Ignatieff Wins Me Over. Again. For Now.

I'm taking a little break right now between the Ignatieff's speech and the treasurer and VP Organization speeches. And practicing my thumb-typing. And avoiding the undoubtedly mind-numbingly boring regional meetings.

Ignatieff's speech was excellent, BTW. In fact, I just told him so as he walked by right now. I've never made any secret of my reticence towards our leader. It's a feeling that comes and goes, but I really liked what I heard today. So for now at least, he's got me back.

I told him that, too.

A question has come up amongst our group regarding the constitutional amendments we're supposed to be voting on later this afternoon. Specifically, where the hell are they? When I was at the federal convention last spring, we got the amendments weeks in advance so we could study them and decide.

Here, not only are they absent from our delegate packages, they aren't even on the LPCO website. At least not that I could see.

How hard is this, guys?

Colin Horgan on 'Canada's Frozen Political Waste'

I have nothing to add to this, other than to delight in the fact that it comes to us via The Guardian:

Down is the new up: Canadians suddenly like Stephen Harper, but for the wrong reasons.

Michael Ignatieff's announcement on Monday that his Liberal party will not "actively seek to defeat" the Conservatives "by proposing their own confidence motions," was an almost direct contradiction to his resounding cry in September that Harper's "time is up". The Liberal threat to dismantle the Tory government is now effectively dead, and many Canadians couldn't possibly care less. We like Harper now. Unfortunately, it will get us nowhere.

The biggest political story of October hasn't been Ignatieff's troubles or the widening poll gap between the Tories and Liberals, or even some Tory MPs slapping their names or their party logo on government (read: taxpayer) stimulus cheques. Instead, it's been Harper's performance of the Beatles song With a Little Help From My Friends at a gala benefit at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. It sparked an immediate response and softened some of his harshest critics. The media cooed, and Harper – formerly known for his wax-like public persona – became a YouTube hit.

'Wax-like persona'. Heh.

Really, go read the rest. The last three sentences are the killers.

Liberal Policy for Dummies

Like many Liberal bloggers, I watched Ignatieff's speech to the Toronto Board of Trade with interest yesterday, hoping to hear a few planks of the Liberals' much anticipated economic platform.

My heart sank a little when he opened with an apology for how long and detailed the speech was about to be.

The details are there alright: taking a pro-active approach to accelerating economic growth rather than just letting it happen, defending Canadian industry and technology from foreign takeovers, instituting a permanent increase in the gas tax transfers to municipalities, greater investment in renewable energy and green technologies, bring back the 'Team Canada' trade missions, making the PBO truly independent, and on and on.

I can't say I agree with everything he's proposing. His 'tearing down the borders' theme scares me, and while the U.S. 'Country of Origin' labelling laws might be hurting Canadian pork producers for the moment, I'd much rather spend some money on PR for them than allow food companies to omit such information on Canadian packaging.

Overall, though, I approve of the direction he wants to go. He's committed himself to a reversal of Harper's 'hands-off' approach to government, which is a good start in drawing the contrast between the Conservatives and the Liberals.

Now it's time for the marketing guys to go to work. Because while I find all this stuff fascinating - as I'm sure you do, oh faithful reader - the sad fact is that most voters only digest policy in bites of six words or less. It's not that they're stupid... ok, maybe some of them. It's that most of them are just too disinterested / disengaged / busy to bother investigating political policy positions beyond what they get through thirty second TV commercials.

Oh, they'll complain about it alright, saying "So-and-so doesn't have any clear policies", or "There's no real difference between this party's policies and those", when what they really mean is, "Nobody has distilled all this into bullet-point form for me to compare and contrast".

The problem, of course, is that most good, comprehensive, well thought-out, balanced policy is quite often highly resistant to distillation. Bad policy, on the other hand, is very easy to summarize because it is so often oversimplified to begin with. The Republicans are masters at it: "Tough on Crime". "Trickle-Down Economics". "The War on Terror". "Just Say No".

