Interviewing Stephane Dion

I interviewed Liberal leadership candidate Stephane Dion on Sunday. I must thank Jason Cherniak http://jasoncherniak.blogspot.com/ for helping set things up and say special thanks to Dion for agreeing to do the interview. Of all the candidates, Dion has been the most accessible to the blogging community. http://jasoncherniak.blogspot.com/

I had emailed the candidates a survey back in September and used the questions from that survey in interviewing Dion. Martha Hall Findlay is the only one to respond to the survey by the way. http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2006/09/liberal-martha-hall-findlay-favors.html


Given his support for "Empire Lite", does Ignatieff have the potential to be as divisive a figure within the party as Tony Blair has become within his party?”

He did not take the bait. He neither implied, nor explicitly said that Tony Blair is a controversial figure within his own party. The only thing he had to say about Blair was that he has been a very successful politician. He added that he won three majorities. I waited for him to drop Chrétien’s name, but he never did draw the parallel. It is a good thing too. Outside of three majorities a piece and maybe rivalries with uppity finance ministers, the similarities stop there.

On the one hand, it is understandable that he would not take the bait. However in other ways it is not. It is understandable in so far as it is not considered good form to be brutally honest about foreign heads of states --- friendly ones anyway. However, it is widely accepted that Blair is a divisive figure and saying so would hardly raise eyebrows. Tactically drawing such a comparison would make sense. It would help place Dion’s call for a review of Ignatieff’s interventionist writings into a favorable political context. After all, one of the dominant themes of the Liberal leadership race is reconciliation and party peace. Liberals have grown tired of infighting between rival power blocks Having just emerged from a civil war, they have no stomach for another. Dion should be warning the Liberal party that what happened with Tony Blair could happen with Ignatieff. Indeed, he should be warning the Liberals that it could be worse. The British Labour party is in better shape finically, politically and in terms of their base of support than Liberal Party of Canada. In its weakened state the Liberal party can not afford another war, especially an ideological one. Moreover, given all the talk about the party brass reconnecting with the party’s base, the Liberal party can not elect a leader who is fundamentally out of step with views of the party’s rank and file, a la Blair and Labour party.

All that being said, Dion went right after Ignatieff. Dion mentioned a 2002 paper in which Ignatieff that some kind of two state solution should be militarily imposed on the Palestinian Authority. This is really quite something and I am amazed that this paper had not come to light before. A lot of the accusations thrown at Ignatieff, including some of the ones Rae leveled on Saturday, are pretty thin gruel. This is not one of them. It is hard to imagine anything that would be a bigger requirement tool for Al Qaeda than the US sending troops into Gaza and the West bank to impose a two state “solution”. There is no question in my mind now that Ignatieff does not have any kind of appreciation for the unintended consequences of war and I do not want him controlling Canadian foreign policy. When it comes to Ignatieff’s foreign policy views, Rae has landed the two biggest rhetorical punches, but Dion has landed by far the more substantive policy blows and this was certainly one of them. Dion was, rightly, indigent about being drowned out by Ignatieff supporters when he tired to raise the subject to this paper at Saturday’s debate in Montreal.


The Senate committee on marijuana concluded that the "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol"? Do you agree with this conclusion?

He said no. I know Dion is a bit of a contrarian, but this is ridiculous. I will give him points for consistency though. He has been consistency wrong in what he says about marijuana. Previously http://koby.tblog.com/post/1969912969#comment_anchor he told me that “potent pot” is one reason for keeping marijuana illegal. This was bad enough. It strikes me as akin to saying alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. Indeed, if anything potent pot should be welcomed. After all, the most prominent health effect related to marijuana is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. The point is mute though; potent pot is a myth. http://www.slate.com/?id=2074151

Anyway, world wide, since the 1970s there have been literally millions of deaths from Alcohol poisoning and cirrhosis of the liver. I challenge Dion to find one case in the medical literature of someone dying from a marijuana overdose or chronic intake of THC. Some chronic users of marijuana get headaches if they go off the drug. 10% of chronic alcoholics suffer seizures if they do not have a drink and 5% suffer delirium tremens.

Dion’s position is the medical equal of denying global warming. Maybe some things that nutter Paul Steckle says has worn off on him.

Dion feels that marijuana possession should be decriminalized; he wants fines imposed in place of criminal penalties. He noted that Canada’s possession laws are applied unequally throughout the country and that a system of fines would be. This is debatable. However even if granted, a system fines would not yield the results he hopes for. For example, there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest it would reduce consumption.

Such a policy might also yield results he might not have expected. Take Vancouver, it is explicit policy of Vancouver police department, for example, not to charge people for mere possession. Surrounding police forces are equally lenient, but not as upfront. In other words, decriminalization already exists in the Lowermainland on a de facto basis. One reason is that it is simply not practical to do so; charging the huge number people caught in possession of marijuana would cripple the justice system. Another reason is that marijuana possession is not viewed as a serious crime by either the courts or by large numbers of police. If a system of fines was imposed, Vancouverites will not take kindly to such a crack down for a whole host of reasons. Most importantly they would be uppity because they would view the law is illegitimate. Many would see it as akin to fining someone for drinking a beer in a permissible location. They will see it as an illegitimate money grab and the seeds of revolt would be sown. It would be better for Dion and other closeted drug warriors to let sleeping dogs lay.

Decriminalization would also do something else. Although it is explicit policy of the VPD not to charge people for mere possession, the VPD still charge a large number of people with possession and the same is true of other Lowermainland police forces. There is a simple reason for this. Possession is the fall back position whenever the police can not make trafficking charges stick. Put differently the large number of people charged with possession in BC is not a reflection of strict enforcement, but is rather a reflection of the shear size of the marijuana industry here. Marijuana is called weed for a reason; it is grows like one. Couple this with the fact that people here no longer believe in the drug laws and one would have more success trying to drain the great lakes with a spoon than stomping it out. Decriminalize marijuana while at the same time increasing the penalties for trafficking the drug and prohibition in BC will be on the verge of collapse. As it stands, BC prosecutors are prosecuting fewer and fewer people for marijuana trafficking and stiffer sentences will only make this trend more pronounced. There would also be no lesser charge of possession to charge dealers with.

While I welcomed decriminalization for these reasons, there is a less painful solution: legalization. Besides, I too want to see a uniform marijuana policy and the thought of watching heads of social conservative’s heads throughout the land explode gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. The latter will only happen if marijuana is officially legalized.

Can NATO succeed in both stabilizing Afghanistan and destroying the country's number one industry, the opium crop?

Dion said yes, but it was hardly a firm one. He said that what needs to happen is a “redesign of the mission”. He said that what is needed is a “Marshall Plan for Afghanistan”. In other words, despite the fact that several of Dion’s people have referred Gerard Kennedy as policy light weight, Dion’s position along with the rest of the candidates has become Kennedy’s remake the mission position. The reference to the Marshall Plan though is Dion’s and Dion’s alone. It is also not one that works.

The Marshall plan helped rebuild war torn Europe. The operative world being “rebuild”. There is nothing to “rebuild” in the European sense in Afghanistan. Indeed, even in high point of the modernizing zeal in the 1970s, Afghanistan’s child morality was worse than Bangladesh’s! To see how wrong the analogy is consider for a second what Germany, for example, was prior to WW2. The German’s had the by far and away the world’s most advanced chemical industry. The country had produced nearly half the Nobel Price winners. It had the largest coal reserves in Europe. (It was not until the 1950s the gas replaced coal.) It had the most educated population in the world. And it was also not until 1945 that industrial production fell below 1942 and that was not because of any decline in capacity, but was rather due mainly to transportation bottlenecks related to allied bombing. Throw in the fact the influx of millions of upon millions of ethnic Germans from Soviet sector, Poland, and the Sudetenland and elsewhere and you have the makings of a Wirtschaftswunder, i.e., an economic miracle.

Afghanistan, by comparison, is country made up mostly of illiterate peasants without running water or electricity. There is no developed infrastructure, no university system and the opium production is the country’s only viable industry. Most Afghans, it is a young country, know nothing but war. To make matters worse, the vast majority of educated Afghans left long ago and will never return to live.

Decades of development theory have shown there is no magic formula when it comes to development. Western countries have a hard enough time developing their own hinterlands let alone the world’s most impoverished and underdeveloped regions.

Dion also mentioned several of the Asian Tigers, viz. South Korea and Taiwan. Referencing them made more sense than referencing the Marshall plan. However it falls down in several respects. Furthermore, the Tigers where not exactly models of democracy in action.

As with the other candidates, Dion is open to the idea of Western governments buying opium to replenish medical supplies from Afghan farmers.

Suppose next spring there was no let up in the number of Taliban attacks and in the number of Canadians dying, would you call for an end to the mission?

Dion was non committal. However, he said that it would have to be considered.

