Positive Canadian news

It’s easy these days to be completely depressed about Canada and being a Canadian. Heil Harper has brought such disrepute to this nation that it is embarrasing and humiliating to acknowledge that yes I was a voter  when this cancer got elected.

What other nation in the world sends troops into action  – AND REQUIRES THEIR TROOPS TO SHARE A UNIFORM? Heil Harper who is so quick to mouth sanctimonious platitudes and saccharine thanks to the brave men and women in our armed forces, but behind the scenes? – his support comes to this :

“Members of the naval boarding party, the rifle-toting team that searches the pirate boats, were denied military-issued boots, hats and uniforms necessary to do their jobs.

“This resulted in situations where team members were required to share one person’s uniform between them throughout the mission,” said the report by Cmdr. Craig Baines, obtained under the Access to Information Act.”

So wait for it – the next thing will be a spin out of Heil Harper’s office that Cmdr. Craig Baines is the problem and didn’t notify Ottawa and should have done this and that and isn’t protecting his troops. Wait for it. It is never Heil Harper’s fault – it is ALWAYS someone else who has screwed up.

Earlier this week the respected Economist magazine wrote a story about how Heil Harper ” is counting on Canadians’ complacency as he rewrites the rules of his country’s politics to weaken legislative scrutiny.”

In any other democratic country either incident would have its citizens in an uproar but we have come to this that such actions just roll on by us, part of the long list of lies, bullying, and betrayal of basic decency that is the hallmark of this tinpot ruler.

But if Heil Harper is bringing disgrace to Canada, ordinary citizens are doing their bit to demonstrate that Canadians who are not part of the Reform Party government are as good as the Heil Harpers are bad.

In Las Vegas this week, Canadians “are stopping techies in their tracks” with “a perfect office” designed by Martin Carpentier, a web designer at NovelQuest in Quebec City.  NovelQuest has a tiny booth that is lost among the industry giants attending the International Consumer Electronics Show but the scorpion, as Carpentier calls his office, is drawing such crowds that traffic around the booth is almost impossible. Proving yet again that Canadians, apart from Reform Party politicians, can compete and win on the international stage in all categories.

And at the same electronics show, there is yet another Canadian showstopper which is a globe-sized, wireless audio speaker designed by Edifier of Richmond, B.C. It is among a few designs worldwide selected for a Consumer Electronics Show Innovations award.

In a completely different field, we learned this week about an innovative TD Canada Trust program it is pioneering in BC in which it is attempting to make customers of the very vulnerable on welfare who pay as much as $28 to get a government cheque cashed at payday lenders.

I’m fine with the fact that the bank will also benefit from this program and why not? A win-win is always good and this sounds like it truly is just that. I especially like the fact that the payday lenders, who have the same moral compass as Heil Harper, will suffer and who knows, may even be driven out of business. We can dream at least.

So far, about 2,000 people have participated in the program and most maintain active accounts. A small number have opened savings accounts, with some saving the $28 they used to spend at payday lenders.

Good news, badly needed by Canadians who need to know that it is only the Reform government that behaves like louts, accomplishes zip and blames everyone but themselves for their problems. The rest of Canada,  thankfully, continues to demonstrate the initiative and the skills and the decency and compassion that has always been the Canadian hallmark.

Heil Harper

Heil Harper says it all.

This smirking, self-centered, self-satisfied bundle of bullshit was never more clearly revealed as the masterful dissembler of lies and half truths he is than Tuesday night when he spoke to Peter Mansbridge on The National.  His breathtaking twisting of the facts and the truth to justify his actions in undermining Canadian democracy set new lows in political behaviour.

They say we get the government we deserve. What, I wonder, has Canada ever done to deserve this collection of  baboons?

I come to bury Liberals, not to preserve their rotting carcuses

I’ve been waiting for 10 months now for the Liberal Party to get off its butt and start acting like the party I used to know and support. I’ve now come to the sad conclusion that it can’t get off its butt because it is no longer alive. What we have is the rotting hulk of a once great Party now smelling out all corners of the land.