There may be no better example of this phenomenon than Dion's failed 'Green Shift' policy. Despite the catchy name, the detailed presentation and the positively elegant use of market incentives to create a self-funding emissions reduction program, it resisted all efforts to 'sloganize' it. And once the Conservatives saddled it with their own 'Carbon Tax' label it instantly became anathema to a great many of Canadians. The financial benefits to average Canadians were easy enough to understand with maybe five minutes of reading - but everyone already knew what a tax was, so hardly any of them bothered to investigate further.

As with the opposition to Obama's health reform proposals, some of those who railed against the Green Shift actually had rational arguments based on a reasonable understanding of the issue. Sadly, they were - and are - in the minority. The rest... well, anyone who has ever perused the comments section of any given newspaper website knows the sort. But even those reactionary types are a minority. The real majority of the electorate in both Canada and the U.S. Just. Don't. Care.

None of this is news, of course. It's been well known for decades that the reasons people vote one way or another almost never have anything to do with their understanding of or agreement with a candidate's policies. Far more often, they are influenced by what others think about about these policies - friends, relatives, and always, the media.

What is interesting in the case of yesterday's speech is that the media seems, at least temporarily, to have been knocked off of their "Liberals have no policies" narrative (except for the National Post, of course).

The speech itself didn't really say much that Ignatieff and the Party haven't been saying all along, and there likely won't be any more average voters examining this speech especially closely or rushing over to Liberal.ca for more details. But now that the media's line has started to change from "Liberals have no policies" to "Ignatieff talked about his party's economic policies", we might begin to see a few rays of light penetrating down to ground level.

We just need to make the slogans small enough.

(BTW, do go and read the New Yorker article on 'The Unpolitical Animal'. If that doesn't put you off politics altogether, you know you're really hooked.)

It's a Win, Win, Win Situation!

With everyone on pins and needles over what's going to happen in Parliament this week, I am feeling surprisingly calm and content. Maybe it's that I'm old enough to know that this too shall pass, or maybe it's because my glass-half-full mind is seeing the up side to just about any potential scenario:

1) The government falls and there's an election. The Liberals win. The Liberals WIN!

2) The government falls and there's an election. The Liberals lose. Ignatieff resigns as leader, and we get to actually elect a new one. One I like better. Go Gerard!

3) The government survives, propped up by the NDP. The NDP loses it's last shred of credibility. And we will laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh...

When in Doubt, Play the Nativist Card

I've only been paying marginal attention to the whole 'Birther' thing going on in the U.S. just because... well, it's silly bordering on insane. Like flat-earthers, or 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

But then I read the recent poll by DailyKos showing that a staggering 58% of U.S. Republicans (and it's pretty much all Republicans, and pretty much all Southerners) either fully deny or aren't sure that President Obama is actually a real, legitimate American Citizen. And as much as I like to think nothing about Conservative America can surprise me anymore, I was completely floored. Seriously, are these people really, truly as stupid and delusional as we've always suspected?

Apparently so.

I'd love to believe that this is a purely American phenomenon. And yet, I can't help but compare this strategy (and have no doubt that it is a political strategy) to the Canadian Conservative Party's strategy of questioning the 'Canadian-ness' of Michael Ignatieff because of the amount of time he's spent off Canadian soil.

Ponder that for a moment.

Iggy Lobs the Ball Into Harper's Court

I still have my reservations about Michael Ignatieff's policies and attitudes and the direction he's leading the party... but DAMN he's good at this!

"That's the choice of the prime minister in my view. We've asked some questions that require an answer. If he wants Parliament to work it's very easy for him to answer positively. But he must understand that I am prepared to vote against him," Ignatieff said.

He stressed that the Liberal party doesn't want a summer election, but said the job of the Official Opposition is to hold the government accountable.

"We want Parliament to work, we want to replace confrontation with co-operation. But we need Prime Minister Harper to deliver the accountability that Canadians expect."

Your move, Steve.

Home Again, Home Again - with Video!

Ugh. Sleep deprived, jet-lagged, ankles swollen from five hours in a WestJet seat just slightly narrower than I am, but home again in the bosom of my family and happy for it.

Not much energy for blogging today. I hope to string a few coherent, reflective thoughts together over the next few days, but for now here's a bit of video of Czar Michael Ignatieff processing into the hall during the closing ceremonies on Saturday.



Next up: Bob Rae's speech. Tomorrow. Sleep now.

