A Peaktalk reader wonders if I can handicap the Canadian election. At this juncture, I am not ready to go so far out onto a limb. In fact, despite Conservative party membership, my own vote is now in play.

The best indicator of the election progess is probably the UBC Election Stock Market, historically more accurate than the polls.

So, why have I joined the ranks of the undecideds? Because the Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, has become convinced that the way to win this election is to cosy up to the Qubec separatists, going to far as to offer them a "voice" in international organizations such as UNESCO. Columnist Andrew Coyne puts the argument much better than I can:

If the only lesson Quebecers absorbed from each concession were that blackmail works, that they should never forswear the separatist "option" or fear of giving up their leverage, that would be one thing. But in fact it's worse than that. The more we hollow out federal authority to appease nationalist demands, the more we are confirming Quebecers in the belief that they are already an independent state in all but name, that the federation is at best a kind of cocoon, from which the butterfly of a sovereign Quebec will in time emerge.

I'm not sure I can bring myself to vote for a party so willing to abandon Federalism. So now I'm undecided.

Posted by Ginna Dowler

(Cross-posted in modified form to Gin and Tonic.)

A series of related stories in the National Post this morning. The first, on the front page with a nice photo of a sub breaking through the ice, is a story about how a U.S. sub may have toured the Canadian Arctic. Without us knowing about it of course, as Canada has no ability to detect foreign incursion in our waters.

The second item, describes how the Liberal government ignored the advice of the Defence Department to plow ahead with a purchase of tactical transport planes, as opposed to the heavy lift aircraft on the Canadian Forces' wish list. Canada's lack of strategic airlift is an ongoing problem.

And finally, an article about the non-existence of discussion on the global terrorism threat in this election campaign. No party leader has brought up the topic, and none give particularly good answers in response to the question.

So lets review. The Canadian Forces have no ability to transport themselves quickly, whether it be around the world or across the country. They have no ability to even monitor, let alone defend, our northern territory. The logical conclusion to this is that they have no ability to respond to a terrorist threat, but that's okay, since no one is talking about it. That must mean it's not much of a threat, right? Boy, I wish I could believe that.

In any case, if you needed a more selfish reason to support expansion of the forces, and the purchase of heavy lift aircraft, I will give you my craven self-involved reason.

I live on an island (Vancouver Island), which is in a serious earthquake zone. All respectable geologists and seismologists agree that it's not a question of if the big one will arrive, but when. So you would think the emergency plan of the City of Victoria would acknowledge that threat, and it sort of does. Earthquakes are high on the list of possible emergencies. But the plan explicitly states that citizens are entirely and completely on their own for the first 72 hours. That's the plan, for you Katrina-watchers. After that, the expectation is that the provincial government will ask for help from the federal government (that is, the army), and the army will come and save us.

This made a teeny bit of sense when the nearest army base was just outside Vancouver. That base was closed, and now the nearest help is in Edmonton Alberta. That's 1200 km away (775 miles, if you prefer). Google maps informs me helpfully that it would take a day and a half of driving to get here, assuming you went straight through. Assuming no weather delays. Also assuming you had some way of crossing the body of water between us and the mainland. Which, in the case of a major earthquake which would probably damage or destroy all the ferry terminals, seems unlikely.

So to me, the ability of the army to transport themselves quickly is pretty important on a purely selfish level.

But yeah, the fact that we have to beg transportation from the Americans or Brits or (God help us) the Australians whenever there's a global crisis, that's fun too.

(As an aside, I discussed the situation with someone a while ago, and he didn't think it was a big deal, because the US Army would probably help us. I pointed out that a) that would be the US Army everyone loves to bash, b) wouldn’t they be a bit busy helping out in Seattle, and c) there's the way to stand up for our sovereignty - invite a foreign army to save us!)

Posted by Ginna Dowler

(Cross-posted to Gin and Tonic)

Good morning Peak Talk readers. I'll be with you here until the New Year, and will try to keep you interested. Sadly, I know next to nothing about European politics, and usually rely on Pieter. Most entries will be cross-posted to Gin and Tonic, where comments are enabled. Onwards!

Normally a political junkie, I'm having a great deal of trouble involving myself in the Canadian election. But Andrew at Bound By Gravity has a very good reason why I should be paying attention: Six in Ten Canadians have no idea how they will vote in January.

I find that to be simply an astonishing number. In my memory, the undecided vote has never been so important. For those of you not as familiar with the Canadian electoral system, 40% is easily enough to win a majority in Parliament. So the undecided category, which is purged from most polls, is more than enough to form a government. For comparison, the undecideded percentage going into the 2004 election was, as I recall, around 9% - still enough to have a huge impact.

Which means of course that the conduct of the campaign itself will have more impact than ever before.

Maybe I should get interested.

Posted by Ginna Dowler

Yesterday vs. Tomorrow?

It’s one of the topics that we put to rest here on Peaktalk some time ago – here are the archives if you’re interested - but with a general election campaign in full swing here, anti-Americanism has raised its ugly head again. So much, that we can unfortunately no longer ignore it and are forced to speak out, once more. A similar concern was shared by the US Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins who offered scathing criticism of that peculiar Canadian practice in a speech yesterday:

It may be smart election-year politics to thump your chest and criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner constantly,” Mr. Wilkins said in a speech to the Canadian Club at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa. “But it is a slippery slope, and all of us should hope that it doesn't have a long-term impact on the relationship.”

But on a public level Canadians prefer to be in denial. And that’s not because they dislike Americans or feel that they’re not benefiting economically from a close relationship with the US. From a cultural standpoint they have learned that their sense of nation is not being what it means to be Canadian, but what it is that makes them un-American. Privatized healthcare and gun ownership to name a few are apparently American virtues and that’s why anti-Americanism plays such a pivotal role in an election campaign. A vote for the Conservative Party could potentially mean that time-tested Canadian solutions are going to be changed and adjusted, or may even be abandoned. It may mean that market mechanisms and free individuals are often far better judges than the government in deciding certain matters. That’s why there was such an outcry over the conservative idea to let parents make their own childcare choices; it meant a decisive move away from time tested Canadian solutions for allocating resources. It’s telling that the fear of being identified with America runs so deep that even the leader of the Conservative Party feels compelled to distance himself from a right-of-center Washington newspaper that has recently endorsed him.

Canadians however are not by nature anti-American, nor do I believe after almost seven years of close observation that they are overly Canadian, whatever that means. When questioned or pressured, they can be very pragmatic and many even aspire to American virtues without directly saying so. They’re an odd blend of European and American traditions who somehow have retained a certain way of social-economic thinking much longer than some other parts of the free western world.

The anti-American rhetoric therefore appears to be a battle between the past and the future and given the rapid global changes, is now more intense than ever before. It’s a struggle over who is the dominant player in the economy, a fight over politically correct values, a debate over the extent of individual freedom. A country that has relied on publicly funded healthcare, a moviemaking industry bankrolled by the state and an economy with one of the highest degrees of unionization in the western world will be subject to a rude awakening in the 21st century. Remember the irrational and angry teacher’s strike discussed here a few months back? Part of the same battle. The tide is turning slowly but steadily, and we are seeing it in Germany, in France and we have seen it in Britain and The Netherlands earlier.

The overly institutionalized - and hence corrupt – left is fighting without argument, without logic and has little left but slandering and insulting those who challenge the perfidy of the past that somehow passes for tomorrow’s agenda. And the fear of the unknown, the fear of tomorrow drives Canadians back to those who can convincingly sell the past. There is your anti-Americanism and there’s your hidden agenda. To propose an alternative view, to look for a better tomorrow, it's all essentially un-Canadian.

It also explains the lack of real political progress in Canada as the one party with the ability to effect change and define a vision of Canada’s tomorrow is so fearful of being shut out of power that it campaigns in line with the songbook presented by the incumbents. Sure, they’ve floated a few interesting ideas, but they fail to take the debate beyond yesterday’s battle. No call to put an end to the poisonous anti-Americanism, and no agenda to really liberate market forces where even Europe is driving privatization and deregulation further than ever. Even increased military spending is draped in a sauce of Canadian sovereignty, ignoring the fact that a few generations from now Canadians may well be wearing an American uniform to defend what’s left of the western world. Canada can define the role its plays in that crucial partnership, but the absence of political guts has for now, again, prevented it.

Now contrast this letter from a law abiding gun owner in Canada with the op-ed from Toronto Mayor David Miller (behind a subscriber wall). The latter unequivocally supports a blanket gun ban and actually wants to take things one step further:

If you’re caught with a gun, the courts should treat you the same way they would if you used that gun to commit a crime.

[ ... ]

As far as I’m concerned, sentences for having a gun should be on a par with those handed down for using that weapon in the commission of a crime.

And the childcare debate is part of this pattern too, a national (no doubt heavily unionized) daycare system for all children is at the center of Canada's left election platform. If you want to opt out, fine but you’re on your own, but we will still expect you to fund our childcare monolith nonetheless. No opt outs possible.

And this is not just in Canada, hop over the Atlantic and you’ll find exactly the same phenomenon. Tony Blair has transformed 1970s style socialism into a new brand where global realism and capitalism have a definite place, but when it comes to individual rights the old school tendency to put forward blanket bans is more alive than ever.

Look, I am not a fan of handguns, but I think we're past the stage where we as a society can seriously argue that by addressing the availability of these weapons we can curb criminal behavior. So, to argue for a ban that would only affect recreational users who happen to be subject to very tight licensing requirements already - owning a gun in Canada is illegal - is another example of both the emptiness and backwardness of the Liberal campaign. And so by the way is the mandatory sentencing for drug offenders that the Conservatives have put forward last week which by all accounts is a regressive move.

Both parties have failed to address the immediate needs of safety and security by ensuring that the seriously violent remain behind bars for good. And while we are at it, it’s time for them to engage in some out-of-the-box thinking to help prevent breeding another generation of criminals. The support for stay at home parents while encouraging private economic initiatives appear to be steps in the right direction. You see, one can connect all these issues – even conservatives can play the environmental card if people stay/work at home – but it requires a rare political genius to do so. Yet it would seem to be an obvious strategy. Here’s hoping.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds can't resist this one:

Paul Martin proposes a handgun ban for Canada. Because a ban on rampant political corruption would be too hard to enforce . . . .

In the city of Eilat, Israel, a creative program to restore authority and prevent violence and youth crime is yielding some tangible results. But there's more to it than just enforcing a 'zero tolerance' approach:

"You don't fight darkness with sticks. Sometimes I get the impression that plans to cope with violence actually contain violent aspects and the negation of rights. It is actually a form of surrender [to violence] intended to prove that one has more power," says Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, head of the National Council for the Child. "We do not lack parental authority - we lack parental presence, love and affection. In school, the only effective authority comes from the force of the teacher's personality and not from artificial disciplinary methods."

Yes, simple terms like 'authority', 'responsibility' and 'family' continue to be under pressure in our society. Yesterday's progressives are too clueless to realize that the future of our society can only be secured when we resurrect and protect the core values that helped built it in the first place.

When it comes to coverage of the Canadian general elections, I really want to restrict myself to some occasional commentary only (for regular, good quality, updates check out for instance Jay Currie). Here’s a particular point that needs some emphasis.

The Economist ran a special edition on Canada this week, which for those not too familiar with the place is a must-read induction into its weird political culture. For Canadians it’s pretty much old hat although this little gem is often lost on the inhabitants of the north:

Many Canadians affect not to mind about this prosperity gap. There is more to life than money, they say, and it is worth being a little poorer if that is the price of preserving their social model: a kinder, gentler and more egalitarian capitalism than the heartless version they detect south of the border.

It sounds admirable. But this proud-not-to-win attitude – what one Canadian diplomat has bewailed as a “passion for bronze”- misses the point. If Canadians were more productive, the whole society would be richer. And although the extra wealth might be used for personal consumption, it could also, if Canadians preferred, be used to increase social spending.

Of course The Economist is right. Canadians can have it much better and at the same time indulge in their propensity for social spending. Yet, the political culture is antiquated when compared to for instance Britain and The Netherlands where even the traditional labor parties long ago adopted a strong pro-business platform. The reason for that was terribly simple: for social spending to be sustained the pie of wealth needed to grow. The requirement thus is to grow that pie but amazingly this seems to be anathema to Canada’s spirit, and sadly, to the debate that will help select a new government this coming January.

Canada’s minority Liberal government fell last night, setting the stage for a mid-January election. Good news or bad news?

The signs aren’t very encouraging, and my hopes for a decent debate are marginal given the experience of the last general election, barely a year-and-a-half ago. The election will not be fought over issues that Canadians should really start thinking about such as the future of healthcare, improving cross border relations with the US, security and rolling back a very expensive and highly expansive federal government.

The incumbent Liberals will no doubt play the “fear card” in order to entice voters away from the Conservative Party, while the latter will focus on the corruption and incompetence that has been the hallmark of Liberal rule. For the un-initiated, the fear card revolves around telling Canadians that a conservative vote equals privatization of healthcare and the establishment of a Christian-fundamentalist state where women and gays are set to forfeit all the rights they gained over the past century. Compare it to the 'blue state' take on 'red state' Bush last year, only in Canada such rhetoric actually produces tangible results at the ballot box.

The most interesting development so far is that the Liberals have added some star-power to their ticket by including Harvard scholar Michael Ignatieff, someone who is slated to become their leader if the Liberals lose this election. It was hard for the Liberals to actually find a riding where Ignatieff could run as “he supported the war in Iraq” which turned him into a somewhat complicated electoral option for the Ontario heartland.

As to the outcome, there are essentially three likely scenarios:

• The Liberals retain their minority position which means another period of instability and relentless spending in order to placate the far-left NDP which holds the balance of power;

• The Liberals win a majority, in which case we’ll see a return to Chrétien-era style politics with as a likely further downside another leadership contest halfway which also will bring about instability, and yes, more spending to align certain special interest groups;

• The Conservatives carve out a minority government in which case they will have to rely on the separatist Bloc Quebecois to stay in power. Under this scenario the furtherance of conservative policies will be subject to granting far-reaching concessions to the Bloc up to a point that the minority arrangement is no longer sustainable. If the Bloc hasn’t propelled Canada into a constitutional crisis, then another early election will surely add further, yes, instability.

