Harper: Playing Hardball Credit: Art Threat

In an earlier posting, I had discussed why certain politicians are more successful than others and the influence of Machiavelli on modern politics. Stephen Harper was cited as one of those successful politicians: someone concerned primarily about his own interests and someone willing to do what it takes to succeed. The recent treatment of Helena Guergis for the missteps that she and her husband Rahim Jaffer are alleged to have committed implies self-centered and tough behaviour on the part of Harper. Harper decided to take merely the word of a semi-anonymous source to justify the call for a police and ethics probe and for turfing her from caucus. Although the allegations could be true, clear evidence does not appear to have been presented. Furthermore, at no time does it appear that Harper asked Guergis for her side of the story nor did he inform her about the nature of the allegations. This behaviour seems to bolster earlier descriptions of Harper as a cold opportunist, and someone not particularly fond of women. Many journalists have pointed out that this behaviour allows Harper to remove unequivocally a difficult cabinet minister from Government and from a relatively safe seat that the Tories will probably win again without Guergis.
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Photo Credit: Canwest News Service

On January 18, the Harper government announced the appointment of a new chair to the Commission for Public Complaints about the RCMP (CPC) – the organization tasked with conducting investigations into complaints about our national police force. Ian McPhail, a lawyer specializing in wills & real estate and a long-time contributor to the Conservative Party was appointed to the position despite having no previous experience in criminal law. In an interview with Colin Freeze of the Globe & Mail, Mr. McPhail told Freeze “you probably know more about the background [of the CPC] than I do”.

Paul Kennedy, the outgoing chair of the CPC expressed concern over McPhail’s qualifications, as well as the seemingly partisan nature of the appointment. Both he and Shirley Heafey, the previous CPC chair, had extensive experience working with federal security and regulatory bodies before taking on the role as chair of the CPC. McPhail’s only experience working with a federal security agency was his week long appointment as vice-chair of the CPC just prior to the January 18th announcement.
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Photo Credit: Vancouver Coastal Health

Lost in the shuffle amid the recent tragedy in Haiti, parliamentary drama and growing Olympic fever, a recent B.C. Court of Appeal ruling stands to reshape the way the Canadian legal system deals with addiction. On January 15, 2010 the Court of Appeal for British Columbia dismissed a federal government appeal to close InSite, Canada’s only supervised safe-injection site. The federal government is widely expected to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, opening the door for a new approach towards Canadian policy in dealing with addiction and substance abuse.

In the 87 page ruling, Justice Huddart wrote that the court dismissed the federal government’s appeal “by reason of the application of the doctrine of interjurisdictional immunity”, which prevents a law from being applied outside of its constitutional jurisdiction. With health care professionals, academics, and courts recognizing InSite as a provider of legitimate health-care services – an area of provincial jurisdiction – the Court of Appeal found that federal drug laws prohibiting the possession of controlled substances were constitutionally unable to override the application of provincial health-care programs. The Court felt that attempts by the federal government to close InSite were an “indisputable intrusion of the federal government into the provision of medical services”.
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Conservative Policy Discussion

I am going to steer away from prorogation for a moment here and bring up some old but interesting points. Perhaps the following can be seen as being applicable to that issue, I leave that to the reader.

Populism=Anti-intellectualism.

I do not intend to engage in a debate about proper criminal justice policy. I intend to prove that Stephen Harper and his Conservatives adopt a position of Anti-intellectualism.

Anti-intellectualism is an ignorant position. Either the Conservative leaders are ignorant or they intentionally champion ignorance. We’ll assume that the Conservative Party knows anti-intellectualism is ignorant. The only logical explanation for a political party’s intentional championing of ignorant policy is to garner votes. The Conservative party champions ignorant policy to garner votes. The Conservative Party banks on voters’ ignorance.
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Photo Credit: Maxpower

The unabashed cowardice of Stephen Harper’s latest move may rekindle the suspicions of many voters come election day. It is safe to surmise, yet early to assume, that Harper is attempting to force the opposition to trigger an election by timing his important confidence motions for the spring of 2010. With two solid election victories under his belt, it is no wonder why Harper might want to take a shot at the long coveted Conservative majority. However, this overly cautious move to suspend government business as a lead up to his big power play harkens back to the Harper from 4 years ago. It is starting to look like the long awaited socially conservative Harper may be stepping into the light.