Saturday Convention Round-Up

ON JANE TABER:

I know it's mean and personal and totally unprofessional, but it absolutely has to be said:

Jane Taber is a horrible, nasty bitch.

Seriously, is it too much to ask that just this once, on this night of all nights, that you refrain from the sniping and the sarcasm? Do you think that taking one last petty kick at the man by repeating the same old mocking criticisms makes you clever? Or have you simply decided that someone who steps up and serves his country in more ways than you ever have or ever will is somehow worthy of your scorn just because you see him as flawed and vulnerable?

And just for the record: it was actually a rather famous quote from a rather well known German philosopher. But I wouldn't expect someone like you to know that.

Shame.

ON THE EXECUTIVE ELECTIONS:

I knew very little about any of the executive candidates, but I did a bit checking and asked people whose opinions I respect, and I made my choices.

My choice for National Policy Chair was made a little easier by watching the performance of the incumbent, Joan Bourassa, this morning as she co-chaired the Policy Plenary. She started by failing to ask for the Nays after asking for the Yeas, leaving those who wanted to vote against a resolution without the ability to do so. Then she lost track of what where we were in the process a couple of times. There were other instances - I lost track of the number of points of order that were raised on her.

I suppose it's a little thing, but it left me with a very bad impression of her competence, and that plus Jeff telling me a bit more about her led me to vote for Maryanne Kampouris. Bourassa won anyway.

ON THE CORONATION:

My hands hurt. Besides that, it was a surprising lot of fun.

New Party President Alfred Apps gave a very inspiring speech. I went to his party last night (among others), and I have discovered that Alf Apps' plan for the Liberal Party is to use extremely loud rock bands to engage the youth and drive everyone over the age of fifty out of the room.

Rae and LeBlanc also came out and gave remarkable speeches - especially Bob, who will always be my first love. Snif.

And then there was Michael.

I'm still not completely happy with this guy. There are some areas - mostly in foreign policy - where I am distinctly UNhappy with him. I also don't like his habit of making a seemingly nuanced, reasonable explanation of his position, and then capping it off with an eminently more quotable quote that overly simplifies and often completly misrepresents what he just said (i.e. Hamas, Galloway, raising taxes). I swear he does it just because it sounds clever, and it drives me absolutely insane.

But you know what? I'm cool with it. Because for me, this weekend wasn't about a leader. Leaders come and go. This weekend was about the Liberal Party of Canada, and that is on the ascendancy and ready to kick ass.

C'est le printemps!

I Reserve the Right to Dissent

I will be voting tomorrow. Voting for policy proposals and constitutional changes, including One Member One Vote. Voting for a couple of executive positions. And voting for the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, the ballot for which contains one little box next to a single name.

As an undeclared, independent delegate, I am not obligated to vote for any specific candidate - which means I could spoil my ballot, or simply leave it blank. I still haven't decided whether or not I will use that prerogative tomorrow morning.

Let me be clear: the leader of the Liberal Party has my full, unqualified support, both as interim leader and as our constitutionally elected leader. Michael Ignatieff has already done a remarkable job of bringing the party together and supporting essential reforms, and I am confident that he will lead our party to victory in the next election.

I also understand and agree with the reasons why Bob Rae and Domenic LeBlanc chose to withdraw under some extraordinary circumstances. However, I do not agree with the way in which options for an accelerated contested race were closed off, and had I been given a choice, I would most likely have voted for someone other than Michael Ignatieff.

This is not disloyalty. This is not disunity. This is my right - my duty - as a member of the Liberal Party. I have the right to express my concerns freely, and to vote my conscience - even if that vote takes the form of "none of the above". And as a delegate, even an acclaimed one (and yes, I appreciate the irony), I feel that I have a responsibility to make sure that the Liberals in my riding who have serious reservations about Michael Ignatieff, however few, are somehow given a voice.

I suppose this is all a little grandiose for someone who has never attended a convention before and has only been a Liberal Party member for a few years. But I strongly believe that in any democratic system, it is essential for dissenting opinions to be expressed, even if that expression is only symbolic. Unanimity, as appealing as it might appear to be for morale, is frequently a mask that covers underlying disagreements, and once covered those disagreements often grow and fester. Once expressed, everyone can move forward, satisfied that they have been heard.