Given that Al Qaeda has singled Canada out because of our presence in Afghanistan and given that the alleged motivation of the Ontario 17 was our presence in Afghanistan , does our presence in Afghanistan make it more likely that Canada will be attacked by terrorists, home grown or otherwise?

Dion ducked the question. At least, I hope he did. He said that the likelihood of a terrorist attack depended on how effective our police forces and intelligence agencies are. The more effective our police forces the lesser the likelihood of attack. He might as well have uttered the following absurdity; seeing as how Canada has a more effective police force than Brazil, the likelihood that Canada would be attacked by Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda sympathizers is less than Brazil. Yes, an effective police force will lessen the probability of a terrorist attack, but when calculating the probability of an attack a bigger factor bigger is how many people are motivated to carry out such an attack. Motives matter. Only a politician trying to duck a touchy subject would dare pretend otherwise. Now, pace, they are hate our freedoms and multi ethnic make up, Harper, what motives home grown Jihadis is Canadian foreign policy. Just ask Crown prosecutors developing the case against the Ontario 17. As for Al Qaeda, right wing commentators take a perverse delight in noting that Al Qaeda has singled Canada out for attack. They see it as proof that Canadians are hopelessly naïve not to whole heartedly support the war on terror. What they fail to note, however, and this is testament to their complete lack of intellectual honesty, is why Al Qaeda singled Canada out for attack. Canada was singled out because of our presence in Afghanistan.

“What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us in Afghanistan? I mention in particular Britain, France , Italy , Canada, Germany and Australia.

We warned Australia before not to join in the war in Afghanistan, and against its despicable effort to separate East Timor. It ignored the warning until it woke up to the sounds of explosions in Bali."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/osamabinladen/tape.html

I asked Dion the following 5 questions.

1) Canada lags behind far behind virtually every other Western nation in terms of the number vacation days its citizens are guaranteed. Is it time that Canada bridge the vacation gap?

EU minimum is 4 weeks
Switzerland 4 weeks
New Zealand 4 weeks (starting in 2007)
Norway 5 weeks

2) Should Canada pass an euthanasia law, a la Holland ?

3) Other Western countries (e.g., Germany, Finland and Britain)have public dental care. Should Canada?

4) Do you support a proposed heroin maintenance program for Vancouver?

5) In order to attract more international grad students and just as importantly keep a higher percentage of international grad students in country after they graduate, Canada should offer citizenship to those foreign graduate students who complete a graduate degree from, and this important, a public Canadian university. Does this idea have any merit?

He was no made no commitment to any, but he did not rule out any either. He only made two comments of note. With regard to the proposed heroin maintenance program, he said it was an interesting idea. http://www.gatago.com/talk/politics/drugs/14815943.html He also commented on the last question. He worried about what kind effect such a policy would have on “developing” countries, i.e., the reverse brain drain. This surprised me. It was the kind of mushy liberalism at its worst answer I have come to expect from Ignatieff and not someone as hard edged as Dion.

Finally I asked Dion a few light hearted, get to know you questions.

What was the first car you owned?

Renault 12 was his response.
http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/show/9396/index12.htm

Name the last 2 movies you have seen.

Dion seemed dumbfounded that I should ask this question. He racked his brain for an answer and apologized. He said the leadership race did not give him much time for leisure. The last movie he saw was Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconvenient_truth/ He also mentioned seeing Fahrenheit 911. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fahrenheit_911/ However, after consulting with someone in French, he decided that in between seeing 911 he had seen Eight Below. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/eight_below/ He asked me if I was familiar with the movie. I said no, but after he gave a quick run down of the story I recognized the title. I sought his confirmation. “The kids movie?” He seemed annoyed by this and responded with “no the Disney movie”. I had to smile.

Martha Hall Findlay Ignatieff and Afghanistan

MHF agrees with Ignatieff. Harper lacks a strategy for Afghanistan. However she believes that this was evident all along and “Harpers lack of strategy is why I would have voted no”. This sets her and Ignatieff apart; both agree with the mission in principle, but she was more skeptical of Harper’s ability to pull it off.

Politically, this is a very clever approach and one Ignatieff and Kennedy should be very concerned about.

Ignatieff is found of saying that the Americans have made “every single mistake in Iraq and then some.” Other so called liberal hawks have said the same and over time a distinct line of criticism of the Iraq war has arisen. Namely, regardless of whether one believed in the Iraq mission in principle, Bush was never one to realize the hopes the pro war faction had for the war. Ignatieff has not yet gone as far as many other prominent liberal hawks in lamenting his support of the mission, but this line of criticism especially, in light of the most recent Lancet study estimating that upwards of 600,000 Iraqis have been killed in post war violence, leaves him with very little left to hold onto.

Where this bleeds into Ignatieff’s support of Afghanistan mission is that given Harper ideological closeness to the Neo Cons, his strong support of the Iraq war and yes his lack of clear strategy, Ignatieff, of all people, should have been suspicious of Stephen Harper’s ability to carry out the mission. Instead, despite a mere 6 hours of debate, he blindly threw his support behind Harper’s extension. Ignatieff should have been once bitten twice shy. Instead he backed both and laments how both missions have been prorogated; add to this his foot and mouth disease and it is little wonder why there are concerns about judgment – or lack there of.

MHF line is certainly an improvement on Dion’s line, for example. Under the guise that there was minimal debate in the house, Dion has still not offered an opinion on the mission. Dion is right; the reason he gave for voting no was a good reason. In a democracy, process matters. It is no reason, however, for not forming an opinion since.

As I said before, Kennedy should also be concerned about MHF line of questioning. Kennedy has raised questions about the mission and in many ways this has become the de facto Liberal position and the one MHF was taking aim at. That said, Kennedy has held out hope that the mission can still be transformed, but is his implicit belief that Harper, among others, can still right the ship, justified? MHF agreed with Ignatieff that Harper is not the right person for the job and I agree with them both. The problem for Ignatieff is that she is free to adopt this line and he, Mr. Johnny come lately, not.

Ignatieff Right: TDH Wrong

TDH: “Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as: "Wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including...wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial,...taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." I fail to see where Israel is guilty of committing war crimes [so defined].” http://www.tdhstrategies.com/2006/10/israel-did-not-commit-war-crimes.html

You fail to see a lot of things. Granted Hezobollah’s leaders are full of shit, but bombing sewage treatment plants would be classified as a war crime according to the definition set forth under the Geneva Convention: “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."

Liberal Martha Hall Findlay Favors Legalization of Marijuana and Public Dental Care

I emailed out the following survey to all Liberal candidates. Martha Hall Findlay is the only one to respond thus far. The questions are in bold, her answers in full highlighted. I have responded to some. Most of her answers are fairly par for the course, but there are a few that are really interesting.

1) A hypothetical: If a vote on Afghan mission was held today and there had been rigorous debate on the subject, would you vote to extend the mission through 2009?

Only if (i) in the process of the debate I was persuaded, with all of the relevant facts, that this was the right decision; and (ii) in conjunction with a domestic debate, we also engaged with our NATO and UN partners in a thorough review of the circumstances, of what our REAL goals in Afghanistan are, whether those goals are in fact achievable, and if so, how---and in the course of that debate we also determined that it was the right thing to do.

I was trying to avoid the debate fig leaf answer, but alas to no avail. Anyway, it is not unreasonable to expect Liberal candidates to have an opinion one way or the other. They can not hide behind there was no debate so I do not have opinion on the matter forever. Of course, one may rethink one’s position if new evidence or arguments come to light.


2) Suppose next spring there was no let up in the number of Taliban attacks and in the number of Canadians dying, would you call for an end to the mission?

My answer to this follows on my answer to #1. We need to have a full review and analysis, not only domestically but also with our NATO and UN partners, to determine goals, and if they are achievable, then how we can best achieve them. In making this commitment, Canada knew, and knows, that it is and will continue to be difficult, and that lives will be lost. If that decision is made appropriately, given all of the facts and review, then we must not simply pull up and away from our commitment when things get tough. My father landed on D-Day and helped liberate Holland in WW II. If we Canadians decide that something is important and worth doing, then we do it, even when it's tough.

3) Given that Al Qaeda has singled Canada out because of our presence in Afghanistan and given that the alleged motivation of the Ontario 17 was our presence in Afghanistan , does our presence in Afghanistan make it more likely that Canada will be attacked by terrorists, home grown or otherwise?

I'm not sure that Canada is being "singled out" by Al Qaeda, given the presence of a significant number of NATO members in Afghanistan . However, the chances of increased threat is possible, and one of the many factors that I would insist on considering in that full and thorough review, with our NATO partners, that I'm calling for. Again, though---if it's the right decision, properly arrived at considering all of the factors, then we don't shrink from taking the right action because of fear.

Personally I do not think there is any doubt. Canada is more likely to be attacked because of our presence in Afghanistan . I dare say I am not alone in this regard.
“When asked about the likelihood of Canada being a terror target because of its military presence in Afghanistan , 56 per cent said we are more likely to be attacked.

