My daughter, in her fourth year of studies at the University of Guelph, tells me of a recent online forum held by her class on political scandal and corruption, something along the lines of media: "watch-dog or lap-dog" to government. I was struck by the very clear images these two terms evoked. Either the German shepherd of the people, or the chihuahua of elected officials. Noble investigator of wrongs and vital component to democracy, or servile sell-out and disgrace to the name of true journalism. Not hard to figure out which side one-time journalist and Pulitzer-prize winning American writer Ernest Hemingway would have chosen, or his admirable Canadian friend Morley Callaghan, journalist and short-story writer extraordinaire.
Which brings me to the latest piece of information unearthed by the Toronto Star through the Access to Information Act. It has discovered that Stephen Harper has been planning for a year to create a special outlet to replace the National Press Gallery, one that would provide "'robust physical and information security measures to protect the prime minister and cabinet'"(CBC), one that could allow government to choose which journalists were present to ask questions of the government and to film its own footage of events. It would basically control the media on all things related to government releases of information, and it would operate out of a former shoe-store on Sparks Street.
Okay, what country are we living in? What era? Things are starting to sound more and more like the McCarthy era in the 1950's in the United States. How long before the Access to Information Act itself is scrapped?
It's not just a difference of opinion we're talking about here, or a change in policy direction. Those things are healthy for a democracy, the back-and-forth along the political spectrum, a corrective flow of checks and balances. No, this is different. It's an out-and-out attack on the very foundations of who we are as a political society and what we know.
Forget about lap-dog; our media could soon become nothing more than a puppet on a shoe-string.
Monday, 11 April 2011
Saturday, 9 April 2011
Why crime?
There is no doubt that crime is a great and uncomfortable ill of society. A break-in victim feels violated, though in a small way compared to the victim of rape. And murder, well, God protect us all from the Russell Williams of the world. But should crime be a priority for our government at this time? Are there serious flaws in our system of law and order that need strong and immediate redressing? Is crime currently more important than, say, the environment, health care, or foreign policy?
The facts are these: crime rates have gone down in the last decade (12%), including, Williams notwithstanding, the violent nature of crimes (22%). Furthermore, the vast majority (93%) of Canadians feel unthreatened by crime. So why would Stephen Harper have us think it's such a problem?
Ian Brown writes an intriguing piece deconstructing the crime game (G&M April 9) in which he argues that the Conservative desire to build more jails, eliminate parole, incarcerate offenders for the full extent of their sentences is predicated on the fundamental philosophical view that people do not change who they are, that rehabilitation programs don't work, and that bad people should simply be kept away from the rest of us.
It reminds me of Michael Moore's cartoon sketch in Bowling for Columbine called "A Short History of America." In it he parodies the white man's fear of the black man from the beginning of the slave trade, and suggests that it was fear of difference that created the great racial problems in the United States. This fear of difference in turn created unfounded fears of violence, which in turn led the whites to work ever harder to protect themselves against an enemy more ghostly than real. Deliberately simplistic, the cartoon nevertheless contains a message worth reflecting upon.
Choosing to focus on crime when statistics show that its incidence and severity are abating is not rational; it is not common sense. Only through playing to our fears does such a strategy have resonance.
Stephen Harper may want to live in a bubble, but is that what the rest of us want?
The facts are these: crime rates have gone down in the last decade (12%), including, Williams notwithstanding, the violent nature of crimes (22%). Furthermore, the vast majority (93%) of Canadians feel unthreatened by crime. So why would Stephen Harper have us think it's such a problem?
Ian Brown writes an intriguing piece deconstructing the crime game (G&M April 9) in which he argues that the Conservative desire to build more jails, eliminate parole, incarcerate offenders for the full extent of their sentences is predicated on the fundamental philosophical view that people do not change who they are, that rehabilitation programs don't work, and that bad people should simply be kept away from the rest of us.
It reminds me of Michael Moore's cartoon sketch in Bowling for Columbine called "A Short History of America." In it he parodies the white man's fear of the black man from the beginning of the slave trade, and suggests that it was fear of difference that created the great racial problems in the United States. This fear of difference in turn created unfounded fears of violence, which in turn led the whites to work ever harder to protect themselves against an enemy more ghostly than real. Deliberately simplistic, the cartoon nevertheless contains a message worth reflecting upon.