Ergo, unless the Conservatives pull off the incredible and secure a majority the immediate prospects for Canada are dim, instability remains the name of the game. Canadians are sufficiently disaffected with the Liberals and will not give them a majority, but they have been doing well enough economically and won't demand drastic change by handing a majority to the Conservatives. There’s a need for change, but Canadians just can’t see why they should hand the keys to power to a relatively unknown and inarticulate conservative force while interest rates are low and the value of their homes keeps going up.

One can only hope that the campaign – which pundits view as one that will be particularly nasty – will awake the Canadian heartland and will mark at least the beginning of change. For that to happen the Conservatives, the leftist NDP and the Bloc need to make a serious effort to show Canadians the cheap opportunism and empty shell of ideas that current Prime Minister Paul Martin has been trying to sell them for the past few years, using their money. If the last campaign is any guidance, Martin has a strong ability to self-destruct, but for it to be sufficiently decisive, he needs a helping hand. And it would be nice if in the process conservative leader Stephen Harper is willing to share what he considers to be “morning in Canada”.

NOTE: Here's more on the weird dichotomy that governs Canadian politics:

Paul Martin's Liberals enter an election campaign six percentage points ahead of the Conservatives, but losing ground in Ontario and facing an increased desire for a change of government, a new poll shows.

Canadians, especially Ontarians, are less likely than they were six months ago to see Conservative Leader Stephen Harper as a scary figure with a "hidden agenda," according to a Strategic Counsel survey conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV. But the Ontarians have not embraced Mr. Harper's party, rating the Liberals as better at managing most issues.

It’s not unusual for governments to share market sensitive information with key financial players who may want to adjust their portfolios ahead of certain policy announcements. As a fresh arrival in Asia in the early 1990s my moral compass was often dismissed as being not in sync with the way “markets worked” and that I better get used to Asia's huge number of “unusually wealthy businessmen” who were actually the ones that created the wealth of opportunities for western businesses. And in a way they definitely did, as I had the pleasure of restructuring one of these unusually wealthy men’s billion dollar debt after his friends in the department of finance failed to inform that the markets would start shorting the Thai Baht. He had always believed his government sources would inform him if something were to go amiss and as it turned out, this was a highly questionable insurance policy. Sometimes market forces do prevail.

Anyway, the one western nation where we can probably find a comparable level of government interference in the market place is Canada where another scandal is about to be unveiled, right at the start of a new election campaign:

As federal politicians prepare to hit the campaign trail, the Conservatives and NDP are calling for investigations of alleged insider trading arising from tax policy announcements by Finance Minister Ralph Goodale.

The Tories said Sunday they are writing to the Ontario Securities Commission to demand an inquiry, while the New Democrats want the matter turned over to the RCMP. At issue are events last Wednesday, when there was a spike in trading in income trust units amid speculation that Mr. Goodale was going to change the tax rules that applied to them.

A day to remember. Here are a few select links to quality blogs:

Juliette Ochieng, who takes the opportunity to draw your attention to a very worthwhile charity;

Hootsbuddy's Place;

Kate McMillan;

Tim Worstall;

and Donald Sensing.

And of course there was another milestone speech from George Bush who it seems has found the right tone and content to bring across the challenge we are facing today:

These militants are not just the enemies of America or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and they are the enemies of humanity.

And we have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before, in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, the Cultural Revolution and the killing fields.

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims.

Its leaders pretend to be an aggrieved party representing the powerless against imperial enemies. In truth, they have endless ambitions of imperial domination and they wish to make everyone powerless except themselves.

In Canada, the Gomery Commission released its interim report to the public and the initial read is fairly damaging for the governing Liberals; and in particular for former Prime-Minister Jean Chrétien. As those who are familiar with this affair will know, none of this comes as a real surprise, this blog has always had deep suspicions about Chrétien and his leadership style. The question is now what will happen next. The current Liberal government under Paul Martin is in full damage control and has come up with a number of action points, while the opposition parties are positioning themselves to bring down the government in a no-confidence vote and move to a general election. The latter may not materialize until the full report comes out in February, but things are moving and Martin’s days as Prime-Minister may very well be coming to an end in the months ahead.

Great stuff and if there’s any democracy that needs a swift change of government, it is Canada. And while there are encouraging signs that the conservatives, who have been in opposition for more than a decade, may be able to dislodge the corrupt Liberals from power; change in Canada requires a lot more. Steve Janke is - for now - the Canadian contribution to Pajamas Media and in his profile earlier this week he argued that:

We lack the checks and balances your founding fathers built in -- your very deliberate rock, paper, scissors approach. For example, our Prime Minister has sole discretion to appoint the Supreme Court -- no hearings. Canadians would never have even heard Harriet Miers' name until afterward. We are told, we accept. The U.S. founding fathers realized that government is inherently corrupt, so they distributed the power. We did not do that in Canada.

Yes, we can take comfort from this report and yes, it may inspire a debate among Canadians as to where to take their nation. But the requirements for change are so deep that anyone thinking that Gomery’s findings are a cure for Canada to help it change its corrupt ways and see some political change are deluding themselves. There’s a long road of reform ahead and the resistance among the political elites, the media and the public to go down that road is very strong.

In, of all places, Quebec. A group of business leaders, politicians and journalists released a manifesto arguing that the French-Canadian province - probably the most European juisdiction in North America - must take responsibility by implementing some much needed reform. The document got attention, not just because it reads like a conservative think-tank study saying what no one dares saying, but because one of its co-signatories is Lucien Bouchard. He is one of the province's most renowned politicians and sovereignists, and with this document departs from the deeply held belief that an independent Quebec will solve all the province's economic and social ills. Notable excerpts:

The report that he and the 11 other signatories produced offered plenty to make Quebecers squirm. For example, Quebecers "work less than other North Americans; they retire earlier; they benefit from more generous social programs; both individually and collectively, their credit cards are maxed out," the 10-page document says.

The group proposes a substantial increase in the rates Quebecers pay for electricity to help pay down the debt. It says massive investments in education and research are needed to make the province competitive. It recommends raising university tuition to match other provinces and reforming the tax system so there is less emphasis on income tax.

And to stay on this week's hot topic, some groups are going to have a hard time swallowing some of the proposed medicine:

The group did not include representation from Quebec's powerful trade union movement, which is understandable considering the manifesto's harsh words directed toward current union leadership. "Judging by the way some labour leaders behave today, especially in the public sector, is union action not often limited to the shortsighted protection of members' interests?" the report asks.

That is the only way to describe a political situation where you can’t even get conservatives to support a reduction in corporate taxes.

David Frum, that is. Depsite earlier reports, freedom of the press in Canada is still alive and well.

There was quite a bit of mail about this issue which I discussed earlier this week, here and here. While trying to wrap-up the debate I came across a column by Father Raymond J. De Souza in the National Post who was quite dismayed at the decision to not just ban Islamic arbitration, but any form of faith-based conflict resolution. He put it succinctly:

The decision to penalize Jews in order to avoid a perceived Islamic problem is exactly the sort of weird result one would expect multiculturalist thinking to produce. There is a problem with culture X and because we can’t officially declare Culture X to be deficient in any way, then all cultures must be penalized equally.

“ As an American I have always thought that freedom from religion is the essential guarantee that I will be able to have the freedom to my private religious beliefs or equally non beliefs if that be the case. Freedom of religion is a contract entered into by all members of a society. That contract is only valid if all the parties entering the contract are following the same rules. Sharia law does not accept the rule that women are equal to men ”

This is the core of the argument against allowing sharia arbitration in a western nation, but then I would argue that in other religions there are often also huge discrepancies between the status of men and women, to put it mildly. But my reader is correct that there is an assumption that all parties in a society will abide by the basic rules that guarantee freedom and human rights. And that is exactly why the sharia arbitration has been so difficult to accept, as we know that there is a strong likelihood that it may imperil the basic rights and freedoms of for instance women.

From a personal perspective, I don’t really care about faith-based arbitration all that much. To answer one reader, I have a secular background and am therefore not sufficiently engaged emotionally to argue this case to the bitter end. The reason I have picked it up was that I felt that the broad-brush applied by the McGuinty decision found its origins in the inability to make a distinction between individual religious arrangements using the pervasive “they’re all equal” argument, which they are not. You can treat them as such, or you can treat them as unequal, but all are equally deserving of exercising the same the basic rights. Only if they abuse these rights, you can disqualify the group that is no longer playing according to the rules, but to put them on the sidelines and to abruptly remove all the other players from the field to me is a grotesque use of random state power.

It’s interesting to note that not all conservatives think that way, so to balance the whole thing, an excerpt from Frum:

One more note on the sharia matter: In order to deal with the problem of inconsistency, Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty has closed all religious arbitration bodies, Jewish and Christian as well. For Orthodox Jews in Ontario this may cause some very genuine hardship: They need a dispensation from a rabbinical as well as a secular court in order to remarry. But it is hard to imagine a solution that would have treated Jewish and Christian religious courts in one way and Muslim religious courts in a different way. And since the danger of injustice from sharia courts is very great, it is hard to disagree that Ontario has reached the right solution.

The story of the destruction of Jewish and Christian arbitration as the price of averting sharia law may be an example of a point Daniel Pipes ceaselessly makes: that the effort to integrate a third great religion into the life of the Judaeo-Christian West will not be easy - and will disarrange a very great many arrangements that Westerners have come over many years to regard as natural and harmless.

The sharia debate in Ontario is over (via Nealenews):

Ontario will not become the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of a set of centuries' old religious rules called Shariah law to settle Muslim family disputes, and will ban all religious arbitrations in the province, Premier Dalton McGuinty told The Canadian Press on Sunday.

In a telephone interview with the national news agency, McGuinty announced his government would move quickly to outlaw existing religious tribunals used for years by Christians and Jews under Ontario's Arbitration Act.

Not the outcome I predicted, but the consequences for Catholics and Jews are probably not unexpected , but that doesn't make it the right decision. It does indeed feel like a drastic approach that fails to take account of the rights and traditions of other groups, so let's see if this legislation stands the test of being challenged under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And let's also see how the various religious groups will react to this surpise move.

UPDATE: Excellent commentary at Civitatensis who appear to be one of the few to understand what is going on here.

ONE MORE UPDATE: Another important observation from David Mader:

Now I'm going to suggest a positive reason why Sharia tribunals ought to be allowed: banning such tribunals only reinforces the sense that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Sharia tribunals subject to common-law oversight would have demonstrated the ease of compatibility even as it suggested that certain aspects of Sharia would have to be modified to make it compatible with western law. In other words, it would have gently nudged Muslims in the west towards an interpretation of Sharia that would be more reflective of western norms.

Here’s something to chew on over the weekend: the plans of the government of Ontario to allow the application of sharia in settling civil disputes under its provincial Arbitration Act.

I’ve written about this issue before and argued that you can’t realistically deny a practice to one religion while allowing it to others as long as the application of that religious law does not violate basic constitutional rights. And it seems that in this case, there are ample constitutional safeguards. Yes, there will definitely be aberrations, but that shouldn’t result in giving preferential treatment to one religion over another. A similar argument is made here, and the National Post – hardly a defender of the Muslim cause – who came with up a comprehensive editorial today which I will summarize for you as it’s behind a subscriber wall. Their argument is fourfold:

1. Sharia is based on a voluntary ‘opt-in’ 2. All rulings are ultimately subject to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, meaning that discriminatory rulings against women would be struck down; 3. The application of sharia in Ontario is subject to certain conditions protecting women’s rights the result of which is a very watered down version of Sharia; 4. Similar arbitration rights have been granted to Jews and Catholics and there is no good reason to not allow Muslims to apply the same rights.

But the implications of this issue go far deeper. Those that argue that secular law should be the norm and that all forms of faih-based arbitration should consequently be banned have to realize that it would create an entirely different debate. Firstly, it would bring out those of whatever religious denomination arguing that the state cannot interfere with certain clerical traditions, which are in turn guaranteed as a religious freedom. Secondly, the entire concept of arbitration would be undermined by opening the door to the option of settling all commercial and civil disputes by the state. It would put an end to one of free market capitalism’s time-tested traditions of conflict resolution: arbitration. If you’re interested in that scenario, by all means take on the Ontario government and its plans to allow a limited form of sharia.

NOTE: Another way to look at this is to see whether allowing certain forms of religious arbitration meet the test of "plurality, subject to unity". And, is it not the case that if you regulate something it will alllow you to keep an eye on it? Would we favor driving sharia courts underground?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali points to the limitations of Iraq’s new constitution in a column for WSJ’s OpinionJournal:

Hamam Hamoudi, the head of Iraq's constitution committee, refuses to discuss the article that worries the Muslim women. He also refused to put in the draft constitution that men and women have equal rights, creating a bizarre situation whereby the women had more rights under Saddam Hussein's regime than in post-Saddam Iraq. Mr. Hamoudi insists that women will have full economic and political rights, but the overwhelming evidence shows that when Shariah--which gives a husband complete control over his wife--is in place, women have little chance to exercise any political rights. Does Mr. Hamoudi realize that it took the removal of Saddam and the establishment of a multiparty democracy for men to vote, while if his draft constitution is ratified, women will need the permission of their husbands to step out of the house in order to mark their ballot?

Now that Spain's socialists have been in power for more than a year, Iberian Notes has a round-up of the key issues combined with some well-meant advice for Spain's conservative opposition:

Part of our problem is image. Our least popular leaders are Acebes and Zaplana. They're attack dogs. Only the base likes them. Keep using them while we're still riding the right wing hard, since they keep the core voters fired up. But when we swing center sometime in 2007, get rid of them. Well, no, don't just kick them out, they've been loyal, but they have to drop out of sight for the campaign. Center voters hate these guys.

If you haven’t already checked out the flash presentation over at Winds of Change which follows the chronology of al-Qaeda attacks since 1998, please do, it’s quite interesting.

