The abortion debate

From the CBC:

A Conservative MP is calling for a special committee to examine when human life begins, a call opponents say is an excuse to reopen the debate over abortion.

Stephen Woodworth, who ironically likens himself to be morally equivalent to a nineteenth century feminist (his ideas are definitely situated in that era), believes that “It's simply not legitimate — not even to achieve some important or desired result — for Parliament to accept a law that says that some human beings are not human beings when they are.”

Stephen Harper says his government won’t open the abortion debate but do we really believe this man – known for his tight caucus control – would freely let these motions hit the press if he wasn’t hoping to score at least a few points with Canada’s wingnut fringe?

Liberals are Nazis now

Whoops goes the tongue:

[Bruce Grey-Owen Sound MP Larry] Miller, an opponent of the [long-gun] registry, quoted former Liberal senator Sharon Carstairs as saying that "the registering of hunting rifles is the first step in the social re-engineering of Canadians."

"Mr. Speaker, can you believe that statement? The social engineering of Canadians. Mr. Speaker, that is what Adolf Hitler tried to do in the 1930s," he claimed, over a chorus of catcalls in the Commons.

"The long gun registry is at its core solely about an idea that the Liberals had that guns are inherently evil and must be taken out the hands of the general population. Again, who does that sound like?" Miller said.

Harper and Baird are trying hard to be the world’s best friend to Israel – even if it means dragging us first into World War 3 with Iran – to court the Jewish and wingnut Christian fringe. Too bad for them their caucus occasionally speaks.

Torture away, CSIS

Continuing our government’s pastime of ignoring the evidence, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has advised CSIS that information acquired under torture is useful:

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews quietly told CSIS the government now expects the spy service to "make the protection of life and property its overriding priority" and may under exceptional circumstances share information based on intelligence that may have been derived from the use of torture.

"Information obtained by torture is always discounted. But the problem is, can one safely ignore it when Canadian lives and property are at stake?" Toews said in question period.

YES. Ignore the crap out of it.

Not just because torture is horribly inhumane, but because we know people will say anything under torture. There is no moral, ethical, or practical argument that holds up to justify torture. Of course, that only applies if we assume we have a government that operates with reason at its core.

You can hear the audio and the Q&A below in MP3 format.

Cullen emphasizes the need to reach beyond partisan politics. Noting that more people are members of Mountain Equipment Coop than all political parties in Canada. He defends his joint nomination meeting as a way to work to rectify this issue and put progressive politics back on the agenda. His emphasis is on the local associations making the decision to enact this process and that it is a one-time offer to get electoral reform on the agenda.

He also warns that Harper will gerrymander the new seats - despite the fact that Canada's electoral boundaries are drawn by arm-lengths committees of Elections Canada.

He mentions that he is a secularist who "believes in the separation of church and state", while also a supporter of the progressive church run aid organization KAIROS. This follows his call for putting the monarchy to a vote.

He notes his tendency to commit "exager-Nathans" with regards to his tendency to inflate crowds while saying he did get over 100 new members for the NDP at his Northern Gateway meeting at the Roundhouse that attracted 500 people without pitching for memberships.

He also talks about how the Conservatives walked into the Ethics Committee and demanded that the CBC be their key investigation. He opposed the Conservatives call to drag a judge before the committee, breaking the unspoken separation between the judiciary and legislature. Cullen, as chair of the committee was forced to right the subpoena, but left an out for the judge.

He finishes with an interesting exercise in psychology to note how when we shift patterns things become uncomfortable but we slowly adapt until what was once awkward becomes the norm. He relates this to politics by noticing that we need to recognize the discomfort that shifts in thinking require, but that they are possible.

Overall, a good speech, up to par with the expectations he's been setting. I haven't finished listening to the Q&A yet, so I don't have any comments to add on that audio.

Nathan Cullen speech

Nathan Cullen Q&A (quieter)

Either case will be better then what we have now, obviously, but in either case we’re still stuck with these schmucks in our chamber of “sober second thought.”

Some of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s newly-appointed senators are emerging as global-warming skeptics in the wake of aggressive government positions to abandon the Kyoto Protocol, slam environmentalists and downplay potential damage caused by Canadian oil and gas exploration.

