The Moncton Times is just unspeakably boring today. So, first an announcement, then a true story.
Announcement. On Thursday, Jan.6, I shall meet with the current events group at Moncton Library. There are two meetings and all are welcome to both - discussion begins with a topic; but is then wide open. The first meeting is at 2 pm in the afternoon. The second, for those who can't make it in the day, is the same evening at 7:30 p.m., also at the Moncton Library. I would be delighted to see all those who can make it.
The notice for the group was supposed to run in The Moncton TandT in their Thursday supplement. The library submits its list every month. But The Moncton Times, true to its bush league heritage, usually does not print the entry about me and the current events group.
Now, the true story. Me and the Dook
Last night, I saw the film of a lifetime, "The King's Speech". It was about King George the fifth, whose death in 1936 put his eldest son, Edward, on the throne as Edward VIII. But Edward, an inheritor of the low intelligence that has plagued the British Royal family for generations, was more interested in dressing for social occasions, in partying, and in his adulterous affair with Wallace Simpson. (In fairness, he left two gifts for the men's tailoring world - the Windsor Knot for neckties, and the little straps on the sides of men's vests - for anybody who still wears vests.)
When he learned he could not be crowned king with a twice-divorced woman as his Queen, he resigned the throne. He and his wife became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, spending the rest of their lives as guests of various extremely rich people, and enjoying a lavish income thanks to the taxpayers of Britain.
The film in a subtle and moving one of how his younger brother, George, overcame a speaking disorder, and became a must loved and effective King George V!. It was a story that carried me back to my high school days. In particular, it took me to that day in grade ten when, failing the year, anyway, I decided to skip school. Little did I know this day was the last time I would be together with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Now, I have an eleven year old daughter who wants to know if I have ever known anyone famous. I have. Really, I have. But it's hard to impress a duaghter for whom greatness began with Hannah Montana. As well, there were only two famous people who came from the very working-class French, English, Italians and Syrians in my end of Montreal. There was Rene Angelil, who would marry Celine Dion. But that was long after we had lived in that dstrict. And there was Tony, the school bully, who became an NHL scout for New York.
Well, I also knew the duce of the Italian Fascist party who sent the gift of a horse to Mussolini. (If you go to the Italian RC church in Montreal's Little Italy, you can see a giant fresco of God in heaven with the saints, and Mussolini among them, sitting on the gift horse.) And I was related to Dr. Decarie, the deputy chief of the Nazi Party of Quebec. But I didn't think my daughter would find those very interesting.
I needed a new world to see real greatness. I went to that new world when I got promoted to grade ten, ans so had to go to a bigger high school. It was High School of Montreal, the oldest high school in Quebec, going back to the 1840s when it was Royal Grammar School. It was way downtown, an hour ride from the north end flat that was my home. It was across the steet from McGill, The cross street had been the home of Montreal's elite in its glory days. And it and all the streets around it were haunted by the ghosts of the famous.
The high school, itself, had been where Charles Best, the co-discoverer of insulin had been a Chemisry teacher. Christopher Plummer and Oscar Peterson had graduated shortly before I arrived at Monttreal High; and both were already legends in the school. But I knew those were names well below the stature of Hannah Montana.
Quite different from them, I would never become, like them, a legend. Clearly destined for failure as early as my first report card, I took to skipping classes, and to wandering in the ghost filled streets surrounding Montreal High and McGill. I often passed what had been the home of Dr. Norman Bethune, who had died earlier in China; and who would soon become one of that country's national heroes. I passed the home of John MacCrae, the man who wrote "In Flander's fields, the poppies blow...."
I would stroll across a vast lawn on the McGill campus to spend hours in the McCord Museum. (The stuffed gorilla and the dinosaur are still there,waiting patiently for my return.) The vast lawn I crossed to get to it was the field on which the modern game of North American football was invented. I passed the Mansion of Lord Strahcona, builder of the CPR across Canada or, by a minor deviation, the even more magnificent home of Lord Stephen, president of the Bank of Montreal and first president of the CPR. Standing outside, a skinny and unkempt kid far from his element in the north end, I could only stare in awe - and in fear that I would be shooed away. (It was perhaps as well I did not know that I would be frequently invited to both houses for meetings and as a speaker.)
