id suggest watching the "vimy's physical and emotional remains" clip here if you are curious about the vimy ridge monument. haligonian (and acadian) guide mathieu craig, who has the misfortune of being a friend of mine, describes the symbolism and architecture behind the monument quite well. hes articulate, intelligent, and a hell of a lot more endearing and charming than ill ever be - arent you glad canada dispatched him to provide interpretation?
things that are fucked about this whole nation debacle:
1. ignatieff claims he started this:
"They asked us, as a party, to affirm their distinctiveness, their
particular place in the history of our country and I was pleased in my
campaign to do so. And I think we have every reason to say this started
with us.''
its wishy-washy use of progressive language to articulate something that doesnt really contribute to progress definitely bears the mark of ignatieffery.
2. it doesnt mean shit:
duceppe and the governing party both agree this is just a nice bit of sophistry with no real legal consequences. everyone on earth is pretty much supporting it, which means people just like the sound of the phrase 'quebec is a nation within canada' and are reading their own shit into it. harper dreams of his (to borrow a coyneism) belgianization, dion focusses on the 'within canada' bit, charest is already planning a big provincial power grab...
... plus ca change, tards.
3. the only people impressed by this are other sophists:
yep, its ad hominem time again. really, how impressed can you be by "call us a nation, bitch!" answered by "uh, ok, youre a nation... within canada, dweebs!" ... it doesnt even settle the debate, since now it is going to be about defining what nationhood within canada is, and who gets it, and what they get for it.
4. respect for soft sovereigntists plummets at this url:
if this non-binding friendlytalk honestly satisfies your definition of the necessary recognition of quebec as a nation within canada... fuck, i cant even finish this sentence, this whole idea is so stupid. please, this is all you wanted?!? lip service?! yeah, ok.
5. it represents the country of canada's sick obsession with the liberal party of canada as the most popular girl in grade 12 that we all loved to hate but could not resist paying attention to:
this country could not stop fawning over the damn lpc if it tried. everything the liberals do is so noteworthy. harper is unduly mindful of the liberal leadership race and is using the liberal candidates as his collective opposition. duceppe is bringing debates that occur within the liberal party to the house in the form of motions. nobody gives one half of a crap what layton is saying, as usual.
hey quebec, this blog thinks youre a nation, but by nation, we mean whore issue that gets used by every party in time of electoral need. the roc's committment to your little nation game is totally baseless. thats right. it just fits in with the west's maniacal fixation on provincial rights. it fits in with an ignatieffian desire to say big things but mean nothing. dion will twist it, in turn twisting the balls off whatever duceppe wanted this to mean.
in much more earth-shattering nationhood news, sasha said something anti-israel. well, by his standards.
my levels of torontophobia have been unaltered by the recent arrests related to the bomb plot. toronto is still the city my much-vancouvered arse loves to hate (and visits more often than i should admit, which damages my van-cred). i do enjoy myself when i happen to visit, and i hope all you torontonians arent too shook up to forget to make the rest of us jealous with your stupid fancy major league ball team.
canadians arent afraid. id hope we would continue to make decisions with our brains rather than getting hopped up on propaganda and staying paranoid and indoors. keep on keepin on, canada.
yes, hedy fry is absolutely whack... but will your retarded, unable-to-google selves ever get into hot water for callling prince george a neighbourhood instead of a city? probably not.
if you care, you can help this guy ditch his soul-sucking civil service job for a lifetime of philanthropy.
somebody call the waaaahmbulance!
look, ontario. the oil is in alberta. too bad for the rest of us. sure, the alberta government might do something stupid with the money, but c'est la vie. i'm sure the pinch manufacturing industry folk are feeling will have repercussions across the country, but you guys (proceeding from sir john a.) were the ones who decided the peripheral provinces basically do the resource extraction thing while you guys do the brunt of the manufacturing in addition to whatever resource extraction your generous surface area affords you.
the equalization payments will be calculated, and youll just have to live within whatever the number is. welcome to the have-not neighbourhood! bc totally says you can take our "richest-looking ghetto province" crown for as long as youve got the title.
until the federal government busts a trudeau and takes the canadian consumer's interests over those of the oil guys in alberta, you just have to wait it out.
p.s.: using less oil in our everyday lives is a good thing.
im of the opinion that alberta should start putting money away for the future via economic diversification (no, i dont mean private healthcare provision). well, that, and restore some of the more questionable funding cuts.