While there’s always debate of what should constitute the starting point of al-Qaeda’s reign of terror, I would put it in 1993 when the first attack on the WTC in New York occurred. That also was the year that in Canada the Liberals swept to power and that’s where they’ve been ever since. Their government has been – not dissimilar to what we’re seeing in a number of European countries – focused on the idea that benevolent multilateralism would save the day, something that most of the West did, but where some woke up to the new realities of 9/11, Canada’s Liberals took that day as a point to further its homegrown solution to world problems. That strategy was compounded by the unfortunate 2003 decision of then Prime Minister Chrétien not to go to Iraq and the misguided and often vile anti-Americanism – perpetrated by both Liberal politicians and mainstream media – lulled the northern nation back into a sense of false security: “it’s not our war, we’re safe”. Imagine the amazement when the following appeared in yesterday’s newspapers:

Canadians are "psychologically unprepared" for a terrorist attack like last week's deadly subway bombings in London, but they had better get used to the idea that they could already be the targets of terror groups, Anne McLellan, the Minister of Public Safety, said yesterday.

Now, Mrs. McLellan, why would that be? And from where all of sudden comes this call for “preparedness”? From my own experience I can testify that Canadians look at me in a perplexed manner when I put to them that their nation could equally be under attack, a point I’ve made ever since 9/11. Baffled silence is usually the response.

Note that Canada has been active in Afghanistan since 2002 the same year Bin Laden himself put Canada on the list of preferred targets. One can only guess, but the amazing fact is that the London subway attacks have most likely have left a far deeper imprint than 9/11 in Canada which some opinion makers argued away as an American thing. Canada is still constitutionally tied to Britain and there are many, many Brits that make up part of its population. But more than that McLellan feels it’s high time to start covering her position, the presence of jihadist groups is now so openly a fact that it was about time the Canadian government fessed up and told its citizens what they should have heard a long time ago.

NOTE: To be fair, Canada is stepping up its efforts in Afghanistan, its detachment is now redeployed to Kandahar.

A clueless Canadian right is struggling with some very bleak poll numbers which - common sense would have it - should look very different after the revelations of ongoing corruption perpetrated at the highest levels of the Liberal government. Not so:

A national survey completed Monday pegged Liberal support holding steady at 37 per cent, compared with 25 per cent for the Conservatives and 20 per cent for the NDP. The Decima Research poll provided to The Canadian Press suggests the Liberals have recovered in public opinion following damaging public testimony at Justice John Gomery's inquiry into the federal sponsorship program.

Rather than taunt the Liberals over the unconstitutionality of their actions, play up Tapegate, or claim Canada's healthcare system is another gulag maybe, just maybe, Canada's conservatives should consider what is keeping the Liberals so well liked in the polls:

1. Low inflation and low interest rates;

2. A booming real estate market;

3. A stockmarket outperforming US markets.

And while unemployment is higher than in the US, it's nowhere near some of the ratios seen in other mature economies like France or Germany. Imagine what Canada would look like if it had implemented some very basic economic reforms (allow bank mergers, curb union influence, privatize more crown corporations) like other nations (e.g. Britain) have done. The cold north would be an economic powerhouse.

The only route to unseat the Liberals is a severe recession which is increasingly likely with budgets like this. But it will take time my friends, time.

Ed Morrissey takes on the proposed media-makeover that Canada’s conservatives have planned for their embattled leader Stephen Harper, and compares the media strategy to the one adopted by Reagan.

Sure, going over the heads of the traditional media to appeal to the average citizen is a useful strategy for any political leader, but for Harper it comes a bit late in the day. He’s has been leader for a number of years now, he has lost one election and failed to force another one at a time when his Liberal opponents were in dire straits. If you want to compare Harper to American politicians here’s one that’s more apt: John Kerry. Whenever the Massachussets senator stumbled in the polls last year his advisors came up with another gimmick to let John connect with the people: turn up in fast-food joints, appear in hunting gear, they did whatever it took to let John be the person Americans would like and let him be the person that he really wasn’t. The outcome of such artificial make-overs are that voters recognize them for what they are and they usually respond in dismissive fashion.

So let me extend the Gipper analogy for it definitely clarifies a few things vis-à-vis Stephen Harper: (a) Reagan had a vision and a unique ability to share it with the American public (b) Reagan often suffered bad advisors but knew how to get rid of them in time (John Sears comes to mind) and (c) Reagan knew when to play the centrist card and understood that social conservatism was not a vote winner. Stephen Harper fails on all three counts. I agree with Morrissey, Canada’s conservatives need to read up on conservative success stories, otherwise they will indeed remain an opposition party for a long time to come, and a poor one at that.

A few weeks back Ginna Dowler and I discussed Romeo Dallaire the Canadian general whose unfortunate claim to fame is having had the responsibility to carry out the underfunded, understaffed UN mission to Rwanda, with a fairly disastrous outcome. While I had some time for the traumatized Dallaire, Ginna did not.

Well, the tormented general is back in the news. It seems his judgment is beginning to fail him, especially when it comes to applying some of the Rwanda lessons to Darfur. In short, the embattled Paul Martin spotted an opportunity to secure a critical vote in getting his controversial budget approved by throwing in some Darfur peacekeeping. Of course, when structured in such a random fashion these missions are doomed to fail as they can never meet the requirements on the ground, but as it happened Martin had a useful ally in Dallaire who could help pitch the plan. Since the latter was recently appointed to a Liberal senate seat by Martin it was time to return that favor by backing up Martin's budget numbers and thus the meager Canadian troop commitment that will be part of an African Union solution.

To the dismay of many, Dallaire obliged by supporting the numbers and the Martin budget passed, however without the support of David Kilgour, the man who initiated the Darfur contribution in the first place:

Mr. Kilgour thinks the government's decision to focus solely on an African Union-led solution to the Darfur crisis was made recently. "It's Mr. Dallaire's view, and it's Mr. Hillier's view, and I'm sure it's Mobina Jaffer's view. The problem is, unless the African Union is significantly augmented, it won't succeed. How come people keep saying 'regional solutions for Africa?' The African Union is brand-new, how can it be expected to come up with a force alone, when NATO has been working in Bosnia and other places, and has decades of experience?

Kilgour supported action in Darfur because he felt something could and needed to be done. Dallaire did exactly what he was so vocal about in the past: he played politics with Africa's misery.

The political drama in Canada is over for now with the embattled Paul Martin government living another day, and various under-privileged Canadians no doubt more than pleased to see a steady flow of cash coming their way as outlined in the budget that was passed yesterday. And while Canada’s conservatives start licking their wounds and point to a host of factors that frustrated their commendable effort to bring down Martin, the bottom line is that they failed, again.

Despite the reckless and corrupt ways of the governing Liberals, Harper’s conservatives picked the wrong strategy to get rid of Martin and in the process lost their golden ballot-box asset, Belinda Stronach. On top of that they saddled the country with a perilous economic legacy. The various conservative commenters are keeping on a brave face, arguing that Belinda’s loss may turn out to be beneficial, that they are still moderate enough and there are good chances to win votes in Ontario in Quebec, but the reality is different. While Paul Martin’s position is weakened and almost beyond repair, the stunning fact is that he is still in charge of the game by masterfully playing to the natural instinct that voters here prefer the status quo, whatever the price. That more than anything is reflected in the endless poll numbers that were spewed out over the past few months and which indicated that Harper’s gamble wasn’t really getting as much traction among ordinary Canadians as he himself believed.

Still, Harper bravely rolled the dice but he made two crucial mistakes. He failed to contrast the rudderless Liberal kleptocracy with an alternative vision, instead relying overconfidently on the fact that the Adscam fallout in and by itself would sway voters (and Liberal defectors) en masse to the conservative side. And in the heat of tightly managing and scripting his effort, a commendable leadership trait, he failed to recognize that star talent needs pampering and not an iron hand. It raises questions about Harper’s ability to formulate a visionary strategy and to manage people.

Now Harper is back to where he was and judging from the various TV panel discussions he’s back in the corner of being singled out as the uncompromising social conservative from the West. There are two redeeming factors. Even without 9/11 George Bush was able to attract a lot of socially liberal centrist voters and even after frivolous exercises to placate the Christian base such as the federal marriage amendment he could still play in the mainstream and get centrists into the Republican tent. With a seriously damaged Martin a sharp and engaging Canadian conservative leader should be able to replicate the same feat, but I am increasingly uncertain if Harper is the guy to pull it off.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey is taking a critical look at Harper too and notes:

Harper also failed to come to terms with Canadian ambivalence about his own political image; since he was in effect running for PM, he needed to make his case more publicly for that position. A slew of polls resulted in some contradictory numbers but showed a trend swinging back to the Liberals, driven mostly by a distrust of his leadership, and that needed immediate addressing.

ONE MORE UPDATE: Angry in the Great White North defines exactly why Canadian status quo instincts contribute to, well, the status quo.

A lot of the analysis not unsurprisingly focuses on the one independent voter that changed the equation, Chuck Cadman. I started to put some analysis together but Colby Cosh in the meantime expanded his original post on Cadman so often that it is now the must-read port of call on this aspect, and there’s very little I can add to that.

But talking about independents, my frustration with this entire saga is best worded by that other independent who wisely cast his vote against Martin and for the right reasons:

However, the deciding factor in my decision is a concern about what the postponement of an election will do to Canada's fiscal position. How many more hastily-made long term commitments will the government make if given the opportunity? Those who won the respect of many for restoring fiscal integrity now appear to be putting our economic future at risk. While I support altering priorities within the present fiscal framework to increase spending on affordable housing and overseas development assistance, I believe that the continuous stream of rapidly-conceived spending promises is not financially responsible.

Many Canadians appear not to favor an early election. However, I think it's important to clear the political air through an election. Canadians deserve the opportunity to provide a clear mandate to their government by choosing the vision of the future they prefer.

NOTE: The 60% number by the way is questionable but it has been recycled endlessly over the past few weeks. Conservative Life debunks it.

Talking about curbing anti-social behavior and the role politicians can play we should note that these days politicians have a hard time setting the right example. Mark Steyn on Paul Martin:

" ... I make the point that “the big flaw at the heart of the Westminster system is that in order to function as intended – by codes and conventions – it depends on a certain modesty and circumspection from the political class.” Perhaps it was always a long shot to expect a man as hollow as Paul Martin to understand that. When a fellow’s spent his entire adult life wanting to be Prime Minister without giving a single thought to what he wants to do in the job, it’s hardly likely he’d go quietly into the dignified losers’ club with Clark, Turner and Campbell"

That's all I can say after this morning's stunning betrayal by Belinda Stronach, a move designed solely to further her own ambitions it seems. In doing so she has shored up Martin's government regardless of the corruption it has been associated with. It's doubly sad as she was once identified as precisely the person that could help the Conservatives capture the middle ground with a pro-business, fiscally prudent but socially liberal brand of conservatism. Given that and her Austrian roots I once dubbed her Canada's Schwarzenegger but as of today we know that she ain't. To extend that analogy, Arnold would have thrown in a last minute endorsement for Kerry in return for a cabinet role upon defeating Bush.

Whatever the outcome of the upcoming confidence vote it can only be hoped that the voters in her riding dismiss her at the next election and end her career as fast as it started. That shouldn't be too hard given the slim margin with which she won that vote.

OTHER REACTIONS: Kate, Bob, and the Western Standard.

Today is election day here in British Columbia, a battle fought between the right-of-center BC Liberals and the leftist union-affiliated NDP. For the uninitiated, the NDP governed during most of the 1990s and accomplished the unique feat of turning British Columbia into an economic basket case at a time when the rest of the world was booming. The BC Liberals obliterated the NDP four years ago and started cutting taxes, privatized a number of government services, dealt harshly with the unions and helped secure the 2010 Winter Olympics. In short, they have turned the place around and without really disclosing any of their future plans, they have campaigned aggressively against a resurgent NDP arguing that the province can not return to the past.

Driving up the Lions Gate bridge yesterday into downtown Vancouver campaign teams were lined up on the bridge to get commuter attention. Well, they got mine. A dour looking woman waved an NDP placard and she was accompanied by an older man with a goatee with the sign “Enough is Enough”, probably referring to government cuts. Their message was very clear but I am not sure if they were aware of that. Further up the bridge was a bunch of smiling and enthusiastic young people waving BC Liberal and “BC is Back” signs. The contrast between the two campaigning groups was staggering and underlines the option that voters have today.

NOTE: Seattle-based blogger Matt Rosenberg is a BC aficionado and has written about the other parties that participate in this election. Especially the Sex Party has been getting a lot of attention and Colby Cosh explains why. As a foreign passportholder I obviously can’t vote, but I do wonder why the Annexation Party hasn’t been getting more attention. Their argument is compelling: if BC joins the US as the 51st state it will be both wealthier and freer.

UPDATE: The BC Liberals won a clear majority, but the NDP managed a strong comeback by capturing 41% of the popular vote. On the one hand it is worrying that a party that adheres to 1970s style socialism is able to get this much support, on the other hand it may very well reflect a protest vote that will taper off in the years ahead now that the most severe cutbacks in public services have been competed. For British Columbia, it's a good result.

American blogger Captain Ed has emerged as one of the authorities on Canada's current political mess and if you read his regular updates like this one here, you are pretty much up to speed with everything. The latest maneuvering with the leftist NDP positioning itself for life after Martin's fall is conclusive evidence that Canadians will head to the polls next month.

While political change is long overdue, it remains to be seen if the upcoming campaign will inspire the various party leaders to conduct an interesting debate that allows the voters to compare a number of alternative visions for the future. If the last election is anything to go by, chances for that are zilch. Expect lots of spending promises and a new standard in negative campaigning for which Martin has kindly provided ample material.

Rather than fixing the democratic deficit, one of his avowed articles of political faith, Canadian prime-minister Paul Martin is now taking full advantage of its existence to cling to power:

Opposition MPs managed to force a motion through the House of Commons Tuesday demanding the fragile Liberal minority government step down.

The Liberals, however, say they don't consider the move a true no-confidence motion and won't resign.

It's a weird mix of arrogance and desperation to ignore a 153-150 vote against you, so let's see if the ruling Liberals are able to maintain their position in the days ahead.

