Canadians just can’t buy a break from their southern neighbor. Even after all the health care tourists have crossed the border for cheap drugs, the global financial panic has now slithered into national politics. Canada’s conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, is falling victim to opposition-stoked panic that Canada’s prudent financial sector might falter under the “uncaring” control of its economics-trained head of government. That’s the brainchild of a very cynical political campaigner. From a jaunty 15-point poll lead, the Conservatives could now lose to a coalition of Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois, and Greens (who also seem to be dropping in the polls?).

Not that Harper is an innocent victim of spin.

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After weeks of bickering with opposition parties in Parliament, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today that new elections for Parliament would be organized ASAP.

General elections are likely to take place October 14, after ‘Canada’s governor-general announced the dissolution of the parliament.’ (more…)

Tahmena Bokhari is a remarkable young lady. PoliGazette had the pleasure to talk to her. Below follows the interview. (more…)

In the words of Canada’s Human Rights Commission’s senior counsel Ian Fine, the commission is necessary because "there can’t be enough laws against hate."  This during a panel on human right’s commissions in which Fine was caught twice in lies - or glaring ignorance - about the commission’s activities.  Actually, a single law against hate is too many.  But what can Canadians expect from a government agency that believes that "Freedom of speech is an American concept" and has no value as a principle in Canada?  Read it all.

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As Mark Steyn points out, ‘Canada may no longer believe in old-fashioned human rights like free speech and the presumption of innocence, but it’s discovering exciting new “human rights” every day.’ The latest human right discovered by the country’s human rights commission? If you work in a restaurant you have the right not to wash your hands. (more…)

HACER (Hispanic American Center for Economic Research) published an article that first appeared at the Economist about how the Democrats’ anti-NAFTA and anti-free trade rhetoric is hurting America’s image in, especially, both Canada and Mexico (but also in other - especially Latin American - countries). (more…)

Senator for Arizona John McCain reacted to Barack Obama’s constant bashing of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) by saying that the trade deal is worthy of support. He also blasted Obama and Hillary Clinton (who’s also critical of NAFTA in its current shape) by saying that their anti-NAFTA rhetoric may very well “threaten Canada’s contribution to the war in Afghanistan.” (more…)

Senator Barack Obama has criticized NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Agreement - throughout his campaign for president. It has hurt the American economy, he argues, and cost Americans their jobs. As such, he would get away with it once elected president (or change it dramatically). CTV now reports that, while Obama is criticizing NAFTA publicly, his staffers have told Canada not to worry, it’s mere rhetoric. (more…)

“Canada has withdrawn its support for a UN anti-racism conference slated to take place in South Africa next year,” the Globe and Mail reports. The reason: ‘The so-called Durban II conference “has gone completely off the rails” and Canada wants no part of it, said Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity.’ (more…)

There is a direct connection between the legal machinations some call “lawfare” that have ensnared high-profile Canadian writers Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn and the violence perpetrated around the world on a daily basis. That connection is, of course, the religion of Islam, which either has been co-opted into a vehicle for terrorism or has simply rejuvenated its plans to inflict itself on the rest of the world, depending to whom one listens. (more…)

Scott Johnson quotes Alexis De Tocqueville with regards to what Ezra Levent is up against in Canada. Scott is right to point out that what we see happening in Canada was, indeed, predicted by De Tocqueville and I think it’s important to publish the quote here as well.

Above these [citizens] an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. (more…)

UPDATE: she has died. May she rest in peace. And may her father and all the others involved be punished more severely that they could ever have imagined. Thanks to commenter David L. for updating us all.

A 16-year old girl, reportedly called Aqsa Parvez, refused to wear the hijab (the headscarf worn by some Muslim women). Her father got angry with her and tried to force her to wear it. She, however, didn’t give in.

The result? She’s now in the hospital in critical condition after her father strangled her.

In case you’re wondering where this happened, in what Arab country: the village’s name is Mississauga. That’s in Canada. (more…)

According to Canadian newspapers that is.

Kate: “Yesterday one of those daily “financial report” blurbettes common to talk radio advised that Canada’s job making machine was continuing to create employment, despite the economic downturn in the US. It was no more that 15 seconds later that the same analyst offered that job growth figures just released in the US exceeded expectations, along with signifcant increases in wages. She adds: “That’s pretty typical. If you were walled off in a room somewhere in Chilliwack, with only the CBC and CTV as your sources, you could be forgiven for wondering if America will ever be released from a 7 year recession.”

Ah, well, you know. Truthiness and all that.