Choosing to focus on crime when statistics show that its incidence and severity are abating is not rational; it is not common sense. Only through playing to our fears does such a strategy have resonance.
Stephen Harper may want to live in a bubble, but is that what the rest of us want?
Friday, 8 April 2011
It's Friday evening
and I'm tempted to take the night off, but I can't resist one or two more examples of the 'media is the story' theme.
Following the Globe and Mail's page 6 column on Sun Media's attack of the CBC, the Sun volleyed back with an editorial, "Grey Globe Goes Lefty" (Sun). In it, the Sun accused G&M of having lost touch with its roots; shame on it for its defence of the CBC by its New York artsy guy. Wondering just what kind of impact this would have on the Globe, I nearly choked on my coffee today as I turned to pages 4 and 5. Two huge photographs, one of Stephen in an Olympics jacket playing bocce, and the facing page of a huge sign for Julian Fantino. The Fantino article describes the Tory's tightening of "the cone of silence," reporting the refusal of many Conservative candidates to participate in all-candidates debates, another anti-democratic play in their quest for autocracy. The other article boasted Stephen "promising a majority Conservative government" would deliver on a "bold justice bill pledge" "within 100 days of taking power." Guess it felt guilty for spilling the story of yet another sordid dimension to the Bruce Carson affair on the front page and needed to make amends.
Is this what it has come to with our press? Needing to affirm support for the party in power in order to maintain its ad revenues? It makes one wonder. The Tory boycott of the Haliburton County Voice this week because the managing editor had decided to run for the Liberals in the riding of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock was reported yesterday. No doubt Laura Redman should have taken leave of the paper sooner than she did (she says she couldn't afford to), but the action of Conservative Barry Devolin does not sit well with the editor, who writes,"'It is virtually unprecedented in the history of Canadian journalism for a powerful federal party to use its power to deny a small independent paper's employees their right to work and their right to pursue their craft.'" (G&M)
Maybe unprecedented, but the Tories have no problem with that. Refuse to engage where you can't control the responses? Sounds like a plank in the Tory platform.
Following the Globe and Mail's page 6 column on Sun Media's attack of the CBC, the Sun volleyed back with an editorial, "Grey Globe Goes Lefty" (Sun). In it, the Sun accused G&M of having lost touch with its roots; shame on it for its defence of the CBC by its New York artsy guy. Wondering just what kind of impact this would have on the Globe, I nearly choked on my coffee today as I turned to pages 4 and 5. Two huge photographs, one of Stephen in an Olympics jacket playing bocce, and the facing page of a huge sign for Julian Fantino. The Fantino article describes the Tory's tightening of "the cone of silence," reporting the refusal of many Conservative candidates to participate in all-candidates debates, another anti-democratic play in their quest for autocracy. The other article boasted Stephen "promising a majority Conservative government" would deliver on a "bold justice bill pledge" "within 100 days of taking power." Guess it felt guilty for spilling the story of yet another sordid dimension to the Bruce Carson affair on the front page and needed to make amends.
Is this what it has come to with our press? Needing to affirm support for the party in power in order to maintain its ad revenues? It makes one wonder. The Tory boycott of the Haliburton County Voice this week because the managing editor had decided to run for the Liberals in the riding of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock was reported yesterday. No doubt Laura Redman should have taken leave of the paper sooner than she did (she says she couldn't afford to), but the action of Conservative Barry Devolin does not sit well with the editor, who writes,"'It is virtually unprecedented in the history of Canadian journalism for a powerful federal party to use its power to deny a small independent paper's employees their right to work and their right to pursue their craft.'" (G&M)
Maybe unprecedented, but the Tories have no problem with that. Refuse to engage where you can't control the responses? Sounds like a plank in the Tory platform.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Whither the big issues
On TVO's The Agenda tonight, dealing with the topic Broken Political Parties, a point was raised by historian Michael Bliss, Where are the big issues in this election? Really, so very little is being discussed. A few gifts are dangled in front of the middle class, opposition parties are trying to make headway with Harper's "narrative of control," and, of course, Harper is floating along intoning 'the economy, the economy.'