In parliamentary systems there are basically two options open if a sitting government is defeated by a motion of no confidence: (a) call for an election or (b) invite other parties to form a government that has sufficient support. As far as Martin is concerned neither option is on the table at the moment and from a procedural point he may well be right. However his current stance is an affront to democratic principles and an open invitation to the other parties to destroy his credibility during the expected election campaign.

Others blogging:

Kate at OTB has a good round-up, as usual.

Stephen Taylor looks at how Canadian media reacted in what seems to be the recurring theme of the week: the bias of dominant mainstream media.

But anyone thinking that the Conservatives are poised to form the next government better see what Adam Daifallah has to say about that prospect.

American presidents address the nation in times of trouble, in times of national need. That is not necessarily the case when a Canadian leader attempts to do the same. For good measure, Toronto columnist Linda Williamson compiled a list of when Paul Martin and his predecessor failed to address the nation:

Not after 9/11, even though 24 of our countrymen were murdered by terrorists. Not when we joined the war in Afghanistan. Not when we declined to back the U.S. in Iraq; not when we naively rejected the U.S. missile defence program.

Not when the government refused to compensate thousands of victims of the tainted blood scandal, many of whom are dying as they continue to await justice today (...) Not even when the government decided to redefine the institution of marriage.

No, none of those things were deemed important enough for the Liberal prime minister to address the nation.

Indeed they were not. But with the Canadian Liberals and especially with their two most recent leaders it was never about a vision, formulating a policy and taking their nation somewhere. Even election campaigns were devoid of any debate. It was always about power and retaining it at any price. And now that the power is slipping away it was time to address the nation in a desperate attempt to turn the tide.

Canadians have no idea how abused they are by the way politics are conducted in their country. In 2000, former Prime-Minister Jean Chrétien forced an early general election in order to maintain control over his party and deflate the attempt of Paul Martin to become leader. In 2004 new leader Martin invited them to the polls because he knew that it wouldn't be long before the appalling details of Adscam would become public and erode the Liberal hold on power. And now that it is time to let Canadians have their say Martin shamelessly, but too obviously, uses his office to manipulate the timing of an election. As in any democracy, it's now up to the people, but I fear it will take a very long time for Canada to cleanse itself of the abject political culture that has dominated the country for so long.

Only yesterday did I mention the rare alliance between conservatives and the far-left in Holland, now in Canada we can witness a similar marriage of convenience:

NDP Leader Jack Layton appears determined not to get caught in the cross-fire of another Liberal-led fear campaign targeting Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

In fact, with a series of national polls showing the Tories surging ahead of the scandal-wounded Liberals, Mr. Layton has signalled every intention of being able to work with a Harper-led minority government.

"We've shown we can work with any political party on a good idea," Mr. Layton said

And believe me Layton is not just on the left, this is 1970s style socialism all over again, Fidel Castro included. But Layton is not an idiot, he is a shrewd politician who knows that the ruling Liberals are ripe for destruction at the polls. Leftist voters who feared a Conservative government in the past opted for a defensive Liberal vote but that would be a waste this time given the Conservatives' strength. It could position Layton's party for an unprecedented result and Andrew Coyne has some interesting numbers to support that scenario. It wouldn't make Canada any more governable than it is now, but it would accomplish one very important thing: democratic change.

There will be more excitement this week coming out of Canada’s capital with a continuation of the Gomery inquiry and its ongoing political fall-out. This piece of news made me realize that a long-term fix for Canada’s political woes may well be what many have been so desperately trying to avoid over the past decade: another referendum on Quebec being part of the Canadian federation. The questionable arrangement of bilingualism and its concurrent cost to the federation are one thing, a story of corruption and nepotism that finds its origins in the very role Quebec plays in the union may well be the starting point of re-evaluating what a lot of French and English speaking Canadians prefer but dare not say. And Quebecois separatists are already gearing up for it:

Parti Québécois Leader Bernard Landry said international observers will be asked to be involved in the next sovereignty referendum to prevent opponents from skirting rules.

Jimmy Carter: work for you up north.

And the one party that actually goes by the name of Liberal is anything but liberal as Canadians found out, yet again, earlier this week. The Gomery inquiry publication ban was partially lifted late yesterday and the picture that emerges is not pretty at all:

A Montreal ad executive at the heart of the federal sponsorship scandal says Liberal organizers pressed him into secretly donating more than a million dollars to them through various covert methods that included envelopes full of cash, fake invoices and putting phony employees on his payroll.

Mr. Brault's testimony portrayed a broad pattern of deception that spanned years and involved several people, including senior party organizers, a brother and a friend of then prime minister Jean Chrétien and several past and current ministerial advisers.

Corruption and nepotism from a party that has weakened Canada’s defences and overtaxed its economy while subsidizing inefficient state monopolies. There will be a day of reckoning for the perpetrators of these failed policies and scandals, at the polls and in the courts. And with that prospect hopefully the party will realize it has not only soiled its reputation and record, it has also soiled the meaning of the word liberal.

NOTE I: This is the same Liberal party by the way that has put - under its former leader Chrétien - some of the most draconian campaign finance legislation on the books in a western democracy. Andrew Coyne, two years ago:

Under Mr. Chretien's plan, they would be spared the effort. The parties would simply be awarded a share of public funds, based on their performance in the last election: number of seats, percentage of the popular vote, etc. Existing parties and incumbent candidates could gorge themselves at public expense for four years, then use the public's money to entrench themselves in office. Challengers, besides being shut out of public funding, would be prevented from raising much in the way of outside funds by the ban on corporate donors. Neat, huh? As a formula for perpetual Liberal rule, it's even better than sending corporate bagmen out to do the rounds, in the traditional fashion: much less labour intensive, and no need to cut the corporations in for a share.

This now is a law in Canada and indeed it would prevent a repeat of a sponsorship scandal. The price: perpetual rule from the "Liberals".

NOTE II: Debbye has two good posts summing up the exciting week in Canadian politics.

Since the Canadian government is now embroiled in a number of high profile scandals (national security, Gomery inquiry) it almost seems that other srew-ups are not getting the media attention they deserve. On the same day that the two major scandals dominated the headlines, Canada's foreign minister tried again to quell concerns that his government had dropped the ball on the death of photojournalist Zahra Kazemi by promising some swift action on the file. That is, to say the least, a bit late if you realize that Canadian passport holder Zahra was murdered almost two years ago. Time for a recap.

First, let me remind you once more how the Canadian government first responded in July 2003 to the death of Zahra Kazemi:

''We do not want to conclude that she was beaten up,'' said Reynald Doiron, a Foreign Affairs spokesman. ''The official reply by the Iranians as well as a full, unrestricted medical examination of her situation will determine the cause. Is it a blood clot; is it high blood pressure, lack of taking medication? Or has she been roughed up a bit? We don't know.''

I will return to Doiron later. When the Canadian government figured out something was really amiss a few weeks later it recalled its ambassador and announced its willingness to reconsider its economic relations with Iran. Putting someone on the plane back home I can understand, the part about economic relations is totally meaningless and the wording was used with good reason as Canada continued to do business with Iran:

" ... former Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Jean Chrétien, will be traveling to Iran this month as a special advisor to Calgary’s Patrol Gas in order to close a deal with Iran’s national oil company (NIOC)"

Not much "reconsideration". The visit more or less coincided with the show-trial of Kazemi's killers that prosecutors in Tehran put together to placate foreign friends, like for instance Chretien. The July 2004 trial ended in a farce with an acquittal of the killers. After that the trail went dead and Canada royally dropped the ball until the appearance last week of Dr. Sharam Azam, an Iranian doctor who had examined Kazemi's at a hospital in Tehran, shortly before her death:

Dr Azam says he left Iran in order to tell Canada and the world about what happened to Ms Kazemi. He examined her in the emergency room at the Baghiattulah hospital in Tehran four days after her arrest and was shaken by what he saw. He said she was unconscious, with swelling at the back of the head, missing fingernails, broken fingers, wounds from an apparent flogging, a ruptured eardrum, a crushed big toe, a broken nose bone and evidence of a "very brutal rape". She was declared brain dead hours later but kept on life support for two weeks before she died.

Anyone arguing that the appearance of Dr. Azam could have been a carefully orchestrated move by the Canadian government (they granted him asylum) in order to get the case moving again is engaging in wishful thinking and probably wrong. No statements from witnesses were required to demand the release of Zahra's remains two years ago, and no statements from witnesses were required to demand a full investigation, two years ago. And Dr. Azam did not exactly decide to leave Iran last week, here is Zahra's son Stephan Hachemi who has been pursuing his mother's death relentlessly (bolding mine):

"I could have shown emotion during his testimony today and burst into tears, but I want to remain courageous," said Hachemi, adding that he had seen the doctor five months ago in Sweden and had thanked the Canadian government for accelerating the doctor's application for asylum.

Hachemi's lawyers say they want to fight for compensation from the Iranian government and for the case to be heard by the International Criminal Court of Justice. "I have been very, very frustrated by the position and attitude of the Canadian government," said Hachemi, who is hoping publicity surrounding the doctor's testimony will move the case forward.

Conclusion: throughout the duration of this affair the Canadian goverment never ever intended to confront Iran. It must have known for months about Dr. Azam and his damaging information, but it wasn't until he showed up on their doorstep last week that they realized that some action had to be taken. Well that happened yesterday when Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew announced:

Canada is calling for an international forensic investigation into the torture and death of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in Iran, saying it is fed up with "coverups" and "double-speak."

It hasn't just been the Iranian government that was engaged in "coverups" and "double-speak" as we can see from the case file above. And while there are a number of options open to the Canadian government, so far and after almost two years, it has failed to competently investigate and pursue the torture, rape and murder of one of its citizens.

To be continued.

Could it be that outsiders are more perceptive about Canadian politics than Canadians themselves? In his National Post column today (sorry, no link) David Frum - who has become pretty much an American - echoes my deep amazement that the Liberals to date have hardly suffered any political damage over the sponsorship scandal. He has a dire warning and some solid advice for Canadians:

If this government falls, if it is beaten, if it is punished: then the abuses will stop. If not they will continue.

As is ever the case, one-party rule has translated into economic stagnation and political corruption. And as is ever the case, there is only one cure for one-party rule: replacement of the ruling party by another. Unlike the Ukrainians, unlike the Lebanese, Canadians need run no personal risks to effect this replacement. There is no danger, and there is no excuse. It's all up to you. Choose.

It was said after the 2004 general election that the majority of Canadians suffered from the beaten-wife syndrome, gladly returning to their abusers year after year. If the Liberals are able to spin the Gomery Inquiry to their advantage, it will happen again. And again.

In my long assessment below I raise my doubts about seeing any spectacular political shifts in Canada soon. Glenn concurs:

Canada under the control of fundamentalists? Hard to imagine.

Unless you've been living on another planet I guess most of you are now up to speed with the publication ban in Canada on a number of testimonies before a public inquiry into the misappropriation of public funds (the "Gomery Inquiry" investigating "Adscam" or "Sponsorship Scandal") and American blogger Ed M. (here's a Dutch solution to dealing with publication bans!) had a scoop by publishing some of the banned testimony from an unnamed source on his blog over the weekend and it has now created a cross-border blogging storm. Canadian media picked it up after navigating a challenging legal terrain and Ed explained why he did what he did:

In an interview yesterday, he said he understands the implications of publishing the testimony. He refuses to reveal his source but says that he has a contact who has a contact inside the Montreal room where the testimony is being given.

The publication ban does not restrict Americans from publishing or broadcasting the details of the in camera hearings. Still, the blogger joked that he isn't planning any vacations soon to Canada.

"It's an interesting story. It's fascinating," he said. "First off, I think it's a terrible thing that you guys can't publish this. This is the type of thing that a free press exists for is to hold their government accountable. ..... It should be you guys reporting this."

Legal Implications
Since I do not want to reinvent the wheel I recommend you read Joe Katzman's comprehensive post on the Gomery inquiry, the publication ban and equally important the underlying political dynamics. Colby Cosh takes the issue head on by asking what it is that Canadian bloggers are supposed to be doing and provides - as usual - some common sense although The Monger (an equal provider of common sense) points out that as blogging is essentially journalism, Canadian bloggers are bound by the Gomery publication ban. Tim Worstall concurs in a must-read post:

I think we English can understand all of that, let a bunch of French speaking politicians near a sack of tax money and you’re going to have problems, some of it will disappear over the horizon, and we are entirely used to the idea of bans on publication before trial. From the moment charges are laid until the trial is finished there are severe restrictions on what may be said about the case or people involved in our jurisdiction.

And whether you like it or not the same applies in Canada. It's everyone's right to argue that free speech in Canada is under severe pressure, a notion I would probably second and Mike Brock comes up with some good arguments to support that. But if you want to change the law, breaking it is not the most sensible course of action, unless you are eager to spend a lot on legal fees to try and find out what exactly it is that is wrong with the law.

Without delving into the legal aspects, which I think are clear, let's get straight to the political fall-out and the attempts to thwart free speech.

The Politics
On the political side I doubt the Adscam scandal will result in a ballot-box obliteration for the Liberals, an outcome you would probably see in any other country. Adscam has been frontpage news in Canada for more than a year and recent polls even recorded an uptick in support for the Liberals. Furthermore, the scandal is as Joe Katzman correctly notes, largely a Quebec one and the Liberal Party already paid a heavy price for it during the 2004 general election, by loosing their national majority, largely because of an electoral shift in Quebec. Outside Quebec Canadians will primarily look to both the economy and the alternative to Liberal hegemony: the Conservative Party. In the first case things are going well with reasonable GDP growth, low interest rates and Canada being the only G-7 country still producing budget surpluses, in the second case the Conservatives have still not been able to overcome the negatives that are associated with them. They are where Michael Howard is in Britain today: they’re credible material but nobody has any good reason to make an effort to see it. Only a severe recession or a natural change after being in power for too long (and with only 12 years on the clock we’re hardly there, believe it or not) will see to it that the Liberals are defeated. (Note: if statist tax and spenders can come up with this decent a record imagine the long-term economic potential if free marketeers can have their say in Ottawa).