When Harper  got the Governor General to swallow a lot of codswallop that allowed him to duck a bullet last December, I thought finally the Liberals would waken from their long slumber. I anticipated the party would begin to hammer away at the ridiculous Reform Party now governing the nation and would come forth with alternative policies and programs to get us back on our feet again.

I know – what planet was I on?

I watched as the hapless Stephan Dion wandered through the minefield of a possible coalition government and then was heartened by the Party’s decisive action in getting Mr. Dion to step down without all-out war erupting. The decision to install Mr. Ignatieff without having him face party members across the country or facing other aspirants such as Bob Rae didn’t seem kosher at the time and now, even if it was kosher it was obviously the worst mistake the party could have made.

Ignatieff hasn’t been tempered by the fire a leadership race creates. He hasn’t had to answer tough questions from party members who want to know what the hell he’s going to do to improve trade, increase R&D, establish stronger and deeper ties with the BRIC countries and the European Union, rebuild our infrastructure, deal with education needs across the country and with pressing health care issues. Add the environment, the need for overhauling agencies, boards and commissions that no longer have mandates to deal with real problems in real ways – our airlines, our banks, our communications structures, and our management of national resources to mention just a few and there is no end of debate and discussion needed to determine where we should be going as a nation and how we’re going to get there.

Harper’s band of dimwits have no clue about what the issues are, locked as they are in a myopic belief that if we turned the clocks back 15 years and cut taxes all would be well. Most Canadians recognize that for the utter bullshit it is but the trouble is they aren’t hearing any alternative at all, so although it looks and smells and acts like bullshit, and if there’s no counter suggestions from the Liberals then maybe it’s bullshit that isn’t so objectionable.

And so we have witnessed over the last 8 months a party that has waffled and wiffled and whined and whinged and said and done not one damn thing to make anyone want to support it. Ignatieff has stepped in every political cow pie Harper has thrown in front of him. He has made a fool of himself over will he or won’t he call an election. He disappeared from sight for all of June, July and August, and then he let himself be packaged in the ridiculous puffy ads that remind me so much of The Land is Strong campaign that Trudeau ran in his first effort at re-election. If you want a low water mark for all-time worst campaign and political leadership that’s it. However, I think we will soon have a new low, courtesy of Mr. Ignatieff.  He is showing daily that just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.

The Dennis Coderre follies of the past week indicate just how badly everything is spinning off course. You don’t let that kind of embarrassment happen if you’re any kind of leader. Long before Coderre stepped to the mikes and blew off his leader, Ignatieff should have convened a meeting and hammered out a solution that kept family laundry in the family washroom. He could have and should have turned for help to long-time Liberals in Quebec, of whom there are quite a number, to get advice as to how to resolve things. But clearly he was caught off guard and off balance. And that’s the whole damn trouble.

Can he recoup? He could but he won’t because there first has to be a hard, clear-eyed, cold assessment of what’s wrong and then a similar decision about what’s to be done and what’s to be changed.

Above all Ignatieff needs to define what he stands for and where he wants to take the country should it be foolish enough to give him the keys to the car. He should call a major policy convention but it may be too late to do that. He needs to bring Bob Rae very much to the fore and assign him to speak on key issues. He needs to identify at least 3 or 4 others in the party who have some gravitas and can be seen as strong and articulate alternatives to the idiots like Tony Clements who clutter the Tory benches.

Ignatieff needs to stop talking about an election and get on with the job he was elected to do – hammer away at the government as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, provide some alternatives and hold the Reform Party accountable for the mess we are in. Above all, Ignatieff needs to stop navel gazing and he needs to get rid of those around him who’s only perspectives are political spin. If all of that were to happen and if the party is lucky enough not to have any election called before May, then maybe the carcases will turn out to be bodies in hibernation. But given the events of the last 10 months, they look and smell and act like carcuses and I think that’s what they are.

The price of incompetence

I am becoming more and more convinced that sheer incompetence is what ultimately will bring down our world – not evil, not venal politicians, not nuclear holocaust, not religious strife – but plain old incompetence.