What about our climate change policy? Oh right, our bill on climate change, though passed by a majority of MP's in the House of Commons, was killed by the Tory-dominated Senate. How about our foreign policy? Defense policy? Fighter jets needed for Libya, are they now? As the Council of Canadians asks, what about our policy on water? Does Harper have a plan to run a pipeline from northern Alberta down to Texas? (rabble.ca) Quietly and with few noticing or calling him on it, Harper has just let these policies drift away out of sight, either as part of an overall plan to diminish the role of government, or simply to hide them from view until a majority allows him the freedom to do as he pleases. And why aren't Ignatieff and Layton bringing these things to our attention?
Members of the panel on tonight's Agenda generally agreed that Parliament has become a place where there is little room for individual contributions by MP's, few roles for them to play, little to do other than to be a mouthpiece for the party's agenda, which is largely determined by polls of the day interpreted by fiercely loyal partisans. A new authoritarian structure is creating a strict, vertical chain of command, and in the House of Commons, the opposing sides view each other as enemies to be destroyed rather than people to work with toward a common good.
We want more from our government than this, and we either naively expect it to just happen, or we cynically assume it won't despite anything we might do. Either way, we don't pay much attention--apparently we rank well below Sweden, the UK and the US in terms of our attentiveness to the news. But we cannot afford to be either naive or cynical here, and we certainly can no longer afford not to pay attention. This is our country, and its democracy is in jeopardy.
What about our climate change policy? Oh right, our bill on climate change, though passed by a majority of MP's in the House of Commons, was killed by the Tory-dominated Senate. How about our foreign policy? Defense policy? Fighter jets needed for Libya, are they now? As the Council of Canadians asks, what about our policy on water? Does Harper have a plan to run a pipeline from northern Alberta down to Texas? (rabble.ca) Quietly and with few noticing or calling him on it, Harper has just let these policies drift away out of sight, either as part of an overall plan to diminish the role of government, or simply to hide them from view until a majority allows him the freedom to do as he pleases. And why aren't Ignatieff and Layton bringing these things to our attention?
Members of the panel on tonight's Agenda generally agreed that Parliament has become a place where there is little room for individual contributions by MP's, few roles for them to play, little to do other than to be a mouthpiece for the party's agenda, which is largely determined by polls of the day interpreted by fiercely loyal partisans. A new authoritarian structure is creating a strict, vertical chain of command, and in the House of Commons, the opposing sides view each other as enemies to be destroyed rather than people to work with toward a common good.
We want more from our government than this, and we either naively expect it to just happen, or we cynically assume it won't despite anything we might do. Either way, we don't pay much attention--apparently we rank well below Sweden, the UK and the US in terms of our attentiveness to the news. But we cannot afford to be either naive or cynical here, and we certainly can no longer afford not to pay attention. This is our country, and its democracy is in jeopardy.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
No moral rightness here
Sometimes people feel so strongly about one issue that nothing else really matters. Take the long-gun registry. Anger over this has died hard and is apparently still ready to flame up. So be it. But please don't try to say that this party has any claim to moral rightness. It galls me to hear people who should know better claim they will vote Conservative because of the party's moral values. Moral values! Let's look at those for a minute.
Take Bruce Carson. This long-time PMO insider was dismissed in mid-March, and his case referred to the RCMP, after the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network revealed the relationship between this 65-year-old man and his 22-year-old escort-girlfriend, Michele McPherson. Carson used his high-powered contacts with Indian Affairs, Environment Canada, and the Assembly of First Nations to help her and her mother in their bid to secure water filtration contracts worth millions. Clearly APTN smelled a rat.
Turns out Carson has been dirty a long time.
Disbarred by the Law Society in Ontario in 1981 for misappropriating funds, he was charged and convicted and ultimately served jail time on two counts of fraud. Until recently, this was the extent of the wrongdoing. As we've learned in the last few days, Carson's criminal wrongdoings didn't end with the jail time and include another three counts of fraud.