Then, further west on Sherbrooke was the very monied Temple Emmanuel, a splendid and massive work of stone and pillars that was a world away from my little,brick mission church in the north end. Many years later, I would be invited to speak there, too. Once, I chaired a meeting there with Pierre Trudeau, a man I came to like for his shyness and simple manner.
That reminds me of politicians I have known. Though we rarely saw each other, I developed an instant liking for Trudeau's Solicitor-General, Warren Allmand That liking developed into a profound respect for his work in bringing peace to Ireland and trying to relieve poverty of the world's poorest countries. I was also very friendly with Romeo Leblanc in his years as senator and government-general. Everyone who ever met him liked Romeo.
But none even a governer-general didn't count with an eleven-year-old girl. That's why the film "The King's Speech" fired my memories. There was a famous man...
On one of those many days that I played hookey, I was walking along Sherbrooke St. toward the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Well before I got there, I recognized him. The immaculateness of his camel hair coat his general dress was so striking I knew it could only be the Duke of Windsor. And the woman beside him with the large and acutely sloped hat was the Duchess.
As I passed him, our glances locked. I found myself drawn into into the saddest eyes I have ever seen, the eyes of a waif lost and despairing.
My daughter was not impressed. "You didn't even say hello?"
Okay. So now I'm down to my last card.
I knew Ian Halperin. I taught him Canadian history. You know. Ian Haperin. He wrote the best-selling biography of Michael Jackson. He knew Michael Jackson well. They were friends.
Take that, Hannah Montana.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
change of pace
I have just seen the movie of a lifetime. "The King's Speech". It's quite a wonderful and gentle story with a hypnotic sense of mood and time and setting. It deal with the period when Eduward stepped down from the throne to become Duke of Windsor, and marry Wally Simpson. It reminded me of the last time the Duke and Duchess and I got together. For real. I think I'll have to write a little story about it.
Newspapers as Pimps
In Montreal, I knew a man who supplied hookers for the Montreal Canadiens and the old Expos. He also dealt in drugs specializing, again, in the pro athlete market. Actually, he was a nice guy. But he was born very poor, and a member of a group heavily discriminated against in Montreal at the time. What the hell. He had to make a living.So he became a pimp and drug dealer. He didn't have much choice. The Moncton Times does have a choice.
In a real newspaper, the news section, especially page one, is for news. It's for real news, you know - stories about something that has happened, and that people need to know about. For Dec. 29 and 30, The Moncton Times has run front page stories that aren't news at all. Nothing has happened. But there it is - headlines, front page and, today, editorial page.
Monctonians, it seems, are all excited about getting CFL team and building a stadium for it. Yessirree, all you rate payers. You're so excited that, well, The Times just knows you are.
The front page stories are, in fact, pure gush. And the editorial is more of the same. Obviously, somebody has told editors at The Times to do some big time pimping. So, one has to wonder. Who has the muscle to demand that of the Times? And who would be in a position to make money if Monctonians were to come up with the big money built a stadium?
Is there somebody who is standing in the wings ready to buy the Hamilton Tiger-Cats? Is this a somebody who wants rate payers and tax payers to pick up the tab for a football stadium as well as an events centre/hockey arena? And what will be the generous rental terms offered by the city that is already so good as to underwrite to start up costs for a private business? After all, pro sprorts is a private-for-profit business. So now we're not only subsidizing a college that acts in defiance of human rights laws, but we're also subidizing private business to benefit people who are already rich enough to buy pro teams.
Gee. Who could that be?
Oh, and the inttrepid assignment editor has still not sent anybody to Fredericton to ask about Mr. Irving's remarkable statement that he and his economic summiteers have formed a coalition with the Alward government. I'm surprised that Mr. Alward hasn't made a public statement either affirming or denying that he now heads a coalition government.