so, im here in middle o' nowhere, america, sitting in thunderstorms and marvelling at the amount of dairy products people here consume. i feel the urge to step into the canadian blogosphere for a moment, and notice that we/you are still stuck on the gg appointment. slow news season? probably. who wants to hear that the usa is stiffing us on the softwood deal (haha, freud) when we can learn from bourque and others that the jeans got rose to build them a cabinet with secret gun storage?
the flq hasnt killed anyone since the seventies - it was among the darkest chapters of our history but it's thankfully over. the flq is not around anymore. having a governor general who may be close with people the state has deemed safe enough that theyre wandering free building people cabinets is not the biggest deal on earth. the gun thing is tacky, but im sure there are other uses for it, like hiding bottles of screech or adult magazines. i guess one man's murderous animal who builds a cabinet with gun storage is another man's retired freedom fighter.
and i think the 'retired' part hurts hardcore separatists the most. shit's over. the best they can do now is rally the province behind an amorphous question and a plan with no specifics regarding passports, currency, military, the debt, etc. if ottawa fucks up a wee bit, they can stress english canada out by electing bloc politicians who are more populist than sovereigntist. nobodys into nurder or serious treason much these days.
if we believe in rehabilitative justice, we have to move on. are treasonous, separatist canadians still canadian? i think they are. english canada, wake up and smell the fucking tourtiere - some separatists are worried her appointment bangs another nail into the coffin of their cause. they dont want to see canada promote and celebrate these people who are supposed to feel oppressed and alienated. they dont want to see people sympathetic to their cause celebrate the canadian state through service to their country.
dear everyone bitching about jean's dual citizenship,
kindly shut up. dual citizenship does not make you a traitor, nor does it make you less able to perform the duties of governor general (remember, theyre not particularly arduous). her french citizenship doesnt make her a 'french governor' a la samuel de champlain - come on. lots of canadians have dual citizenship, and i dont think theyre particularly treasonous people (except for the ones who skip out on their military service in the old country. cough. ANTONIO. cough).
i have dual citizenship, which is important to my family heritage as well as in terms of providing work/educational opportunities in the old country. really, though, as you can tell from my blog, im as canadian as the rest of youse at heart and in practice.
dual citizenship = still canadian.
got it?
-a
when do we get an aboriginal governor general? it's a symbolic post, and so it would ultimately be little more than a symbolic gesture, but in terms of symbolic gestures, an aboriginal head of state would be significant. if youre thinking that aboriginals may have reservations regarding representing the crown given history or nationalist sentiments, it's interesting to remember that we've had an acadian gg, as well as an unspoken but all-too-frequently cited "it's quebecs turn, like RIGHT NOW" rule.
as youre likely aware, im in the 'scrap the monarchy' camp seeing as im not english and dont really have any allegiance to the british royal family. sure, it's part of our heritage, so let's just make our ties to the monarchy history. they're a family born into their titles in the uk, and we're supposed to invoke them and honour them and use them to imbue parliament with authority because their ancestors helped get people in gear to found the freakin country. collective ancestral respect? yeah, whatever.
i'd be in favour of a republican model where a head of state would be appointed to carry out a largely ceremonial role. ideally, it would be nice if the head of state could be integrated (and in this case, possibly elected) within an aboriginal self-government model, where royal assent was not necessarily a given. of course, the aim of this exercise is meaningful aboriginal participation (and not just to make us settlers feel better about ourselves).
... but do you think belinda's little essay contest doles out the payola for crrrazy ideas like that? hell no. ha.
go canada go. and props to bza - i shamlessly jacked the link off his eljay.
last night, philly c and i went to koerners pub for pitchers o' moosehead and he informed me that a) he updated his blog, and b) he is throwin down some rhymes and making a new album and its a collaboration. we had just made arrangements to chill out on campus, but like two automatons, we walked to koerners pub without even discussing where we were going. in fact, i think we decided we were going to the rose garden, but koerners really does have an irresistible pull.
now i cant say i agree with him on quebec, healthcare, multiculturalism, or u.s. relations, but i have to give him the props for this republican rant:
I'm a big fan of England. They have been the best hegemon in my opinion. I love their culture, their history and their music. However, enough is enough. We have to grow a big penis, assert ourselves and smurf them (aka hitting them in the face with our penis). CUT ALL NON-ECONOMIC TIES TO THE BRITAIN AND ITS MONARCHY. Abolish the Governor-General . Get that hag off the $20 bill. Put Pearson or Diefenbaker on. Better yet, how about Trudeau? It's ridiculous that we still keep useless ties to that country. If we are going to have a figurehead on our bill it would make more sense to have an American president on it all things considered. I'm not advocating for that at all. But I'm just trying to point out how stupid it is to keep those ties. There is little advantage in it.
only philly c can pull off being a libertarian and having a favourite hegemon at the same time. props. he is way cooler than racist grandpa* and he only gets 1/16 of the glory!