So how did this man get so close to the Prime Minister, so close that, as Maclean's quotes from The Ottawa Citizen, Carson in 2006 was "'the ultimate troubleshooter in Tory circles, the PMO's Mr. Fixit and one of the principal authors and packagers of a wide range of Tory policies'"? When APTN's story first broke, Harper admitted that he knew Carson had made a mistake in the past but felt he deserved a chance to rebuild his life.
With the most recent revelations, Harper reports that it's all news to him, and that had he known he would never have hired Carson (G&M). Carson claims he disclosed fully his criminal record; and even without his assertion, it strains credulity, as the Liberals were quick to point out, to think that any party that can suss out participants at a rally with links to Liberal supporters on Facebook would not know all about the chequered past of one of the PM's closest advisors.
And this doesn't even touch on the Tory senators who are being investigated on election money-laundering schemes. Or the staffers found to be interfering with Access to Information requests. Or Bev Oda and her lies to Parliament.
Moral rightness? Say the long-gun registry if you want, but please do not try to claim any moral rectitude for the Harpercons. The only thing that guides their moral compass is the quest for power.
Take Bruce Carson. This long-time PMO insider was dismissed in mid-March, and his case referred to the RCMP, after the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network revealed the relationship between this 65-year-old man and his 22-year-old escort-girlfriend, Michele McPherson. Carson used his high-powered contacts with Indian Affairs, Environment Canada, and the Assembly of First Nations to help her and her mother in their bid to secure water filtration contracts worth millions. Clearly APTN smelled a rat.
Turns out Carson has been dirty a long time.
Disbarred by the Law Society in Ontario in 1981 for misappropriating funds, he was charged and convicted and ultimately served jail time on two counts of fraud. Until recently, this was the extent of the wrongdoing. As we've learned in the last few days, Carson's criminal wrongdoings didn't end with the jail time and include another three counts of fraud.
So how did this man get so close to the Prime Minister, so close that, as Maclean's quotes from The Ottawa Citizen, Carson in 2006 was "'the ultimate troubleshooter in Tory circles, the PMO's Mr. Fixit and one of the principal authors and packagers of a wide range of Tory policies'"? When APTN's story first broke, Harper admitted that he knew Carson had made a mistake in the past but felt he deserved a chance to rebuild his life.
With the most recent revelations, Harper reports that it's all news to him, and that had he known he would never have hired Carson (G&M). Carson claims he disclosed fully his criminal record; and even without his assertion, it strains credulity, as the Liberals were quick to point out, to think that any party that can suss out participants at a rally with links to Liberal supporters on Facebook would not know all about the chequered past of one of the PM's closest advisors.
And this doesn't even touch on the Tory senators who are being investigated on election money-laundering schemes. Or the staffers found to be interfering with Access to Information requests. Or Bev Oda and her lies to Parliament.
Moral rightness? Say the long-gun registry if you want, but please do not try to claim any moral rectitude for the Harpercons. The only thing that guides their moral compass is the quest for power.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
The media is the story Part II--CBC under attack from Sun Media
Simon Houpt's column in today's Globe and Mail sheds new light on the Harper agenda: "Sun burns CBC in bid to hype conservative TV."
On April 18, Sun Media will launch its new broadcasting medium, Sun TV, promising "Hard News and Straight Talk." Talk about a built-in propaganda machine.
Last week Sun newspapers such as The Ottawa Sun screamed "CBC Full of Grit," claiming that the CBC's VoteCompass was really a Liberal indoctrination tool and that one of its developers had worked for Ignatieff's political campaign. Turns out Peter Loewen had also worked for Tom Flanagan in 2004 and a Tory MP in Nova Scotia, but Sun Media neglected to mention those details or to point out that "Mr. Flanagan is on record noting that . . . Loewen is an outstanding researcher without an ounce of partisan in him."
These unjustified attacks on our public broadcaster for self-serving interests only underscore how vigilant a society must remain in order to protect its vital institutions--and in this case, an organ of democracy. It's hardly news to say that the CBC informs us, unites us, and encourages us to reflect thoughtfully on affairs both local and national. But this institution, widely valued regardless of one's political stripes and held to a high standard of accountability, is no longer something we can assume will always be there.