The faith we have in our systems is critical to the survival and thriving of a democracy. I believe our faith today is badly cracked, if not shattered and I would argue that it is incompetence, more than any other factor, that is at the root of the problem.

Two interesting examples today – one involving FDR back in 1934 and the other here in Toronto 75 years later.

In 1934, newly minted as US president and full of piss and vinegar, Franklin Roosevelt decided to take on the US Mail. Read about it and weep. FDR was one of the brightest of US presidents and a man who I think we can safely assume had the best interests of his country at heart. But in this particular issue, his actions caused the deaths of 12 men and needlessly and foolishly interfered with the post office meeting its obligations.

Flash forward 75 years and read this in today’s Star. No deaths involved this time but  companies’ businesses in jeopardy, citizens left feeling betrayed, a good idea gone off the rails, and public policy working against the best interests of everyone – government, citizens and business.

No one will convince me that George Smitherman doesn’t care or that he’s indifferent to success. I also don’t buy that he is distracted by the mayoralty politics raging in Toronto right now. George is a big boy and is more than capableof thinking about more than one item at a time. That’s not the problem.

In both these cases, it seems to me, a couple of things happened – a deputy minister or a senior bureaucrat in Ontario and aides to the president in Washington – failed to ask enough questions, to consider the possible weaknesses of the new program, failed to bring in for consultation people who could have told them in 10 minutes why they were heading down the wrong road.

How did this plan in Ontario get past cabinet without the right questions being asked? How did it go through all the filters necessary without someone saying – “whoa – this ain’t gonna work!” How did the president manage to bypass all the fail safes that should have existed to keep him from acting so foolishly and so precipitately?

I suspect the Opposition parties will be all over this like a cheap tent. Their job is to be critical but before the fact, not after the horses have left the barn, and in all the breast beating they’ll do, not one of them will acknowledge that they also asked no questions and raised no issues; their noise is just noise and does nothing to resolve the issue.

Part of our structure of government today sets up this kind of a problem. Ministers are answerable to the young turks in the Premier’s Office and the Premier is grand pooh bah of all he surveys. The days when ministers ran their departments, hired their own staff and truly were accountable are gone. Within cabinets today, discussion is limited almost exclusively to political questions and positioning. It is a very brave and foolhardy minister who dares speak up and question colleagues about something not involving their own ministry. Questions are the domain of the Preem and his boys, not cabinet colleagues.

That system places huge chasms all over the place, just waiting for governments to tumble into. And when that inevitably happens, they scramble to manage the message, contain the damage and keep on trucking. That’s the way government operates today and it is pathetic.

FDR obviously had the power to do as he wanted and in 1934 that was at considerable cost to at least 12 men. The system is different today but the end result is the same. Mistakes pile on top of mistakes, there isn’t time to think clearly about and address the complexity of bills coming before the Legislature or Parliament. Why are we so surprised when slap dash, poorly designed and badly implemented laws result?

It is not evil. It is not a willful disregard for the fate of fellow citizens. It is incompetence, arising out of badly designed systems, lack of time, lack of sober second thoughts, and lack of mature and insightful leadership. It is the fear of speaking truth to power, it is costing us billions every day and it is draining our belief in our political systems. Time for a change.

An election eh?

Are we having an election soon?

Who knows? Who cares? At the moment there’s little difference between the Libs and Reform. Oh sure, the Harper government is as morally bankrupt as any government in Canada has ever been. Under the Chretien government some party idiots stole money and committed breaches of trust. They’ve paid the price for it. So have we all. Paul Martin’s government went down to defeat because the smell test left too many Canadians gagging over the aroma.

Harper’s government steals too, like Canadian citizenship from Canadians who don’t look like them or speak like them, which is white and stupid. If you’re black or brown and reasonably intelligent, you believe your Canadian passport means something. Surprise! When you leave Canadian shores only God knows if you’ll get back to Canada. Ask Suaad Hagi Mohamud.

If I’m going to get stuck with thieves, give me the old fashioned kind who steal money. Money can always be replaced. But liars and racists and bullies and bullshitters cause more damage than 40 thieves times 40 thieves.