The Moral Issue
On to free speech. Gag orders are tricky stuff at any time and I question the wisdom apart from rare cases where privacy in for instance a rape or murder case is at stake. In those cases, courts should take testimony in secrecy and expect the media to keep its distance in a respectful matter, a standard all free societies should adhere to. Anything beyond that is curbing free speech and the public's right to know. Given the highly-charged political nature of the investigation only a fool could have expected a watertight publication ban. Instead there have probably been leaks to two interested parties: the public and the Liberal party with the worst possible outcome: the gag order may have been manipulated for political ends by the party's shrewd operatives. It makes you wonder if an election call in Canada under these circumstances could be challenged in the courts, but I doubt it.

In Summary
There is however in all of this a parallel with the Schiavo case. No matter how strong the argument was against starving Terri, the courts had spoken and all judicial avenues were exhausted. If there were fundamental errors then Terri’s passing was instructive on how to proceed next time around and on how to fix the laws that judges interpret. Sending in the national guard and circumvent the rule of law was not the wisest option.

And it’s the same here. American and Canadian bloggers were again out in front of the MSM by drawing attention to the Gomery publication ban, but breaking the terms of the ban is skating on extremely thin ice. Again, the golden opportunity now is to demonstrate why these bans are not in the public interest. At the same time the very discussion about it should have given Canadians, even without knowing the facts, enough to ponder about the next time they go to the polls.

Given the inordinate amount of traffic Europe in a Nutshell generated I have always been on the look-out for more similar nutshells depicting a country or a continent. Earlier this week Trudeaupia provided one for Canada when he analyzed Canada’s education system, concluding:

This is the depressing thing about this country. It appears the system may very well be producing imbeciles in sufficient quantities to sustain itself.

Very likely. Political reform starts with the young ones and feeding them over the top politically correct dogmas from a very early age is not only detrimental to a country, it doesn’t equip those growing up with a skill-set to compete in a free and competitive world. That’s why in the Dorsman household Hayek and Friedman to name a few are mandatory reading alongside the Very Hungry Caterpillar. And Finding Nemo from time to time will have to compete with reruns of Reagan speeches. You can’t start too early.

David Frum has returned temporarily to the National Post and (subscriber only) produced a somewhat weak explanation for the failure of Canada’s Conservatives to meet the high expectations in last month’s federal election. Frum doesn’t accept the claim that the presence of social conservatives in the campaign scared voters in Ontario into voting Liberal. He may be right when he argues that certain ridings would have gone conservative regardless of Randy White’s comments on gay marriage and urban Ontario was never conservative territory anyway. Maybe, but it strikes me that the discussions around gay marriage and especially abortion have an impact on many middle-of -the-roaders who, women in particular, could have helped a decisive swing to conservatives in many ridings. Frum prefers healthcare as one of the more poignant reasons that so many got scared of the unknown and by default voted liberal again. I argued the absence of meaningful healthcare debate before and Frum notes that many Liberal voters know the system is seriously broken but:

They know all these things – but they don’t like them. They wish they were not true. And they stand ready to punish any politician they see acting on them.

There you have it: a fear so deep that even in the presence of evidence to the contrary, Canadians can’t make up their minds to vote for someone who wants to fix that system. On the contrary, we better continue to suffer the current situation with all it failings rather than creatively try and work to repair it. But hold on, did anyone come out and say that they were going to fix it? No. The conservatives failed miserably in engaging their opponents in a real debate on healthcare, however it takes guts in a country where people relish maltreatment to come out and say that there are ways to improve things.

Megan McArdle attended a conference in Montreal and was somewhat perplexed when she learned about the fragility of Canadian politics and the sentiments that could one day lead to Western separation. I wrote about such a scenario a while ago in a piece called A Western Republic. Depending on political events it is a topic that raises its head from time to time and it is something that is either used or abused by politicians from the country’s federal political center. In order to solidify his position as the new Prime-Minister Paul Martin made “western alienation” one of the central pieces of his platform last year, but when election time came around he wasted very little time to point out to the electorate that western values, notable those of free-market and conservative Alberta, were essentially “un-Canadian”. In doing so he contributed in no small way to the surge of a phenomenon that he vowed to fight when he took office.

The term “western alienation” doesn’t seem to capture the sentiment for it implies that one region can no longer recognize itself in the values propagated in and from the center. Canada has never been a federal state where a common culture and values are enshrined in a shared sense of nation such as the United States. The presence of a separate cultural and linguistic group in Quebec is an obvious example, but equally important is the absence of a melting pot for immigrants who in a significant number of cases hold on to their national identities and passports as they are unsure what they’re going to get if they swap them for whatever is on offer from their Canadian hosts. If they adapt to an identity it’s more likely to be a regional one than one defined by the center. Canada is and remains a loosely arranged set of regions and cultures that history has inadvertently brought together. Demographic and economic trends have made Ontario and Quebec the center of that and as a result the values of these provinces have somehow come to dominate this quaint federation. As long as that center is able to retain its dominance in terms of population and economic power the Canadian federation will - with ups and downs – be able to retain its present form. This by the way is not dissimilar to the grip on power that the North East held on the United States, migration to the West and South in the years after the Second World War helped shape a new Republican Party which has comfortably dislodged the old centrist GOP and a Democratic Party with strong roots down south. Yet, the United States are culturally and institutionally far more uniform than Canada and these demographic and economic shifts have not imperiled the American union, on the contrary.

In diverse Canada such socio-economic trends could well fray the federation and ultimately lead to some form of separation from an irrelevant center. However they unfold themselves over long periods of time so an uptick in Albertan separatism will not immediately destabilize the Canadian federation, it is however a sign of things to come.

My post below on building a conservative coalition was timely it seems, not only did it appear in the National Post’s Blogger’s Corner, the same newspaper today ran "Harper to steer party to centre" as its opening headline:

Mr. Harper made private assurances to his caucus he wants to steer the party closer to the political centre, and will start by making changes to his office, bringing in people that will help make the party more palatable to Quebec and urban Ontario voters, sources said.

It should be clear however that the effort has to focus on coalition building first, that in turn will allow the party to capture votes in the middle. That is significantly different from shifting the entire party to the middle in one go. One step at a time folks.

UPDATE: This sentiment is echoed by the Monger:

It will be a long, hard slog to bring some Freedom back to this silly country. Harper's "centrism" is a first step. All those impatient doctrinaire "my way or the highway" types may not like it, but intellectual consistency is not going to cut my outrageous tax bill, or put those crazy Franco-Prussian CRTC twits out to pasture, or fix Canada's decrepit and insane medical system.

Dan Drezner responds to Andrew Sullivan’s premonition of a Republican party falling apart in case Bush loses, but even a victorious Bush could see a brotherly fight within the GOP’s ranks according to Sullivan:

The battle lines are deep and sharp - and the future of American conservatism is at stake.

If a conservative party that has had a phenomenal track record in governing is starting to fray it’s time for Canadian conservatives to pay attention since they have just started to build one. The fact that the Republican Party’s current woes probably have the very same origins as Stephen Harper’s inability to get conservative traction at the ballot box last week should be a reason to do some cross-border analysis.

The parallels are interesting. Canada’s old Progressive Conservatives (PC) was not that dissimilar to the old atlanticist and centrist pre-Reagan Republican Party. But where Canada’s PC fell apart in a socially conservative camp and a progressive remnant of the old party, the Republicans revitalized themselves under the Great Communicator. Although I could list many reasons for the success of Reagan in the 1980s, the most salient feature was that he was able to steer the Republican Party decisively to the right, yet capture the middle: the Reagan Democrats. Reagan tapped into the “strong foreign policy and small government” sentiment and as a Hollywood Republican remained fairly indifferent to the religious right and their agenda. He threw the social conservatives in his party the odd bone, enough to keep them happy, yet not too much to alienate the liberal centrists that had flocked to his tax cutting message of hope. The Republican Party in fact became a very strong coalition of various ethnic, economic, religious and regional groupings who had found a leader that could unify and direct them. Yet despite its apparent strength, that Republican coalition has always been frail and now that the religious right has the ears of the party leader, the first socially liberally conservatives are bolting from the stable. Throw in the alienation of the fiscally conservative and Schwarzenegger’s’ reluctance to stump for Bush and it becomes clear Republican unity is under serious pressure. And as of yesterday things got worse for Bush with a high-flying Southerner to add to the regional challenges of the upcoming campaign.

How’s this relevant to Canada’ conservatives? Over the past week there has been endless analysis north of the border as to why the Canadian voter failed to sufficiently support Harper and his new conservatives and what to do next. Out of all the comments in the media and voices on the street - and I have heard many - I can only distill one simple message: the need to effectively build coalitions across the Canadian electoral map. First of all, there’s a conservative undercurrent in Quebec, it has been an embarrassment that the Conservative leadership has not spent more time nurturing that. Then there’s the default mode of bribing the electorate with promises to pump up healthcare while at the same offering the good old tax cut, but many Canadians are savvy enough to give credit to Paul Martin’s record of balanced budgets. If you want to spend and cut taxes you better explain how you want to do it, right across the border a conservative leader has just thrown away one of the pillars of his party’s successful economic platform. Explain it, engage and maybe avoid the temptation to bribe everyone with more benefits and less taxes, it just doesn’t work anymore: the middle classes are just too educated to buy into it.

The stain on the party’s new platform is however the omnipresence of social conservatives. They need to be kept in the fold with the proverbial bone, but in Canada in 2004 any hint of revisiting abortion and turning gays into second-tier citizens is not going to fly with the electorate. If the Republicans are finding resistance to such ideas among Americans, how on earth can Conservatives ever pull in undecideds from the middle in Canada? While clarity is asked for it should be a clarity that above all does not alienate the socially liberal center. It is probably the single most difficult task for a leader to perform but if Stephen Harper can be made to see the necessity of this approach very few would have a qualm about his image as a grey and uncharismatic administrator. He has time to prove that he can unify his party by bringing in French capitalists in Quebec, gays in Ontario, libertarian marihuana growers in British Columbia and at the same time pacify rural bible belters. It will be the ultimate test of his tenure as leader of the Conservative Party. When in doubt, look south. Good luck, Stephen.

My hopes were dashed the moment I switched on the TV last night as the politics of fear have done their work, Canadians have chosen to return the Liberals to power with the scary caveat that they will have to form a coalition with the left-wing New Democrats. At least the Liberals will now be held accountable but that is about the only positive thing that emerged from last night’s tally of the votes.

As a foreign observant I am still mystified what the underlying reason is for the inability to turn this country even slighly to the right. True, the country never had a Reagan or Thatcher but then you would think that someday, sooner or later, Canadians would follow in the footsteps of their Anglo-Saxon brethren and opt for small government and low taxes. Especially given the geographical similarities with its southern neighbour it’s not unthinkable that entrepreneurial regionalism would somehow support a steady course away from statist adventures. Regional dependency is more like it.

Canada is different in two ways. It hasn’t suffered a deep national trauma that would align the electorate behind a national savior, nor does it have a dynamic and vibrant economy that engages its participants to an extent that they are able to rid themselves of reliance on state nurtured sustainability. Make no mistake, there is a strong conservative undercurrent and Stephen Harper did very well by uniting the Conservatives on their journey to eventual power, but Canada needs a major screw up by last night’s winners to raise hopes that he will ever be Prime-Minister.

So, what to expect in the weeks ahead? Hard to say but you can bet that a lot of it will center around bickering over domestic economic and social policy, the New Democrats will want their piece of the pie and eat it. Foreign policy, defense and national security will take a definite backseat setting Canada on a further track to the margins of international influence. Peacekeeping, if that, instead of peacemaking. Still, I can’t see Paul Martin pissing away his track record of balanced budgets and debt repayment and that’s where the weakness of yesterday’s outcome is. Here’s hoping.

UPDATE I: Mark Steyn:

“ we're looking at a Liberal minority government governing well to the left of M Chretien's three ministries. So it's corruption plus socialism. That's great news, isn't it?”

UPDATE II: Trudeaupia:

The other horrible thing is this will be the most screaming leftist government we've seen in the country since Trudeau. Welcome to Trudeaupian idiocy on steroids.

UPDATE III: Belinda, the pan-Conservative babe, is in by the narrowest of margins. At least something positive and she'll be instrumental in the next campaign.

THOUGHT: At 11:24 Pacific Time it looks like the Liberals and New Democrats together can't get to the required number of seats (now together at 154, precisely 50% of the seats avaialbe) to form a majority, so the Bloc Quebecois is in play. This is going to be a messy affair.

FINAL UPDATE: In my riding Conservative John Reynolds squeaked in, you will be pleased to know that in British Columbia's Orange County the Marxist-Leninist Party still managed to get a decent 118 votes.

This is it. Return to regular blogging tomorrow.

A struggling incumbent, a separatist, a socialist demagogue and a somewhat boring but ambitious conservative are the front-runners in today’s Canadian federal election. I expressed my discontent over the lack of a real debate and the inability of any of the four key contestants to present a persuasive vision of Canada’s future earlier. Conservatives moving left, Liberals throwing mud, separatists with a Quebec-first attitude and of course the union bullies with their pre-1980s attitude who lost their environmentalist compatriots to an emerging green party, it was all in all a forgettable spectacle. And we may be at it again soon if no party is able to claim a majority. Looking at the projections there are no real winners, but there’s little doubt that the Liberals will be the clear losers and that is a very good sign. Canadians want change but they still have not figured out what exactly they want and none of the politicians has been able to help them find out. Only one of the leaders has made an attempt and positioned himself as a credible leader, and Trudeaupia gives credit where it is due to conservative leader Stephen Harper:

He has at the very least survived the coordinated Liberal/media smear campaign and has an excellent chance of being elected on Monday. Honestly, I didn’t think the Conservatives could dare to have such hopes until at least the 2008 election, if then. For the foreseeable future the Liberal hegemony over us is finished. Done. And for that we owe Stephen Harper, Peter MacKay and the team many thanks and our votes on Monday.

Let’s hope it works out that way but a real political transformation in a country dominated by political correctness, rabid anti-Americanism and fear of change will take more than one election, or hopefully at some point, a visionary leader. It is not morning in Canada, yet.