As I said, I still haven't decided what I'm going to do. I may well just check that one box and be done with it. I don't know - and I'm certainly not going to tell any of you. And when the results are tabulated and Michael Ignatieff is named as our official leader, I'll cheer and celebrate along with everyone else, and then get to work.

But it will be all the more meaningful knowing that I at least could have said 'no'.

Ignatieff and the YLC: Now With Video!

As promised:

Ignatieff Speaks to Young Liberals

You can always find Michael Ignatieff at this Convention just by following the cheers and applause.

That's how I found him this morning as he ascended the escalator, and later when he stepped upon the stage to address the Young Liberals Commission. The room was completely packed with youth and not-so-youth, and I ended up backed into the door, videotaping above the sea of heads as my arm slowly went numb.

I'd show you the footage but I left my !@#$% firewire cable in the hotel room and can't upload it from my camera. Later, I promise.

The speech wasn't much different from what he's been saying all weekend. He did invoke the '68 Convention he attended as a Young Liberal, and spoke of the Liberal Party offering young people the opportunity to make history. He also spoke very passionately about the One Member One Vote proposal, and practically begged the people in the room to vote for it. He made no mention of the contentious YLC amendment, but the message was clear: with or without it, we must pass OMOV. All of us.

One thing I've been noticing recently: Iggy's been reading the same books I have. There have been several occasions when he's spoken quite directly about the ideas presented in John Ralston Saul's 'A Fair Country'. Like this:

"Because we are rooted in our land, and because we represent every ethnicity, every race, every religion, every part and parcel of our country, we are fit to govern - because we are anchored in the national life of our people."

He's talking about the Liberal Party and not the nation as a whole, but I'm still hearing a lot of JR Saul in that.

Anyway, I'll try to get that video uploaded some time tonight. Right now I'm going to try to get into the orientation for the fancy new voter database system (Esther's going to LOVE it!).

Yet Another Lame Blog Post

I know, I've been a bad, bad blogger.

I've been so focused on trying to mediate the food fight that's been going on at En Famille over the Young Liberal amendment to the OMOV proposal - and the further complication of the Liberal Brass suddenly deciding to toss Robert's out the window - that I haven't had the time or focus to actually talk about it all in a coherent blog post.

I promise, I will. Soon. Probably tomorrow. Because what is going on is vital to the future of the Liberal Party, and I strongly believe that a negotiated solution to this dispute can and must be reached before we get into that little room to vote. Otherwise the entire OMOV proposition may well be dead before it even hits the convention floor, and all those lovely words about "change" and "renewal" and "democratic reform" will turn to ash in the mouths of our leaders.

Thing is, I'm less concerned with talking about it than I am with actually DOING something about it right now.

In the meantime, here is your Gratuitous Iggy Shot of the day:

When Ignatieff Wasn't Afraid to Be Smart

When I said back here that a guy as smart as Michael Ignatieff should be smart enough to hold an informed and nuanced position on Israel and Palestine? This is what I meant:

Two years ago, an American friend took me on a helicopter ride from Jerusalem to the Golan Heights over the Palestinian West Bank. He wanted to show me how vulnerable Israel was, how the Arabs only had to cross 11km of land to reach the sea and throw the Israelis into it. I got this message but I also came away with another one. When I looked down at the West Bank, at the settlements like Crusader forts occupying the high ground, at the Israeli security cordon along the Jordan river closing off the Palestinian lands from Jordan, I knew I was not looking down at a state or the beginnings of one, but at a Bantustan, one of those pseudo-states created in the dying years of apartheid to keep the African population under control.

That was when I understood that for all their talk about a two-state solution, both sides never inhabited the same universe of discourse about what it actually meant. It is not just that both sides failed to make peace, but that peace never meant the same thing.

Given who Arafat was and is, it required extraordinary vision by Israelis to understand that their security depended on having a strong neighbour in Palestine, not a weak one. The Israelis failed to realise that they needed a Palestinian Authority capable of providing enough services for its population to keep them from wanting to kill Israelis, and enough military and police capability to stop them if they tried. The Palestinians equally failed to understand that a good neighbour is a strong one. Many wanted a state of their own, to weaken Israel and prepare the final conquest of Tel Aviv.