Jack Layton? That jackass who decided to back the Reform Party and defeated Paul Martin’s government because they thought the NDP would end up as Official Opposition?  Layton’s arrogance, his misguided self importance and his blindness to what Reform really stands for, resulted in his grab for power and in the process he voted out a universal day care program, new agreements and new approaches to our relationship with Aboriginal peoples across Canada, among other lost legislation. Once reform was in power, the very healthy surplus in the federal budget disappeared and we got a pissant tax cut that nevertheless took billions out of government revenues and has once again left us deep in a financial hole. Vote for Layton? Never. Under any circumstances.

What’s fascinating is the longevity of the cliche that Reform is business-like and good managers of the economy while Liberals are tax and spend maniacs. Every time I hear that bullshit I know I’m looking at someone who hasn’t had a clear, unmuddled thought in years.

In case you’ve forgotten – It was Conservative PM Brian Mulroney’s government that racked up the largest deficit in Canadian history and nearly drowned us in debt. It took almost 10 years of outstanding, prudent fiscal management by Jean Chretien to bring us to a point where we were the healthiest of all the G8 nations when it came to deficits. We had fiscal options of all kinds – until Layton pulled the plug for his own political advancement and Harper took over. In a matter of 4 years we are almost back to where we were when Mulroney was thrown out of office – or rather, poor old Kim Campbell, who “won” the leadership of the PCs and thus became prime minister in time to go to the polls and end up with only 3 Tories elected anywhere in the country.

So why are the Liberals even in the polls with the Reform instead of miles ahead?

Because Michael Ignatieff and his brain trust are following Layton ’s lead – they’re focusing on power and gaining positions instead of talking honestly with Canadians.

If I’m Ignatieff and I’m asked if I’ll raise taxes, my answer is “damn right, and immediately we get elected. This country is in desperate financial condition – AGAIN – because of tax cuts and cuts to government all across the board. Canadians don’t like taxes but they like even less the slow destruction of our infrastructure and our social net. We can’t do what we as a country want to do without all of us paying for it. So yes, I’ll raise taxes. Not a lot and we’ll be particularly careful of those grossing less than $45,000 a year, but if you think the deficit and the loss of programs – everything from safe food inspection, the management of our environment, the way we are building the communications and transportation systems we need, the way we are letting Canadian companies like Nortel be bought out for a pittance – if you want that then Harper’s your man.”

Geez, wouldn’t it be great to hear some honest and straight forward talk for once. But will we? No chance as long as his handlers and advisers are stuck in yesterday and yesterday’s politics. The people have moved way ahead, which is why there are no real leaders – you can’t lead from the rear.

Bill Moyers was on Bill Mahr’s show Friday evening and the two were talking about the US health care debate and quietly bemoaning how the whacko right wing Republicans have taken over the issue from Obama.  Moyers just shook his head and asked how could this happen with a president who so clearly was given a mandate to bring in universal health care. He suggested that Obama’s reasonableness, his willingness to debate and to try to find compromise and to find a way to get a consensual piece of legislation is working against his own best interest. What he needs to do, Moyers said quietly, is to recognize the Democrats have a majority in the House, a majority in the Senate and they control the White House.

What Obama needs to say to the American people, Moyers believes, is “you elected me and health care was a major issue I promised action on. I’m done talking and trying to find a compromise. We will use the muscle (he didn’t say muscle, I’m paraphrasing here) you gave us through the election and we are going to pass the health care bill into being and we’re going to deliver what the American people elected me to deliver.”

Moyers got a spontaneous and prolonged burst of applause – because he’s right. That’s exactly what Obama needs to do. It’s time for action, for using the power the people have given him and letting the chips fall where they may. His job is to bring in universal health care and he needs to show now that he’s tough enough and up to the task. That’s what the American people expect.

It’s time for Ignatieff to follow a similar path. Tell people “yes I’ll raise taxes. Here’s how much, and here’s what we’ll do with the money.”

The great thing about that strategy is that every member of the Liberal Party running for federal office would enjoy the marvelous freedom that only comes when you’re honest – no more bullshit at the door , no more fudging and squirming around in all-candidate debates, no more smarm in election literature.