(racist grandpa is a codename for a ubc faculty member. you will never know who it is, but you can probably guess. no, he is neither a racist nor a grandpa - that would be making it too easy, wouldnt it)
dear ainges bosses: please do not fire me for work blogging. i just need one teeny weeny little postypoo before work. it gets the blood flowing early in the morning.
i have to wish stephen harper a belated wtf is wrong with you, man given his little anti-bloc outburst. maybe the media and quebecers i know are too complacent, but last id heard, the bloc wasnt actively pursuing sovereignty. in fact, they seemed to have evolved into a regional interest party devoted to making the liberals look as inept and corrupt as possible. sounds like the old alliance, eh? probably makes harper all jealous, wistful, and homesick.
canada day is coming, and ive made no plans of yet. is anything remotely awesome happening in vancouver? maybe ill just spend the day being really canadian by, legally buying 19-year-olds alcohol, or eating ethnic food and calling the people who run the restaurant "new canadians" while feeling really good about our country over maple frappucinos and serious debate about healthcare, which is the most important policy ever.
the impression i get from people in canadian cities is that the dogma of multiculturalism has only really helped white people. race cant be discussed in such fluffy terms. telling ourselves we are inclusive because we are canadian and canada is a mosaic that welcomes immigrants is kind of bullcrap. it's like we've created this lexicon so we can impose our desired image of multiculturalism on ourselves without really addressing internalized racism in any serious sense.
yeah, we're nice, but we havent always been nice. how are we going to learn about racism if we dont give ourselves the language we need to explore it? the word "racist" has become an insult, even though it shouldnt be. it's an adjective that needs to be used to describe oppressive behaviour.
now, im a fob. im a white fob, but im still a fob. nobody spells my last name right - people like to ignore the final consonant and end it with the penultimate vowel because it seems more italian and exotic that way. or because theyre dumb and unattentive, but hey.
apparently michael ignatieff cant become pm because nobody knows how to spell his name. um. am i the *only* person in the entire effing blogosphere who hasnt run into the word "chretian" or "cretian" (the latter may be a cretin's attempt to spell cretin)?
according to a story in the globe and mail, the young liberals got spanked by a few people over their "it's the charter, stupid" buttons printed for the upcoming convention. apparently opponents of same-sex marriage thought the slogan was calling opponents of the initiative 'stupid' ... ylc prez mr diamond, who has never met this card-carrying grit, explained that it was just a catchy james carville reference...
see, when he was going around saying "it's the economy, stupid" the ragin cajun was rewording "keep it simple, stupid" to refer specifically to the context of the clinton campaign. he was making sure election staffers kept their message focussed. this is what politicos do. this is what people in locker rooms do. this is what the tony robbinsesque guy in your office does.
the young libs (or whatever diaper-related term the increasingly insufferable pierre bourque calls us) apparently think same-sex marriage (in relation to the charter) ought to be the focus of liberal policy.
not to get all pithy and thomas friedman on yo' ass by using a anecdotes as evidence, but i asked a few people if they could catch the carville reference. a poli theory student said it was bill clinton and two policy people knew it was carville. a history honours student and two philosophy undergrads had no idea. (n.b: one of the phil undergrads is an ex parliamentary page)
i think the lesson of the day is that policy/elections geeks in poli sci ought to consider that a lot of their beltway/queensway 'stars' are not known or venerated by the public at large, so your little allusions and inside jokes might not go over so well with the hoi polloi who dont consider campaigning and the history of elections to be the most interesting and compelling things ever.
that being said, it *was* intended for intra-party use only... but it *was* picked up by the media since epithets are such attention-grabbers.