It sounds ultra-cynical to say that Harper doesn't want the people of this country to think, let alone exercise intellectual integrity, but it's hard to draw any other conclusion. When everything blurs outward from a frenzy of Fox News Network-style broadcasting in which "biases are a part of [the] appeal", meaningful public discourse is not only diminished, it threatens to disappear. We become not citizens but mere commodities in a dark, little world.
On April 18, Sun Media will launch its new broadcasting medium, Sun TV, promising "Hard News and Straight Talk." Talk about a built-in propaganda machine.
Last week Sun newspapers such as The Ottawa Sun screamed "CBC Full of Grit," claiming that the CBC's VoteCompass was really a Liberal indoctrination tool and that one of its developers had worked for Ignatieff's political campaign. Turns out Peter Loewen had also worked for Tom Flanagan in 2004 and a Tory MP in Nova Scotia, but Sun Media neglected to mention those details or to point out that "Mr. Flanagan is on record noting that . . . Loewen is an outstanding researcher without an ounce of partisan in him."
These unjustified attacks on our public broadcaster for self-serving interests only underscore how vigilant a society must remain in order to protect its vital institutions--and in this case, an organ of democracy. It's hardly news to say that the CBC informs us, unites us, and encourages us to reflect thoughtfully on affairs both local and national. But this institution, widely valued regardless of one's political stripes and held to a high standard of accountability, is no longer something we can assume will always be there.
It sounds ultra-cynical to say that Harper doesn't want the people of this country to think, let alone exercise intellectual integrity, but it's hard to draw any other conclusion. When everything blurs outward from a frenzy of Fox News Network-style broadcasting in which "biases are a part of [the] appeal", meaningful public discourse is not only diminished, it threatens to disappear. We become not citizens but mere commodities in a dark, little world.
Monday, 4 April 2011
Willing to be hopeful, once
As things were careening mid-March toward a non-confidence vote in Parliament and I was railing on about Harper's anti-democracy, my mother casually said, "I thought you rather liked Stephen Harper." Stunned that I had ever managed to give her this impression and, further, to not have disabused her of the notion long ago, I searched my mind for a time I had been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, feel hopeful about what he might bring to the country.
It was 2006 and he had just won his first minority. In the voter's booth, my vote had been purely in support of my local candidate. Like so many, I was sickened by the overlong departure of Chretien as leader and the stink of the sponsorship debacle. If ever Liberals needed some humility, it was then.
At the same time, a couple of pieces of information had surfaced to make me question my political assumptions. The first was finding out that Brian Mulroney had been named by the Sierra Club as Canada's greenest prime minister. How on earth had this happened without us all realizing? The second was reading that, in Toronto, Mike Harris was credited with encouraging the construction of several arts-related buildings, including the new home of the National Ballet of Canada, through the development of viable public-private partnerships. He was a disaster for education and water treatment and First Nations relations, but arts and culture in Toronto owed him something.
From these two points I realized a lesson I should have internalized a long time ago, that the same end can often be reached by different means. So, yes, I was willing to give Stephen Harper a chance after he won. And there's a part of me that keeps looking to see something positive in what he's done. But if it's there, it's nothing in comparison with what's been lost--and what's at risk.
It was 2006 and he had just won his first minority. In the voter's booth, my vote had been purely in support of my local candidate. Like so many, I was sickened by the overlong departure of Chretien as leader and the stink of the sponsorship debacle. If ever Liberals needed some humility, it was then.
At the same time, a couple of pieces of information had surfaced to make me question my political assumptions. The first was finding out that Brian Mulroney had been named by the Sierra Club as Canada's greenest prime minister. How on earth had this happened without us all realizing? The second was reading that, in Toronto, Mike Harris was credited with encouraging the construction of several arts-related buildings, including the new home of the National Ballet of Canada, through the development of viable public-private partnerships. He was a disaster for education and water treatment and First Nations relations, but arts and culture in Toronto owed him something.
From these two points I realized a lesson I should have internalized a long time ago, that the same end can often be reached by different means. So, yes, I was willing to give Stephen Harper a chance after he won. And there's a part of me that keeps looking to see something positive in what he's done. But if it's there, it's nothing in comparison with what's been lost--and what's at risk.
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