Update I: Similar sentiments can be found over at Innocents Abroad.

Update II: David Frum runs some numbers that Canadians should look at before they cast their vote.

UPDATE III: Colby Cosh makes it clear why he thinks Harper and the Conservatives should win:

Harper is different. He does not believe it would be his job, as Prime Minister, to lash Canadians onward to a New Jerusalem of state childcare, equal incomes, fit bodies, and pure thoughts.

Exactly. Let's hope it all works out today.

At a dinner party this weekend the topic of the Canadian elections came up and someone sitting next to me piped up and commented that her vote was in doubt after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11. She was not your typical lefty; a professional working for a top law firm and she had just returned from a business trip and shopping spree in Florida, because as she said, there’s so much more to buy in the US than in Canada.

Anyway, I tried to figure out what prompted her apparent departure from a conservative vote and she pointed to Moore as he had advised Canadians to do so. She had initially not really taken note of that but having seen his movie (which according to her got a standing ovation in the theatre …) Moore had somehow gained a form of moral authority that allowed her to take his advice seriously. I tried various approaches, first debunking the Moore phenomenon which didn’t work. Then I posed the question: why does the content of this movie relate to domestic politics in Canada? Our discussion then moved into the wider territory of politics and economics and I introduced the Florida shopping trip: if it’s so bad down south, how come they have much more goods on offer in their stores? The response was centered around the phenomenal poverty in America so you can see, I was going absolutely nowhere: Michael had done his work. And judging from the numbers across North America last weekend probably many more have accepted his status as an opinion defining expert. And as my dining encounter underlined, he’s getting serious traction in the political middle ground. His views are no longer considered extremist or borderline, Michael Moore is mainstream. Again, brace yourselves for the months ahead.

Samizdata picks up on the phenomenon of the conservative yet socially liberal Belinda Stronach, one of the new faces in Canadian politics who will claim her seat in parliament after the election tomorrow. If you look at her pedigree and politics it was an obvious choice to brand her as Canada’s Schwarzenegger, which I did back in January. She’s will be a phenomenal asset for Canada’s conservatives and I wonder why we didn’t see more of her in the national campaign, side-by-side with Stephen Harper. She is the perfect conservative to capture the middle ground and deliver a clear conservative majority, which as of today is still pretty much in doubt.

Canada’s elections? Still a dead heat and with no clear majority emerging Colby Cosh has started thinking about a Liberal-Conservative alliance. With proportional representation on the books in most Western European countries this form of coalition government has been a workable solution for years in the old continent. In my native Holland the Christian-Democrats have been in power for more than 100 years (except the period from 1994 to 2002) in one form or the other, a track record not dissimilar to that of the Liberals. To monopolize power in that fashion takes a while but once you have it is relatively easy to maintain: when the wind is blowing from the left you move left and when the wind is blowing from the right... In addition you have the incredible benefit of ensuring that you can become institutionalized: you get to appoint judges, top bureaucrats, diplomats and other officials, so in the end your power base is phenomenal and you can help shape elections. In Canada some judges and notably the CBC are more than happy to pitch in during a campaign to ensure that the Conservatives can not implement their Americanized vision of Canada.

The Dutch Christian-Democrats have, without ever presenting a bold vision for the nation, alternatively teamed up with the Free Market Right or with Labor, whichever formula worked best at the time. Of course, this sometimes resulted in some internal party conflicts, but the last time that got out of hand was in the 1980s when two pacifist radicals were booted out of the party when the Dutch signed up for cruise missile deployment on their soil. The same happens here by the way, Sheila Copps was just too far to the left to continue to be part of the Martin Liberal team. So in essence, I can’t see why this type of coalition building would not work in Canada other than a lack of experience with this highly pragmatic approach.

Damian Penny notes that a hurdle to this might be Stephen Harper’s role. Would he be willing to serve in a government under Paul Martin? It may be hard for Canadians to visualize this, but again my experience leads me to believe that it would not be out of the ordinary for him to sign-up for the role of Deputy Prime-Minister and Minister of Finance if we follow the European template. Thinking out loud, he would be given day-to-day control over budgetary matters and in return offer the Liberals a few things on their wish list. Note that conservative Christian-Democrat Lubbers in the late 1980s offered the finance portfolio in Holland to Labor leader and former union chief Wim Kok, ensuring that this socialist would forever change his views about fiscal policy, which he eventually did. There's a risk for Harper, becoming a taxing and spending quasi-Liberal just because Martin puts you in that position may be too dangerous an option. So the other route open to Harper would be to remain in Parliament and not join cabinet and control policy at a distance as political leader of the Conservatives where he would have the ability to pull the plug on the coalition if it would drift too far to the left. Again this approach has been tested in European settings with some success, it would certainly allow Harper to remain ideologically pure. Definitely a major gamble for him personally, but then with today’s electoral projections on the table it is time to start thinking outside the box.

Unthinkable stuff for Canadians, maybe. But is has been a successful formula in countries after which the Canadians would like to model themselves so much: European social democracies.

With a week to go the Canadian election is still too close too call with Conservatives and Liberals in a dead heat. It’s interesting, the Conservatives have announced radical cuts in corporate subsidies and support programs which of course is something that is wholeheartedly supported here at Peaktalk, but many of my clients, entrepreneurs no less, are starting to squirm. Come on guys, the market place ultimately offers far greater rewards than anything corporate welfare offers, but then the only way to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt is to see that particular mechanic at work. Canadians should abandon their tendency to look south of the border with a mixture of jealousy and disgust, they now have a better chance than ever to allow an ambitious group of politicians to define a new brand of conservatism of which Canadian can be proud and which could potentially yield a dividend that is equal to or larger than what Americans currently enjoy. That is if they ignore the advice from this well-kown American.

We can scrutinize Dick Cheney’s now historic statement that Reagan showed us that deficits don’t matter on a regular basis as more and more studies point to the fact that while Reagan created deficits, they went hand in hand with significant spending cuts as this study from the American Enterprise Institute shows. The Vice-President did not make a great call in comparing the Bush deficits to the Reagan deficits but it seems that not only conservatives in America are prepared to accept deficit spending, Canadian Conservatives have presented a platform that critics claim will lead to a very questionable state of Canada’s finances going forward. Andrew Coyne was kind enough to run the numbers and it appears that the implementation of the Conservative platform may not drive the country into deep deficits, but it seems to me that the problem is more philosophical. In order to realize their objectives conservatives in both the US and Canada are accepting deficits as a legitimate tool to do business. Bush is prepared to avoid a repeat of his father’s one term in office at any cost and gambles that aggressive tax cuts and unrelenting spending will buy voters and keep the economy humming at a pace that will avoid it being an issue in November. In Canada, the Conservatives under Harper have come to realize that their message will only get traction in a country dependent on public services if they are prepared to pour money into it. Again, the numbers may not bear this out as of today but cutting taxes and increasing spending across the board can be a dicey proposition especially if the Conservatives have to form a minority government where they would have to rely on possibly the Bloc Quebecois, a party representing a region that lives on a federal government doling cash out to them in almost every form imaginable. Pork, welfare, whatever you call it Americans and Canadians alike rely on it to a large extent.

Being a conservative with financial roots I even find having a mortgage evidence of abject fiscal failure and I am prone to reject deficits on purely ideological grounds. But having said that there can be an argument for significant tax cuts, increased spending in some areas while at the same rolling back expenditure in a number of areas to ensure that the gap that is being created remains manageable and is restricted to only one or maximum two budget cycles. Bush’s approach and the outlook for Harper are not Reaganite; they are Nixonian and may have a fairly devastating impact on the North American economy going forward. Political ambition needs to be tempered with fiscal realism, let’s hope someone listens.

There used to be an old radio show back in my home country called, “You Ask, We Play”. Without giving any guarantees for future requests, today I will honor Chris Lawrence’s request who has asked me to play a tune about the Canadian elections. Well, here we go:

The key characteristic for any election is an open debate about the key issues at hand, one in which each side of the political spectrum is able to freely put forward its view of a particular issue. In one of its leaders this week the Economist (subscriber links only) points towards the absence of such a debate on healthcare in the Canadian federal election campaign and the reason that the real debate is absent is that it is shrouded in that stifling veil of political correctness, Canadian-style. The ruling Liberals use it to demonize the up-and-coming deregulating Conservatives and in full pre-empting damage control panic mode these very Conservatives, who know much better than to start to adhere to the pan-Canadian dogma of universal healthcare, fall in line and shy away from any bold, creative initiatives. Here’s their website:

“…to ensure adequate funding, shorter waiting lists, and more doctors and nurses. We will improve access to health care for all Canadians, regardless of ability to pay”

Any new ideas? Imaginative suggestions? Don’t think so. Indeed, universal healthcare is an article of faith in Canada and there’s no sane politician who will venture into this emotional area with some new and groundbreaking ideas, like user fees or, come to think of it, enabling private MRI clinics to do business, much as they are needed. The system is in dire need of innovation and restructuring, everyone left right and center knows it, a majority of Canadians appears to be willing to consider a parallel private healthcare option, but out of fear of being out of tune with accepted political thinking and lose votes, not one political leader dares saying it. The ideas tabled so far are often cheap ploys to buy votes; Liberal leader Paul Martin’s promise to pump more money into healthcare to reduce waiting lists is possibly the single worst idea that has hit the campaign trail so far. And not, as many think, because he as Finance Minister cut healthcare spending, no, because he should know that the last solution a broken system needs is more money. Creative restructuring where a mix of public and private resources meet to deliver an optimal solution for everyone, like in most other industrialized Western nations, is probably a sensible strategy but no one, least of all Martin, dares saying it.

The inability to break the political taboo leads to an infertile discussion, an impoverished campaign and as a result an outcome that is not all that meaningful as no one has been asked to give input on real change. A similar pattern could be discerned in The Netherlands in the late 1990s where it was out of the question to debate, question, yet even discuss issues of Muslim immigration and integration. Everyone, again left right and center, knew the issue was there but very few dared to take it on. It took the flamboyant professor Pim Fortuyn to take on the issue and put it in the open in clear terms, and be willing to take the heat for his bold electoral moves. He got a lot more than he bargained for when a deranged environmentalist shot him, but he had managed to put the issue on the political agenda in unconventional terms and was posthumously rewarded with a huge electoral success. Since then, all the main Dutch parties have adopted his ideas and the issues of immigration and integration feature in the political debate more than ever before. The policies and solutions that come out of that debate are not always that great, but there seems to be a cross-party willingness to work on it and, most importantly, break with conventional thinking.

Alas, the willingness in Canada to reform the healthcare system is mired in arguing over more cash to reduce waiting lists and access to care, any suggestions of structural reform are deemed to represent a descent in an abyss called American-style healthcare. What is needed is a bold political leader willing to take a risk and force the real issue out into the open and present Canadians with some viable options and a possible road to significant improvements in the way they have access to healthcare. But it won’t be this election, which in turn means it is unlikely that any new government - and it looks like it is going to be a minority outfit - will embark on healthcare reform, just more cash for now. A real crisis will probably have to manifest itself before any politician in Canada will take on the issue, or better still; some fresh and brave leaders will have to emerge from Canada’s underfunded pool of political talent before we can even have an inspired debate about it.

Yesterday businesswoman Belinda Stronach, launched her campaign to become the new leader of the recently unified Canadian right. For those not familiar with the Canadian political scene I will give you a brief introduction: she was never elected to legislative or executive office before, her political experience is limited to behind the scenes networking, she is of Austrian descent, she's wealthy, ambitious and on the political side: fiscally conservative but likely to be socially liberal. Sounds familiar?

The new Conservative Party of Canada is desperately trying to position itself in the rapidly evolving political landscape where a popular centrist Prime-Minister and a resurgent left are getting most of the media attention. The only way for the new party to build on the little momentum it gained following its merger, that by the way resulted in some high profile defections, is to let a compelling and visionary leader take charge. However very few candidates have emerged to date that are able to unify the socially conservative and socially progressive constituents of the new party and develop an economic and foreign policy platform that is sufficiently on the right but that will equally appeal to those in the center. A tall order, but here's someone that might be able to fill it especially since she was not associated with either of the two parties that preceded the new union on the right. The emergence of Belinda Stronach, who at best is an unknown quantity when it comes to politics, has of course raised a lot of questions about her views and capabilities and so far I have seen few upbeat commentaries about her move and what she actually could represent. Given her age, thirty-seven, and her fiscally conservative but socially progressive agenda she is a representative of that new generation in politics that Andrew Sullivan calls “eagles”, not a very convincing term, but we all know what he is getting at. That ideological framework however does not interfere with Stronach’s pragmatic side, for instance she’s backing away from legalizing marihuana knowing that it will affect the relationship with the US which she rightly believes should be stronger, highlighting the importance of a North American security perimeter. In summary, a young, pragmatic, and conservative political talent.

However she’s totally untested and has a very short window to win enough support to capture the leadership position she’s looking for, but then we said exactly the same thing about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Belinda has launched a professionally styled campaign with her own well-designed website which includes, of course, a weblog. She can righly point to her achievents in the business world as evidence of leadership skills and no doubt she has surrounded herself with a team of solid advisers and the first high profile endorsements have come in. And yes, she's a babe. Win or lose, she could be positioning herself for a very meaningful role in Canadian politics and judging from her brief agenda she probably exactly has what this country needs. Given the scarcity of political talent on the right, I will give her the benefit of the doubt.

Update: The other thing that is so likeable about Belinda is that she represents a radical break from the traditional and preferred politician as Trudeaupia reminds us:

In Trudeaupia you can be gay, divorced, a single mother, pot smoker or inherit millions. You can fund lesbian porn films or grotesquely misuse taxpayers' money. You can jump parties or threaten to out of crass political opportunism. But you're talking about lowering taxes, scrapping the gun registry, shrinking the burden of government, scrapping capital taxes and rebuilding the military. They will be merciless. Women are allowed to be anything they want, except conservative.

Yep, all the more reason to say: Go, Belinda, Go!