“I felt like it is kind of an insult to be a denier for a long time,” said Sen. Bert Brown, last month at a parliamentary committee studying energy policies. “It feels pretty good this morning.”

…

“I have to admit that what I read tells me that there is not a consensus among scientists,” [Senator Nancy] Greene Raine, another senator appointed by Harper, told the committee when it heard from Environment Minister Peter Kent, earlier last fall. “There are many different points of view and different kinds of research happening out there. One of the things that I am starting to see now is quite a few studies showing that we may be heading into a period of global cooling, which would maybe be a lot more problematic for Canada than global warming. Our country is on the cool side.”

Imagine for a second that a progressive government gets in to the House of Commons and passes the Jack Layton Climate Change Accountability Act. Once again, we’ll have to suffer through this ineffectual body blocking the legislation that could actually put some science-based targets on our emissions.

The only thing that may save our country is Harper’s own Senate-reform legislation that may force these senators to resign after 9 years.

Of course, then we may run into the situation where the senators realize the law has no teeth without a constitutional amendment and they refuse to step aside.

I don’t have much else to add. Basically we’re screwed.

He argues that one of the keys to the success of the Conservatives is that they have identified and sold their brand as “small government and individual liberty.” He rightly notes that their actions often contradict their own brand, but in marketing beliefs matter more than reality (this is why people still equate fiscally conservative with fiscally responsible).

He goes on to note that the only brand the Liberals have been holding onto is “the party that governs.” This worked fine when the Liberals were in power, or even in Official Opposition, since they were the natural alternative. Now, as a third-place party, though, the Liberals continue to look arrogant and like they stand for nothing.

He finishes by arguing that the Liberals should adopt a core theme of being “socially liberal and fiscally conservative” to differentiate themselves from both the Conservatives and the NDP. Gardner otherwise ignores the NDP in this piece, so it’s up to us to come up with what their key message is, perhaps “progress through cooperation” or more cheekily “The party that Jack built.” Going through the NDP’s preamble leaves it a bit ambiguous what the key message should be.

And here’s where the first chip in Gardner’s article appears.

While the idea of branding is pushed hard by marketing execs and gurus, it remains unclear if the evidence actually supports the notion that having a solid brand will improve your sales or whether the converse is the case.

In Hard Facts…, the evidence-based management book I recently reviewed, the authors are quite sceptical of claims that establishing a concrete strategy will lead to organizational success. Instead, they declare it a dangerous half-truth, noting that while strategy is important, leadership and effective implementation is often far more critical.

This point can be demonstrated in the Liberals where Bob Rae’s (interim) leadership has generally been seen as quite successful so far in revitalizing the party, including recent spikes in poll numbers.

Gardner somewhat acknowledges this point near the end of his article when he says

But it takes more than grassroots gab sessions to cultivate an identity and craft it into a brand. It takes calculated leadership of the sort that Stephen Harper deployed to make “small government and individual liberty” the Conservative standard.

I generally like Gardner’s work, and while there is some to like in this piece, it comes off as a weak argument to me, since he failed to really bring in any evidence for his assertion. He cites one example of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives as where effective messaging has worked, but with so many confounding variables (fundraising ability, willingness to smear and lie, increasing the vitriol, never-ending campaigning, centralizing all messaging, etc.) it’s a really weak case. If anything, the Conservative example shows us that strong leaders are more important than simple messages, perhaps the Liberals should keep looking for their next messiah leader (i.e. someone who can communicate).

While Dewar’s event was held in a large condo meeting room, a slightly larger crowd packed into the small backroom of the Railway Club (where Skeptics in the Pub downtown meets) to meet Nash. While Dewar’s event had pop, chips, veggies, cookies, and some leftover Halloween candy, Nash’s event had veggies and mini-sandwiches – a happy sight since I hadn’t had time to find dinner. Sadly it was still a cash bar, but I wouldn’t hold that against any candidate.

Venues and snacks aside, I still didn’t walk away from Nash’s event as impressed as I was with Dewar. I met a friend there and we were both a little underwhelmed with the buzz and feel-good fluff that composed most of her speech.

