaged in their community, working with everyone and anyone, or are their social media posts and private comments still littered with racist, sexist or homophobic comments? Does the person associate with people who demonstrate tolerance and acceptance or do they socialize with others who have a long history of discriminatory remarks? Have they demonstrate the capacity for personal growth or are they still mired in the intolerance of their youth?

As much as it pains me to say so, I think that Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is generally quite right when he suggests that if a candidate apologies for their comments, that they should not be asked to drop out. On the surface, it is a great policy. Except.....

The Conservatives have a candidate who has in the recent past made racist, and homophobic comments. She has worked hard to share her views on a number of platforms. She has spent time with individuals who are well known to have racist or homophobic views. It is not enough to apologize by saying " I am sorry, I did not mean to offend anyone". That type of statement comes from a place of privilege, it comes from someone who will not or cannot acknowledge that their particular world view is wrong and that just stating their views is harmful to people. The fact that she continues to make such statements suggest quite clearly that she has not changed her views, that there has been no personal growth, no acceptance of the harm she may have caused. She should not be allowed to run under the banner of any party.

The fact that Sheer supports her candidacy suggests that he too might be okay with others who are racist, sexist or homophobic. And that is scary.

Another Election??

I do not know how times I have voted it. It feels like a lot. I have voted in every election for the past 50 years with the exception, I think, of the provincial election in 1972 when I lived in Toronto. It does not really matter how many elections I have watched as every election is unique both in terms of who is running and what the issues are. It should be noted that I have a terrible track record in that only once or twice has the person I voted for, gotten elected. I am never discouraged by this record, not have I ever chosen who I have voted for out of frustration or desperation. However, as I get older I do have a sense that the consequences of my choice may have perhaps less impact upon my life if for no other reason than I may not live long enough to feel the full effect of whatever policies get created.

It would be fair to say that I am not particularly excited by the upcoming federal election. Four years ago there was, at least amongst some of the people I knew, an overwhelming sense that the country would not tolerate another four years of Harper's brand of conservatism. There was a feeling that not only was it time for a change but that a change would happen. While I did not vote for the Liberals, there was a hope that Trudeau's "sunny days" would have a beneficial impact on the emotional health of the country. Certainly in the first few months there was a sense of optimism as he took to the world stage and preached about a better, kinder, more responsible type of government. It was hard not to feel good when he ensured that his cabinet was balanced in terms of female/males ministers because it was time that it happen.

But in the last 36-40 months, much of that optimism has evaporated. As any party finds out, running the country is complicated. There is seldom one answer that will make everyone happy. That if the party wants to run the country for more than one election cycle, the Prime Minister needs to make decisions that are political in nature - decisions that they may not have made as private individuals, decisions that will make at least some of the people very unhappy. As dissatisfied as some Canadians are with the direction of the present government, I do not think that that dissatisfaction is strong enough to intentionally push Trudeau's Liberals out of power. If there was a very strong party waiting in the political wings to take over - perhaps but there is no one.

The Conservatives will retain their percentage of the voting public. People who have not been upset in the past by their right-wing agenda, their barely hidden near racist beliefs about some immigrants and their fundamental belief that we all have equal opportunity to succeed will not be upset with anything that gets said in the next few weeks.

The NDP are but a sad copy of their previous glory. There is no sense that the leadership of the party has any capacity to generate excitement in the general public or for that matter even within the core of their supporters. The country could use a party that had a clear vision of what Canada would look like if the government believed that we need to take care of each other, that we need to have more, not fewer programs, that support those who are struggling. The NDP could have been that party - they aren't now and perhaps never will be again.

The Green Party may be the most dynamic party of the bunch. Their leader is a brilliant, well educated multi-experienced leader. The party has had a number of successes at the provincial level and some pundits argue that they are on a roll, that they have the momentum. Those pundits might be right except that the Greens have little organization at the federal level and virtually no one other than their leader who has any practice of being a Member of Parliament. While their values are clear in terms of the environment - I am far less clear about how they would impose those values through policies. In my mind, the primary question is: if the Greens increase their voting percentage - who will they take those votes from. If the NDP lost voters it would not change the political landscape. If the Greens took too many votes from the Liberals - the Liberals could lose their majority.

The question then becomes: who would form the government?

Canadian Human Rights - How Much is Enough - or Too Much?