Pervez’ life is on the line, but so is the political life of Paul Martin, Canada’s new Prime-Minister. There are clear signs that the country is becoming disaffected by the near totalitarian grip of the Liberal Party on politics. An emerging political scandal in British Columbia, implicating Martin fundraisers and activists is only adding fuel to the fire. It is expected that in the anticipated federal elections the protest vote will come out as both on the right and the left some viable alternatives have presented themselves. If such a protest vote is directed at a centrist party in a multi-party country, the outcome however could be less than desirable. While it is good news that the Canadian conservatives have finally merged and put an end to their counter-productive vote splitting, it is far from certain that they as yet have the capability to secure a parliamentary majority. The threat then comes from the left as many in the Liberal Party disgruntled with the pro-business Martin will throw their weight behind the New Democrats, who represent a strain of socialism long outdated but still potent, especially under their new leader. The net could be that no party is able to capture a majority, leading to potential coalition arrangements where the hard-left can play a meaningful role.

A nightmare scenario, true, but quite feasible if I compare this to a similar collapse of the centrist social-democrats in The Netherlands a few years ago: it led to a strengthening of the Green Left’s position and an astounding number of seats in parliament went to the stalinist Socialist Party. It was only the emergence of Fortuyn and his school of thought that prompted a tilt to the right, even after his death. And that’s exactly where the challenge is for the newly unified Canadian right: find a leader who can formulate a compelling vision that will not only fly with its core supporters but that will find an ear with that dissatisfied group in the middle. If they don’t, Canada could be headed for a government that is even less desirable than the questionable one it has now.

So the soup is indeed not eaten as hot as it is served, the British Columbia government has put its controversial legislation to bar BC residents from accessing private healthcare clinics on hold. It is not entirely clear what drove them to back away from their aggressive stand on people leaving public sector healthcare waiting lists to get private care at their own expense, but there’s likely more than just one factor at work. Not only was there an outcry from citizens and private clinic owners, a new Prime-Minister took the reigns in Canada last week and it may well be that the Paul Martin administration will be more flexible in opening up the government controlled healthcare system. They need to: it is becoming too much of a burden on public sector finances and if anyone understands these numbers, it’s Martin.

One of the first reader e-mails I received came in response to this entry, posted shortly after I launched Peaktalk earlier this year. The reader, an American, said “Chrétien is Clinton is Chrétien”. While I agreed at the time, the past nine months have even more solidified the correctness of that particular analogy. Today, after ten years in office Prime-Minister Jean Chrétien will say farewell and hand over the reigns to his one time rival, Paul Martin, a good moment to look once again at the man and his politics.

Like Bill Clinton, Jean Chrétien rode into office by skillfully capturing the electoral middle ground. Disliked by the left for being too right and disliked by the right for being too left he not only placed himself in the center, he benefited at the same time from a hopelessly divided opposition, a situation that persisted for his entire period in office. As a pure centrist, Chrétien did not formulate any vision, ideology and that is why he, like his 1990s US counterpart, never really captured the imagination of his people. Indeed, in my four years in Canada I have yet to meet a single person with some positive words about the man, most are disgusted but that may be a function of geography, the West in Canada is not particularly fond of leaders from the East. Yet, he achieved quite a bit. By moving to the political center he broke ideologically with his mentor, Pierre Trudeau, the hero and symbol of Canadian left-liberalism whose legacy was a phenomenal debt burden, high tax rates and an omnipresent public sector. The task of reining in spending, cutting the deficit and yes, lowering taxes fell onto Chretien’s plate. The left thought he went too far, the right lamented the lack of real cuts in spending and taxation. The amazing thing is however that credit for the fiscal boon went to his Minister of Finance, Paul Martin who became the darling of the Canadian political center and especially the business elites, yet at the end of the day it was a policy that was initiated and approved by none other than the man from Shawinigan himself. Paul Martin’s perceived accomplishments boosted his position and he became Chrétien’s nemesis in the late 1990s. It was especially during this battle that the Prime-Minister showed that he was the street fighting bully that so many described him as, ruthlessly forcing an election in 2000 to make a point about who was the leader and humiliating Martin who was forced out of cabinet a little while later. Chrétien could count on praise even from his enemies by the way he determined the course of the political process and stayed in charge. I often compared him to the old bastard, the fictional British Prime-Minister Francis Urquhart played in the BBC TV-series by the British actor Ian Richardson.

Yet, by winning the fight with Martin he did something that would come back to hurt him: he overstayed his welcome. While he balanced the books and ended the Quebecois quest for independence, the events of September 11 took him completely off-guard. It was here that he could have stepped up to the plate and maneuver himself in a great role like that other great centrist, Tony Blair, yet he failed miserably. The old anti-American Trudeaupian instincts came to the surface and when the majority of Canadians sat shocked in front of the TV during those fateful September days, Chrétien was painfully absent, unsure of where to position himself, like Clinton completely oblivious to the lethal seriousness of Islamic fundamentalism. It did not help in the relationship with the new team in the White House and from then on the relationship between 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 24 Sussex Drive deteriorated, impacting not just foreign policy but also bi-lateral trade and cross-border security issues.

The low point in US-Canadian relations however was reached in the run up to Iraqi Freedom where again the Canadian Prime-Minister failed to take the appropriate course of action. He was unsure, as always seeing how the public would react before he would make a stand. The public apparently was divided, the National Post arguing that a Canadian majority supported an invasion of Iraq, the Globe and Mail arguing the reverse. When decision time was there the ghost of Pierre Trudeau grabbed Chrétien from behind and dragged him back into that vile undercurrent of anti-Americanism and left-liberal faith in the UN as an international enforcer. His risk averseness revealed that he was not a political leader but a political player. Opting out of the coalition and leaving the Americans to it led in many parts of Canada to unprecedented fury. Many saw the danger of completely abandoning the important efforts in the Middle East: the Canadian government could at least have supported the war politically and offered humanitarian help, yet even that proved too much for Chrétien and his team.

In the first few years of the new century Chrétien thus revealed who he really was. He could have used his phenomenal political capital to help steer events in the new post-September 11 world and ensure that a Canadian voice would be heard at the table. But instead he shied away from the global arena, preferring and praising the failed multilateral institutional approach. He ended his reign relishing his ten years in office and blowing the remains of his surpluses on social and environmental pet projects, an act reminiscent of Bill Clinton signing a variety of controversial executive orders in his final day in office. Like Bill Clinton, Chrétien was a phenomenal political operator, but also a shallow man by failing to lay out a courageous vision and fearful of taking any bold steps. Like Bill Clinton he will be associated with the economic boom times of the 1990s and its fiscal surpluses but he will never be given credit for it. That credit will inexplicably go to his successor who comes out of the same Quebecois, Liberal, Trudeaupian mold so don’t expect any daring initiatives from Otttawa yet, it will unfortunately be more of the same.

… are, as a reader in the Vancouver Sun commented, the only countries in the world where it is illegal to pay for healthcare not provided by the government. There’s one other country part of that unique socialist elite: Canada. Here’s the story of someone that evaded life in a wheelchair by seeking treatment across the border which is something that many Canadians trapped on waiting lists are now forced to do following the crackdown on private clinics. Yet, there’s hope and the seal of approval for the merger of the two right-of-center parties in Canada to form one national conservative party this weekend is a glimmer of hope that things may yet work out in the people’s republic.

Gay marriage and legalizing drugs, while controversial for some, have become mainstream in Canada and it seems the country is steadily moving towards acceptance of both issues. They are actually non-issues when compared to the greatest taboo in Canada: private sector involvement in healthcare. In a day and age where many European countries have, in order to sustain them, opened their healthcare systems for private initiatives, Canada refuses to amend or tweak the principle of universal healthcare.

The irony is that the federal government in the 1990s was able to balance its books (and cut taxes) by shifting the cost of healthcare to the provinces and some of these provinces, scratching their heads over how to pick up the tab, have started to experiment with private sector involvement. In a limited way I must add, but there are clinics that provide MRIs and certain types of surgery for a market based price. This makes perfect sense, offering direct treatment to those that are willing to pay for it while alleviating the pressure on public sector waiting lists. Well, that phenomenon seems to have outlived its short welcome when the government of British Columbia announced this week that it will be illegal for residents covered under provincial healthcare to access these private clinics, even if they pay for it out of their own pockets. It means that anyone requiring a quick MRI not readily available in the public system can not access the private system, while any visitors to the province can – think ski-accidents – walk into a clinic, toss a credit card over the counter and get immediate treatment. And why you ask did a local government committed to privatization make this absurd decision? Very simple, the federal government threatened to withhold some extra cash allocated to the province if it did not comply with the principles of universal healthcare.

Now, the soup is never eaten as hot as it is served – as an old Dutch saying goes – so I suspect that over time some carve-outs and exceptions to the policy will be made allowing private clinics to continue to operate. The long term trend is towards privatizing government functions and sooner or later parts of the healthcare system will follow, but many Canadian politicians prefer to ignore and postpone that what is inevitable. The important point is however that it is downright scary that some outdated socialist ideology, backed up and implemented by gutless politicians and administrators threatens something as precious as health, as life, itself. Sorry guys, it is illegal to get treatment, go back in the queue!

He has been plastered all over the Canadian press, Paul Martin, the freshly anointed leader of the Liberal Party who will step into Prime-Minister Jean Chrétien’s shoes in early January. I have got to hand it to the man, when he lost his job as finance minister I was one of many that predicted that given Chrétien’s long and protracted retirement Martin would not survive being out in the political wilderness for so long and probably lose his chance to become Canada’s next leader. Yet, for some reason he managed to pull it off, and convincingly at that, as he has some magic hold over the Liberal Party membership as well as over the many corporate contributors who filled his campaign coffers.

The real question will be what Martin will do once he is in office; many pundits are zooming in on healthcare, the federal-provincial relationship as well as budgetary plans with a particular focus on spending curbs. What is equally important is that Martin scores an invite to Crawford, the badly damaged relationship with the US should be one of his top priorities. To a large extent his credibility as the leader of a new and - which is what he plans to achieve - internationally engaged Canada depends on this. He could, if he played his cards right be another Blair, solidifying the strong bond with the US while at the same time ensuring that Canada can influence events on the world stage like it did in the 1950s and 1960s. Apart from the hiatus of the Mulroney-Reagan friendship in the 1980s, the Trudeau-Chrétien view of the world seriously damaged Canada’s reputation and potential role of influence in the world. Let’s see if the new king is able to fix that.

Talking about single party rule yesterday it occurred to me that the particular way in which that came about in Canada is primarily through the dominant role in which the provinces of Ontario and Quebec determine the dynamics of Canadian politics. The bulk of the parliament seats come from eastern Canada (seats are allocated based on population) and so does the political elite that runs the Liberal Party and thus the country. It has lead to what is called Western Alienation, or the process by which the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta have become isolated from the decision making process in Eastern Canada’s centers of power: Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto. And although the idea of a French speaking Quebec seceding from the union is well-known, notions of a Western Republic are deeply ingrained but have never come to the surface and are thus not well documented in the international press. Not anymore. The premiers, say the governors, of Alberta and British Columbia have announced closer co-operation on a number of fronts yesterday and in doing so have made an implicit statement that a unified west is a force to be reckoned with in Canada.

The west is different. Alberta is the most American of all Canada’s provinces, is socially conservative and economically free-spirited, the Canadian Alliance, the federal conservative opposition party finds its origins here. The province’s oil-driven economy has been booming for years and the Albertans have tirelessly campaigned against the threat of the Kyoto accord to which the federal government committed Canada without meaningfully consulting with the provinces that are directly and most affected by it. British Columbia is somewhat different, it is more like California, both the social and economic conservatives can be found here, but equally the left is well represented through the green movement and the omnipresent unions and their political affiliates. Its economy is undergoing a huge shift from being resource based to knowledge based and the influx of immigrants from all over Asia have made its largest city, Vancouver, a pacific rim center for economic and cultural activity. During the 90s the province was nearly wrecked by the left-wing and union-linked New Democrats, but the province is now under right-of-center management and given the disasters of the recent past is likely to be so for the foreseeable future.

The two western provinces combine about a quarter of Canada’s population and yesterday’s agreement, while billed as economic co-operation is clearly meant to unite forces in dealing with the federal center. Premiers Klein and Campbell are sending a signal to the center, saying, if we stand together as a united western front we will try and influence, and to an extent resist, policies directed from the Liberal center. Many have commented on the likelihood of Canada disintegrating, a possibility that is not entirely unlikely given the lack of national cohesiveness, and, the lopsided way in which national politics are structured. Andres Gentry wrote about it a little while ago and so did Den Beste who clearly identified what any Canadian disintegration might look like:

So I think that formation of an independent confederation among the western provinces would be more likely. I think that if Canada ultimately succumbs to its internal paradox and lack of cohesiveness, what we'd see would be more like the breakup of Czechoslovakia.

He is looking in the right direction. Unless Canadian politics is somewhat reformed to give the alienated Westerners a bigger say in the political center, yesterday’s formal announcement may be the first step in the long road to some form of a Western republic. Whether they would join the US in the long-run is a completely different matter.

The move towards a one-party state in Canada is well underway. On a federal level the opposition is too fractured to prevent the Liberals from winning majority after majority, on the provincial level they have now captured Ontario, Canada’s largest province. The conservatives were kicked-out yesterday after eight years of restructuring the province with their common sense revolution, but the moment they shelved the privatization of Hydro One and started to move to the middle you knew they were in trouble. The prospect of the Liberals (they captured Quebec earlier this year) rapidly expanding their grip on this country is not great. Their policies are at best questionable but what is even scarier is the fact that they are now becoming institutionalized and any separation between elected officials, the judiciary and public sector administrators is starting to blur to the point that if you want to achieve, do or change anything in Canada you have to be a Liberal. And you can bet that the Liberal leadership will say, the Canadians want it that way, they have given us a mandate in election after election. And yes, they may be right as only the Canadians themselves can try and do something about this journey to an unprecedented form of totalitarianism by the ballot-box.

Think of it like this. After Clinton, America elected Gore and after his two terms Hillary took the reigns. The Democrats dominate the Senate and are winning state election after state election while the Conservative Republicans and the Moderate Republicans are hopelessly divided and are failing to build a united front to recapture the White House and Congress. Can you even imagine that? Sounds frightening? You can find that scenario right here in Canada.