I re-listened to it again this morning and I think the above characterization is a bit harsh, but listen yourself:

Peggy Nash speech

I think she planned on taking more questions later in the evening, but I was getting a bit tired and the room was hot, noisy, and crowded, so I snuck off, had a beer, and went home.

Her speech focussed a lot on what we need to differently than Harper, specifically focussing on the economy, becoming the greenest country, and working together as a country. Proposals may come later, but after witnessing the winning policy-heavy campaigns of Naheed Nenshi and Alison Redford, it makes me long for something more substantive.

The final thing I’ll say about her event is that while she attracted an enthusiastic crowd of all ages, it was a very heterogeneous crowd – predominantly Caucasian. Perhaps this was due to the venue and location difference, but it was a bit striking.

Regardless, I haven’t written her off after last night, but I was much more impressed with Paul Dewar last night.

After meeting Thomas Mulcair last week, last night I raced around Vancouver and got to meet NDP leadership candidates Paul Dewar and Peggy Nash. Last night was a busy evening as I ran from SFU in Burnaby to King Edward Village (at Knight and Kingsway) for a meeting with Paul Dewar to the Railway Club downtown for Peggy Nash’s event.

My best advice is that you shouldn’t try to do this. After each of these events I like time to sit and collect my thoughts and impressions about the candidate, but this time I was running from one event to the other and only just made it in time for Nash’s speech. Luckily, I grabbed a video of Dewar and the audio of Nash (the lighting in pubs is too poor for good video) so you and I can review their speeches today.

My initial impressions though are that Paul Dewar quite exceeded my expectations, while Peggy Nash was a bit underwhelming. Since I have quite a bit to say, I’ll cover Paul Dewar first and post about Peggy Nash’s event in a subsequent post.

This is perhaps mostly because I wasn’t sure what to expect from Dewar. I’ve never really heard him speak, and I had partially written him off after being disappointed by his religious views. Yet last night he came off smart, articulate, friendly, and focussed on issues. Unlike Thomas Mulcair who cruised the bar quickly, shaking hands but failing to really connect with anyone, Dewar seemed genuinely interested in everyone he spoke to.

When he spoke to issues about how to promote social democratic values, he talked about the need to promote positive policies that will prove that social democracy is good for the economy. His example, dear to my heart as a masters of science student, was our current (and arguably failing) approach of giving research tax credits to industry. He says we should instead be looking to places with better success, like the German model of investing in public research institutions.

He also suggested establishing a national green energy grid to get renewable electricity efficiently across the country. I could see some federal-provincial conflict here, but I think it’s better to be too visionary than too cautious here.

In the question and answers he was also asked about the Israel-Palestine issue. As foreign affairs critic, Dewar had little trouble establishing a firm and respectable position. He fully supports a two-state solution established peacefully. Canada’s role, he argued, was to start doing our parts again, and to act as a leader to other countries. By getting each country to do a little bit, he says the peace process will get moving again. Specifically, our part involves reinvesting in the UNRWA who help out on the ground in Palestine and by supporting refugee programs – both things Canada used to do.

He was also asked about growing the party, to which he didn’t just give platitudes about the grassroots, but called for more on the ground organizers, and constituency associations in every riding.

The event organizers basically had to cut him off from taking more questions, but he also answered a question about the Occupy protests. He says New Democrats get the protests and should fight not just for tax fairness, but tax justice. He ruled out any sales tax increases and promised to recover money from tax havens. He was also asked about his position on unions in the NDP, to which he said they are an important part as unions helped form the NDP, but that union values are also NDP values and that the NDP needs to fight for those rights (pensions, labour laws, etc.) for everyone. Finally, federal NDP candidate Meena Wong asked about how to increase diversity in the party, to which Dewar responded that we need to keep reaching out in the same way that Jack Layton and Olivia Chow reached out to her.

Also in the audience was Sheryl Palm, wife of MP Don Davies (who was in the air during the meeting). She said she hadn’t made up her mind, but lived so close to the event that it was worth checking out.

I will finally mention that the event had a very diverse audience with young and old, and a mix of ethnicities. It may have just been partially a function of the area, but it was definitely a promising mix.

