Photo Courtesy of The National Post

How you doing? Sniffly? Sneezy? Got a frog in your throat or a crick in the neck? Do you feel, to use the vernacular, like you want to barf up a lung?

Nope. “Fine.” That’s good to hear. And on that account, I say told you so.

With spring springing and the arrival of longer, warmer days and the promise of fun and excitement in the great outdoors, it’s time to take accounting of the pandemic flu season that just past. Or perhaps that should be non-demic.

I was serving on the Community Editorial Board of my local daily, The Guelph Mercury, this time last year. As the coming swine-flu-pocalypse was starting to break, I waxed sarcastically about the media’s attention to hysteria, and how when all the beans are counted, common medical sense will bear out and all the worry will have been for not.
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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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Machiavelli: Tutoring Canadian Politicians. Photo Credit: Din Merican

“Great men are almost always bad men.”
- Lord Acton

Fortune is a woman, and if you wish to conquer her, you must beat and coerce her. And she always smiles upon the
young man, because he commands her with the greatest audacity.

The Prince
By Niccolo Machiavelli

Because the great English historian had written extensively about liberty and federalism, it should not be surprising that Prime Minister Trudeau had read Lord Acton’s work. And because Machiavelli had written his political books in the early part of the 16th century, it should not be surprising that his work contained sexist and offensive passages such as the foregoing one. What might surprise some readers is the fact that Pierre Trudeau and other prominent political and military leaders have consulted Machiavelli’s books throughout the centuries for their sage advice.
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Photo from www.draplin.com

Seemingly lost amidst the Olympic shuffle last week was an announcement by the Harper government on reaching an agreement with the United States that allowed for Canadian exceptions to the highly contentious “Buy American” regulations. The regulations, imposed last-year by the U.S. government, blocked Canadian manufacturers from bidding on almost $800-billion worth of contracts tied to stimulus spending by the U.S. government.

Given the high-profile nature of the spat and the political capital such an agreement should generate, it seems strange that the Harper government would downplay the announcement by burying it amidst Olympic fever. A closer look at the details of the agreement, however, indicate why this might be the case.
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Photo Credit: media.canada.com

I read with some interest in the Globe and Mail recently of the quashing of a grassroots challenge to a sitting Conservative MP. As reported by Steven Chase, the governing body of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) took over control of Calgary West riding association a few days ago in order to do damage control. What was the damage you ask? The riding association was going to ask its members if it wanted to challenge sitting MP Rob Anders’ appointment as a candidate for the next election. Back in the spring of 2009 the national body of the CPC ruled that they would not allow any challenges to be put forth against any of its sitting MPs, stifling any dissent in the process. Upset by this tacit betrayal of classic Reform dogma, the Calgary West riding was on a path to potentially run a candidate nomination process against Mr Anders. No sooner it seems was this considered than the high ups in the CPC swooped down from their headquarters and stopped the riding association dead in its tracks.  When asked about what appears to be internal strife within the party, national council president John Walsh commented “I am not interested in commenting on internal party matters.” Case closed.
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Photo Credit: blog.nz-online.de

Am I the only Canadian that wishes Barack Obama could be my leader? Politics aside, the man can speak. When he gives a speech, people listen. When Stephen Harper gives a speech, people fall asleep, or at least I do. From the moment Obama took office and said that he would “unclench his fist and extend an open hand,” I was hooked on the man and stopped really listening to whatever it is Stephen Harper says. I paid a hell of a lot more attention to Obama’s most recent State of the Union address than I did to Harpers speech at the World Economic Forum. As I said earlier, I fall asleep staring at his grey head of hair.
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Photo Credit: media.canada.com

I am going to use John Baird as an example for this, since he is “openly” (debatable) gay, but also a member of a party that we associate being ideologically opposed to homosexuality. Ideologies are kind of like really old philosophical theories: They are based on a few central ideas, and then the ideas are applied to a huge variety of situations. Some central Conservative (not necessarily the party) ideas: preservation of society, minimal interference with society/small government, and allowing institutions to create stability.

Of course, none of those would be an election platform, but they become one once you apply them to certain issues. Using institutions to create stability could mean strengthening the justice system, preserving religion, or solidifying the education system. Minimal interference could mean lower taxes, legalizing drugs or prostitution, or eliminating human rights commissions. While many of these conflict (example: preserving society + legalizing currently illegal substances), all of these issues could easily be part of Conservative Party platform in another country for very valid reasons. And what exactly does this have to do with John Baird?
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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: Hamilton Spectator

The PM, proving to be quite uncreative when it comes to governance, has again suspended parliament. As The Economist put it (7 Jan 2010), “Stephen Harper is counting on Canadians’ complacency as he rewrites the rules of his country’s politics to weaken legislative scrutiny.” But the “gathering storm of media criticism” they forecasted is fading from the horizon, as Harper surely assumed. The PM is undoubtedly counting on (or planning) something else to fill up screens over the next months (Olympics, more shimmering stimulus projects, etc.). It is no coincidence that the he will drop the budget the day after parliament reconvenes on 3 March, sure to be filled with so many exciting goodies that we’ll go into a fiscal sugar coma, and the prorogation will hardly be a memory.
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A prorogation rally on Parliament Hill. Photo Credit: Sean Kilpatrick, CP

In all the excitement about prorogation it has become fairly obvious that the vast majority of the Canadian public—present company included—don’t know much about what it actually is. Normally, I use this space to share my opinion, but this time I will preface it with something a little less subjective. Today I would like to present a brief prorogation primer, with a few personal opinions tossed in for good measure.

The fine folks at the Table Research Branch of the House of Commons maintain the House of Commons Compendium, an excellent source of information on how the House and its committees work. If you visit their web page discussing the Parliamentary Cycle, you will find this simple introduction:

“A Parliament is summoned following a general election and continues to exist until it is dissolved (ended) by a proclamation of the Governor General at the request of the Prime Minister. This is followed by another general election. The Constitution sets the maximum lifespan of a Parliament at five years; however, recent changes to the Canada Elections Act provide for fixed date elections every four years.

Each Parliament is made up of one or more sessions, each consisting of a number of separate sittings (meetings), separated by periods of adjournment. Each session, except the final one, ends when Parliament is prorogued by the Governor General. The final session ends with the dissolution of Parliament and the calling of a general election.”

So you see, dear readers, prorogation is not the rare beast that some people believe it to be. It is constitutionally valid and is not morally dubious in and of itself. In fact, Parliament has been prorogued over 100 times. Still though, we are unfamiliar with it and because of that, it makes us a bit edgy. In a perfect world, all Canadians would take a mandatory high school civics class – anything the school system ever taught me about our government is long gone. Yes, the topic can be dry, but so is algebra and they made us learn that too.
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