There can be no doubt that the Canadian Government has not provided anywhere near adequate services to Indigenous people. From shoddy housing to poor medical care, from non-functioning or none existing water treatment systems to an education system that feels as if it is designed to encourage drop-outs, the government has consistently done far less than the bare minimum. Regardless of various governments promises to "fix" the problem, nothing seems to change. The result of a century and a half of poor decisions based on bad information and racial bias has profoundly damaged communities, families and individuals. In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights found that the government of Canada had discriminated against First Nations children by under-funding on-reserve child welfare services. On this past Friday, that Tribunal ordered the government to pay each child who had been affected by that system $40,000.00 as some sort of recompensation for the lack of support and care.

The debate should never be about whether or not it happened. Of course, the child welfare system on reserves was underfunded. Nor can one disagree about the fact that if children do not get the kinds of support they need - when they need it - irreparable harm can occur. However, I think there is legitimate place for us to discuss the amount of money awarded and of what benefit it will be.

I think one of the reasons why various courts and tribunals have the right to impose fines/financial punishments against people or organizations is so "teach" those organizations or people a lesson. If one fines a corporation for doing something that they should not have done - ideally the shareholders of that corporation lose money and therefore tell the executives to not do that again. In other words, people experience a direct consequence from the bad behaviour and at least theoretically, learn to not do it again. When a large corporation such as Ford or Volkswagen face substantial fines - they do change their behaviour or companies that produce Oxycontin or tobacco go out of business

Fining the Canadian government because it did not provide enough services will not teach anyone a lesson. Neither the politicians or any of the bureaucrats that were involved will ever face any sort of consequence for their decision. The taxpayers will pay the bill - and nothing will change. If the tribunal were fining the government to teach them a lesson - it is not going to work.

The other reason for the tribunal to award $40,000 to each individual (or in some cases their parents or grandparents) is to compensate them for the lost time and social dysfunction that the lack of services created. Giving a consistent amount makes almost no sense to me. It assumes that all children were affected equally, that all of the children had bad experiences and that all of the children were worse off than if nothing had happened and they had stayed with their caregivers. None of that is true. Some children, depending upon their age and how they were supported and by whom would have had different experiences. For example, some may have lost all contact with their natural families - perhaps others less so. I am not sure how one decides who deserves a higher form of compensation than others, but it strikes me that giving everyone the same amount is just lazy. It also suggests a strange bias in that it assumes that everyone is the same.

Finally, it is a lot of money (some reports suggest that the payout could be upwards of two billion dollars). Within First Nation communities there are many reasons why there can be such social dysfunction that a social service agency needs to become involved. Most of those reasons are a direct result of our government's inaction or action. If the social fabric of a community has broken down, it would seem to me that we collectively as a nation, must address the root concerns. To provide expensive band-aids to a percentage of the population does feel like something that will help a community. I fear that the problems will just continue to re-appear.

In a perfect world, there would be both sufficient money and the political will to address all of the problems. We do not live in a perfect world. If we did - these problems would not exist.

Synchronicity, Bananas and The Lost City of the Monkey God

I am not sure if one could call it synchronicity or not but I am always surprised as to how often what I read for pleasure somehow gets connected to what I am thinking about as I read bits and pieces from the various mainstream media outlets. Last week, of course, various media outlets were all commenting on the forest fires in the Amazon forest. A subtext to all of the concern was the fact that Brazil was doing very little, if anything, to fight the fires and that they seemed reluctant to allow other countries to tell them what they must do. As a side point, it is interesting to note that the world's attention span is so short that there is little news about the fires being posted this week. How can an event be the ecological disaster of the decade one week and not be newsworthy a few days later?

At the same time, I was reading the news about the fire, I was listening to Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God as I did some spinning and weaving. It is not a great book and there were a number of times that I was glad that the audiobook app allows one to speed up the reading. Preston only spent ten or so days in the Honduran rainforest with the expedition that uncovered a massive city buried in the jungle and therefore had to "pad' the book with a lot of detail about both the various myths and expeditions to find the city and a lot of history both pre European contact and what has happened in the last hundred or so year.

There is a long history of companies - specifically fruit companies - clearing great swaths of forest to plant fruit like bananas in Latin America. The bananas, which is not a fruit native to the Americas, was being grown so that they could be shipped to the US market. There were huge profits to be made especially because the companies were so willing to manipulate and in many cases outright control the governments of those countries. Safe labour practices and environmental stewardship were not considerations for companies. They destroyed thousands and thousands of acres of forest so that we could eat fruit. They brought down, without shame, any government who tried to exercise any control over the rampant rape of the countryside. The companies subjugated the population to create a docile workforce - it was the worst type of colonialism.