(mad props to sinister thoughts)
this sort of thing makes me very proud of all my friends and everyone else who came out. although gays in canada have rights that are unheard of in other jurisdictions and cultures, it's obvious we still have work to do on the acceptance front. the calgary grit is mulling over polling data that translates the issue into potential liberal seat losses.
its not just the conservatives gaining interim ground, here. given martin's amorphous approach to missile defense, it seems anyone who feels strongly about progressive governance is being pushed to the ndp. i reckon the liberals are kind of banking on a shift back towards their friendly big tent approach during the election crunch by raising the spectre of a harperite canada with scary ads or pamphlets that point out the ndp will never make it over the 155-seat mark.
that being said, im having issues with my card-carrying liberal status. my constituency association didnt have a spot for me at the policy convention and im not part of the ubc young liberals, but the southern interior does. even though i have strong familial ties to the area, id feel odd representing them. it is precisely because i am close to people who live there that i appreciate the dichotomy between the mentality on the coast (lotusland) and the okanagan. ultimately, i dont feel these people can be represented by me. i could satiate my unreasonably naive idealism and be a proxy vote for a relative, but i dont know that i can miss two midterms and hand in a paper early. it really is bad timing - only the schmoozy young liberals who get extensions on all their papers with sweet-talking (or avoid doing schoolwork altogether) will be there. it is very likely my big fat X next to the "no, i dont approve of martin" slot wont become a reality.
you have to hand it to the reform party for having that phone-in convention vote back in the day. it would be nice if the liberals could extend the same rights to the grassroots and have a phone-in approval vote, but given that the majority of the underhanded politicking that got martin's coup d'etat off the ground happened at the constituency level, im not sure a party can handle that kind of direct democracy. yeah. we really want grassroots politics to be some kind of noble, beautiful thing, but the truth is pragmatism and corruption affect every level of party politics.
ive seen some ugly things at the hands of the local ndp and conservative/alliance as well, so nobody interpret this as me slagging the liberals for their gain. (in other words, dad, dont read any ndp-love into all this - ha.)
To many, it seems that “Canadian identity” is nothing more than a fleeting catchphrase on a four-year cycle, appearing ... at the Olympic games, as athletes hand-picked from countries too crippled by debt to produce their own comprehensive Olympic programs gather around their adoptive maple leaf which represents the national health care system by which all their performance-enhancement needs are covered – though as the case of the Jamaican-born Ben Johnson illustrates, should any foul play come to light, they can be symbolically repatriated faster than you can say “Head tax.”
-charles demers, seven oaks magazine
i know this is a humour piece, but there's just something odd about characterizing canada's olympic program as the systematic harvesting of talented athletes from the developing world in order to engender patriotism. funny that a leftist online magazine sounds a lot like the xenophobic old european guys at any cafe that shows sports on commercial drive complaining about the number of black people on certain national soccer teams. really, most canadian track aficionados did not 'symbolically repatriate' ben johnson. we're more pissed off at the ioc for allowing his prosecution without investigation of other teams that are clearly engaging in doping (namely, everyone on the damn track).
apparently now his priority is not to be seen as having so many priorities that he makes the act of setting priorities seem redundant. ok. its nice to see that he realises all those things he thought created good optics by being all things for all people actually created bad optics. maybe he will ditch some of his crappy handlers. meh - one can only hope.
right now my priorities are finishing my essays, taking that public policy exam, quitting exam period smoking, straightening my hair, shaving my legs, finding my passport and my e-ticket itinerary, and packing for boston, in that order. im not going to appease interest groups, whether it be my crazy immigrant "do well in school or i will disown you/so i can brag to other fobs about you" parents, my sanctimonious anti-smoking emo straightedge health freak friends, my pro-smoking ghetto italian and quebecois friends, my disturbed by the fact i grow a playoff beard on my legs during exams sister, or my curl-loving nonna who freaks out when i have straight hair.
and everyone knows being a 21 yr old girl is perfectly analogous to running a country :)
the most disturbing part of this charming little anti-canadian montage is that compared to tucker carlson and ann coulter, carolyn parrish looks composed. tee hee. the cutest bit is hearing wolf blitzer rush to reassure parrish that carlson's commentary is often tongue-in-cheek.
ok, yeah, carlson is kidding (presumably) and coulter is so ridiculous im sure her persona is some kind of extended piece of performance art. am i hyper-sensitive to be somewhat offended by these views of canada?
also, on tucker's views of the brain drain - im not "talented" by any stretch of anyones imagination, but id like to point out to carlson that im only going to the usa so i can get the "big american school" phd in order to get hired at a good *canadian* university.
this post is one of many that resulted from conversations with everyone's favourite massachusetts democrat latte-sipping flip-flopper ivory tower academic. moreover, id like to tell the sasha, "hey, mr. propaganda ... do your own research, and stop getting that left wing garbage and throwing it out there for the folks."
