You Know It's Bad When

Your Prime Minister's antics are attracting attention across the pond.

CANADIAN ministers, it seems, are a bunch of Gerald Fords. Like the American president, who could not walk and chew gum at the same time, they cannot, apparently, cope with Parliament’s deliberations while dealing with the country’s economic troubles and the challenge of hosting the Winter Olympic games.

But then, the writer at the Economist takes out his knives:

The argument that previous prime ministers frequently prorogued Parliament is no more convincing. In almost every case they did so only once the government had got through the bulk of its legislative business. The Parliament that Mr Harper prorogued still had 36 government bills before it, including measures that form part of the prime minister’s much-vaunted crackdown on crime. When it reconvenes, those bills will have to start again from scratch. Past prorogations were typically brief (see article). This time sessions will be separated by a gap of 63 days.

Both points are significant, because they give Canadians a little more insight into how badly Stephen Harper is abusing our democracy.

Mr Harper is a competent tactician with a ruthless streak. He bars most ministers from talking to the media; he has axed some independent watchdogs; he has binned campaign promises to make government more open and accountable. Now he is subjecting Parliament to prime-ministerial whim.

In short, PMSH is trying to make parliament accountable to him, rather than the other way around. It is a disappointing statement indeed that a Prime Minister would behave as Harper has - and worrying indeed that he is beginning to attract the same kind of attention that Bush/Cheney did during their tenure in the USA.

The damage that Harper is doing to Canada and our government is incalculable -and it is time it stopped. It is time that the Opposition parties stood up and acted in the interests of Canadians who respect and value our democracy.

Rick Mercer - Go Read

22 Days of Snow Days

... a must read.

Welcome to Canada 2010 – we embark on a brand new decade as a country that has taxation without representation.

This is a prime minister who could argue he is Canada's greenest PM simply because he's the only one who has gone out of his way to give potted plants key portfolios.

H/T: Alison @ The Galloping Beaver

Patterns of Prorogation

So ... PMSH has once again prorogued parliament - only a little over a year after the last time he pushed that button.

Normally, the governing party prorogues parliament when it has accomplished the bulk of what it set out to do in the last throne speech. At that point in time, the government needs to adjust its direction and a prorogation is quite appropriate.

That is not what is happening with Harper. He's using prorogation not just as a political tool, but in fact he is using it in a way that guarantees that his government will never actually pass any substantive part of its legislative agenda.

In short, the Conservatives are legislatively bankrupt. They keep clobbering their own legislation mid-stride, and have to reintroduce it. I'm sure it makes for good propaganda - after all, they can continue to spout off their nonsense about being "tough on crime" and so forth without actually having to deal with the consequences of truly brain damaged legislation.

The fact is that not only is Harper scheduling himself an extended vacation at taxpayer's expense, but his party is out of ideas. They have no real legislative vision - they'd rather govern from behind closed doors as much as possible.

Privilege To Oppress

I've been engaged lately in a very interesting conversation about how social privilege can be used as a source of oppression lately. It has been primarily from a feminist perspective, but today's traipse through right wing blog No Apologies revealed a very interesting pattern of assumed religious privilege being used to justify oppression of both women and GLBT folk.

Consider the following:

Hateful attack against Truro’s Christian mayor
The Status of Women Must Be Abandoned
'I'm a pariah' says Muslim scholar who is gay
Calgary favours homosexuality over Christianity

All of these articles are arguing in one form or another that articles of specific religions are essentially a legitimate reason for limiting the lives of others.

Consider the following:

...They further expressed their shock and amazement at the City’s response, since the City authorized a flag raising ceremony on the masts of City Hall and a proclamation just three months prior for homosexuals. The church feels that the requests were the same and that the only difference can be found in the message. Street Church states that the City now officially endorses homosexuality and firmly opposes Christianity in the public square.

There's a couple of points of interest - first is the claim that because the City of Calgary chose to recognize 'Pride Month', that it should also recognize a religiously-centered celebration. This is a false equivalence, since different faiths have substantially overlapping Calendars (especially around the Winter Solstice).

The city's response (posted at Pawlowski's Streetchurch website reflects this:

The City of Calgary recognizes multiculturalism and our pluralistic society, and we celebrate our city’s diversity and the benefits this offers our community by enriching the lives of all Calgarians. The City recognizes several important cultural and religious events in the community including the Menorah Lighting, Eid celebration and the annual Nativity scene. However, while we allow the celebration of faith-based events at City Hall, we do not issue proclamations for religious or spiritual leaders nor do we raise a flag in honour of a specific religion.

This makes sense when you consider the fact that not only does Christianity hold major celebrations during December, so do other major faiths such as Judaism, and arguably most pagan faiths do as well. For the City of Calgary to specifically recognize one of these faiths over another is to send a negative message to the citizens of Calgary who do not profess that faith. Religion is deeply personal, and highly contentious at the best of times. For the City to remain more or less silent on the subject is quite appropriate.

Yet, at the same time, while these same people are crying out about how their particular faith is being "persecuted" (how a faith that is nominally practiced by the majority of our population can possibly argue that it is being 'persecuted' is beyond me, but they do), the same people have used the doctrines of their particular faiths to argue quite loudly that GLBT people should be held as less than equal participants in our societies.