The Economist this week comes out with a leading editorial on Canada under the heading “Canada’s New Spirit”. The Economist is a great resource in keeping you informed about issues that you are not up to speed with and I relish reading up on deregulation in Kazakhstan or elections in Rwanda. Having lived in Canada for four years I know a thing or two about the politics and markets of the place, so I can confirm that the Economist’s analysis nails it although the banner of a “cool Canada” is somewhat misleading. In a nutshell, Canada gets a compliment from the Economist for its progress on such issues as gay marriage and decriminalization of marihuana. In addition, it seems that for now the issue of sovereignty for the French-speaking province of Quebec has been neutralized, although there are probably many who would not consider that exactly as progress. But underlying these beautiful things are some serious disruptive factors that may yet take the country’s new spirit away in order to reveal some very unpleasant realities. The middle class is over-taxed, a divided opposition has turned the country into a one-party state, relations with the US are abysmal, the state of the Canadian armed forces is pathetic and the ways in which tax revenues are redistributed among the provinces is counter-productive. Add to that the many bright people who pack up their bags and head south, as well as a national healthcare system that is under serious pressure and you get a picture that is distinctly un-cool.

Although there are many sound explanations for Canada’ problems, the fundamental problem that the country has, is that it has erroneously started to believe that it is unique, that it is different from the Americans and that by perpetuating that myth it would be able to create a self-sufficient national identity that could weather political and economic storms and would allow it to prosper in its own right. Almost like North Korea’s belief in juche, self-reliance in order to reduce the influence of a powerful neighbor. In North Korea’s case it was the Soviet-Union, in Canada’s case the US. Am I hallucinating? No, a country that keeps foreign investors out of a lot of businesses is destructive to any idea of wealth creation, even the Europeans have figured that out. Protecting minority and workers rights are great but if they are able to prevent simple feats such as allowing commercial banks to merge then that is patently wrong as it flies in the face of economic logic and great achievements in that department in other Western countries. What to make of a government that interferes with “culture” by financing, regulating and overly influencing content production and distribution in order to protect some average homegrown writers and moviemakers? And while the national healthcare system is delivering decent services to most Canadians, the dogmatic approach to its existence has prevented any creativity to ensure that the very system itself can survive. I mean, how can anyone reasonably argue against private MRI clinics that can absorb the overflow from long-waiting lists and thus alleviate the pressure on these public facilities?

Again, some European countries (notably the British and the Dutch) have showed that taxes can be cut and that welfare can be reformed and that private healthcare can peacefully co-exist with a system of publicly funded health. Even the French have come to the realization that cross-border mergers are not necessarily harmful. All of these are simple economic truths and some in Europe are slowly adopting some liberal, American notions of economic freedom and wealth creation. Hey, I am getting perilously close to approving of the current political and economic trends in Europe to make an argument about Canada. The Canadians in the past ten years have done pretty much the same as the Americans under Clinton, the British under Blair and the Dutch under their purple coalition: dance in the middle in order to slowly shift gears to the right as a highly taxed welfare state simply does not work. But given their unusual geographic and historic conditions the Canadians have - in order to maintain the momentum - to take it one step further and make some drastic decisions in order to stay cool and distinctly Canadian. Relax foreign ownership rules, allow bank mergers, abolish wealth transfer payments, and allow some flexibility in healthcare. All of these are sweeping changes but they are necessary to ensure that the country sustains its newfound spirit and maintains and increases its wealth to stay self-reliant. If it doesn’t it will be relegated to the sidelines and become an impoverished and irrelevant nation.

And that would be a pity for the country has enormous potential, as an example the country’s migration from a resource based to an information driven society is - and I witness that on a daily basis – impressive. The daily influx of motivated immigrants from all over the world as well as the vast untapped natural resources puts the country in a very strong position to play an important role going forward and allows it to avoid the demographic and social pressures that are slowly undermining Europe. And now that the Russians have started to dither, maybe the Canadian government will finally and belatedly junk its commitment to the Kyoto protocol as an unworkable constraint on its economy. If it is able to step up to the plate on defense and security issues and work with the US to build a North American fortress this country could become the envy of the world.

There are days that I go without touching a Canadian newspaper as it very often disrupts my day and my good mood, so negative is some of the reporting on social, economic and political issues here. Negativity in the press breeds negative attitudes and often results in apathy. By branding Canada’s New Spirit as cool The Economist has taken the right approach to assist the Canadians in trying to maintain some of the momentum that has started in the past ten years. In order to preserve it and expand it will have to break with the suffocating dogmatism of the past. A tall order for the incoming Prime-Minister as his party embodies the very Canadian values that need to be changed in order to move forward.

For those of you who have missed it, Canada is slowly preparing itself for a new political era as the ruling party prepares to anoint Chrétien’s successor Paul Martin in the next few months. There are few democratic entities in the world where the changing of the guard takes such a long time, but those are the terms under which Chrétien agreed to make way for his longtime rival. I have been very skeptical of Martin, but for some reason he has captivated the majority of Liberal Party members, and thus the majority of the Canadian electorate. As Finance Minister he became the darling of the business elites and he thus ensured that the left-of-center Liberals could count on substantial support of corporate Canada, and when he cut taxes he became the instant hero of the middle classes. The fact of the matter though is that he hardly can be considered a reformer whose mission it was to break with Canada’s disastrous tax-and-spend tradition, but then he was part of the Chrétien team. So to be fair, while remaining unconvinced let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for now, but it was not until yesterday that he was willing to reveal anything, and I mean anything, about his platform. The term for that is dancing in the middle and that’s why I failed to see why so many people got excited about the man, it has not been clear at all what he stands for.

Yesterday he revealed that he, without giving any specific details, would continue to cut taxes and keep spending under control in order to cut the national debt. Both the left and right reacted upset about these comments, but if someone in the middle is seriously talking about tax cuts and spending cuts then this country is moving in the right direction. It would seem that putting the knife in spending and paying down the debt makes him more of a conservative than Bush. There are two reasons why Martin needs to stay right-of-the centre. Firstly, the US has significantly cut taxes and that has added (let’s ignore the increasing deficits for a bit) to America’s competitiveness as well as to the wealth of the middle classes. Maintaining a high tax level in Canada’s is seriously counterproductive as it not affects growth prospects, it also has contributed in the past to many Canadians packing up their bags and moving south. Martin is not unaware of this and to the extent he is not, his corporate backers will have made it clear that an economy Trudeau-Chrétien style is no longer sustainable. The other reason is that the only electoral threat to the Liberals comes from the right. To date the right has been hopelessly disorganized (there are two right of centre parties, the Conservatives or 'Tories' and the Canadian Alliance) and the resulting vote splitting has resulted in some very easy victories for the Liberals. But that does not imply there’s no conservative force to speak of in Canada, there is. The moment they get organized they will start to affect the Liberal hold on the political process. Martin knows this and he knows that his dance in the middle needs to take account of the noise coming from the right. Let’s see if he’s really listening.

This week the National Post is this serializing the experiences of Bill Sampson during his captivity in Saudi Arabia, but if you want to read it you have to buy a paper copy, I have no online links to point you to. Sampson was one of the group of western prisoners condemned to death in Saudi Arabia for their alleged involvement in a few bombings and who were released recently and they are now telling their stories to the press. Sampson’s account has led to an expected furious reaction from the Saudi embassy in Ottawa, denying the torture that Sampson had suffered during his imprisonment. The entire prisoner episode is pretty disturbing, but it is encouraging to see that after having bungled the Sampson case initially and having unnecessarily dithered in the Kazemi case, Canada’s foreign ministry is now using strong language, even suggesting that it will be hard to maintain normal relations between the two countries. Last month I discussed on these pages the difficulties that western countries in general face in standing up for the rights of their citizens held captive abroad and similar voices were heard in the Canadian press in the wake of the Sampson and Kazemi affairs. It seems that that message is getting some traction, but I render a more definite judgment when we see the diplomatic efforts yielding tangible results.

I could not resist linking you to this snippet of news in order to give you a bit of flavor of the state of public-private sector tribulations in Canada. The great success of all-day kindergarten (the extra time being billed to the parent and not provided for by the government), in the community of West Vancouver, has despite its huge success drawn some very sharp criticism. Critics claim tuition fees are deplorable as they potentially exclude lower-income families. Oh yes, if some can not afford it we should make it impossible for all the others as well. Comments like this are not that unusual here, but what deeply worries me is that the husband of Canada’s head of state came up with the following:

John Ralston Saul, husband of Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, told a Vancouver audience it (referring to fee-charging all-day kindergarten) was a threat to democratic principles.

If there were any doubts about what democracy in Canada means, Saul kindly explained to all of us that it equals no-choice state enforced socialism. Thanks for confirming our suspicions.

The Canadian press over the past few days has been all over the release of the western prisoners from Saudi prisons and the fact that one of the prisoners was from British Columbia played a major role in that extensive coverage. I wondered what to add and I thought that it is galling that within a short period of time one Canadian, Zahra Kazemi, is beaten to death in Iran, one spends almost three years in a Saudi cell amid rumors of torture and forced confessions, a tree-planting missionary captured in Lebanon is held for charges in relation to “crimes of collaborating with the enemy”, which appears to translate into “having visited Israel in the past”. And then there’s the case of a former Syrian national, now held in a Damascus prison, again with reports of torture and beatings surfacing. The Vancouver Sun in its editorial of last Saturday rightly points to the fact that the Canadian government should be able to do more for its citizens held abroad under these questionable circumstances.

The question though is, what can they do? There’s diplomatic pressure which usually culminates in calling and recalling ambassadors and to the outside world it is always very hard to establish whether such an approach yields any tangible results. If you play the diplomatic card too aggressively you may be left empty handed with no room for further negotiation. Then there’s economic pressure. For a country like Canada a tough one. I remember that the Dutch government once it was seriously dismayed over the human rights situation in Indonesia during the 1980s, threatened then President Suharto with a suspension of development aid to which Suharto reportedly said, “well, fine, keep it we do not need it anyway”. Economic and financial pressures are tools that can be used when an extensive and intricate economic relationship exists or where a third-world country is entirely dependent on trade or aid from another nation. The US is probably one of the few nations that can actually use economic pressure as leverage given its size and economic power. The Europeans could never do that as the interests are often too divided among the member states of the European Union. Can you imagine the French junking a good deal with Syria if an Italian journalist had inadvertently ended up in one of Assad’s prisons? Nope, don’t think so.

So in effect there are not that many things a government can do to help citizens held under very unpleasant circumstances abroad. Damian Penny today however points to a very old tool: it appears Prince Charles interfered personally with the Saudi royals to end the plight of the Western prisoners and that appears to have been instrumental in their release. If true, we should commend the Prince of Wales for helping out, the problem though is that we can never build our hopes on such relationships as they may not always work, or in some cases they may not even exist. Democratically elected officials should in first instance be responsible for the well-being and interests of their citizens if they are held captive abroad. That message needs to be repeated on a regular basis.

It was confirmed today that John Manley is dropping out of the race to become Canada’s next Prime Minister. I discussed Manley a while back as I liked him and compared him to John Major who became British Prime-Minister when Thatcher’s direct challenger, Michael Heseltine, lost the game thanks to skillful last minute maneuvering by Lady Thatcher. That scenario has not repeated itself in Ottawa, unfortunately, as I believe that Manley represented a pragmatic stream within the Liberal party that would have kept the party slightly right of the center and that would have been a reasonably acceptable outcome given the fact that the conservative opposition continues to be hopelessly divided. Manley also would have been the right person to rebuild US-Canadian relations, but alas, this is not to be. This development however could be something that will help the conservative opposition now that the old-style and visionless, slightly left-of-centre, Paul Martin is ready to take the reigns. Here's hoping.

One of the things that I have not reported on for quite a while is Canada. I am not entirely sure what the reason is but it could be that I have had a three week break in Europe which may have calmed me down and made me more relaxed about things or even better: convinced me that life in Canada is not so bad after all. It could also be that the emotions over the disgraceful behaviour by the Canadian government leading up to and during Iraqi Freedom have subsided, even Paul Cellucci tells us that US-Canadian relations are back to normal. On the other hand the situation here is pretty quiet and economic prospects are fine: the Bank of Canada may sooner rather than later get back to rate cutting and the Canadian Dollar so far has been pretty robust vis-à-vis the US Dollar, although that may change a little bit depending on the size of the upcoming interest rate cuts. And the good news on the political side is that even the old bastard has been quiet for quite a while now, which is unusual.

So, reasons enough to be relaxed, but when the most suitable candidate to succeed Chretien as Prime Minister tells us that bank mergers are still on hold you know things have not really changed for the better and there continues to be ample reason to get excited. I have learned by now however that if someone says something like that about bank mergers he does not really mean it, he is merely trying to get union support for his leadership challenge or something like that. Bank mergers will be right back on the agenda after the election, that’s how things usually work here. And of course, the fractured conservative opposition is as divided as ever. There have been some dithering attempts in order achieve some measure of a unified right, but do not expect it to materialize before that point in time when it is mostly needed, the next general election. So, things are pretty much the same up north, but funnily enough it is no longer winding me up, at least not to date. Maybe it is because it is summer and we are enjoying an uninterrupted bout of sunshine and warm weather and that makes me feel unusually good, happy and above all relaxed.

Interestingly there is a very senior Canadian government minister who believes that support for the US is the way to go. His name is John Manley and he happens to be Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. It has surprised me that he had not spoken up before on this issue because he is known to be fairly pragmatic in his dealings with the US and he enjoys a very good working relationship with his counterpart Tom Ridge, as Manley also deals with cross border security. Yet, for those of you familiar with the workings of this government (read my post regarding the old man) it is clear that Manley has been bullied into submission. But you could also argue that he has wisely shut up as he is a contender for the leadership of the Liberal party and thus a candidate to lead Canada as Prime Minister. By showing his hand now he would lose the chance to ever have a real shot at that leadership position. His main contender for the job is one Paul Martin who I can only describe as not very different from the man he seeks to succeed: sheer ambition for the top job but no vision at all. Business