This represents an increase of 18 per cent compared to one year ago. Thirty-four per cent say the military presence has no bearing; while five per cent say having soldiers in Afghanistan make us less susceptible to an attack."

As for Al Qaeda, right wing commentators take a perverse delight in noting that Al Qaeda has singled Canada out for attack. They see it as proof that Canadians are hopelessly naïve not to whole heartedly support the war on terror. What they fail to note, however, and this is testament to their complete lack of intellectual honesty, is why Al Qaeda singled Canada out for attack. Canada was singled out because of our presence in Afghanistan.

“What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us in Afghanistan? I mention in particular Britain , France , Italy , Canada , Germany and Australia .

We warned Australia before not to join in the war in Afghanistan , and against its despicable effort to separate East Timor . It ignored the warning until it woke up to the sounds of explosions in Bali."

That being said the greater threat comes not from Al Qaeda per say, but from so called home grown terrorists.

All this begs the question is the increased likelihood of attack a reason for getting out of Afghanistan? I do not think anyone would claim it is a sufficient reason. However, given the futility of the mission, its cost both in human and financial terms and how little Canadian interests are furthered by our being there, it is reason enough.


4) Can NATO succeed in both stabilizing Afghanistan and destroying the country's number one industry?

I'm not sure which industry you believe is Afghanistan 's #1. If you mean the harbouring of terrorists and the growth of terrorism, then my answer is, unfortunately, that I don't know. That would be part of that larger, full review---a key component of those discussions would, of course, be whether that is an achievable goal. It is certainly one of the goals now, but whether it is achievable has come under some debate. If, however, you are referring to the opium trade, it's a different answer. I'm not sure that we should be so quick to insist on the destruction of the poppy crop. Western society is, after all, the biggest consumer of opiates. Suggesting a switch to other crops, such as corn, disregards the economic realities of corn being a crop that cannot earn nearly as much money, particularly when markets (including our own and those of the US and Europe ) are so subsidized and so protected. One alternative might be for the world to agree to pay decent prices for the crops for use in medicinal opiates, morphine for example, which is in fact in short supply.

I should have specified that I meant the opium crop, but is harbouring terrorists really an industry?

Marijuana


5) Does it make any sense to on the one hand decriminalize marijuana possession under the guise that current punishments are far out of proportion to the act while on the hand increasing the penalties for trafficking?

No. Prohibition didn't work for alcohol---it only spawned tremendous crime, some of it violent. We are seeing exactly the same thing with marijuana. There is an interesting study by the Fraser Institute ( www.fraserinstitute.ca) which suggests that continued criminalization of marijuana does not make sense—for the same reasons that prohibition didn't work for alcohol.

It should be noted that this is a rejection of official Liberal policy.

6) Are concerns about so called "potent pot" valid?

Yes, but the concerns would be more easily addressed if, with some legalization, the product could be properly controlled.

I disagree; the evidence that today’s pot is substantially stronger than the pot of old rests on pretty shaky ground.

Moreover, even if it were true, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. Indeed, if anything potent pot should be welcomed. After all, the most prominent health effect related to marijuana is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high.

All that being said, MHF is using the de jour argument against marijuana legalization against the drug warriors. She is arguing that if potent pot is as much as a concern as they say it is, keeping it illegal makes the situation worse and not better. The potency of pot can be insured if regulated and it can only be regulated if legal.

7) The Senate committee on marijuana concluded that the "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol"? Do you agree with this conclusion?
Yes.

Ok I think there is enough here to out MHF as a supporter of legalization.

Vacation Time


8) Canada lags behind far behind virtually every other Western nation in terms of the number vacation days its citizens are guaranteed. Is it time that Canada bridge the vacation gap?

EU minimum is 4 weeks
Switzerland 4 weeks
New Zealand 4 weeks (starting in 2007)
Norway 5 weeks

It is something worth reviewing, but it must be done in consideration of overall productivity, costs of employment for employers, and compensation for employees. There are interesting studies that show that with a bit more time off, people can in fact be more productive during the hours actually working.

My attitude is that if the entire Western world, minus the US can do it, so can we.


Euthanasia


9) Should Canada pass an euthanasia law, a la Holland ?

A very tough question. If we were to consider it, we would of course require incredibly strong parameters and controls. My preference is to educate more people on the benefits of living wills and let them make their own decisions about who might decide, when, not to resuscitate.

Passive euthanasia, (e.g., dehydration) is already a reality in Canada and is extremely common. All the proponents of most common form of legalized euthanasia are calling for is for option of making some of those passive cases active.


Dental care


10) Other Western countries (e.g., Germany, Finland and Britain)have public dental care. Should Canada?

Certain basic dental procedures should be considered as part of an overall health care plan. A lot of Canadians do not have access to dental insurance.

I am boarding the bus.


Ignatieff


11) Given his support for "Empire Lite", does Ignatieff have the potential to be as divisive a figure within the party as Tony Blair has become within his party?

Mr. Ignatieff and I disagree on a number of issues, but agree on many others. On the former, I would prefer to disagree, and engage in the vigorous discussion necessary for truly effective policy development with someone who holds views that are different than mine, but holds them honestly, than to agree with someone whose views are more politically expedient than honest.

This was not what I asked, but it was unreasonable to expect her to answer. Ignatieff has the potential to rip the party apart, a la Tony Blair; he also has to potential to good leader a la Tony Blair.


Heroin Maintenance


12) Do you support a proposed heroin maintenance program for Vancouver?

I am a full supporter of the Insite site in Vancouver.


The heroin maintenance and Insite are two different things. Insite is Vancouver’s safe injection site. Vancouver ’s heroin maintenance program involves, as should be obvious, giving a group of identified addicts heroin. The evidence for the effectiveness of both is overwhelming.


Books


13) Name the last 4 books you have read.

Andrew Cohen's "While Canada Slept"
Roy MacGregor 's "The Dog and I"
Andre Pratte's "Aux Pays des Merveilles"
Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit"

I have only read Frankfurt ’s “On Bullshit”; I liked it.


Movies


14) Name the last 2 movies you have seen.

Capote
United 93

Both are excellent.


Car


15) What was the first car you owned?

An old milk truck (the kind with the sliding doors) that had been converted into a camper—panelled in pine with an old black wood burning stove and stove pipe out the roof. My second car was a second-hand Toyota pick-up.

Wow.

My Pet Policy Idea


16) In order to attract more international grad students and just as importantly keep a higher percentage of international grad students in country after they graduate, Canada should offer citizenship to those foreign graduate students who complete a graduate degree from, and this important, a public Canadian university. Does this idea have any merit?

Yes, it has merit---it should be considered as part of a larger, but immediately needed review of our immigration point system. We'd like to encourage a reverse brain drain, but (as just one example) we also have thousands and thousands of people working here in the construction trades, illegally, because although we clearly need their skills, the point system doesn't recognize it.

I know I know; it was nasty to ask this question. She is not in a position to say that this is the dumbest idea she has ever come across. That said, I would like to ignore that fact; in fact, my head feels bigger already.

Many Thanks to Martha Hall Findlay for taking the time and for having the courage to take the survey.

Meeting Michael Ignatieff

I met Ignatieff. He is not as tall as I thought. He is around 6 foot to 6, 1. He is slight and his posture is bad. His narrow shoulders, his tendency to hold his hands tightly by his side and his poor posture extenuate his head. The way he holds himself physically seems to reflect his intensely introspective nature. This might sound odd, but if he was to become the next leader of the party, the party should see to it that he see a personal trainer. A good trainer will open his body up and metaphorically open him up to the Canadian people. If nothing else if he was to develop his lats, he would be less inclined to hold his arms so tight against his body and would instead spread them wider. This is would give his gesticulations a less tortured feel.

His first words to me and to those around me was to explain why he was wearing makeup. He said that he was made up for television not because he choice too, but because that is just what it is done. He mentioned this later too. He was right to mention it. It was quite noticeable. I presume he just did not have the time to take it off.

Once Ignatieff had made the rounds and we had all sang happy birthday to Sukh Dhaliwal, Ignatieff made his case for why he should be the next Liberal leader. It was obvious that he is comfortable in front of crowd, has a superb grasp of the English language and that his breath of learning and wealth of experience is great. His opening marks about the diversity in the Lowermainland were well laid out. They came off as intelligent observations of a seasoned traveler and not as pandering.

Ignatieff focused on three areas the environment, Immigration and Native issues. He first talked about his environment platform and of the three this was the best thought out and he had little trouble answering questions about it later. Of all the Liberal candidates his environmental platform appeals to me the most; those who argue that only carrots will do the trick are dreaming; some sticks are needed too; there needs to be a carbon tax.