(No, I'm not really surprised. I was just being polite.)
In a real newspaper, the news section, especially page one, is for news. It's for real news, you know - stories about something that has happened, and that people need to know about. For Dec. 29 and 30, The Moncton Times has run front page stories that aren't news at all. Nothing has happened. But there it is - headlines, front page and, today, editorial page.
Monctonians, it seems, are all excited about getting CFL team and building a stadium for it. Yessirree, all you rate payers. You're so excited that, well, The Times just knows you are.
The front page stories are, in fact, pure gush. And the editorial is more of the same. Obviously, somebody has told editors at The Times to do some big time pimping. So, one has to wonder. Who has the muscle to demand that of the Times? And who would be in a position to make money if Monctonians were to come up with the big money built a stadium?
Is there somebody who is standing in the wings ready to buy the Hamilton Tiger-Cats? Is this a somebody who wants rate payers and tax payers to pick up the tab for a football stadium as well as an events centre/hockey arena? And what will be the generous rental terms offered by the city that is already so good as to underwrite to start up costs for a private business? After all, pro sprorts is a private-for-profit business. So now we're not only subsidizing a college that acts in defiance of human rights laws, but we're also subidizing private business to benefit people who are already rich enough to buy pro teams.
Gee. Who could that be?
Oh, and the inttrepid assignment editor has still not sent anybody to Fredericton to ask about Mr. Irving's remarkable statement that he and his economic summiteers have formed a coalition with the Alward government. I'm surprised that Mr. Alward hasn't made a public statement either affirming or denying that he now heads a coalition government.
(No, I'm not really surprised. I was just being polite.)
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
2010
For a radio show, I have to come up with five topics which I consider major events of the year. It's a tough choice - though I notice that none of the major stories got the press coverage they should have. The big news media failure, perhaps the fatal one, of 2010 was the dissolving of the press into trivia. War news from Afghanistan is whatever military press officers tell the reporters is news. Wikileaks has degenerated into gossip about the sex life of Assange, with scarcely a word about what Wikileaks have revealed. Other, very big events were ignored altogether.
As a tryout:
1. There is a dangerous decline of faith in political parties, any parties, in Canada and the US. Voter participation in both countries has been dropping for years. Bush was president with only 27% of the eligible voters. Canada's Conservatives were worse. Obama has been a crashing disappointment. Few want an election in Canada because few want any of the current choices. Both Canada and the US are getting unpleasntly close to Germany about 1930 - in economic crisis, in hysteria over preceived threats, and ripe to try any saviour-demagogue.
2. Canada has obviously become second violin in the US orchestra. As one result, the plunge in Canada's status around the world was evident in our failure to win a seat on the UN Security Countil. The world figures we are a US puppet. And we are. We have, for example, bought a fighter place useless for any Canadian initiative, but one that will define our foreign policy for the next twenty years. It is useless for offshore surveillance, far north patrols, fisheries protection, peacekeeping. In fact, there is only one thing it could be useful for, a major war against an enemy with conventional and very modern forces. Since we are most unnlikely to start such a war, that means we have an airforce that can be used only to fight American wars. And that's it for the next twenty years.
3. Powerful gains by big business in privatizing government. The main attack force has been well financed propaganda groups (like The Fraser Institute and the Atlantic Institute of Marketing Studies) called think thanks, have gained a great deal of influence, thanks to news media that publicize their latest reports as though they were the additions to the tablets that Moses brought down from the mount. A prime target of these reports has been public education. The claim is that "scientific" ranking of schools and teachers is possible through standardized tests - administered by private contractors. Effectively, it puts private contractors in charge of the education system. This is scientific nonsense, and it takes money away from areas of education that need it. The US public schools have gone far down this road with the result that their international standing, already scandalously low, is now at the bottom of the industrialized world. Canada, currently offering public education at a very high level by world standards, is actually copying an American disaster. Such pseudo-scientific schemes (like the MacLean's ranking of universities) are not only fraudulent and wasteful, they do real damage to students.