At the OxBlog - a fascinating op-ed written by Taylor Owen and David Eaves, which was also published in the Toronto Star. The subject: opium abroad and opium at home.

Needless to say, this story is now generating disgust around the world, the intensity of some of the reactions (and comments on this site) is quite remarkable. At higher levels reactions have been swift too with a debate in Canadian parliament yesterday:

“This is a tragic and grievous incident,” Mr. Day told the House of Commons. “We want to find out answers that can prevent these things from happening in the future.”

But Day, the federal Public Security Minister, refused to commit to a public inquiry though at this point. Given that the victim, Robert Dziekanski, was a Polish immigrant, Warzaw has entered the fray too:

Poland’s ambassador to Canada said Thursday the conduct of the four Mounties who tasered a Polish immigrant was out of line and called for immediate measures to prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate.

Other worthwhile links for more on this case are the Canadian blog The Politic which offers some terse commentary here and British Columbia’s key webzine The Tyee.

Remember my original post Beware Air Travel? Here is one of the comments it yielded:

It seems odd to criticize the ‘incompetence’ of the security personnel without mentioning the behavior of the passenger. He (and the other woman who recently died under similar circumstances) may be innocent in terms of terrorist risk, but that’s not the point: they’re being subdued because they’re posing a direct threat to the passengers and staff in the terminal with their irrational and violent behavior.

It is was a fair comment at the time, but as some suspected the ‘threat’ wasn’t all that urgent. We can now test this assumption against the video footage that Canadian authorities released yesterday. If you can stomach watching this go ahead, but do not think you will find any material that would support the continued use of Tasers by security personnel.

Once more: we are increasingly equipping our law enforcement apparatus (be it in the US or Canada) with tools and training that appear to be overly focused on ‘conflict ending’ rather than ‘conflict resolution’. That trend is unacceptable for any free society and needs to be reversed.

David Frum summarizes the current state of political affairs in his home country. The unexpected and prolonged strength of Stephen Harper’s minority conservative government, combined with a steady move towards to right on the provincial level, has in only a few years time turned around Canada. It was an overdue process of political re-alignment which has been assisted by high commodity prices, fueling a booming economy. It is up to Harper to sustain this unusual alignment of the stars, something which will continue to be a difficult balancing act.

OK, this happened earlier this week, but in the spirit of my earlier post on this matter, I believe we should keep telling the world that the Dalai Lama is a welcome visitor. True to form, Beijing reacted with its usual bromides, ranging from ‘gross interference in China’s internal affairs’ to ‘disgusting behavior’. The latter of course would more aptly describe the act of shooting at refugees.

Kate McMillan of the well-known Canadian blog ‘Small Dead Animals’ has written a fascinating piece about the upcoming elections in her home province, Sasketchewan. In it she explains how huge economic potential can be throttled by a decade old psychosis:

While it seems cliche to mention it some 70 years later, the psychology behind what has been called Saskatchewan’s “politics of fear and envy” still traces its origins to the dustbowl depression of the 1930’s and the profound psychic impact it had on the province and its politics. It was in the dustbowl era that the predecessor to the NDP, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was born. The CCF pledged that they would not “rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialized planning,” a program that has adherents in the province and some would argue - in the NDP government - to this day.

The consensus is that Sasketchewan has the natural resource base to rival Canada’s economic wunderkind Alberta. On November 7 we will know if it can be unlocked at which point the dustbowl may finally be put there where it belongs, in history books.

Was thrown into Canadian Parliament yesterday by PM Stephen Harper. Although not exactly the conservative agenda that some initially projected, it is one that will force the Liberal opposition to eat it or face an election in which they run the risk of a serious defeat. So, if the Liberal opposition abstains or otherwise finds a way to express its discontent without triggering an election and thus accepting the new conservative agenda it will underwrite this inconvenient piece of truth: (more…)

Not long after the tragic and unnecessary death of Carol Ann Gotbaum another unruly traveler has died, this time of Taser inflicted injuries at Vancouver’s airport, this weekend:

The death of a middle-aged man at Vancouver airport after being stunned twice by an electric shock from a taser gun sparked new appeals yesterday for a moratorium on police use of the high-powered weapon.

The man in his 40s began behaving wildly in the international arrivals lounge of the Vancouver airport. He was sweating profusely, yelling, tipping his luggage cart over and throwing chairs about, RCMP spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre said. He grabbed a computer off a desk at an arrival gate and was pounding on windows.