Both sides have an equal share of blame in the slow collapse of the two-state solution. The Palestinian leadership degenerated into a venal tyranny, holding back an increasingly frustrated Palestinian civil society. The Palestinian Authority also failed because Israel never allowed it to become a state. When authorities cannot become competent states, when they cannot meet the needs of their people, they can only survive by playing to the longing of their populations to counter humiliation with acts of suicidal revenge.

~ Michael Ignatieff, The Guardian, April 19, 2002

I would still disagree that the U.S. sending troops anywhere would make anything better, but the rest of the article sure as hell beats the simplistic crap that's come out of his mouth more recently.

I swear, he's playing dumb just to avoid comparisons with Dion.

BTW, that letter I sent back in January? It took two weeks just to get a robot email saying "We have received your email", and another FIVE WEEKS to get an actual response to my question. Which wasn't a response at all, really - just a form letter saying "Thank you for your letter regarding the situation in Gaza. The Liberal Party shares your concerns about this conflict and the suffering and loss of life on all sides, passing shot at the Conservatives, yada yada yada". From the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.

(H/T to Alison at The Beav)

A Few Lessons For Michael Ignatieff

I'm a proud and active member of the Liberal Party of Canada, but I have never made any secret of the fact that I disagree with our new leader on a growing number of issues.

I guess we can add the Alberta tar sands to that list.

"This is a huge industry. It employs Canadians from coast to coast. We have oil reserves that are going to last for the whole of the 21st century. We are where we are. We've got to clean it up and we've got to make it a sustainable place to work and live, not only for the aboriginal population, but for the workers who live there," Ignatieff said.

"At the moment, it's barely environmentally sustainable, and it's barely socially sustainable. The Conservative government has done nothing about this. We need to move forward. But am I proud of this industry? You bet. It's a world leader. We just need to make it better. But I don't take lessons from the National Geographic."

He may not need any lessons from National Geographic, but he certainly needs a reality check from someone. So allow me to educate you, Mr. Ignatieff.

1) "Barely environmentally sustainable."

By what possible definition?

This is an industry that tears out thousands of acres of complex boreal forest habitat and eventually, slowly, when they get to it, replaces it with flat grassland or wetland - at a fraction of the rate at which it digs.

This is an industry that turns millions of gallons of fresh water into oily, contaminated sludge which it stores in endlessly growing 'tailings ponds' that it has only the vaguest notion of how to turn back into fresh(ish) water.

This is an industry that continues to spew out grotesque amounts of CO2 emissions that it insists will 'someday' be captured and stored, despite the fact that even the biggest boosters of CCS technology admit that what is being developed simply won't work for the tar sands.

2) "Barely socially sustainable."

Ft. McMurray is a boom town. To a lesser extent, so are Calgary and Edmonton. Boom towns by definition are the very opposite of 'socially sustainable'.

I can't help but wonder if Mr. Ignatieff has ever actually met any of these "Canadians from coast to coast" who work in the oil patch. I have. I sat next to one on a plane who was on his way home to Ontario for his monthly visit with his wife and kids. By the time he got on the Edmonton-to-Toronto red eye, he had already been on two other flights and was facing a fourth to get him back to Sudbury. He hadn't slept in over 24 hours and he was having a really hard time sleeping on the cramped and chilly WestJet flight, finally opting to lay his head on his food tray with his arm over his eyes. He moaned frequently. He looked like death.

Then there was the guy I knew who gave up his job and his home for one of those great paying jobs out in Ft. McMurray. He was back within three months, full of tales of broken promises, abusive bosses and unaffordable and unlivable housing.

Temporary workers, exploitive conditions, disrupted families, artificially inflated living costs, and health consequences that are only just now being understood. This is the social reality of the tar sands mining industry.

3) "But am I proud of this industry? You bet. It's a world leader."

A world leader in what - size? Certainly. But as a sustainable industry that benefits all Canadians and moves us forward into the future, it represents a complete and utter failure.