The next area he hit on was immigration. His comments were all over the place and where not sufficiently underpinned by a well thought out argument. They seemed more like unconnected musings, however well informed, than well thought out policy. His views on family unification, for example, were, well, different. Indeed, no matter how nice it would be to let every adult immigrant to Canada bring their parents here, from a policy point of view, the idea makes little sense. The road to hell is paved with good intensions. The average immigrant to Canada is slightly older than your average Canadian. Needless to say, we should work to make the reverse true. After all, one of the primary justifications for high levels of immigration is that we need more immigrants to prevent a pension and health care crisis caused by a disproportionate number of baby boomers in the Canadian population. Allowing huge number of immigrant baby boomers only makes the problem worse – much worse.

That said, it was clear that Ignatieff opinions on the matter have been shaped in no small measure by his time in office and that he is someone who takes the concerns people bring to him very seriously. I am sure he was right in saying that 80% of what he does as MP relates to immigration; Speaking from personal experience, under funding and under staffing of Canada’s immigration department and its foreign embassies means that urban MPs have to pick up the slack and sometimes the pieces. It was nice to hear a politician acknowledge that the immigration system is massively under funded. I was also encouraged when he said that Canada needs more immigrants than what we are currently letting in. We do, but we need them to be younger.

Next on the agenda was Native self government and related topics, but before I elaborate I have a confession. In my opinion, Native self government may be the dumbest idea, from a policy perspective, the Liberals have ever championed. Furthermore, although some Liberal strategists might think that pandering to natives is a hinterland strategy that will lead to more Merasty miracles, this will only provide the Conservatives with all the benefits of a Willie Horton strategy in those aforementioned hinterlands without the running the danger of actually employing one. Ignatieff comments centered on wanting to make amends for past racist policies, wanting to increase the number of Native students in university and how impressed he was with the new crop of Native leaders. It was liberalism at its mushy guilt ridden worst.

Afterwards, Ignatieff answered questions from the gallery. One concerned Afghanistan. Another concerned the economic wisdom of his environmental policies in light of the fact that Washington is unwilling to adopt Kyoto. His answers were a study in contrasts. In answering the environmental question Ignatieff mentioned that properly crafted regulations would help incentivevize Canada’s oil and gas industry into becoming a world leader in producing greener technology; in the long term this would benefit Canada economically and not hurt it. In other words he gave a reasoned response. Conversely, when asked about Afghanistan he studiously avoided two areas people want to him to address: 1) is the mission doable? 2) How does Canada benefit from being there? Instead he assured us that the Taliban were awful people and implied that going to Afghanistan gave him some epistemic insight that others who have not been there have not had. It was an argument from authority and one I found it off putting. I know of no one who harbors any illusions about who the Taliban are. However there are those of us who are convinced that leaving is the lesser of two evils and Ignatieff needs to address our arguments.

I did not want to flog a dead hoarse that is Iraq, but just before Ignatieff left for the airport I had a chance to ask him about his Kurdish talking point he goes with whenever the subject of Iraq comes up and so went with it. For example :

“Q: What do you tell Liberal delegates who ask why you thought it right to support George Bush in Iraq when the Liberal Party of Canada had decided it would not?

A: What I say is, they have to understand what I saw in Iraq in 1992. I have been a human rights reporter and you get scorched by what you see. I saw what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds in 1992 and I decided there and then that I would stand with these people no matter what happens. And I've done so ever since.”

Given that Kurdistan has been a de facto independent state since 1992, I asked him why he thought the plight of the Kurds in 2003 was a compelling reason for regime change. He rehashed his all his reasons for going to war and so did really answer the question. I hope for his sake that he abandons this talking point before Dion and Rae force feed him the illogic of it.

If Ignatieff is going to hold off Dion and Rae, he is going to have to cry uncle on Iraq. In so doing, he is going to have come up with a different argument for why we should be in Afghanistan. His humanitarian argument for why we should be in Afghanistan inevitably bleeds back into his humanitarian argument for why he supported the Iraq war; that inevitably puts him in a world of hurt.
Not only is Ignatieff’s Kurdish talking point is fatally flawed, but Ignatieff decision to go only with his humanitarian argument with regard to Iraq has made things worse not and better. His only substantive argument for why we should be in Afghanistan is a humanitarian one and this argument inevitably bleeds back into his humanitarian argument for why he supported the Iraq war; that inevitably puts him in a world of hurt. Indeed, as any possible US target is going to have a less than stellar human rights record Ignatieff plays into the hands of those who charge that he would commit Canada to whatever Washington dreams up, albeit for different reasons. Ignatieff needs to cry uncle on Iraq and explain how the two missions are different.

His past attempts to distance himself from Iraq did not exactly bare fruit. Indeed the reasons he gave for why he would not have sent troops to Iraq apply just as readily to Afghanistan . Two in particular come to mind.

1) Ignatieff said that support of the population was vital and population did not support the Iraq mission. However, polls suggest that extending the mission has no better than support of half the population and polls showed at the time of the May vote that strong majority of Canadians were opposed to extending the mission.

2) Ignatieff claimed that a potential national unity crisis was reason enough for staying out of the Iraq war. That said, a terrorist attack, inspired by Canada 's presence in Afghanistan , could spilt the country apart, especially if Quebec is the victim. Currently the Afghan mission is opposed by what 70% of Quebecers. If Quebecers die as a result of us being there, the separatists will use it as a reason why Quebecers need their own country with its own foreign policy. Given what has just transpired in Ontario, and the fact that the accused were said to be motivated by Canada's role in Afghanistan and what happened in Spain and Britain, Ignatieff can not very well claim that chances of such an attack or not insignificant.

Ignatieff often says that he will hold Harper’s feet to the fire should he change the nature of the Afghan mission. However he does not say just what consequences are in store for Harper if he drifts off course. No one seriously believes, especially in light his refusal to cry uncle on Iraq, that Ignatieff would stop supporting the mission, for example. Furthermore as he came to power only in January he is only associated, rightly or wrongly, only with the Conservative mission. All told, the comment seems a throwaway aimed at placating his Afghan critics. What he desperately needs to do is this: He needs to sketch out the point at which he would consider abandoning the mission. This is not as daunting as it first seems. I would suggest he could change his benchmarks for success into reasons for reconsidering the mission.

"Q What are your benchmarks for Canadian success in Afghanistan?

A The Taliban offensive will probably run out of gas as the winter season comes. These things are seasonal. One benchmark of success is if we don't get a resumption next spring. If it comes back gangbusters in April '07, we do have a problem. The second benchmark is just intelligence co-operation. Are villagers helping us? Our moral legitimacy depends on us believing we are their friends and the Taliban their enemies. If we start to lose intelligence co-operation and help, that's a pretty good benchmark that something has gone badly wrong in our relationship.”

Overall impressions: Ignatieff says that Canada is a serious country and Canadians are serious people. I would like Ignatieff to name which countries are not. Anyway, Ignatieff needs to be less serious. Canadians might be “serious” people, but the liberal minded of us dream of doing a pirouette or two behind the Queen’s back. Ignatieff is often compared to Trudeau, but a better comparison is Ken Dryden. Ignatieff is serious, kind, considerate and empathic and is entirely undeserving of some of the attacks made on his character. He is, if nothing else, a good person. However, if Ignatieff is going to win, he is going to have to find in himself some of Trudeau’s swagger. Incidentally, Rae seems to be the only candidate right now with any sort of swagger. Failing that, perhaps Ignatieff could get away with championing a sexy, advant guard and largely peripheral issue. Those who know me know that I think the legalization of marijuana is such an issue.

Liberal Leadership Race: Candidates are Timid Unimaginative Comformists

Strangely, the candidates seem content run on the same platform that got the Liberals tossed from office back in January. Stranger still is the fact that the favorites have been the ones taking the chances (e.g. carbon tax) and the candidates with virtually nothing to loose are the ones playing it most safe.

Hedy Fry is the best example of a candidate who should be making noise, but is not. Indeed, despite the fact that Hedy Fry represents one of the most socially liberal ridings in Canada and the fact that she is at the end of her political career, she has been unwilling to roll the dice and make any controversial statements or bold policy proposals. What has playing it safe got her thus far? A paltry $15 grad in donations and the ghost of Prince George still has not been vanquished. Hedy Fry says the party needs more than just a fresh coat of paint. I could not agree more. However, if that is her position, it is time she put her money were her mouth is. Personally, I would love it if one of the candidates would line up behind one or more of the following.

4 weeks vacation for all Canadians

Legalization of marijuana

A promise to pull the troops out of Afghanistan

Euthanasia

Legalization of prostitution

Mandatory voting

Abolition of the senate

Abolition of the monarchy

Making Dental care part of health care

Willingness to tackle media concentration

It should be noted that during his first year in office, Trudeau decriminalized homosexuality, and lightened the restrictions on gambling, abortion and divorce. It is my hope that should the Liberals win the next election that they be as bold as Trudeau. As with claims about wanting to change the party, it means very little to invoke the ghost of Trudeau, as Fry and others have done, unless they are willing to act as boldly.

It should be noted that the above are certainly not new ideas and many are realities in Europe.