What would Harper do? Foam at the mouth? Pretty much. Throw every negative advertisement they can muster at the Liberals?  They’re going to anyways so who cares? If Ignatieff tells the truth, lays out in plain English and French where he’s going to take us, and Harper just keeps on being Harper, it’ll be a landslide Liberal victory. Canadians are dying for honesty, for no selfish personal hidden agendas in their political leaders. First one to take that approach wins in a landslide.

Don’t hold your breath. The only leader likely to have taken that approach – and he might not have done so, so pervasive is the desire to “win” – is Bob Rae and no one is asking him and frankly no one gives a rat’s what he thinks. It’s the downside of a coronation.

Michael Bryant, II

The Toronto Star’s handling of the death of Darcy Allan Sheppard and the subsequent charging of Michael Bryant with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, smacks of yellow journalism and the worst kind of excess, more usually found in the US in networks such as FOX and talk radio with Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.

Yesterday the headline on page 1 was “Bryant’s VIP stay in custody criticized“. VIP stay? Because he emerged that afternoon in clean clothes? I don’t know who Edward Sapiano, the so-called “veteran defense lawyer” quoted by the Star thinks he is to suddenly stick his nose into all of this but he certainly is full of it in this case.

Tell me, how many times have you seen people who have been charged with a crime emerging from jail in blood-soaked or torn clothes or filthy clothes etc? Not many because relatives bring some fresh clothes for them to put on before they leave the station if that is needed. This is not VIP treatment – it’s standard procedure  and the police neither encourage nor forbid it – it’s none of their business what clothes the charged individual wears once a decision has been made to release someone either through court order or on their own recognizance.

Staff Sergeant Brian Bowman was absolutely up front that Bryant had been treated differently – and for good reason. As he explained, the case is complex and given that Bryant is so connected within the broad legal community, the police had to find individuals to give them information and advice who did not have a conflict of interest because of a personal relationship with Bryant. Bryant was put into a squad car somewhere around 10:30 on Tuesday night and not released until 2:30 Wednesday afternoon. He was in custody considerably longer than almost any other citizen, under the same circumstances, would have been, for the reasons stated by Sgt. Bowman.

The Star’s provocative headline is tantamount to pouring gasoline on smoldering embers – guaranteed to inflame much of the courier community,  insinuating that Bryant will be given unfair advantages not available to other citizens. Hogwash and the Star editorial staff responsible for allowing that part of the story and for writing the headline ought to be ashamed of itself.  Those responsible at the Star should be reported to the Press Council and the paper ought to apologize publicly for already suggesting that Bryant will be given preferential treatment rather than a fair trial.

Then there’s Rick Salutin’s column with which I strongly disagree. Salutin says the reportage has generally been good, although it depersonalized Mr. Sheppard. I disagree. The focus on the protests that shut down Bloor Street by couriers and other bicyclists presented Mr. Sheppard as a kind-hearted, terrific friend who was getting his life together and who now, tragically, has left a young son without a father’s love and guidance. There have been lots of pictures of disconsolate friends, his grieving girl friend and generally the use of Mr. Sheppard’s death to express anger and outrage over the perceived hostility of the city to all things related to bicycling.

Well, that’s one interpretation. At the same time we learn Mr. Sheppard was involved in an altercation with his girl friend earlier in the evening which resulted in police being called. She is quoted as saying she begged police to take him home because he was too drunk to get there safely on his own  but police made a judgment call that Mr. Sheppard could be left on his own. In that condition, he sounds like a fight looking for a place to happen and he found it.