being "all j.s. mill about shit," as i like to put it, has its advantages. though the bloc figures into my english canadian/rest-of-canada psyche as a strictly separatist/nationalist party, i am starting to see the perception of the bloc in quebec is quite different. while their predilection towards provincial rights and parochial politics has often led me to believe there are many parallels between the bloc and the reform faction of the conservative party, i continue to characterize the bloc as a strictly separatist party.
it seems quebec doesnt necessarily see it that way.
the more quebecers i talk to (and there arent many of them willing to candidly discuss politics out west), the more i realize the bloc is gaining the trust of quebecers as the threat of a referendum is not taken seriously at all. landry is more representative of the sovereigntist spirit, while the bloc figures into the public sphere as a nationalist, populist, reform-minded party who only pays lip service to separation. the bloc is looking more like a viable alternative as it distances itself from the referendum project, focussing on providing effective opposition to unpopular liberal policies.
other quebecers (mostly anglophone, or federalist expats) believe the bloc is never divorced from the threat its sovereignty aspirations may jeopardize unity. this is largely the view of most liberal mp's and media personalities in english canada, and consequently, the more dominant image of the bloc in the public sphere.
it remains to be seen whether the conservatives will succeed in reframing the bloc as a partner against the liberals, rather than a threat to canadian unity. only then will harpers endeavour look less like political prostitution. working against the canadian right are the same factors which led to the creation of the bloc during mulroney's tenure. maintaining a big-tent party is generally challenging given all the divisive issues in canadian politics, a challenge rendered exponentially more difficult when the big tent is full of reformers veering in antithetical directions (ie the bay street business faction vs socially conservative western canada vs bc libertarians vs the populist quasi-ndp bloc). eventually, the compromises required to keep everyone in the tent may complicate the arrangement to the point of collapse.
i still commend bevilacqua because parochial politics, whether they be western-based or quebec-based, do nothing for unity. there is a subtle difference between continually giving into dominant interest at the expense of minority/equality concerns and being completely uncooperative/failing to fulfill ones responsibility to govern canada in the best concerns of the nation as a whole. the bloc may be more "nationalist" than sovereignty-minded, but the fact remains divisive politics kill the sense of a national interest.
if we dont have that kind of respect for the idea of canada as a nation, we are doomed to proceed as a collection of factions and not as a country.
hmmm.
have any lotusland politics fans been paying attention to the antics of the new minority parliament, or is our aversion to stress leading us to get our political fix from lighter fare, such as the us election circus and impending hans blix visit to ubc?
harper's behaviour this session has been grossly appalling. while rahim jaffer entertains us, harper is busy endorsing asymmetrical federalism in the form of increased constitutional power for the province of québec. for all the complaints the 'western alienation' faction makes about provinces getting equal rights (commonly manifested in the western pastime of making incoherent allegations that québec is taking all our money), this is a curious stance for harper to take. if he intends on extending all these rights to every province, will canada even be a federation anymore?
given the sheer irrationality of his stance, is there any ideological motivation, or is this just an attempt to pander to anyone who will listen?
maurizio bevilacqua, a casualty of martins george w. bush-like predilection to surround himself with yestards (like yes men, but dumber), is sorely missed in cabinet. kudos to him for the following letter which appeared on warren kinsella's blog .
October 19, 2004RE: The new political realities of Canada
Dear Mr. Harper,
As a Member of Parliament I swore an oath, as did you, to uphold this great nation of ours. I recall nothing in the oath that would cause me to espouse schemes that are purposefully divisive in their design and dangerous in their deployment. Nor do I recall anything in the oath that would cause me to form alliances with those who actively seek to carve up this great nation. The oath that I took compels me to speak for Canada.
As Parliament opened the nation witnessed you making a deal with the Bloc. This week Canadians watch as you embrace elements of the ADQ's plan to rename Quebec and Parti Quebecois leader Bernard Landry's referendum strategy to unilaterally declare Quebec's independence and then attempt to negotiate terms with Ottawa.
Canadians are left wondering why you, who have spent the past decade fueling the fires of western alienation, are handing Separatists all they desire? Canadians are left wondering what is quid pro quo? What will the west demand from Quebec in return for a Quebec constitution? What is the real end game in this Harper-Landry alliance?
Mr. Harper you talk about the "new Canadian reality" but in truth if you and Mr. Landry continue down this road Canada simply wont be a reality.