Ignatieff's Afghan Problem

Peace keeping means what it says. It involves keeping the peace between two identifiable warring factions who want peace and have invited third party in to keep it. It really only has a hope of succeeding when those groups are separated from one another by geography. In this sense Ignatieff is right about the Afghanistan mission and the others dead wrong. Afghanistan is not suited to peace keeping. Furthermore, as guerilla war supplants state on state violence as the dominant form of conflict, peacekeeping missions have become less and less useful. In this sense too Ignatieff is right, albeit for the wrong reasons, and his opponents are wrong. Peace keeping has had it day; it represents a proud chapter in Canada history, but that chapter has been written; let us move on. The question is to what.

Given that he is the only one willing to admit that peace keeping has had its day, it should come as no surprise that Ignatieff is the only candidate is to propose a replacement and for this he deserves still more credit. Ignatieff, however, proposes that the Liberals adopt a Neo Wilsonian doctrine that works in theory, but is a miserable failure in practice. In short, without Ignatieff the Liberals would have remained trapped in the past, but with him the Liberals are trapped between ideology and nostalgia.

Moreover, while Ignatieff "responsibility to protect" doctrine does not piggyback on US foreign policy in theory, it certainly does in practice. No other Western country has the economic, military, political and diplomatic wherewithal to intervene in situations that Ignatieff claims we have a duty to intervene and in the manner in which he advocates. If the US does not intervene, then the West will not intervene and the UN and other international bodies will certainly not intervene.

Ignatieff: "Multilateral solutions to the world's problems are all very well, but they have no teeth unless America bares its fangs."

http://empirelite.ca/ The relationship is not entirely a parasitic one though. The so called "liberal hawks" did much of the intellectual heavy lifting for the Bush administration prior to the Iraq War. If Ignatieff has his way, Canada will fill that role as well as offering token support.

Needless to say, being wedded to US foreign policy has it consequences. If the US attacks a Muslim country, an obvious consequence is an increased risk of terrorism, but more on that latter. Another one was mentioned by Ignatieff following the Iraq war. Motives matter. It is not enough that an intervention be justified on humanitarian grounds. Motives determine policy. As a result, if the motives of the interveners are not in the right spot the desired outcomes will likely not be achieved or worse. Ignatieff claims that he only recognized this with regard to Iraq after the fact. To date, Ignatieff has not, however, mentioned what motivates US policy in Afghanistan and how this might affect outcomes there.

As for Afghanistan, while many people may side with him and admire his past writings, the manner in which Ignatieff has defended the mission has angered people on both sides of the debate. His performance in the first Liberal leadership debate particularly irked people. During the debate Ignatieff claimed that the death of a Canadian soldier meant that if the house did not vote to extend the mission her death would have been in vain and by implication that the mission had merit by virtue of her death. "I supported the extension of the mission because that very day a brave soldier from Shilo, Manitoba, gave her life". http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/10/libs-sat.html?ref=rss Now, no one wants to see someone die for a mistake, but it is incredible that Ignatieff would imply that a mission is validated if soldiers have died carrying it out. That was not the worst of it though. He went to say suggest that voting against an extension meant that one did not “support our troops”. "I couldn't in good conscience stand up in the House of Commons and not vote for the extension of a mission when our soldiers' lives were on the line." The Star's Chantal Herbert rightly called him to task for this:

"Saturday, he said he felt he would have let the Canadian soldiers who had put their lives on the line in Afghanistan down if he had voted differently. The notion that support for our troops should mean support for the government's decisions on the deployment is one of Stephen Harper's most demagogic arguments. In a rebuttal to Ignatieff, Bob Rae was right to point it out."

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1150064106473&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907622983

However bad these talking points are, what threatens to do the most damage to Ignatieff's reputation is his failure to acknowledge the Afghan elephant in the Canadian living room. Namely, Ignatieff has not acknowledged that our presence in Afghanistan greatly increases the chances that Canada will be targeted by terrorists, especially domestic ones. The arrest of the Ontario 17 has certainly driven this point home. According to the crown, Canada's Afghanistan policy was what motivated them. Canada is thus added to the list of countries targeted (Britain, Spain and Australia (the Lodhi case) and the US) by its own citizens because they were angered by their country's foreign policy. If a desire to speak the truth was not motivation enough, then Stephen Harper's denials should have been. Ignaiteff gains nothing by remaining silent. The Canadian people certainly do not believe Harper's propaganda about the Afghan mission making us safer.

"When asked about the likelihood of Canada being a terror target because of its military presence in Afghanistan, 56 per cent said we are more likely to be attacked.

This represents an increase of 18 per cent compared to one year ago. Thirty-four per cent say the military presence has no bearing; while five per cent say having soldiers in Afghanistan make us less susceptible to an attack."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060609/terrorism_poll_060609?s_name=&no_ads=

And it is not as if Ignatieff has not acknowledged a connection between foreign policy and terrorism before. For example:

"After 9/11, Islamic terrorism may have metastasized into a cancer of independent terrorist cells that, while claiming inspiration from Al Qaeda, no longer require its direction, finance or advice. These cells have given us Madrid. Before that, they gave us Istanbul, and before that, Bali. There is no shortage of safe places in which they can grow. Where terrorists need covert support, there are Muslim communities, in the diasporas of Europe and North America, that will turn a blind eye to their presence. If they need raw recruits, the Arab rage that makes for martyrs is still incandescent. Palestine is in a state of permanent insurrection. Iraq is in a state of barely subdued civil war. Some of the Bush administration's policies, like telling Ariel Sharon he can keep settlements on the West Bank, may only be fanning the flames."

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2004/ignatieff_less_evils_nytm_050204.htm

The longer Ignatieff sits by and lets Stephen Harper echo Bush and claim that Canadian foreign policy plays no role and that "we are a target because of who we are, and how we live, our society are diversity our values” the more damage is done to his strongest asset, viz., his reputation as public intellectual committed to open and honest debate, and the more ammunition he gives to those who claim that he a Republican lap dog. No public intellectual worth his salt, no matter where they stood on the mission, would tolerate Stephen Harper claiming that sending troops to Afghanistan will protect Canadians from domestic terrorists, who have never sat foot in Afghanistan, but who are, according to the crown, motivated to attack Canada because we have sent troops there.

Even Bin Laden has mocked Bush's claim that the reason Al Qaeda attacked the US was because Al Qaeda hate American freedoms.

"Oh American people, my talk to you is about the best way to avoid another Manhattan, about the war, its causes, and results. Security is an important pillar of human life. Free people do not relinquish their security. This is contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. Let him tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have proud souls, like the souls of the 19 people [killed while perpetrating the 11 September 2001 attacks], may God have mercy on them. We fought you because we are free and do not accept injustice. We want to restore freedom to our nation. Just as you waste our security, we will waste your security."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3966817.stm It goes without saying that no Conservative has ever explained why Al Qaeda has singled Canada out, but that is not because they have not said. Al Qaeda has made it clear it is because of our presence in Afghanistan.

"What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us in Afghanistan? I mention in particular Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia. We warned Australia before not to join in the war in Afghanistan, and against its despicable effort to separate East Timor. It ignored the warning until it woke up to the sounds of explosions in Bali.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/osamabinladen/tape.html In Al Qaeda speak, Canada's involvement in Muslim lands makes us part of the "far enemy"; the "near enemy" are the regimes of the Middle East. However much Harper might wish it, Bin Laden's words can wished away with the wave of his neo conservative wand. Bin Laden's words lay out an ideological and strategic Western citizens inspired by Al Qaeda's ramblings and as sure as the sun will set and rise some Canadians will be inspired and will consider carrying out acts terrorism so long as Canada is part of military operation in a Muslim country. Furthermore, pace Rae, Kennedy and Volpe, it likely does not matter what the nature of our military role in such missions is. Sending a "reconstruction team" is just as likely to get us targeted as peace making team. It is foolish to believe that anyone inspired by Al Qaeda would care to make such distinctions; most are too blinded by ideology lies and hate and those that are not will see the strategic reasons for erasing such a distinction.

His support for Afghanistan good harm Ignatieff in yet another way. According to Ignatieff, despite his strong support for war in Iraq, he would not have sent Canadian troops into the country. He gave several reasons. http://www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com/lofiversion/index.php/t7732.html One was that Canadians did not support going to Iraq and public support in a democracy matters. The other was that going to Iraq would have had significant consequences for national unity here at home. Separatists had historically made hay whenever Canada had sent troops abroad and this time would have been no different; it is hard to argue that Ignatieff is wrong in this regard. Iraq would have been a huge boast for them. That said, in trying to distance himself from the Iraq war, Ignatieff created more troubles for himself then he solved. For you see, the sword cuts both ways. As with Iraq, the Canadian people did not support extending the Afghan mission. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that separatists could not make hay with Afghanistan. Indeed, a terrorist attack, inspired by Canada's presence in Afghanistan, could spilt the country apart, especially if Quebec is the victim. Currently the Afghan mission is opposed by what 60% of Quebecers and huge number opposed the mission's extension. If Quebecers die as a result of us being there, the separatists will use it as a reason why Quebecers need their own country with its own foreign policy. Given what has just transpired in Ontario and the fact that the accused were said to be motivated by Canada's role in Afghanistan, Ignatieff can not very well claim that chances of such an attack or not insignificant.