The US has gone a long way to the elimination of democracy and indivicual rights with the Suprerme Court ruling that corporations are persons. Freedom has come to mean not personal freedom, but corporation freedom, including the right to spend all they like on politicians and lobbying. One result? More Obamas in future - presidents that talk a good line, but act very much like Bush.
New Brunswick has gone even further. The CEO of the largest corporation in the province, Irving Industries, has announced that a group, largely of business leaders, has now formed a coalition with the provincial government. Coalition means they are now part of the government - not in cooperation or in discussion - a part of the elected government. Except that we didn't elect them. A government like that, one that pushes aside the rights of the individual to mover toward the rights of those belonging to a group, is called corporatism. And corporatism was a basic theory of the Mussolini government in Italy. It's where fascism came from. What we are becoming openly is what we have long been under the covers - government by big business. The difference now is that there is even less pretence that people, as individuals, matter at all.
4. There has been a huge growth in the gap between rich and poor over the past thirty years. The US now has one-third living below the poverty line. Canada is moving in the same direction, if a little more slowly. The gap has been international as well as national. For example, though it has been under direct American control for close to a century, Haiti has remained the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Now, long after the earthquake, it has received very little aid - and not a cent of the money the US promised. It has received lots of soldiers to point guns at them; but little food or medicine or rebuilding or even cleanup of rubble. That is because there is no intention of rebuilding Haiti. There never was. It is deliberately being kept poor as a source of cheap labour for factory plantations, and urban factories with wages and safety standards so low they have produced some of the worst slums in the world. The misery that we call Haiti was a deliberate creation long before the earthquake.
5. The war on terrorism has killed close to two milliion people, most of them quite innocent, has broken the American economy, and shifted the US and Canada into political hysteria. And it's been a complete failure. A war on terrorism is the fuel that terrorism runs on. War has made terrorism bigger. As it continues, it will destroy our political systems as surely as it is destroying our economies.
The biggest story of the year is that war is no longer practical. Why it is no longer practical. Our problems are not military ones. That should become obvious (to everyone but the most of the Canadian and all of the American news media) in the course of 2011.
As a tryout:
1. There is a dangerous decline of faith in political parties, any parties, in Canada and the US. Voter participation in both countries has been dropping for years. Bush was president with only 27% of the eligible voters. Canada's Conservatives were worse. Obama has been a crashing disappointment. Few want an election in Canada because few want any of the current choices. Both Canada and the US are getting unpleasntly close to Germany about 1930 - in economic crisis, in hysteria over preceived threats, and ripe to try any saviour-demagogue.
2. Canada has obviously become second violin in the US orchestra. As one result, the plunge in Canada's status around the world was evident in our failure to win a seat on the UN Security Countil. The world figures we are a US puppet. And we are. We have, for example, bought a fighter place useless for any Canadian initiative, but one that will define our foreign policy for the next twenty years. It is useless for offshore surveillance, far north patrols, fisheries protection, peacekeeping. In fact, there is only one thing it could be useful for, a major war against an enemy with conventional and very modern forces. Since we are most unnlikely to start such a war, that means we have an airforce that can be used only to fight American wars. And that's it for the next twenty years.
3. Powerful gains by big business in privatizing government. The main attack force has been well financed propaganda groups (like The Fraser Institute and the Atlantic Institute of Marketing Studies) called think thanks, have gained a great deal of influence, thanks to news media that publicize their latest reports as though they were the additions to the tablets that Moses brought down from the mount. A prime target of these reports has been public education. The claim is that "scientific" ranking of schools and teachers is possible through standardized tests - administered by private contractors. Effectively, it puts private contractors in charge of the education system. This is scientific nonsense, and it takes money away from areas of education that need it. The US public schools have gone far down this road with the result that their international standing, already scandalously low, is now at the bottom of the industrialized world. Canada, currently offering public education at a very high level by world standards, is actually copying an American disaster. Such pseudo-scientific schemes (like the MacLean's ranking of universities) are not only fraudulent and wasteful, they do real damage to students.