Respectfully submitted,
Maurizio Bevilaqua M.P.
randy white is running for speaker. this isn't motivated by his intimate knowledge and deep love for the rules of canadian debate as outlined by montpetit and marleau, nor is it provoked by a desire to receive dignitaries at kingsmere. it doesn't even have anything to do with a penchant for white gloves and tricorn hats.
randy white is putting his name on the ballot to avoid an acclamation. he fears the newly-implemented free vote selection of the speaker is jeopardized by the fact nobody else is running for the job. naturally, the state of democracy in canada will be bolstered and affirmed by his candidacy!
someone should tell mr white that while appointments are undemocratic, acclamations are not (well, barring conspiratorial behaviour). perhaps he can think of a less superficial way to save canadian democracy, since it means oh so much to him.
wtf - paul martin is keeping adrienne clarkson for another year in order to have an experienced, seasoned GG at the helm in light of the confusion a minority government brings to our delicate legislative system.
i dont think i need to be eloquent - adrienne clarkson has been a crappy governor general. no matter how many hands she shakes or awards she disseminates, she will not be remembered all too fondly. as it stands, her contribution to canadian political life as head of state is reigniting a national passion to criticize the institution of the GG as a waste of taxpayer money. she has failed to distinguish herself as anything but a mooch. shedding her would give martin props among the curmudgeonly economic conservatives and monarchy-bashers populating the (still-alienated - you have work to do, paul) west.
i dont buy this whole "experience" thing. i dont think being the GG is particularly taxing. i think each incoming GG is buttressed by staff who have employment history with rideau hall/on the hill. i strongly doubt it HAS to be ms clarkson at the helm in order to engender stability.
in ms clarkson, martin sees stability. maybe im nuts, but i see complacency and stagnation.
sure, the government may not last longer than a year, so martin may be practical in avoiding the diversion that is a high-profile appointment. in the general sense, this is a sound decision. what makes this course of action irksome is the fact it means retaining this woman as my head of state.
yeah.
good on them! (finally, a story about immigrants being politically involved which doesnt insinuate paul martin membership mass signup foul play.)
he's ba-ack...
though he made himself fairly scarce over the summer, conservative leader stephen harper has returned to our living rooms (and blogs) with some strong words. i cant blame him for desiring time outside the limelight as his party's 99-seat showing likely provoked a time for reckoning. im sure he spent long summer evenings ruminating over the question every leader (save gilles duceppe) ought to have been considering -- where did we go wrong?
as we all witnessed, the martin camp scraped by with the minority by virtue of having convinced canadians that the conservatives are scary social conservatives who will forge a canada we wont recognize. this was manifested most strikingly in the infamous attack ad, launched when liberal geniuses from the land of earnescliffe realized they were losing ground. (curiously, ralph klein also helped bail the liberals out, his anti-medicare noise drowning out anything harper tried to say.)
unfortunately, it worked. a reminder to my fellow canadians: we can't brag to our american friends about our country's rejection of appeals to emotion via negative advertising anymore. but i digress...
harper did two things since emerging from his undisclosed location, which im guessing is the secret headquarters of the canadian branch of the vast right-wing conspiracy. it seems harper is trying to redefine his party in time for the inevitably early return to the polls by dissing the socons and blaming canada for the american response to the mad cow disaster.
social conservatism is a powerful force in western canadian politics -- ask val meredith or russ hiebert -- and a backbone of the party's appeal across the nation. though harper claims he is all for letting the mp's loose in the house, he anticipates running a tighter ship next campaign. a party, harper maintains, is like a team. everyone has to momentarily suppress the wishes of their constituents and their personal philosophy in order to make the leader look more palatable so the team can get ahead. run from the centre, govern from the right.
harper decided to start the political season with a rant on the bse trade issue. the halifax herald coined it best when they asserted a trade dispute involving the usa isnt over until the usa wins, a strategy made possible by all the court-shopping states can do with regards to trade rulings. though harper wants to blame carolyn parrish and bad canada-us relations for the american desire to ban candian beef, that simply isnt a motivating factor in american policymaking. come on, mr harper. the americans are not too concerned with our malicious toronto backbenchers. the canadian cattlemen's association is even siding with martin on this one.
you'll have to do better than this if you want to win canadians over, sir. since you're not too grateful for their insight or support, perhaps a socon purge is in order?
why is that the bottom line?
the popularpierre bourque of bourque newswatch links to a table of athens 2004 medals per country with the phrase "CANADA: ONE MEASLY MEDAL"
im sure heymans and hartley would love to hear "ONE MEASLY MEDAL" in conjunction with their synchro diving bronze.
the canadians ive watched compete who have placed in the top ten have made me proud as a canadian and satisfied that the government has invested in amateur sport. it's obvious there can be more progress in funding for top athletes as canada was criticized by an aussie swim coach who described the effectiveness of merit-based funding as opposed to our current problem of spreading funding too thinly to help anyone.
it frustrates me to see people treat our athletes and coaches this way. they put enough pressure on themselves and the peanut gallery venting like this serves no real purpose. ive always been a dismal athlete and will always be so, no matter how often i go to the gym cos i have the coordination of a total drunk. i have nothing but respect for anyone who makes it to an olympic final. only three competitors medal in each event, and fractions of seconds/points/etc determine who comes 1-3.