Paul Dewar will be back in Vancouver on November 20th and will be speaking for my riding, Vancouver-Quadra at the NDP constituency association AGM.

Here’s the video of his speech:

The quick question I want to consider this morning is this standard media narrative that whoever wins the NDP leadership must appease Quebec first and foremost.

The standard line of thought is that since the NDP elected 59 MPs in Quebec in May, that they will need a leader who is popular in Quebec and will win over the francophone vote to hold Fortress Layton. The argument is not without merit, the Quebec caucus counts for over half of the total NDP seats, but I still think it is misguided.

Poll numbers and Threehundredeight’s seat projections are starting to suggest that the NDP has reached a ceiling in Quebec. It’s possible that they may squeak a bit higher, but even the Conservatives have trouble breaking 60% in Alberta. Sure 60% will give you all but one seat, but there’s only 75 seats in Quebec. A gain of 15% in Quebec would translate to 10-12 more seats in total while potentially risking seats in BC and Alberta to Western isolationism.

In the next election there will be 30 new MPs. 3 of these MPs will come from Quebec while 27 will be scattered across BC, Alberta, and Ontario. If the NDP wants to form the next government, they need to win these provinces. Ontario alone will account for over 1/3 of the seats in the country.

The NDP currently has no seats in Saskatchewan despite winning 32% of the vote there. Meanwhile they only have 35 seats in BC, Alberta, and Ontario combined (minus one vacated by Jack Layton, RIP). In 2014 these four provinces will total 211 seats.

Whoever wants to be the next prime minister doesn’t need to win Quebec. He or she needs to be able to hold the majority of those seats, but also needs to reach out strongly to the West.

The NDP was born in the West, now it’s time to take it back.

Now, NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp comes right out with out:

Brian Topp is boldly going where most Canadian politicians fear to tread: promising to make the wealthy pay more in taxes.

The perceived frontrunner in the NDP leadership race wants his party to make higher income taxes for high-income earners a key plank in its next election campaign platform.

He told The Canadian Press he intends to unveil a detailed proposal in the weeks to come.

"I will be talking about income taxes and I think it's time for our party to step up to that plate and to be pretty clear about that because then we'll have a mandate to act if we're elected," Topp said in a wide-ranging interview.

He also called for a hike in corporate taxes and did not rule out a sales tax increase "at some point," once the fragile economy is on surer footing.

I like it though.

With the Occupy protests and growing awareness to the increasing inequality worldwide, calling for a fair tax system is long overdue.

Where Ignatieff went wrong was when he caved to the Conservative attacks. They attacked him for taxes, he fell beck. They attacked on coalitions and cooperation, he fell back.

I see Topp standing up to the attack ads and saying, “Yes, I will raise taxes for the wealthy so that this country can be great.” It will paint a stark picture of the different visions that the NDP and Conservatives have for the country.

One with cradle-to-grave health care and peacekeeping; the other with austerity and peacemaking.

My personal preference is for the underdogs, but so far, Topp is painting a pretty promising picture.

It’s not all flowers though. Topp does go out and suggests that NDP MPs should toe the line and oppose the gun registry

"The fact of the matter is, the money has been spent, the registry is here, police services are using it, the public overwhelmingly supports it, there's no compelling case for dismantling it that isn't emotional," he said.

"There is precedent in our party for letting people sit out a vote. But I could not support arrangements in which members of our caucus vote with the government on this bill."

He may be right, but the evidence of its efficacy is limited at best.

He’s likely going to alienate a few voters in the prairies, which will threaten his chance at expanding where most of the new seats are going. Blowing off the prairie voters like this could have long-term consequences.

First, the Court ruled unanimously that Insite, Vancouver’s Safe Injection Site, could not be shut down as the evidence clearly demonstrated that the facility was saving lives.

Now, the Court has also ruled unanimously that a mere hyperlink cannot count as libel. This gives more room for bloggers who were at risk of lawsuits for using a link to make an additional editorial point.

The decision has a qualifier (as any good ruling should):

However, if a post linking to another site itself contains defamatory material, the poster may be liable in a defamation action.