Indeed for a schoolar who has made a reputation for himself sketching out the possible and actual consqunces of a war on terrorism, Ignatieff has been remarkably silent on what a terrorist attack motivated by Canada's involvment in Afghanistan might mean for the country. A further problem that Ignatieff surely recognizes but cares not to comment on is this.. If Canada is going to avoid a European like demographic meltdown, Canada will have to keep allowing in large numbers of immigrants. If a terrorist attack does occur, this may no longer be politically possible. We may find ourselves in same situation as Europe, namely, badly needing immigrants, but unable to do so because it is not politically possible.

One would think that given such risks, not to mention the costs, that Ignatieff would at least have a convincing argument for why the Afghan mission will succeed and, just as importantly, how success in Afghanistan furthers Canadian interests, but alas no. He has not said a peep. It would thus appear that while Ignatieff the intellectual might be worried about mounting coalition causalities, the introduction of suicide bombings into Afghanistan, riots in Kabul, aid agencies all but abandoning Afghanistan's hinterlands and recent reports that the coalition is loosing the battle for hearts and minds, Ignatieff the politician seriously believes that good intentions somehow guarantee success.

Thankfully not all supporters of the Afghan mission have sold their soul and their brain in the hopes of political glory.

Ahmed Rashid:

"Since 2003 when the Taliban first began to regroup, they have gradually matured and developed with the help of al-Qaeda, which has reorganized and retrained them to use more sophisticated tactics in their military operations. As recently as a year ago, the main Taliban groups were composed of a few dozen fighters; now each group includes hundreds of heavily armed men equipped with motorbikes, cars, and horses. They burn down schools and administrative buildings and kill any Afghan who is even indirectly associated with the government. In the south, they operate with impunity just outside the provincial capitals, which have become like Green Zones. Approximately 1,500 Afghan security guards and civilians were killed by the Taliban last year and some three hundred already this year. There have been forty suicide bombings during the past nine months, compared to five in the preceding five years. ....

The aid programs supposed to provide alternative livelihoods to farmers producing poppies or help them grow other lucrative cash crops are derisory when compared to what the drug smugglers offer. The best-functioning programs to help farmers are run by opium traffickers who provide improved varieties of poppy seeds, fertilizer, and better methods of cultivation to increase opium yields and even large-scale employment during the poppy harvest. When we compare Afghanistan's situation today with that of 2001, we see the country now needs to develop an entire alternative economy to replace the drug economy."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19098 (The Taliban have recreated themselves as the champion of the opium trade; defending Afghanistan's only viable crop and export from outsiders who only seek to destroy the opium trade, has proved very successful and explains why many experts fill the Taliban is winning the battle for hearts.)

How the Neo Cons paved the way for liberal Interventionists

Saying that intervening in foreign conflicts purely for humanitarian reasons is bad foreign policy is certainly legitimate -in fact, this is basically the position of the neocons who dominate the Bush administration (and recall that Bush himself opposed "national building" like NATO's eventual intervention in Yugoslavia after the spectacular failure of the UN in the 2000 election campaign).

The Bush administration has never has been a unified monolith. There are and have been fissures. State and DOD were frequently at loggerheads when Powell was still there and CIA and Vice President’s office were not exactly friendly. Moreover, there are very real differences between 41 and 43. Philosophically, realists Scowcroft and Baker simply do not see eye to eye with neo cons such Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Before you interject I would certainly not accept Wolfowitz’s implication that what distinguishes the two camps is that one believes in democracy and the other in propping up tyrants. If I was to draw the line, I would say the main difference is how powerful each group believes the US to be.

Anyway, whereas you imply that Bush’s hostility to nation building in the 2000 campaign is continuous and compatible with post 911 rhetoric, I believe a major shift has occurred. After 911 the neo cons not only won over W, they won the battle for the Republican hearts and Republican minds. Their victory was so complete that in the lead up to the Iraq war realist critiques of the potential consequences of such an adventure went entirely unnoticed. The Republican base bought into Neo Con assumption that the UN was only ever a constraint on US power and rejected that realist belief that the multilateral institutions were a useful way of limiting potential costs and risks. Rumsfeld’s yammering about “old Europe”, "freedom Fries" etc were seen by the Republican base as evidence that Gulliver had at long last broken free of the Lilliputians. It was cause for celebration and no thought was given to the fact that such comments or campaigns might have caused the US a great deal of damage. Similarly, traditional realist laments about nation building went unnoticed for one simple reason. A key neo con assumption is that nation building, in the traditional sense, is not necessary. This is the main reason for the complete lack of planning in Iraq. Society is organic. Free it and the market from various “unnatural” restraints and it will flourish all by its own. The Republican base swallowed this assumption whole. With concerns over nation building out of the way, the Republicans were able to play up the humanitarian angle to a much greater extent then they would have had such a campaign occurred before 911 and in the process draw closer the liberal interventionists/ “liberal hawks”. (Sure the administration focused primarily on WMD, but Republican chattering classes, most notably those at the weekly Standard, and the right wing think tanks certainly pushed transformative power of democracy and the market line.)

For me whether Ignatieff can offer a convincing reply to this question is the litmus test that determines whether he is legitimately a liberal interventionist or merely an academic apologist for the Bush administration's imperial fantasies.

Look there is always going to be a decent humanitarian case for following the Bush administration on any given adventure. After all, the type of places the Americans are limited to attacking openly are always going to tokens of world’s worst. That is why the rise of neo conservatism has made me dislike liberal interventionism a lot more than I used to. Not constrained by with usual realist laments, the project for new American Century promised to turn liberal interventionists into kids in a candy store. They insured that no one would be attacking them from the right flank at a time when the post 911 zeitgeist in the States had muted the left wing of the Democratic party. In return, these so called "liberal Hawks" did the intellectual heavy lifting for Bushco on the Iraq war.

Pramatic Turn

I would love it if a Liberal candidate made a speech resembling the following.

Peace keeping means what it says. It involves keeping the peace between two identifiable warring factions who want peace and have invited third party in to keep it. It really only has a hope of succeeding when those groups are separated from one another by geography. As guerilla war supplants state on state violence as the dominant form of conflict, peacekeeping missions have become less and less useful. In this sense Ignatieff is right and Rae, Volpe and Layton are dead wrong. Peace keeping has had it day; it represents a proud chapter in Canada history, but that chapter has been written; let us move on. The question is to what.

Ignatieff is the only candidate is to propose a replacement and for that he deserves credit. Ignatieff, however, proposes that we adopt a Neo Conservative doctrine that works in theory, but is a miserable failure in practice. So here we Liberals are, trapped between ideology and nostalgia.

It is time we Liberals take a pragmatic turn. This should be a simple enough, but alas I fear no. For most Canadian politicians foreign policy is a subject they would prefer to forget much less discuss and is only made tolerable for us Liberals by a number refined and ready made platitudes. Do not be fooled by Ignatieff’s muscular Victorian venire either, a puritanical adherence to altruism still has domain over all parties and one asks “how does this benefit Canada?”, “what are the risks?” or “how likely is such a mission to succeed?” at ones own peril. Good intentions and moral obligation are still seen as magical guarantees of a mission’s success. Ignatieff’s position is just more in keeping with Conservative axiom that when it comes to foreign policy all one need do is to puff out one’s chest and hope for the best and a different set of platitudes. In keeping with such a testosterone driven attitude, Ignatieff followed Stephen Harper’s lead and claimed that anyone who opposed the extension of the Afghan mission does not “support the troops”. Where Ignatieff differs from Harper is that he does not believe that our obligation to protect does not in theory depend upon American’s willingness to intervene even if it does in practice.

As Liberals, we must not be tempted either of these two sets of platitudes. We must be more worldly in outlook. We must start asking questions that we have either repressed, or were afraid to ask. Only once we start asking the more mundane questions about how this or that policy benefits Canada, what are the chances of it succeeding, will we create a more realistic picture for the Canadian public. As representatives of the people, we owe the public that much; we owe them the truth.

For starters this means removing the fig leaf of Conservative procedural misconduct and having the very debate about Afghanistan we, rightly claim the Canadian people missed out on. In doing so, pace Ignatieff, scared cows are not the only wild animal to be avoided. We must also be wary of elephants and guerillas. Let us not pretend, for example, that our Afghanistan policy will not have domestic consequences. We have recently seen that it does. We can not pretend, as Stephen Harper does, that sending troops to Afghanistan will not protect us from terrorists who have never set foot in that country, but who wish us ill will because we have sent troops there. We must accept that in a democratic society, politicians have a duty to base their arguments on the truth and that they do not have the option of designing arguments to obscure it even if believe our hearts in the right place.