Nobody deserves to die because they’re drunk or because they are angry or looking for a fight. But just because Mr. Sheppard died doesn’t mean we should now pretend he was a saint who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. His death is tragic and from early reports it sounds like his life was similarly tragic, in which not a lot of good and positive things happened. He does not sound as if he had a teacher who went to bat for him and mentored him, or a parent who stood by him through thick and thin, nor someone who would act as a mentor and help him alter the circle he found himself in. As a Metis, the grinding poverty faced by many of that community and the dearth of federal resources to provide the kind of schooling and counselling and health care needed to break the cycle many find themselves in – it sounds from early reports as if Mr. Sheppard’s life is one more tragic proof  of the effect of all these factors. We cannot do anything to change his fate now, but we need to make sure that the resolution of Mr. Bryant’s situation doesn’t compound the tragedy, either because it sweeps everything under a carpet or because we make an example  of him as some kind of posthumous “sorry” to Mr. Sheppard.

Mr. Bryant seems to have hired a PR firm called Navigator, to help him maneuver the very tricky shoals on which he is now positioned. Rick Salutin is indignant about this – “there’s one element that irritates me severely. It’s the presence, since very early, of a public-relations firm aiding Mr. Bryant.”

Salutin goes on to say “Ms. Reisler of Media Profile says her team urges clients “to speak for themselves.” Why couldn’t that be the end of it? Tell them to get out there and tell the truth, especially if they’re politicians who’ve already faced the news media incessantly. Then the PR mavens could shut up, go home and watch the rest unfold on TV with everybody else.”

Come on Mr. Salutin – this is disingenuous. A guy who has spent his life in the media knows better than anyone the way the press can and does seize on things and blow them sky high, twisting and turning innocent remarks into something ugly or shameful or revealing etc. Pity the poor bastard who runs into a reporter who got up today and decided she’s fed up with politicians and is assigned to the Bryant story. Pity the poor bastard who used to be attorney general and pissed off a reporter who owned a pit bull. Payback time.

Doesn’t happen? Bullroar. It happens everyday in media outlets across North America. Until recently, I thought the Star and the Globe were generally pretty good at keeping most of the outright hatchet work at bay but if I’m in Michael Bryant’s shoes, and thank God I’m not, I want all the help I can get. Navigator certainly would not have been my choice but Mr. Bryant is going to have to wait at least a year, is my guess, before he will get his day in court. Until then, everyone gets to whack away, to pontificate about him, to make statements that have no basis in reality, such as our “veteran defense lawyer” Edward Sapiano’s comments about VIP treatment in jail.

Mr. Bryant is not Joe Blow, who’s name will fade from memory a couple of weeks from now and remain out of memory until the trial begins next year. Mr. Bryant is known and probably recognizable to half the people of Ontario and probably three quarters of the people of Toronto. He has been in politics and if you’ve been in politics and held any kind of senior portfolio you have pissed six people off for every one who thinks you’re OK. Everything Mr. Bryant says and does will be under a white hot spotlight, with the press ready to seize on any excuse for another whack at the story. I’m not surprised Mr. Bryant wants help and someone in his corner to discuss how he’s handling this matter and what he could do, should do. His every word and every gesture will be analyzed in a way that would never happen to an ordinary citizen. If a PR firm gives him support and if he feels he wants what they can offer and if he’s paying for it out of his own pocket, then shut up folks and let him do what anyone else could do without all the editorializing and indignant harrumphing. Salutin, you know better.

An inexplicable tragedy

It’s almost impossible to wrap my mind around Michael Bryant’s behaviour on Monday evening in Toronto which resulted in him killing a bicycle courier with his car.

Various news outlets report that the courier was in an altercation involving his girl friend and police just before the accident, and that the former attorney general deliberately drove on the wrong side of the road brushing against mail boxes and trees in an effort to shake off the tenacious biker’s hold on his car. Whatever the reality, it will be months (if ever) before we have much insight into this inexplicable tragedy played out on one of Toronto’s main thoroughfares.

Whatever the cause, the results are clear. A man in his 40s lost his life unnecessarily. A man in his 40s has lost his life as it was – full of promise and full of activity that was of significant public benefit, to be replaced almost certainly with imprisonment at some point in the next couple of years.

And just as clear, it seems to me, is that rage and hostility between overly aggressive drivers of cars and bicycles will continue to end in needless tragedies if a different approach isn’t found for the two to co-exist in harmony.