The US has gone a long way to the elimination of democracy and indivicual rights with the Suprerme Court ruling that corporations are persons. Freedom has come to mean not personal freedom, but corporation freedom, including the right to spend all they like on politicians and lobbying. One result? More Obamas in future - presidents that talk a good line, but act very much like Bush.
New Brunswick has gone even further. The CEO of the largest corporation in the province, Irving Industries, has announced that a group, largely of business leaders, has now formed a coalition with the provincial government. Coalition means they are now part of the government - not in cooperation or in discussion - a part of the elected government. Except that we didn't elect them. A government like that, one that pushes aside the rights of the individual to mover toward the rights of those belonging to a group, is called corporatism. And corporatism was a basic theory of the Mussolini government in Italy. It's where fascism came from. What we are becoming openly is what we have long been under the covers - government by big business. The difference now is that there is even less pretence that people, as individuals, matter at all.
4. There has been a huge growth in the gap between rich and poor over the past thirty years. The US now has one-third living below the poverty line. Canada is moving in the same direction, if a little more slowly. The gap has been international as well as national. For example, though it has been under direct American control for close to a century, Haiti has remained the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Now, long after the earthquake, it has received very little aid - and not a cent of the money the US promised. It has received lots of soldiers to point guns at them; but little food or medicine or rebuilding or even cleanup of rubble. That is because there is no intention of rebuilding Haiti. There never was. It is deliberately being kept poor as a source of cheap labour for factory plantations, and urban factories with wages and safety standards so low they have produced some of the worst slums in the world. The misery that we call Haiti was a deliberate creation long before the earthquake.
5. The war on terrorism has killed close to two milliion people, most of them quite innocent, has broken the American economy, and shifted the US and Canada into political hysteria. And it's been a complete failure. A war on terrorism is the fuel that terrorism runs on. War has made terrorism bigger. As it continues, it will destroy our political systems as surely as it is destroying our economies.
The biggest story of the year is that war is no longer practical. Why it is no longer practical. Our problems are not military ones. That should become obvious (to everyone but the most of the Canadian and all of the American news media) in the course of 2011.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Christmas Day, 2010 - A Fresh Start
I have (or had) two blogs. This one has been strictly on New Brunswick. It draws a large readership from all over the world. The other was intended for a world audience. Curiously, the one aimed at the world attracts few readers - mostly in the US and Russia (I have no explanation for that - though it is possible that New Brunswick is a microcosm, a bite size, of what is happening in the world.)
I have decided, therefore, to continue with the blog that works, this one. And to start fresh with a general statement of principles that guide what I write.
I am not a liberal or a conservative, not a capitalist or socialist or communist, not a left winger or a right winger. I think anyone who calls himself any of those is a damn fool. Any ideology will work for a time (if it is in the right situation.) Any ideology will fail if the situation changes, and it doesn't. Any ideology will become destructive, even of itself, if those who dominate it became too powerful. American capitalism is destroying itself just as Soviet state capitalism (no, it wasn't communism) destroyed the USSR.
Political democracy works in some situations, not in others. Some day, it may be workable in Afghanistan. But that day is long off. If no longer works in a US (or Canada) because it is controlled by money, and because information essential to the voter is concealed by highly biased news meda. Indeed, one might argue whether that has always been the case. George Bush was the choice of only 27% of the eligible electorate. Stephen Harper is in the same category. (In both countries, voter participation has been dropping for years as popular confidence in democracy withers.)
Any ideology in its pure and unchanging form is poison. We need always to seek a balance of ideas from the various ideologies, changing and regulating the balance as circumstances change.
There are other dangers to being an ideologue. Few people, even the true believers know what the terms liberal, conservative, capitalist, socialist, communist, left winger or right winger mean. All of them have become words that spark reaction rather than meaning. They might as well all call each other simply dirty rats.