(i believe machiavelli refers to this x-factor as fortuna.)
yes, medalling at the olympics has positive consequences for national morale and interest in amateur sport; however, i dont think canada's lack of medals should engender an national outcry or abandonment of amateur sport support. the olympics are a celebration of sport and international cooperation. we gather together to watch records being smashed and sport history being rewritten in real time. surely canadians can be a bit more cosmopolitan and just sit back and enjoy the games.
this country has contributed greatly to the history of sport and will continue to create legends if we establish solid support programs. this debate ought to be raging when funding is allocated and the house of commons is sitting, but it tends to be front page news mostly when the olympics are being televised.
firstly, id like to remark that way more people are reading this terrible little blog than id anticipated. exciting. people find their way here from better blogs and google searches. the most intriguing by far is "chantal hebert" lover ...
a most distinguished kingstonian forwarded me a press release announcing the decoration of hec clouthier, leonard hopkins, and sean conway with the much-coveted renfrew-nipissing-pembroke young liberals honourary life membership. says the email,
Media are welcome to attend the awards presentation and are reminded that Mr. Hopkins' and Mr. Clouthier's presentations are a surprise to them both.im sure the media showed up in droves.
some would argue i'm utterly unsuited to writing a post on television considering i only watch 1-3 hours per week, counting vhs episodes of trailer park boys. i don't think you need to have a sofa with a permanent imprint of your arse to comment on the crtc thing.
pogge has done a brilliant job of dispelling all the stupid fox news vs al jazeera business. i'd like to remind anyone who is still confused that the war is carried out by soldiers in the middle east, not by television stations and regulatory agencies on this continent.
this wall street journal editorial is cute. i've plucked a few gems for your appraisal:
When it comes to Canadian identity, Fox News Channel is apparently a threat. Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, is just another point of view enriching Canadian culture.A few years back the CRTC told Fox it could enter Canada, as long as its 24-hour programming had 35% Canadian content. That may have implied a little too much televised gopher hunting on Baffin Island, so Fox stayed home.
The darkest interpretation of all of this is that Canada's liberal political elites find al-Jazeera's view of the world more compatible than Fox's. The Arab network is always putting the worst face on U.S. policies, while Fox doesn't mind suggesting that it is rooting for America to win when it goes to war.
yes - not extending rights to fox news really highlights how much canadians loooove al-jazeera. i don't think canada is as much of a posterchild for media censorship as the usa is, from tipper gore's crusade to eliminate profane lyrics to the repressive fallout of the janet jackson wardrobe malfunction. we have a few channels and papers that root for america to win when it goes to war - some are even american. there are people making noise about a liberal bias here, but last i checked it wasn't that different in the states. in fact, i hear this kind of thing has been popular since edmund burke explored the deficiencies of the "literary cabal" while reflecting on the revolution in france. for every disparaging comment made about the usa by a canadian politician, there is a scott brison, a pierre pettigrew, a stephen harper who will step up and convincingly commend america. forgetting figureheads, both in the legislatures and the media, of the people who bothered to vote, lots voted conservative.
i think the bigger question is why isn't fox news bothering to learn these things about canada so they can capitalize on them? could you imagine deb gray's candour being put to use on a fox news canada talk panel? she wouldn't be lonely either - there *are* conservatives in the country, they're just not the governing party.
the crtc has instances of meddling and favouritism - the snub of rai internazionale in favour of telelatino comes to mind. for all one could say about the crtc (mr coyne's contribution is another favourite), the wall street journal comments constitute an uninformed rant. that's about all.
speaking of 1-3 hour habits, that's how long i've been sleeping each day this week - it's paper season. for my english class, i wanted to do something exploring a possible dichotomy between machiavelli's body of work and the adjective 'machiavellian' given it is largely based on the prince and only certain aspects of it, anyway. shut up - it's not a theory paper, it's to satisfy an english requirement i never met having transfered from a french university. i'm currently attempting to cobble together something that proceeds from diIulio's famous 'mayberry machiavelli' comment thanks to the godsend i call sasha who is so very generous and patient while i'm freaking out. has w's administration been acting all machiavellian? i'd be glad to hear from people who have read machiavelli and those who just know the definition of the word.
sign this petition and maybe one or two americans will read it and get rid of dubya? says the site, Join a growing group of Canadians that want to prevent the re-election of George W. Bush this November 2nd.