One proof of this failure is in the recent announcement that the province of Alberta will be running a deficit this year. How can this be? How can the "new economic centre" of Canada find itself so quickly in the red just because of a temporary drop in oil prices? Weren't they using oil revenues to build a budgetary surplus as a cushion against inevitable swings in commodity prices? Oh, right.

Just about every other country with significant energy resources has a national energy policy that to some extent involves public ownership of oil and gas companies so that their citizens have maximum control of, and enjoy maximum benefit from, their own resources.

Canada, on the other hand, has no national energy policy. Such decisions are left entirely to the provinces, and in the case of Alberta they have chosen to abdicate public stewardship of their own resources in favour of making a quick buck by renting them cheap to private corporations who are responsible to no one but their shareholders.

There is nothing to be proud of here, Mr. Ignatieff. And there are far more fundamental problems with the tar sands than their somewhat untidy appearance in the pages of an American magazine.

I think what bothers me the most about Ignatieff's comments is the knowledge that from this day forward, no Liberal MP will be able to stand in the House of Commons and object to the Conservative government's lack of action on the tar sands or the environment or energy policy without having these very comments thrown back in their faces by Harper or one of his lackeys.

I am not suggesting that Mr. Ignatieff automatically take the opposite position from the Conservatives on every single issue. That's what we have Jack Layton for. But if his intention here was to appease the citizens of Alberta and build the Liberal Party's fortunes in the west, there are better ways to go about it than becoming an apologist for the tar sands mining industry. Because the people of Alberta are getting screwed here as much as anyone - and most of them know that. They don't need apologies or defences. They need real leadership that will point the way towards responsible, sustainable, beneficial, public stewardship of their land and their resources.

Mr. Ignatieff had an opportunity this week to show that sort of leadership - to show that the Liberal Party can represent a rational middle way between shutting down the oil sands altogether and allowing corporate interests to continue their uncontrolled and destructive exploitation.

In the opinion of this Liberal, he failed.

I Am Jack's Sense of Moral Absolutism

Repeated ad nauseum at Jack Layton's presser today:

“We have a new coalition now on Parliament Hill: It's a coalition between Mr. Harper and Mr. Ignatieff,” said the NDP leader, who dismissed the Liberal amendment as “a fig leaf.”

“Today we have learned that you can't trust Mr. Ignatieff to oppose Mr. Harper. If you oppose Mr. Harper and you want a new government, I urge you to support the NDP.”

And this is why I don't vote NDP anymore. Seriously. Just stop talking, Jack.

Duceppe at least had a coherent - and far more entertaining - criticism of the proposed Liberal amendment:

Today, Mr. Duceppe ridiculed the Liberal proposition, saying the timeline ensures the Conservatives will remain in power until at least the next budget. Mr. Duceppe predicted Mr. Ignatieff will respond to a report in June by saying Canadians want an election during summer like “a hole in the head,” mocking a recent line from the Liberal leader. Mr. Duceppe predicted the Liberals will use the same line again in December to argue there's no appetite for an election over Christmas.

And I agree.

Instead, the Liberals should be insisting on the amendments I suggested yesterday (removing the E.I. wait time and removing the requirement for matching provincial and municipal funds for infrastructure spending). And in fact, a lot of people thought that they were preparing to do just that.

So why didn't they? It's just a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ignatieff proposed just such a thing to Layton last night and was told in no uncertain terms that the NDP would not support anything short of a defeat of the government. Without their support, and given that the Conservatives would resist strongly even minor changes to the wording of their budget, such amendments could never pass. So we are left with a lukewarm and toothless amendment that gives the appearance of accountability but really changes nothing.

Thanks, Jack.

Budget of the Pod People

Watching Jim Flaherty trying to choke out words like "deficit" and "infrastructure spending" in any sort of convincing way was like watching one of the pod people from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" trying to approximate human behaviour but never quite getting it right. The brand new Conservative budget has most of the right elements (and a few very wrong ones), but you can tell that they don't like it, they don't believe in it, and on a fundamental level, they really don't understand it.

The overall effect is that of a paint-by-numbers painting: disjointed, vaguely appealing from a distance, and yet utterly devoid of any overarching theme or vision.