The other danger is that the person who looks at the world as an ideologue sees only what his ideology allows him to see. That, combined with the prejudice involed in using emotionally-loaded and misunderstood terms like liberal and conservative, takes up back in a child's comic book world of good guys and bad guys -even evil spririts. Why is there stress in the Middle East? Evil people. The ones that are the evil ones depend on whether you're a left winger or right winger.
That won't work. You have to look and see what is there, all that is there. And you have to realize you are not dealing with good and evil spirits, but with people, people who are more like us than most of us care to admit.
That's why my starting poing is a moral one. I don't mean moral simply in the religious sense (though I am religious, if unconventionally so.) I mean morality as a practical guide to what works and what doesn't work in conducting a human society. There's reason for the remarkably similar views of morality in most major religions. One can credit that insight either to the guidance of a god or to common sense (or you can say that both a god and common sense are the same thing.) The point is that morality works. It is practical. It also reminds us that we are watching real people, not good and evil cartoon figures. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians nor Americans nor Russians are inherently good or evil. They are humans much like each other, differing only in how life and history have shaped them.
With all that in mind, I shall try to write about the seven seas in a fishpond, the world as reflected in the life, politics, and journalism of New Brunswick.
I have decided, therefore, to continue with the blog that works, this one. And to start fresh with a general statement of principles that guide what I write.
I am not a liberal or a conservative, not a capitalist or socialist or communist, not a left winger or a right winger. I think anyone who calls himself any of those is a damn fool. Any ideology will work for a time (if it is in the right situation.) Any ideology will fail if the situation changes, and it doesn't. Any ideology will become destructive, even of itself, if those who dominate it became too powerful. American capitalism is destroying itself just as Soviet state capitalism (no, it wasn't communism) destroyed the USSR.
Political democracy works in some situations, not in others. Some day, it may be workable in Afghanistan. But that day is long off. If no longer works in a US (or Canada) because it is controlled by money, and because information essential to the voter is concealed by highly biased news meda. Indeed, one might argue whether that has always been the case. George Bush was the choice of only 27% of the eligible electorate. Stephen Harper is in the same category. (In both countries, voter participation has been dropping for years as popular confidence in democracy withers.)
Any ideology in its pure and unchanging form is poison. We need always to seek a balance of ideas from the various ideologies, changing and regulating the balance as circumstances change.
There are other dangers to being an ideologue. Few people, even the true believers know what the terms liberal, conservative, capitalist, socialist, communist, left winger or right winger mean. All of them have become words that spark reaction rather than meaning. They might as well all call each other simply dirty rats.
The other danger is that the person who looks at the world as an ideologue sees only what his ideology allows him to see. That, combined with the prejudice involed in using emotionally-loaded and misunderstood terms like liberal and conservative, takes up back in a child's comic book world of good guys and bad guys -even evil spririts. Why is there stress in the Middle East? Evil people. The ones that are the evil ones depend on whether you're a left winger or right winger.
That won't work. You have to look and see what is there, all that is there. And you have to realize you are not dealing with good and evil spirits, but with people, people who are more like us than most of us care to admit.
That's why my starting poing is a moral one. I don't mean moral simply in the religious sense (though I am religious, if unconventionally so.) I mean morality as a practical guide to what works and what doesn't work in conducting a human society. There's reason for the remarkably similar views of morality in most major religions. One can credit that insight either to the guidance of a god or to common sense (or you can say that both a god and common sense are the same thing.) The point is that morality works. It is practical. It also reminds us that we are watching real people, not good and evil cartoon figures. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians nor Americans nor Russians are inherently good or evil. They are humans much like each other, differing only in how life and history have shaped them.
With all that in mind, I shall try to write about the seven seas in a fishpond, the world as reflected in the life, politics, and journalism of New Brunswick.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Something very serious has happened in New Brunswick but nobody cares.