In his recent interview with Peter Mansbridge the Prime Minister makes no bones about his effort to change his image. He admitted becoming a less partisan leader, yet he openly expressed his contempt for the opposition in his tone and his belittlement of their inquiries into government business. Harper admits that he is anxious and frustrated that Senate Reform has not moved forward, all the while drooling over the new power balance he’ll create with his new Conservative appointees. And worst of all, he admits that he will be looking to these new Conservative Senators to advance crime legislation that has been roundly rejected by our delegates in the Senate. This last hypocrisy is the most telling of what is on the mind of our Prime Minister.
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SALOME a New, Old Solution?
Photo Credit: lovetoknow

The dispensing of heroin by SALOME in Vancouver, although controversial by North American standards, is currently in use in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Australia and has been well demonstrated as successful in a 1995 Liverpool test story. The dispensation of heroin and cocaine in Liverpool was a benchmark case study with startling results in aggravated crime reduction, reduction in property crime, reductions in high use neighbourhood violence, and addict deaths. Not only did the study see reductions in the negative results of addiction, the program also saw increased addict treatment, increased social integration of addicted persons and increased recovery rates. The Chapel Street Program, an anathema to the U.S. war on drugs and the newly chosen path of our current Prime Minister despite attitudes of Canadians in recent polls, shines a clear and brilliant light on a problem that drug criminalization has failed to resolve or abate.

The Chapel Street Clinic in Widnes (a suburb of Liverpool) run by Dr. John Marks until 1995 was the most famous holdout for the old British system of “free drug maintenance,” ended through legislation in 1968. The incredible success of this small Liverpool clinic had been a stark contrast to the documented failure of the other internal and external alternatives. The U.S. government had of course maintained constant pressure on the British government to shut down this glaring example of an approach that flew in the face of American drug war orthodoxy.
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Listening to the retailers association, the RCMP and Imperial Tobacco crying the blues over black-market tobacco is like listening to the cheating husband, his mistress and the wife lamenting over getting too much sex, not enough sex, and not wanting sex.

The first is crying wolf as they benefit from the problem, the second is crying about not getting enough when they aren’t doing anything to advance their cause, and the third is crying foul when they are possibly the source of the problem.

In every province except Quebec, there is an electronic program available to the government to not only monitor tobacco purchases on reserves, but to police off-reserve individuals and make sure they don’t get access to exemptions on tobacco that they are not legally entitled to.

You see, black-market tobacco is not the only problem.  There is also the issue of tax exempt tobacco, legally obtained for the purpose of resale on reserve, and then being sold illegally to off-reserve purchasers. This adds another $1.5 billion in fraud to the $2 billion already mentioned.
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Cigarette prices keep going up and there are increasingly less places one is free to smoke. Cigarettes cannot be shown in stores and cannot be advertised. It is not an illegal habit – it is just an increasingly inconvenient one to enjoy. Even with the stigma of death being attached to each pack and the constant reminder of health repercussions to the smoker and those around them, smoking continues to be seen everywhere. However, it is not just the traditional corporate brands being enjoyed. Many of them are lesser known brands of contraband cigarettes. The National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco and The Canadian Convenience Stores Association recently released a report explaining a connection between illegal cigarettes and organized crime including drug and weapons smuggling. The CCSA points to contraband cigarettes being the primary cause of difficulties felt by convenience store owners around the country.
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Yesterday’s sitting in the House of Commons to scrap the long-gun registry, which currently documents the whereabouts of over 7 million shotguns and rifles, is absolutely terrifying. Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan stated that “the long-gun registry is very efficient at harassing law-abiding farmers and outdoor enthusiasts, while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars”, while a study by the auditor general in 2006 stated that eliminating the long-gun portion of the registry will only save around $3 million a year. The RCMP also stated that in 2007 the registry was used more than 2.5 million times.
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Stabbing incidents in Winnipeg are on the rise.

In Winnipeg violent crime is reaching an all time high. With good reason, many people are citing gang violence as the culprit for the recent spike in shockingly brutal activity. Citizens are turning with raised eyebrows to a provincial government that has been fighting a ‘war on gang violence’ for ten years with little success. In fact the number of serious trauma cases in the city is growing by as much as 10% a year. One 13 year-old boy who, along with his nine year-old sister witnessed a violent altercation between gang members in his neighbourhood said, “…I just wear black or something. If I wear red around here I’ll get shot or something.” Some officials are attributing the recent increase to the availability of weapons on the street, as gun crime is on the rise.

However, it would appear that gang violence is not the cause for the bulk of the full morgue slabs and hospital beds. Only 26% of homicides in Manitoba are gang related. (more…)