There are a couple of other things that are very clear as well. Some people will argue that bicyclists obey the law and are constantly being harassed by overbearing arrogant car drivers who think they are entitled to do as they please once behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle and that people on bikes should be banned from public roadways. Some people will argue that every biker is an arrogant  scofflaw, whizzing through red lights, riding dangerously in and out and around cars while expecting car drivers to anticipate their every move and to give the right-of-way in every instance.

Both views are wrong. There is fault and aggressiveness and mischief on both sides. And there is justifiable frustration and anger on both sides.

I don’t have any answers. I have some questions though:

1. When will we acknowledge that cars and trucks and buses cannot live safely with bicycles on the same roadway? They are separated by size, speed, bulk and stability and they should be separated on different roadways.
2. When are we going to wrest control away from city bureaucrats and politicians who are constantly making movement around this city more and more difficult and more and more dangerous? Think of the ridiculous traffic calming moves that do no such thing, just add to polution and noise and car care costs without in any way making roads more safe.
3. When will we tell the next politician to take a hike who suggests that public transportation will ever replace the North American culture of using cars for work and play?
4. When will we acknowledge the right of everyone to ride a bicycle if that is their choice and to then designate well-chosen thoroughfares as bicycles only, making it possible for bikers to enter the downtown safely and to move around the downtown safely and then to exit the downtown and return to the city’s outer rings safely?
5. When will we replace sewer grates that are deadly to bike tires that get caught in their slots between bars?
6. When will we require bikers to be licensed and to have a valid license plate plainly visible on their bike so the scofflaws can be taken off the roads, much as we take drunk drivers out of the driver’s seat?

I’m not much for every cloud having a silver lining but some benefit might come out of this tragedy. The surprise is not that such an incident could happen. If you are out in the streets of Toronto, whether on bike or in a motorized vehicle, you aren’t in the least surprised that this happened. But who ever would have expected it to happen to Michael Bryant? If it could happen to him then it could happen to any of us. We better get serious about finding some solutions.

The responsibility of government is to act

The post from Lorraine suggests that the Canadian Vice Consul in Kenya “is a woman named Liliane Khadour, who is said to be an Egyptian Canadian.” Lorraine adds that “to the entirely unproven extent we are dealing with any kind of racial animus at all — what we are allegedly confronting is not White-on-black racism, but Arab-on-black racism (the same kind of racism behind the extermination of hundreds of thousands of blacks in Darfur).”

Lorraine then quotes someone named Raza as saying “the actions of Liliane Khadour, who is said to be an Egyptian Canadian, must be seen in context of widespread racism against Black Africans in the Arab World. “There is clear evidence that Black Africans are ill treated by Egyptians and racism against Blacks is widespread in the Arab world. We hope any investigation by Ottawa into the actions of Liliane Khadour will take such racism into account. Other officials involved in this incident should face a reprimand that will serve to be a deterrent to any other consular official who brings their racist views to the workforce.”

This may all well turn out to be true and it needs to be thoroughly explained who appointed Liliane Khadour and how or if she had shown racist biases before this case.

However, notwithstanding the need to examine policies and procedures in our embassies and consulates, none of it excuses Harper and Cannon and the do-nothing Reformers. When news of Ms Mohamud’s situation first became public, either Harper or Cannon should have picked up the phone and taken action immediately. If reporters from the Toronto Star were able to get the whole story, the entire weight of the Canadian government could have resolved the issue in a matter of a couple of days and the government could have brought her home immediately.

Yes racism has operated in this case – that is so obvious to everyone with a brain larger than a pea that the scramble has begun to find someone behind whom the government can hide. Clearly some bureaucrats in Canada’s office in Kenya will bear responsibility and so they should but their political masters are by far the most culpable. They stood by and did nothing – indeed this week, six days after her DNA proved conclusively that Ms Mohamud is who she has claimed to be, the Harper government has dragged its feet and done nothing to bring Ms Mohamud home.

Lawrence Cannon, the minister responsible, has been hiding in his riding, afraid to talk to the press and afraid to be seen in public except at tightly controlled, scripted events in his riding. A loose Cannon or a lost Cannon, or both?