Coalition means two or more items (countries, poliical parties, etc.) joined into one. If, for example, there were to be a coalition of the Liberals and the Conservatives, they would become one party, with each represented in the cabinet and in all party decisions. It does not mean simply cooperation or advising or conusultation. It means both parties have become one and the same. Could someone please explain that to the editors of The Moncton Times and Transcript?
A Mr. Irving wrote a column in that newspaper saying that the economic summit group has formed a coalition with the government of New Brunswick. That means they are now a part of the government. Not advisors. Not cooperators. A coalition sharing power with the government. Has it not occured to anybody that this is against the Canadian constitution and all parliamentary practice?
A couple of years ago, alll the opposition parties in Ottawa were on the edge of forming a coalition. The Moncton Times editorials breathed fire and fury. This was, they said, illegal and unconstitutional. In fact, it was quite legal and consitutional. All involved were political parties with every right to coalesce. The Canadian system of government doesn't even mention parties. Our MPs are elected and, once elected, can join forces with any other elected people they choose to. What they cannot do is coalesce with unelected groups.
But Mr. Irving is speaking for unelected groups. He is claiming that his unelected people have a right to be a part of the government. That is unconstitutional. Mr. Irving has publicly announced his group has the arrogance to claim a right to be a part government this province - though nobody has ever elected them.
This is a very serious challenge to democracy. Why has Mr. Alward made no response? Why hasn't the editorial page raised questions about the legality of this? This looks very much like big business arrogance run wild.
Do people in this province realize the consequences of accepting this statement? Do they undestand it means their votes and choices are now openly irrelevant? Do they realize they their most important right has been taken away from them?
Was Mr.Irving simply using the term loosely? I doubt it. He knows what words mean. And he has a battalion of lawyers who know what they mean. If it were an loose usage, then Mr. Alward should have cleared up the point. He hasn't. New Brunswickers have been told that no matter who they elect, Mr.Irving's summiteers have a right, simply by belonging to his group, to share governing the province.
No province has ever recognized such a right. It goes contrary to all parliamentary practice. It is an attack on the rights of all the rest of us. It is a fundamental attack on democracy itself. Nobody will speak about it? Then expect to pay one hell of a price.
A Mr. Irving wrote a column in that newspaper saying that the economic summit group has formed a coalition with the government of New Brunswick. That means they are now a part of the government. Not advisors. Not cooperators. A coalition sharing power with the government. Has it not occured to anybody that this is against the Canadian constitution and all parliamentary practice?
A couple of years ago, alll the opposition parties in Ottawa were on the edge of forming a coalition. The Moncton Times editorials breathed fire and fury. This was, they said, illegal and unconstitutional. In fact, it was quite legal and consitutional. All involved were political parties with every right to coalesce. The Canadian system of government doesn't even mention parties. Our MPs are elected and, once elected, can join forces with any other elected people they choose to. What they cannot do is coalesce with unelected groups.
But Mr. Irving is speaking for unelected groups. He is claiming that his unelected people have a right to be a part of the government. That is unconstitutional. Mr. Irving has publicly announced his group has the arrogance to claim a right to be a part government this province - though nobody has ever elected them.
This is a very serious challenge to democracy. Why has Mr. Alward made no response? Why hasn't the editorial page raised questions about the legality of this? This looks very much like big business arrogance run wild.
Do people in this province realize the consequences of accepting this statement? Do they undestand it means their votes and choices are now openly irrelevant? Do they realize they their most important right has been taken away from them?
Was Mr.Irving simply using the term loosely? I doubt it. He knows what words mean. And he has a battalion of lawyers who know what they mean. If it were an loose usage, then Mr. Alward should have cleared up the point. He hasn't. New Brunswickers have been told that no matter who they elect, Mr.Irving's summiteers have a right, simply by belonging to his group, to share governing the province.