Ignatieff and Rae on Afghanistan

Bob Rae /http://www.bobrae.ca/enontheissues.php has adopted the NDP line that the problem with Afghanistan is that our role has supposedly changed and we have moved from being peace keepers to peace makers. "The unilateral extension of the combat mission is a departure from Canada's traditional role of peacekeeping and reconstruction. Bob believes Canada could have instead focused our military, aid and diplomatic resources on reconstruction and rebuilding that war-torn country . . ." This is kind of idiotic reasoning born of focus groups and polling. Such polls show that Canadians have a high opinion of peacekeeping, but a low opinion of offensive missions. So the NDP says give the people what they want. The thing is, though, that Peace keeping means what it says. It involves keeping the peace between two identifiable warring factions who want peace and have invited third party in for that very reason. (Ignatieff says that Rwanda was peace keepings death nail. I disagree. Rwanda was never suited to be a peace keeping mission. Indeed, in many ways having peace keepers in Rwanda lessened the chances of the needed military intervention. The killing of Belgium peace keepers made intervention far harder politically and the prospect of more dead UN peacekeepers also probably played a role. The two groups were not geographically separate. That said, just because you can not use a hammer as a screw driver does not mean that hammer is useless. A hammer is only useless only in so far it no longer serves any purpose and that might just be happening with peace keeping. As guerilla war supplants state on state violence as the dominant form of conflict, peacekeeping missions have become less and less useful. In this sense Peace keeping is indeed dying.) Despite what Rae, Volpe and Layton might say, Canada was never doing this in Afghanistan nor could it ever hope to. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are not so kind as to distinguish themselves from the rest of the population and they simply do not recognize the distinction between a foreign military force focusing on peacekeeping and reconstruction and those focused on peacemaking. (Some have suggested to me that a focus on reconstruction and peacekeeping would result in fewer causalities, would make us less susceptible to terrorism and would produce better results. This is bullocks. The Auzzies took on an offensive role in Iraq and Spanish took on the role of nation builders. The Auzzies lost far fewer soliders than the Spanish, spent far less than the Spanish and it was Spain and not Australia that was attacked by terrorists for their role in Iraq. If Canada signs on to some furture American adventure, I hope they have the good sense to at least to take on a short term offensive role (special forces air strikes), a la Austraila in Iraq, and not a nation buidling role, a la Spain in Iraq. ) What changed is that we went from a region where the insurgency was weak to one war it was strong.

Ignatieff employed his own focus group and poll driven talking points with regard to Afghanistan during the recent leadership debate and unlike Rae's Ignatieff’s went down like a Led Zeppelin. Incredibly Ignatieff http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/10/libs-sat.html?ref=rss claimed that death of a Canadian soldier meant that if Canada did not vote to extend the mission her death would have been in vain and by implication that the mission had merit by virtue of her death. "I supported the extension of the mission because that very day a brave soldier from Shilo, Manitoba, gave her life," No one wants to die for a mistake, but it is incredible that Ignatieff would imply that a mission is validated if soldiers have died carrying it out. That was not the worst of it though. He went to say suggest that voting against an extension meant that one did not “support our troops”. "I couldn't in good conscience stand up in the House of Commons and not vote for the extension of a mission when our soldiers' lives were on the line." Chantal Herbert http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1150064106473&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907622983 rightly jumped all over him:




"Last month, Ignatieff was one of only two leadership candidates to support the Prime Minister's decision to extend the Afghan mission for two years beyond next February. Saturday, he said he felt he would have let the Canadian soldiers who had put their lives on the line in Afghanistan down if he had voted differently. The notion that support for our troops should mean support for the government's decisions on the deployment is one of Stephen Harper's most demagogic arguments. In a rebuttal to Ignatieff, Bob Rae was right to point it out."


Rae http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/10/libs-sat.html?ref=rss “I disagree quite profoundly with Michael [Ignatieff] on this issue," Rae said, adding that "it's most unfair" to suggest that "if you vote against the resolution you are not supportive of Canadian troops overseas."


Liberal Bloggers, even the pro war ones, made the same point as Hebert and Rae.


Calgary Grit http://www.gerardkennedy.ca/default_e.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/blogfull_e.aspx “For Iggy, he couldn't vote against the motion because Nicola Goddard had died that same day. That answer just blew my mind. Here we have a world famous intellectual who has written about international conflict his entire life and his answer was that we had to extend the mission because someone had died. If Ignatieff is going to name drop Trudeau twelve times in his opening statements, then he should at least follow the "reason over passion" mantra Pierre lived by.”






A Bcer in Toronto: http://bcinto.blogspot.com/2006/06/dont-be-playerhatin-or-afghanistan.html#links “I was disappointed at Ignatieff's poor showing defending his Afghan vote on Saturday though. His saying he couldn't vote no because a soldier had died that day doesn't fly. He's a smart man and even in the limited time allotted he was capable, or should be capable, of making a far better argument than that. Because I do agree with his vote on that issue, and it was the right thing to do.”






Cerberus: http://canadiancerberus.blogspot.com/2006/06/liberals-and-afghanistan.html#links “It is utterly asinine to say that supporting or opposing an extension of our mission is tantamount to supporting or opposing our troops.” Ted did not direct this comment towards Ignatieff but rather Stephen Harper. However as both held the same “asinine” view it is applies to both.




Just as bad Ignatieff has still not addressed the concerns many people have with the Afghan mission. Indeed, his arguments so far add up to little more than good intentions and moral obligation guarantees success. What is more, Ignatieff has not acknowledged that the same arguments he used to say that Canada was justified in staying out of Iraq can also be used against the Afghan mission. http://www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com/lofiversion/index.php/t7732.html For one, polls suggest that the mission has no better than support of half the population and polls showed at the time of the May vote that most Canadians were opposed. Ignatieff said that support of the population was vital. For another, a terrorist attack, inspired by Canada's presence in Afghanistan, could spilt the country apart, especially if Quebec is the victim. Currently the Afghan mission is opposed by what 60% of Quebecers. If Quebecers die as a result of us being there, the separatists will use it as a reason why Quebecers need their own country with its own foreign policy. Given what has just transpired in Ontario and the fact that the accused were said to be motivated by Canada's role in Afghanistan, Ignatieff can not very well claim that chances of such an attack or not insignificant. Ignatieff claimed that a potential national unity crisis was reason enough for staying out of the Iraq war.

Multiculturalism's true signifiance

Actual policies associated with multiculturalism mean very little and if the associated programs disappeared tomorrow not much would change. That said, the importance of multiculturalism does not lie there. Over the years it has morphed into a founding story of who we are. Indeed it is the antithesis of what conservatives, such as Travers, drone on about.

Travers: “In pursuing multicultural tolerance, Canada has been negligent in reinforcing essential, common-denominator values. Most of those are self-evident: human rights, the rule of law and the understanding that one person's freedom ends where another's begins.”

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1149545411381&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907626423

For Travers et al, we need to lay down a number of core principles for what it means to be Canadian. For Travers et al, ambiguity is a dangerous thing. Nothing is specifically ruled out and so everything is permitted. Such thinking is old world and is not suited to any country (basically any Western country) dependent on immigration for its very survival. Most Western nations have a fairly good sense of themselves, but far from being a strength such fixed notions of what it means to be French, German or Polish, for example have proved to be obstacles to integration. Canada has not had as nearly a difficult a time. One reason for this is that Canadian identity, as signified and legitimized by official multiculturalism, is not a fixed set of precepts, but rather a byproduct of existential engagement, bounded by certain legal framework to be sure, of peoples from all over the globe.. It has severed as an anticoagulant, preventing a crust from forming on top of the Canadian melting pot. Canadian identity is, as it should be, a work in progress. There is no Canadian dream as there is an American dream. We are not limited that way. We do not believe in passing down a script of what it means to be Canadian down from one generation to the next. We leave it up to each generation to decide who they are through existential engagement. The process only allows a generation to do decide who they were by retrospectively looking back; for Canadians as for Hegel, the Owl of Minerva only flies at night. For those who are still in the sunshine of their lives, they simply say want they know they are not, viz., Americans.

They hate our Policies: what this means

US foreign policy, both real and imagined, is the well spring of terrorism. Anyone who believes the Bush line about they attack the US because they hate their freedoms is an idiot.

Similarly anyone who believes Harper’s application of the Bush line to Canada is also an idiot. "We are a target because of who we are, and how we live, our society are diversity our values.”