The fact that the destruction of the rain forest is still occurring today should not surprise us. That does not mean that we should be complacent about it but rather that as with all things - eventually, we reap what we sow. Before we demand other countries to stop doing what we did for decades, we must demonstrate that we are prepared to change our behaviour. If a country has become fiscally dependent upon the income from harvesting such crops and therefore sees no choice but to expand the amount of agriculture land, we need to assist them in developing other ways of generating income that are less destructive to the environment. That may mean for example, that we will have to pay significantly more for items coming from those countries. We shaped those countries activities by our consumer behaviour. We need to change those behaviours.

Indigenous Membership - Who is eligible

For some Federal politicians or senior bureaucrats, it must feel as if they cannot do anything right. Take for example the government' Bill S-3 which received royal assent nine or so months ago. S-3 is a bill designed to correct an error. In determining who had First Nation status, it was the rule that any Indigenous woman who had married a non-indigenous man lost her status for all time as a member of a First Nation community. Indigenous men who married a non- indigenous woman had never lost their status. S-3 got rid of that discrimination. We should all cheer that the government has deleted this sex-based discrimination from its legislation. Really - who would complain?

It turns out that some First Nation communities have some concern about the number of individuals who have applied for status but who have never had any contact or involvement with what is now their home community. These concerns raise some valid issues that someone needs to resolve. I am just glad it is not me. Questions raised include:

- If the individual has never had any contact with the community or does not speak the language or has no cultural connection to the community- are they really part of the community?

- If the individual has never had any connection to a community but their grandmother or great-grandmother did - is that community obligated to provide supports and services to the individual? Does that individual get to vote on band issues?

- What percentage of Indigenous blood/DNA should a person have before they are eligible to be given status?

As almost all First Nations communities have limited resources, clearly these issues need to be resolved. And they are not new issues. Anytime a community has limited resources, the membership debate is always at least in part, about who gets access to the resources. Some First Nation communities are right in wondering how many of the 17,000 people who have applied for Indigenous status have done so, not because they want to right a wrong, but rather because they see some benefit in gaining access to a status card.

Politicians and senior bureaucrats need to accept that changing a law, while it may on the surface correct a wrong - may not be the only or the best solution. Clearly, it was sex-based discriminatory to disenfranchise some Indigenous women from their rights and status as members of a First Nation community. That wrong is not corrected because her great-grandchildren now get to call themselves Indigenous. I am not sure what the solution is - perhaps we cannot always correct the wrongs of the past. Perhaps there is no fixing the damage that was done. Perhaps the best that we can do is to ensure that the communities that are expected to welcome these new members into their family are strengthened and given time to decide for themselves what is best.

Empowering individuals or communities is not about letting people do what we allow them to do - empowerment is acknowledging that communities have the right to do what they decide to do.

A Litigious Society - or wasting our money

We live in a litigious society - so much so that I wonder if we as individuals still have the capacity to decide what is right or wrong on our own. As opposed to any sort of collective understanding of what is good and right for our society, we habitually go to a judge to decide those issues for us. The belief that a handful of individuals can interpret the law without bias is, or at least it should be, absurd. Unless one lives in a complete vacuum with no awareness of world events, it is inconceivable that anyone, including a judge, would not have some opinions based on his or her individual life experiences. Their bias may not be a factor when interpreting the written law. I am less sure if they can remain completely neutral when debating issues that have not been directly addressed by Parliament.

There may be, on occasion, circumstances or events that occur that could not have been predicted. It, therefore, may be necessary to seek an opinion from a neutral body. Developing a new understanding of First Nation's rights is a good example of the Supreme Court expanding our sense of what is fair. But I am not too sure if we need to keep on asking the same question to higher and higher courts until we get, hopefully, the answer we were hoping for. Take for example Mr. Ford, the premier of Ontario. He thinks that the federally imposed carbon tax is wrong and in fact unconstitutional. He decided that he needed to ask a judge's opinion. However, when the highest court in Ontario said that the federal government was within their rights to impose such a national tax, Mr. Ford has decided to present his case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Unless there is a matter of law - that is the court in Ontario ignored something that they should not have - why do we need a second opinion? I do not know how much it will cost to pursue this issue. It almost doesn't matter because win or lose, the Canadian taxpayer will foot the bill. In the meantime, the deniers of climate change have even more time to screw the planet.