No province has ever recognized such a right. It goes contrary to all parliamentary practice. It is an attack on the rights of all the rest of us. It is a fundamental attack on democracy itself. Nobody will speak about it? Then expect to pay one hell of a price.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Dec. 22: Bizarre
The Moncton Times has not followed up yet on the story of Moncton City Council's strange decision to give 750,000 to a church (Baptist) University. Couldn't they at least ask the Baptist leadership? Wouldn't they tell the truth? (Well,maybe not. Baptists are pretty selective about which Biblical instructions get them all excited, and which ones they prefer to ignore.)
Not only has the TandT not mentioned the grant since its first report, it has also done yet another editorial heaping praise on the City Council for its wisdom and foresight. And it gets even crazier.
The editorial writer practically wets his pants over talk of council planning for an improved soccer field to attract a women's world cup chanpionship game and, of course, additional seating for such an event and an events centre and a hockey arena and a Canadian Football League team. Yessirree. Greater Moncton's urban sprawl of 160,000 will be right up there with Montreal and Toronto and even New York. All on borrowed money.
The whole world is in financial crisis. The US economy is still collapsing - and that will certainly affect Canada. But we will borrow - who knows? Two hundred million for all the above? We will outspend, on a per capita basis just about every city in the world as an entertainment hub for a maritime population whose total is far less than any big city. And there ain't no subway line from Halifax to Moncton.
This is the sense of priorities of a newspaper that has been saying for months we are facing tough times, that some programmes will have to be cut, that we all have to make sacrifices, that our debt is overwhelming and critical.
And its sense of priorities is to run up even bigger debt for projects of very questionable worth. Montreal had a mayor like that. Jean Drapeau was going to make Montreal the centre of the world. What he left is a stadium good only for scrap, and a debt that took most of a lifetime to pay off.
Somebody has the muscle to tell the newspaper to shut up about the university grant. Somebody has the muscle to get it to praise city council for projects that will benefit mostly the rich.
Oh, and perhaps the editor should get a dictionary, and look up the word coalition. If the economic summiteers have, indeed, formed a coalition with goverment - as Mr. Irving wrote it has - then it has done something unconstitutional. Perhaps the editor could write a word or two explaining that.
He or she might also wonder why it was an unelected business leader and not the elected premier of the province who announced that. And perhaps the assignment editor could spare a reporter to ask Mr. Alward whether we do, indeed, now have a coalition government.
Not only has the TandT not mentioned the grant since its first report, it has also done yet another editorial heaping praise on the City Council for its wisdom and foresight. And it gets even crazier.
The editorial writer practically wets his pants over talk of council planning for an improved soccer field to attract a women's world cup chanpionship game and, of course, additional seating for such an event and an events centre and a hockey arena and a Canadian Football League team. Yessirree. Greater Moncton's urban sprawl of 160,000 will be right up there with Montreal and Toronto and even New York. All on borrowed money.
The whole world is in financial crisis. The US economy is still collapsing - and that will certainly affect Canada. But we will borrow - who knows? Two hundred million for all the above? We will outspend, on a per capita basis just about every city in the world as an entertainment hub for a maritime population whose total is far less than any big city. And there ain't no subway line from Halifax to Moncton.
This is the sense of priorities of a newspaper that has been saying for months we are facing tough times, that some programmes will have to be cut, that we all have to make sacrifices, that our debt is overwhelming and critical.
And its sense of priorities is to run up even bigger debt for projects of very questionable worth. Montreal had a mayor like that. Jean Drapeau was going to make Montreal the centre of the world. What he left is a stadium good only for scrap, and a debt that took most of a lifetime to pay off.
Somebody has the muscle to tell the newspaper to shut up about the university grant. Somebody has the muscle to get it to praise city council for projects that will benefit mostly the rich.
Oh, and perhaps the editor should get a dictionary, and look up the word coalition. If the economic summiteers have, indeed, formed a coalition with goverment - as Mr. Irving wrote it has - then it has done something unconstitutional. Perhaps the editor could write a word or two explaining that.
He or she might also wonder why it was an unelected business leader and not the elected premier of the province who announced that. And perhaps the assignment editor could spare a reporter to ask Mr. Alward whether we do, indeed, now have a coalition government.
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