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About a month ago I touched on how funding for religious schools had become the decisive issue in Ontario’s election campaign. It turned out last night that the conservative position on this issue and the subsequent moves it made in order to do damage control benefited the Liberal Party which as a poorly performing incumbent went into the campaign on the defensive. One of Canada’s pre-eminent political commentators, Andrew Coyne explains:

The province of Ontario has a GDP of more than half a trillion dollars. It has a population of over 12 million. It is a great big province, with great strengths and great weaknesses: decrepit infrastructure, a vulnerable manufacturing base, mediocre public services.

Yet it has just spent an entire election campaign frightening itself to death over a proposal to spend $400-million — less than one half of 1% of the provincial budget — to bring 50,000 kids into the public school system: 2% of provincial enrolment. Eek! A mouse! (more…)

Canada is gearing up for the October 16 Throne Speech in which Stephen Harper will lay out a revamped agenda. As a minority leader, he will need the buy-in from at least one of the opposition parties in order to survive and there are increasing rumors that he will serve up a menu of conservative initiatives that will leave the largest opposition party, the Liberals, in no other position than to vote against the speech and thus the government down in a no-confidence vote.

Harper is well-positioned to take this risk. The Liberal party is in disarray: its leader’s position is far from secure, its organization in key battleground province Quebec is collapsing and its coffers are not nearly as full as the conservative party’s healthy campaign fund. On top of that, Canada is on a roll: it once again produced a record budget surplus, it today released the lowest unemployment number in 30-years and the dollar, better known as the “Loonie”, has now comfortably surpassed the US Dollar.

Harper has two options: use the Throne Speech to engineer his own defeat and gamble on doing well in a general election or force the opposition parties to eat up a menu of tax cuts, tough-on-crime legislation, an open-ended involvement in Afghanistan and a new homebaked climate plan that will render Canada’s signature on the Kyoto Treaty meaningless.

Stay tuned, exciting times ahead in Ottawa.

As a pro-American and free-market resident of Canada I have always been extraordinary pleased with the benefits offered by the NAFTA treaty, sort of what we would call the Reagan-Mulroney legacy. Yet free trade in Canada has always been a decisive issue, and the left often uses it as key evidence that Canada’s sovereignty has steadily eroded by the slash-and-burn capitalism that Americans, thanks to NAFTA, brought in across the 49^th parallel. And at times even conservatives have made these arguments if they felt it gave them some sort of electoral edge.

The same is true south of the border where most recently Obama Barack has toyed with some protectionist ideas. And on the American right it will not take you long to find some paleoconservatives who would gladly erect a wall between Canada and the US given the chance. The protectionist argument has ever since 9/11 been given the added rationale of ‘improved border security’ which so far has resulted in long waiting times at border crossings.

Well, it seems that average Canadians and Americans have a much better sense of free-trade and bilateral relations, according to this poll: (more…)

It has become incredibly popular for today’s conservative politicians to invoke Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and in some cases to seek the actual blessing from the now octogenarian Iron Lady. Last night in Vancouver, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tried to bring the 1980s back to life in order to sell his recently released book, Memoirs.

It is the sort of sentimental journey that gets a conservative crowd into a feisty mood and when Canadians start applauding the Reagan-name, you know there is something interesting going on. Yet, Mulroney’s reach back into history is above all a clear effort to cement his legacy as his record remains mixed at best.  (more…)

Yesterday was election day in Canada, that is, by-elections were held in three Quebec ridings. Although not dramatically shifting the balance in the national parliament, they were seen as indicators of how well the large parties are doing in the French-speaking province since any party wanting to form a majority government needs major traction among the Quebecois. On top of that it was the real first test for the new leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Stéphane Dion, himself a Quebecer. Could he deliver his home turf? And are the Liberals still damaged goods in a province that was the focus of a corruption scandal with liberal footprints all over it?

No and yes – out of the three seats contested one went to the separatist Bloc Quebecois, one to the governing Conservatives of Stephen Harper and the most watched riding of Outremont, Liberal heartland, went to the leftist NDP, a relatively small outfit currently benefiting from deep dissatisfaction with Canada’s traditional liberal centre-left.

This is more than slap in the face for Dion and more than just the extra seat for Harper. The latter has proved that the Conservatives can now successfully break into Quebec and the former will not be in any position to topple Harper’s minority and seek new elections. Dion’s credibility in his home province will now be under intense scrutiny.

It is poignant that Canada’s established media, notably state-owned CBC, had already reached that conclusion prior to the vote by cornering the embattled Dion during an interview on Afghanistan in a fairly unprecedented manner. Many pundits believe that the stage is being set to help Michael Ignatieff in the saddle as the new liberal leader, with the media elites willingly preparing the ground for such a move.