Basically, if you copy something that defames someone onto your own website, you’re still liable for libel.

This is likely welcome news for fellow-Vancouver blogger Crommunist who is hoping to see the Court strike down our Hate Speech laws in their next big case. I must admit that he’s likely to get his wish, given that Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote the dissenting opinion to the 1990 Supreme Court ruling that had upheld our current laws.

Overall, I don’t believe we ought to be tossing away all anti-hate legislation in favour of a free speech for the loudest approach. Speech can have consequences. While bullying and harassment are already crimes, I believe we ought to be striving for something better as a society. Michael De Dora argues on Rationally Speaking that we can and should legislate morality:

Broadly speaking, morality is the domain of one’s thinking — beliefs, attitudes, and feelings — about the well being of conscious creatures. It concerns right and wrong, good and bad, questions of how we should act toward one another, and the kind of people we should want to be. The legal realm (whether a piece of political legislation or a court decision) is where these beliefs, attitudes, and thoughts are societally enacted. In this sense, the connection between morality and legality is natural and inherent.

But there is another reason to enforce moral norms: if your conscience tells you some action may be causing great harm to society, you have both the right and, I believe, the duty to try to help or correct the situation, through both social and political means. In this sense, we should not be afraid of moralizing. Instead, we should be afraid of not moralizing. The consequence of not moralizing is unchecked harm. The consequence of moralizing is potentially a safer environment and perhaps even a more virtuous populace.

He goes on to qualify his remarks (again, as we all should) stating that we need to be careful of false and unreasonable moral beliefs and laws based on preference rather than morality.

In the land of Hate Speech legislation, I believe there is a moral imperative for us to defeat bigotry. Obviously we can’t just legislate it away, but we can target the worst offenses, those that cause measurable harm. It may not be easy to measure the harm, so I believe we ought to err on the side of liberty, but in many cases it’s quite clear cut. When Lorna Pardy was verbally assaulted by a homophobic “comedian” at a Commercial Drive comedy club, the BC Human Rights Tribunal correctly ruled that Guy Earle was guilty of Hate Speech.

Our actions and speech has consequences. We can’t hide behind the Charter when we cause harm to others. Freedom of religion doesn’t grant the right to beat one’s spouse or mutilate their children, and freedom of speech doesn’t give the right to target hate-fuelled discrimination.

They’ve repeatedly emphasized how the NDP is beholden to Big Labour and tried to force an inquiry into partial union sponsorship of a recent federal conference. They’ve reduced the rights to collective bargaining, forced back to work legislation on Canada Post and threatened it upon Air Canada’s union (a private corporation) before they even walked off the job.

Couple this with Harper’s tendency to use his caucus to introduce slightly more controversial notions as private members bills and you get Greater Vancouver Conservative MP Russ Hiebert’s new private members bill.

The bill’s content is still confidential, but its title shows it will seek to change the rules governing labour organizations under the Income Tax Act, which exempts unions, along with charities and municipalities, from paying taxes. If adopted, the bill will force unions “to apply financial disclosure rules” that are already in place for charities, said a source, given the tax benefit that they receive.

The bill was introduced yesterday, so the contents are available online now [pdf].

Like almost everything the Conservatives have done while in government, they provide no real evidence of what (if any) tax breaks unions receive, a fact not missed by Jim Stanford at the Progressive Economics Forum.

Right now charities, which are able to grant tax receipts for donations in exchange for being non-partisan entities, are the only corporation/society required to make public disclosures of their financials.

What could be interesting, however, would be to go beyond Hieber’s simple bill and require all non-profits to make their books public. Let’s find out what the Fraser Institute and other right-wing think tanks have been receiving and spending money on. Or we could go even further and demand that all corporations, whether or not they’re for profit, must make public their financials. Then we could see how the banks, media giants, and other corporations operate – how much their executives are paid. Some countries like Norway and Finland even require personal income taxes to be made public.

So let’s put the question to Hiebert: Is this a mere partisan attack on an institution responsible for nearly all modern labour reforms or is he willing to consider expanding his bill for the good of the country?

Unfortunately, I think I can guess how he’d answer.