Governments are responsible for the actions of every part of government and for every single action taken by bureaucrats. While no government can stop racist behaviour on the part of its bureaucracy, it can act swiftly and surely to root out racism wherever it rears its ugly head. Or not.

There is a principal in law that if you are part of a group doing harm and you do nothing, then you are as guilty as those actively taking part in the wrong. In the actions or lack thereof of this government, Harper and Cannon have taken on the mantle of racism. Given the outrage felt by decent Canadians across the country about the Mohamud case, there no doubt will now be a huge effort at damage control and we can expect to see “guilty” bureaucrats thrown under the bus as fast as they can be fitted out as lambs for the slaughter.

But it does not matter – it does not change things. Harper and Cannon and this entire government are the ones we need to come for when the guilty are called for.

And the Liberals and Ignatieff and the NDP and Jack Layton, should receive long sentences for abject negligence in not fulfilling their role as Opposition Leaders. It is their job to hold the government accountable and to call national attention to grievous government dereliction of duty. Both have been silent. Shame on both of them and shame on their parties as well.

Frothing at the mouth – truth bites too deeply for Reformers

“You are an intolerant, mean spirited, non inclusive, hate mongering, intellectually,ethically and morally challenged, terminally stupid, painfully arrogant, totaly uninformed, pathetically corrupt Liberal moron”

I’m cute, too. And you’re right – I am intolerant, completely intolerant of racism, of treasonous behaviour, of incompetence, of liars, of bullies  – these things annoy the hell out of me. So for as long as those are the characteristics of the federal government and its leader, I’ll continue to focus on it.

As for the rest of your thesaurus harvest, you shouldn’t judge others by what you see in the mirror but know this, if your definition of all those big words puts me in a different camp than shmucks like you then I’m happy. Totally.

I must confess I’ve known some pathetically corrupt Liberal moron’s but they  joined the Reform party, thereby removing all doubt that your adjectives applied.

But today is a glorious day – today is the day Ms Suaad Hagi Mohamud returns to Canada, to her son and friends and family, applauded and admired by all Canadians for her grace and courage in the face of all that has been inflicted on her by an ethically and morally bankrupt federal government.

The more they’re wrong the more they threaten

Say this for the knuckle dragging serfs who slaver at Harper’s feet – they never let the facts interfere with their prejudices. Take a look at the umbrage and high dudgeon they have lathered themselves into over my comments about the Suaad Hagi Muhamud disaster the Harper government has allowed to fester, long long long after it was clear she was a Canadian citizen who should have been returned home to Canada.

Write the truth about the disasters Harper creates and hey – out come the hysterics threatening lawsuits, threatening to tell Big Brother – bluster, bluster, bluster. It’s what bullies do. Well, the neat thing about a lawsuit is it brings it all out in the open and we can have a national focus and debate on whether or not the Harper government’s behavior is racist. We can start with Christopher Hume ’s excellent piece in The Star today which was headed Is citizenship now defined by the colour of your skin?

If you live in Canada right now the answer is yes it is. And the more attention we can focus on this the sooner we have a chance to rid our nation of the cancerous government now in place in Ottawa.

At the same time that we debate racism, maybe we can focus national debate on what to call the betrayal of the country’s best interests in letting Nortel be sold off to foreign companies. Harper tried to make that sound like a big favor to Canada when he postured and preened that he wouldn’t likely intervene at a time when he is taking steps “to open markets globally.” Shades of Diefenbaker and the Avro Arrow – except Diefenbaker was smarter and a better prime minister.

I don’t really care whether leaders in business and government around the world fall over laughing at Harper. It’s all gravy for them every time he acts against our own best interests. He guts scientific grants and assistance and he’s more than willing to see us sell out the intellectual property of Nortel. Who does that hurt? Not other nations or other businesses  – only us.  And he supports this stupidity in terms of pretending that he is “opening markets globally”, as if what he says or does matters one jot. This is the same little boy in short pants who decided to teach the Chinese a lesson and tried to dictate terms on which we would condescend to deal with them.

I don’t care if he’s the laughing stock of the international community – I care only that we get rid of him as fast as possible.