Still, there is very little here that one can specifically object to - at least, not in 100 words or less. Some tax cuts were inevitable, but although they are so low as to be completely ineffective as stimulus (as if they could be effective anyway), they are directed mainly at low and middle income earners instead of corporations, and at least they didn't cut the GST again. They made a token effort at extending E.I., but avoided really addressing the major problems with it. I was glad to see the $400 billion for VIA Rail 'service improvements', but what does that really mean? Are we finally getting the high speed rail link from T.O. to Montreal, or are they just getting new seats?

The biggest issue is the infrastructure spending, which appears to be tied to matching provincial and municipal funds. If this is actually the case (and it seems it is), then they might as well not have bothered because just about every municipality in the country has already set their infrastructure budget and is already maxed out in terms of property taxes.

Oh, and the Canadian film industry got pooched. Again. But yay for the Canadian Television Fund! Now if they'd only start requiring Canadian broadcasters to actually start making and/or carrying Canadian programming again...

As for the deficit, what can I say? Given current circumstances it could hardly have been avoided. But let us never forget that current circumstances are a direct result of Flaherty pissing away the surplus built up by previous governments on vote-buying fripperies such as a two percent GST cut and massive corporate and personal tax cuts.

My advise to Michael Ignatieff, for what it's worth: do what Dion did with the Afghanistan mission. Insist on cheap but essential tweaks such as the elimination of the two week wait time on E.I. benefits and making federal infrastructure spending less contingent on matching funds before you agree to anything.

Otherwise, see you at the ballot box.

And then there's the OTHER Iggy

This guy is going to drive me crazy. He pisses me off so bad, and then he turns around and gives this wonderful, inspirational speech to a bunch of young Liberals in a pub. Not even a speech, because it really seems like he's speaking from the heart.

[grumble]



BTW, is it just me or does he have this whole Martin Landau thing going on?



(h/t to BCer)

Dear Mr. Ignatieff

(I sent the following email to Michael Ignatieff on January 9th. To date, I have received no reply.)

Dear Mr. Ignatieff,

As a proud member and supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada, I would like to express my profound disappointment in the comments you made yesterday in Halifax regarding the situation in Gaza.

Your statements, whether you intend them to or not, are coming across as identical to the position of the Conservative government - and for that matter, that of the Bush administration. I don't know if those comments accurately or fully reflect your true opinions, or if you are simply trying to be cautious and inoffensive. But hearing you echo the simplistic notion that only Hamas is to blame for civilian casualties and anything Israel does in its own defense is justified, only seems to confirm everything your worst critics have said about you.

I agree with your condemnation of Hamas and appreciate your support of Israel's right to defend itself. But surely it is possible for a man of your intellect to express that support, and at the same time articulate something a little stronger than a vague "concern" over the growing humanitarian crisis and the appalling and disproportionate death toll among innocent Palestinians, particularly children.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have been taking to the streets to protest their government's actions. Prominent members of the Jewish community in Toronto and elsewhere have publicly called for an end to Israel's killing of innocent civilians in Gaza while condemning, equally, Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel. And yesterday, Jimmy Carter - who probably knows more about the Middle East than anyone in North America - wrote his own account of the events of the past year which manages to detail Israel's own culpability for the current situation without in any way excusing the actions of Hamas.

If all these people - none of whom could ever be described as 'anti-Israel' - can bring themselves to criticize Israel's blockade of Gaza, the killing of UN aid workers, the bombing of UN schools and other appalling incidents, while simultaneously condemning the attacks on Israel, then surely you can find a way to do the same.

Yours truly,


Jennifer Smith

Oh, Iggy

A study in contrasts, courtesy of National Newswatch. There's this:

Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas'

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's ­doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush ­presidency's ostracising of the group.

And then there's this:

Israel must be allowed to defend itself, says Ignatieff

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says Israel is justified in taking military action to defend itself against attacks by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

"Canada has to support the right of a democratic country to defend itself," he told reporters in Halifax on Thursday after speaking to a forum of business leaders on the economy.

"Israel has been attacked from Gaza, not just last year, but for almost 10 years. They evacuated from Gaza so there is no occupation in Gaza."

"Hamas is a terrorist organization and Canada can't touch Hamas with a 10-foot pole," he said. "Hamas is to blame for organizing and instigating these rocket attacks and then for sheltering among civilian populations."