So while the Liberals have now time to think about how wise it would be to gamble an election on the bookish Dion leading the party back to government on issues like the environment and Canada’s role in Afghanistan, Harper has bought himself some valuable time to build a platform on which he should be able to grasp a majority in the near future. And that with the help of francophone Quebec.

Although it is enshrined in their constitution and literally an article of faith for the Dutch, the government funding of religious schools has increasingly been questioned in recent years. The reason is that the time-tested mechanism devised to mitigate tensions between Catholics and Protestants had inadvertently created Muslim schools that hindered the immigrant integration process and also contributed to the radicalization of some Muslim youths. The idea to gut Article 23 therefore came primarily form the right, most notably from Ayaan Hirsi Ali when she was till active in Dutch politics. The Dutch left and faith-based parties opted for a status quo where all religious schools would continue to get funded, with some increased monitoring of Muslim schools.

In Canada the reverse is the case. A bitter election campaign in Canada’s largest province Ontario got underway this week and the incumbent Liberals will have to fight off a Conservative challenge. The latter have staked their campaign on the principle of extending funding – the Ontario taxpayer funds both public and Catholic schools – to all religious schooling. And to up that idea further, Ontario’s conservatives have also suggested that in addition to evolution other theories should now be part of the provincial curriculum.

The proposals are probably a mixture of principled beliefs and some political expediency (Jewish, Muslim and Hindu communities reacted positively to the idea). However the Dutch example has made it clear that there are serious limitations to enthusiastically fund all religious schooling. Especially in a multicultural setting where issues of integration and inclusion are of paramount importance, governments would be well advised to think twice before stepping into the morass of funding religious schools.

It is odd of course that public school reform - curb power of teacher unions, introduce vouchers – does not appear to be on the agenda of either party.

NOTE: If you’re interested in following the Ontario campaign, Warren Kinsella’s blog is probably the place to go. He’s a liberal aide of former PM Chretien, but probably one of Canada’s better commentators. A sort of Canadian Dick Morris.

Bad news for environmentalists: Canada seems to be moving towards the US regarding Kyoto:

This week’s announcement by the Canadian government — that it may join a U.S.-led coalition focused on voluntary emissions cuts — could be part of a global shift away from Kyoto’s binding targets.

In a somewhat surprising development, Canada, a long-time supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, announced that it may want to join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), a six-nation coalition focusing on voluntary emission-reduction steps and technology transfers. Many environmentalists oppose AP6 out of a fear that it may undermine political support for the legally binding Kyoto treaty.

The partnership, launched in mid-2005, is an agreement among six countries — Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States — to develop and share greenhouse-gasreduction technology to combat climate change. According to the AP6 Web site, the six partner countries “represent about half of the world’s economy, population and energy use, and they produce about 65% of the world’s coal, 48% of the world’s steel, 37% of world’s aluminum, and 61% of the world’s cement.” The countries also account for half the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions.

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the Asia-Pacific Partnership is voluntary and technology-based, and lets each country set its own goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions, rather than legally binding them to a greenhouse gas reduction target. The group sees itself as “a voluntary, non-legally binding framework for international co-operation to facilitate the development, diffusion, deployment, and transfer of existing, emerging and longer term cost-effective, cleaner, more efficient technologies and practices.”

The beginning of the end for Kyoto?

I agree with Ed: “If Canada joins the AP6, Kyoto will collapse.”

Is Canada becoming the best friend of American conservatives?

It is quite interesting: in Europe we really did not have much of a debate about Kyoto. Everybody seems to have assumed that signing it was the right thing to do. Sure, there were some factions that were less positive about it, but they were - as far as I can tell and remember - conveniently ignored. Up to this day, there is not much of a debate going on. I imagine that if Canada breaks completely with Kyoto, it will cause quite a stir here, first, and then European conservatives will raise their voices and will try to convince their respective government, to do the same as Canada (did).

And if, and when, that happens, American conservatives will say: “we told you so.”

And they would be right.

Meanwhile, I already pointed this debate / conversation out at the Washington Post with Christine Todd Whitman. I participated in it and asked Christine: “Christine, have you heard that Canada may want to join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate and, therefore, break with Kyoto? What does this mean for Kyoto and for environmentalists? Is Kyoto dead?”

Her answer: “What this recognizes is that it’s been very hard for many of those who signed the protocol to meet the targets, or budgets as they call them. I don’t know whether Kyoto per se is dead, but I do not believe that increased action on the issue of climate change is dead. I think you will continue to see movement and action, but it may not be under the aegis of the Kyoto protocol as we know it.”