Our mission is simple: to provide a forum for Canadians to show their support for the election of a new United States government.
Show your southern neighbours how you feel! Canadians stand united against the re-election of George Bush. Make a difference - have your voice be heard!
hmm.
tonight, i will share a message sent to me by chicago dave, one of my american friends:
dave: do me a favor and be careful, eh? http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1089149899663_63/?hub=TopStories
i appreciate his concern, but if im not mistaken, his chicago address makes him more geographically vulnerable to risky individuals fleeing brampton.
now, on to other things. it was nice to get back to class after a weekend in the interior with the family that left me really distraught. seeing all these people my age who were married with children made me feel old. sitting in a virginia woolf lecture eating cherries while thinking "gee, my prof is cute" as i scribbled notes into a pink notebook made me feel comfortably young again. moreover, i ended up getting a thoroughly unexpected good mark on an essay i was confident i failed, given that it was essentially another indulgent rant. i'm a bit confused by the comments the prof left me:
bunch of compliments, blah blah blah, i could say something along the lines of "you need to include more of your own voice or pov," but i'd feel silly doing so
like i said, this essay was such a rant. i don't know how i'd put more of my own voice or point of view into it. the conclusion was "orwell and freire operate on the same underlying principle with regard to the dissemination of knowledge. reducing language to a rudimentary tool to explore complex ideas from many approaches is superior to fashioning complex ideas into rudimentary tools which can only be employed in previously established ways." now, if that isn't me talking out of my arse, i don't know what is. oh well.
a lot of people think the results of the past election say canada is fractured along regional lines. i was thinking the sheer number of patronizing québec-conscious anglos fawning over gilles duceppe at the debates was a sign that canada was more united than ever despite the fact we are distinct societies precariously strung together ( and there's nothing wrong with that). separatism isn't scary, it's good at debating. bloody hell, martin even let soft nationalist lapierre be in charge of some things for a few weeks.
in the end, lapierre wasn't the only one who got a gag order - harper hustled to smother uncontrollable flames such as cheryl gallant and randy white. the inadvertent seduction of the roc by country-threatener gilles duceppe occurs the year that the country-threatening social conservative element of the new conservative party is just too scary to some voters. duceppe was not labelled deceitful when he pragmatically downplayed a sovereigntist agenda to challenge the liberals on questions of integrity. conversely, harper didn't get away with his "look polite and mumble something about free votes" shtick when confronted with that big bad charter.
interesting how public reception of the parties reveals it's more reprehensible to be hiding social conservatism in your back pocket than demands for sovereignty.
even exclusively hanging in pinko fortresses around ubc, burnaby, downtown, commercial drive and mount pleasant, i've encountered a curiously high level of heartfelt missives about western politics, either lamenting or praising an apparent central canadian rejection of the party that wanted to dissolve those charter-arsed ties imposed by the eeevil courts hell-bent on universally applying basic rights.
more interesting still is the widespread tendency to analyze the election in terms of regional influence. based on the conservative failure to secure power, it is concluded that atlantic and central canada rejected the west. my favourite conservative andrew coyne insists this regional bias is only apparent when the results are considered within to first-past-the-post restrictions. 308 seats distributed among the parties along the rules of proportional representation would faithfully reflect canadian political preference by giving less popular parties (liberals in the west and québec, conservatives in the east, ndp everywhere) an amount of seats they can distribute regionally. this "less distortionary system" championed by mr. coyne would unite canada by putting the power where the votes are. will this put urban canada at the forefront? curiously, his next post is about luring the urban vote...
i think separatism is on the wane, québec, alberta, or otherwise. this preoccupation with locally-motivated politics isn't so much a harbinger of a canada in crisis, but simply one of the anthony giddens symptoms of globalization.
bear with the dialectic - globalization engenders local perspectives on governance and society as its natural alternatives. giddens goes on to describe the present day as a risk culture that plots itself conscious of manufactured uncertainties. basically, everything we fear is socially constructed, so we get all reflexive.
i reckon i'm arguing canada, as a federation, can be understood in a similar way to the globalization process.
what a can of worms.