[headdesk]

Just when I almost sort of start liking the guy, he opens his mouth about foreign policy. Again. Geh.

New Year's Catch Up: Gaza

I've been taking a bit of a blogging break, partly because of the holidays, but also because I've been reluctant to weigh in on the situation in Gaza. Not that I don't have opinions - it just seems like too much of an effort to try to appear to be unbiased when I'm not feeling unbiased at all. But I suppose I can't avoid it forever.

Holiday's over.

To start, I would like to say how disappointed I was with Michael Ignatieff's statement on Gaza. To condemn only Hamas without even acknowledging Israel's culpability both before and during this current conflict was particularly spineless, even for Ignatieff. Sadly, this is exactly the sort of thing we've come to expect from him - it's just a shame that he's now making these sorts of evasive, apologist statements on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Not everyone is busy tap-dancing, however. Today, the BBC cuts through a lot of the bullshit with a surprisingly dispassionate analysis of the murky question of what is and is not being considered a legitimate military target in Gaza.

The bloodied children are clearly civilians; men killed as they launch rockets are undisputedly not. But what about the 40 or so young Hamas police recruits on parade who died in the first wave of Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza?

And weapons caches are clearly military sites – but what about the interior ministry, hit in a strike that killed two medical workers; or the money changer's office, destroyed last week injuring a boy living on the floor above?

As the death toll mounts in Gaza, the thorny question is arising of who and what can be considered a legitimate military target in a territory effectively governed by a group that many in the international community consider a terrorist organisation.

This is also the group that won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 and a year later consolidated its control by force.

...International law’s rules on keeping civilian casualties to a minimum are based on the distinction between "combatants" and "non-combatants".

As Israel launched the first air strikes, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "You - the citizens of Gaza - are not our enemies. Hamas, Jihad and the other terrorist organisations are your enemies, as they are our enemies."

But when an Israeli military spokesman also says things like "anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target," things get complicated.

The International Committee of the Red Cross - guardian of the Geneva Conventions on which international humanitarian law is based - defines a combatant as a person "directly engaged in hostilities".

But Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Benjamin Rutland told the BBC: "Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm."

And the money quote:

As Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch puts it: "Even if you have a legitimate target you can’t just drop 10-tonne bombs on it."

Indeed.

Meanwhile, the CBC is also showing a little spine. I just finished watching Suhana Meharchand call bullshit on Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Ofir Gendelman when he tried to claim that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. She quoted the heads of CARE and other NGOs who have said otherwise and asked if he was calling them liars. Nice.

So what do I think? I think that, ultimately, it doesn't matter what I think. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is too complex and too intractable to be solved by a bunch of bloggers and pundits. I do think we need to speak up - loudly - when obvious violations of human rights and international law are being perpetrated by either side, but any long-term solution is ultimately up to the people of Israel and Palestine.

The only thing that gives me hope is remembering other seemingly insoluble conflicts in places like South Africa and Northern Ireland, that just seemed to end of their own accord one day after decades of violence and stalemate. Sure there were treaties and accords and ceasefires, but those had been made all along and broken dozens of times before without bringing a final end to the violence.

Looking back on it, it seems to me that two factors were key. One was simple weariness, as though the two sides simply tired of fighting one another and decided it was no longer worth the trouble. The other was the integration of former enemies - even those previously branded as 'terrorists' - into the government. The ANC, Sinn Fein, even the Parti Quebecois are examples of supposedly radical factions being elected to govern and, almost overnight, becoming peace-loving, moderate bureaucrats.

I believe this could have happened to Hamas after their election as the legitimate government of the Palestinian Authority. However, the stubborn refusal of Israel and the United States to recognize that government and their subsequent transformation of Gaza into a virtual prison camp, has made that transition all but impossible.

People don't stop fighting because of treaties and accords. They stop fighting when they no longer have a reason to fight and, more importantly, when they have an investment in the peaceful governance of their own lives.

UPDATE: Big H/T to skdadl for introducing us to Eva, who is blogging direct from Gaza as she travels with medics caring and transporting the wounded and the dead.

Skdadl's right - stop reading all us armchair bloviators and go read In Gaza.