Consider the following comment:

Good for Mayor Bill Mills to stand up to this pervertion.

It is very interesting from the perspective of considering the notion of socially organized oppression in the context from which feminism argues. The claim is, in essence, that it is a horrible thing for GLBT people to be treated as equal participants in society. Yet, the religious argument against homosexuality doesn't recognize that it is the flip side of the persecution claim that they make routinely.

Similarly, there is also an emerging argument from right wing political christianity that claims that feminism has "gone too far", resulting in commentary like this:

Something is wrong with that picture, now we have woman taking care of the men, broken homes, and nothing going right. Our society has been vilified. Even though men are physically stronger many times than woman we have woman taking mens jobs, but still not getting paid as much.

"Men's jobs"??? Really - I didn't know there was such a thing any more.

However, this is again a situation where a position is being staked out that is rooted fundamentally in a scriptural understanding of "the differences between men and women". In this situation, it is fairly clear that again, a scriptural understanding is being used to limit a person's ability to contribute to society fully.

Both are ultimately examples of asserted privilege on the part of the claimants - they believe fully that they are "in the right" of the matter, and do not appear to understand how they are in fact imposing their beliefs on others in a manner that limits both the value and the validity of individual, lived experiences.

So ... Forsyth Found Her Spine

Today she crossed the floor in the Alberta Legislature.

It has been a long time since I heard anything out of Ms. Forsyth that impressed me - but today she sounded like she is actually has started thinking a bit. This is a distinct improvement on the response I received from her when I approached her about Ted Morton's bill 208, when she left me with the impression she had been ordered to vote for the bill, so vote for it she did.

Isley cautioned, though, the Wildrose Alliance must present itself as a viable governing alternative that is just slightly right-of-centre on the political spectrum. The party also must be careful how it manages the crossovers so as not to be painted as a protest party, he argued.

“We need to be moderate ... We can’t be viewed as just a protest fringe movement if we hope to form the government,” he said. “I don’t think they want to just throw their arms open and say that anybody that wants to come can come.”

Interesting ... it shows an awareness within the WRA that they have to show themselves to be something other than a reactionary party.

Thinking about it further, Forsyth has to be getting closer to retirement - she's been a part of the Alberta political scene for a long time - it wouldn't surprise me at all if Forsyth sits until next fall and then steps aside, to allow Danielle Smith to run in a byelection.

Although today's floor crossings are really a warning to Stelmach, and provide a glimpse into the cracks in the PC's foundation in Alberta, I have yet to be convinced that Stelmach and his inner circle will get the message.

I will reserve my judgment for now on the WRA - they haven't convinced me yet that they are mature enough to form a government - much less whether they represent the kind of government that I would support.

A Positive Change

While I'm not in love with everything I see Obama doing, I have to give him credit for appointing Amanda Simpson to a post in the US Department of Commerce.

It's not the appointment itself that warrants recognition - it's the fact that she was appointed at all. Amanda Simpson is a transwoman, and in the last decade or so (especially under the NeoCons of GWB, transsexuals found themselves fired from government jobs more often than hired. So it is a positive thing that under Obama, Ms. Simpson has been hired, and it apparently has little to do with her gender status at all.

Of course, the right-wing commenters here and here show us once again the ugly underbelly of bigotry that transpeople face.

Insecurity Response

In the wake of the Christmas Day attempt at man-bombing a plane, there has been a renewed level of agitation from the right-wingnuts for racial and religious profiling to be used for screening people at the airport.

The problems with this are myriad. How do you identify someone's religion? For that matter, how do you identify if someone is of a particular ancestry - especially in North America where there are a lot of people born and raised here who might appear to be of Arab ancestry? Or for that matter, just what makes someone "visible" as a member of a particular ethnic population?

The practical answer is that you can't - and it won't work - ever.

Such approaches to threat management are just as ineffective as the ridiculous restrictions that have been placed on people flying into the US in the last week.

They do, however, have some insidious side effects that we should be thinking about. Let us presume, for a moment, that there was such a profiling scheme implemented. In effect, what you have just created is two queues at the airport - one for whatever group(s) you designate as deserving additionally scrutiny, and one for the rest of the population.

How is this any different from the racial segregation policies that were a part of South Africa's Apartheid era?

They aren't. Period.

In fact, such policies plant the seeds for the same kind of insane limitations on freedoms and liberties that were in place for decades in South Africa. (Not to mention segregation era USA, come to that) What they do is confirm the assumed notion that so many people have that being different is somehow a threat. This is precisely the kind of policy that makes neo-Nazi and other racist organizations ecstatically happy - because it gives them the "moral authority" (in their view) to beat the tar out of whomever raises their ire.

In fact, what it lays down is the foundation for exactly the kind of racism and bigotry that our very laws have been designed to eradicate.

As an aside, just how do you "know" somebody's religion? You can ask them, but the determined will quite happily lie to you about it; and people change religious affiliation all the time. How many of us in this society are "lapsed Catholics", or perhaps are Catholics that switched to one of the Charismatic churches?

The real answer is to investigate and root out threats one at a time - as they turn up. Not with heavy military action, but with counter-intelligence and espionage. Focus on undermining the very organizations that facilitate these actions the same way they operate - in the shadows.