As with US, the major bone of contention Jihadists, both domestic and foreign, have with Canada is not our freedoms, but rather Canadian foreign policy. They do not like us being in Afghanistan. Needless to say, most of what they say about our motivations for being there and the conduct of our troops is patently false and often absurd. For example, I do not think for a second that Canadian troops are raping thousands of Afghani women, as the ideological ring leader of the Ontario terror group is alleged to have claimed. In fact, I am rather inclined to believe that they are preventing many more rapes than they are committing if they have committed any at all. The validity of what these nut bars claim is not the issue though. The issue is does Canada being in Afghanistan greatly increase the chances of Canada being the target of a terrorist attack. The answer is yes. Bin Laden has said we are an Al Qaeda target because we are there. However, much more important is the fact that the chances of the Canadian government, or any other Western government for that matter, being able to prevent groups of disaffected youths from within their own populations from adopting Jihadist ideology, or worse is hopelessly unlikely. In other words, whatever the merit of what these nut bars are saying, the chances that they will say it and find domestic coverts, who will act on what they say, is all but guaranteed. This is the part conservatives have gotten right. Jihadist terrorism is a reality Canadians must face. What conservatives are not saying though is what this means; it means that we must assume that trying to install democracy at gun point in Muslim countries greatly increases the chances domestic terrorism.

Sometimes this risk will be worth it. However in the case of Afghanistan, for me and for many other Canadians this increased risk is intolerably high price to pay for involvement in a war that is costing us billions, is doomed to failure and in no way furthers our national interests.

Canadian "cool" and American Bullshit

Decriminalization marijuana, a promise to anyway, SSM and Canada’s opposition to Iraq made Canada in the words of Economist “cool”. Other publications expressed similar sentiments and all cases above three where the focal points. For example:

The New Yorker:

“They have a comparatively sensible approach to the drug problem: while our federal government tries strenuously to put marijuana smokers in jail, even (or especially) when the marijuana has been smoked for medical purposes in states whose people have voted to sanction such use, their federal government is about to decriminalize the possession of small amounts. And now—with a minimum of fuss, hardly any hysteria, and no rending of garments—they have made it legal for persons of the same gender to marry each other. …

“A week later, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced that, instead of trying to get the decision overturned, his cabinet would seek to codify it. Legislation is to be drafted over the next few weeks, vetted by Canada’s supreme court, and submitted to the federal parliament. It’s pretty much a lock that, perhaps as early as next fall, gay marriage will be the undisputed law of the land from St. John’s to the Klondike.
This ghastly prospect was evidently on Scalia’s mind as he composed his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas. If sodomy laws are unsustainable, he warned, then so are “laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation”—masturbation? is that one still on the books?—“adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity.” Doom looms, it would appear. According to Scalia, “The Court has taken sides in the culture war,” and the next step, logically, must be “judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada.” Leaving aside the question of who, exactly, gay marriage would be an imposition upon, ….
Good old Canada. It’s the kind of country that makes you proud to be a North American.” http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030707ta_talk_hertzberg

San Jose Mercury:

THINK CANADA COULD USE ONE MORE PROVINCE?

Oh, Canada! Has someone dumped something into your water?

The government up there will soon bless gay marriages, hand out marijuana to cancer patients and legalize possession of small amounts of pot by others. Canadians were as staunchly against the war in Iraq as San Franciscans. Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto are as ethnically diverse as San Jose -- and tolerant, too.

Americans have tended to think of Canada, if at all, as a placid little brother, a bland 51st state. How times have changed.

In terms of soul mates, the Bay Area could be Canada's 11th province. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1051/a10.html

Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

“And then there's the wild drug situation: Canadian doctors are authorized to dispense medical marijuana. Parliament is considering legislation that would not exactly legalize marijuana possession, as you may have heard, but would reduce the penalty for possession of under 15 grams to a fine, like a speeding ticket. This is to allow law enforcement to concentrate resources on traffickers; if your garden is full of wasps, it's smarter to go for the nest rather than trying to swat every individual bug. Or, in the United States, bong.
… Like teenagers, we fiercely idolize individual freedom but really demand that everyone be the same. But the Canadians seem more adult -- more secure. They aren't afraid of foreigners. They aren't afraid of homosexuality. Most of all, they're not afraid of each other.
I wonder if America will ever be that cool.” http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20030730sam0730p1.asp

Christian Science Monitor:

“It's moving to become the third nation on the planet to legalize gay marriage. It's primed to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. And it vocally opposed the US war on Iraq. These moves reflect a growing cultural assertiveness - especially on the importance of tolerance and multiculturalism, which are enshrined in Canada's version of the Bill of Rights. The shift is increasingly putting the US and Canada - the world's biggest trading partners - on a cultural collision course.” http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0627/p02s01-woam.html

Why did these issues come to define a nation south of the boarder and why did, in words of the words of Bill O’Reilly, “The Canadian model [become] what progressive Americans [were] shooting for.” The moving to Canada meme was, after all, not born of nowhere. http://www.slate.com/id/2109300

The reason I think is this. The dominant critique of the Bush administration inside and outside the US is that it plays fast and loose with the facts, often pandering to US society’s worst fears and prejudges, for political gain. These three issues are excellent examples of where the Bush administration did exactly that. American progressives latched on what was happening in Canada because they thought Canadian politicians respected their citizens enough not to try to BS them into accepting policies of little merit. Of course the fact that until Dean, Democratic party did not dear question the merits or rational of the Iraq adventure and that they have been almost as bad as the Republicans in pushing reefer madness and defense of marriage also helps to explain why American progressives latched on to Canada. There has long been a progressive void in the states.

Needless to say, it was silly of American progressives to put any faith in Martin and in the Liberals. He proceeded at snails pace with regard to SSM, arguably would have taken us to Iraq if he had of been prime Minster at the time and never moved forward on marijuana legislation. Whenever Martin had an opportunity to come down against BS, as during Terry Shivio saga, he declined. One can only presume that he did not wish to divert the public’s attention away from the inquiry that was devouring the Liberal party; after all, the public might forget that it was he who called the Gomery Inquiry. The Conservative victory back in January officially closed the book on “cool” Canada and now we ourselves are drowning BS gleefully heaped on us by the Conservatives. As for the Liberals, they are looking more like the Martin government minus the power or headlines everyday, completely lifeless and without a soul.

Marijuana Policy and Liberal Bad Faith

The Le Dain Commission called for Marijuana to be decriminalized some 33 ago.

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"The ordinary citizen, seeing the assertions implied by the law frequently belied by pharmacological fact or the effects that he himself experiences in the use of drugs, has long since ceased to look for a relationship between the harmfulness of a substance and its classification under criminal law. In this domain, it must be said that the criminal law is thoroughly outdated and outworn."
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----

Marie-Andrée Bertrand, Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Montreal, Le Dain Commission 1973.

Gordon Gibson explained Trudeau’s reaction thus: “The report was released as we were touring a bull-semen facility in Guelph, Ont. (I am not making this up.) The press cared not at all about productive agriculture and totally about weed. At an end-of-tour press conference, the prime minister was asked if he favoured decriminalization. We were in the semen facility's boardroom and it had a blackboard with a permanent picture of Elsie the cow painted on, perhaps in recognition of the customer base. Mr. Trudeau was very quick. Saying not a word, he went to the blackboard, took the chalk and drew a cartoonist's balloon out of the cow's mouth. Inside he slowly wrote, "I like grass!" The room dissolved in laughter.” With regard to marijuana, the Liberals have lived in a perpetual state of bad faith ever since.

Sure in the 1980 throne speech Trudeau did say that it was time "to move cannabis offences to the Food and Drug Act and remove the possibility of imprisonment for simple possession”, but that never came to past and such comments only served as an acknowledgment and a reminder that the Liberal party had kept marijuana possession illegal for 7 years without itself believing in the rational for keeping it illegal.

In 2002 a Senate Committee looking into the issue of marijuana recommended in start terms that marijuana legal. Shortly thereafter Canada’s possession laws began to creak and break under their own internal contradictions; for four months Ontario had no possession law and laws in other jurisdictions narrowly avoided the same fate. Neither escaped Jean Chrétien notice. Chrétien did not share Trudeau’s catholic guilt in not allowing truth to prevail. However he did have revengeful streak, a good sense of Martin conservatism and good sense of political timing. He promised to decriminalize marijuana possession; Canadians he promised would face fines not criminal charges. His public musings about trying marijuana were a cruel reminder of the fact that for decades Canada had on its books a law its leaders literally regarded as a laughing matter. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.”

A commitment to decriminalize marijuana stayed Liberal policy after the Chrétien left and Martin took over, but remained a neglected child weighted down my provisions and language designed to pacify the Americans. Indeed, it seems that the more Martin tried to tape into anti Bush sentiment in Canada the more he was willing to allow the US to control Canadian drug policy. The Marc Emery case is a great example. For years Marc Emery had been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in Federal taxes on money he made “selling marijuana seeds”. Yet last summer, at the behest of the American government, Canada arrested Emery and laid the groundwork for him to be sent to the States to face charges. If convicted, which is a forgone conclusion given that Emery never hid what he was doing, Emery faces anywhere for 10 years to life behind bars for a crime that is rarely prosecuted in Canada and has only ever warranted a small fine. An attempt by BC marijuana activist to save Emery from being sent to the States speaks volumes about the Martin’s government lack of courage and bad faith. The activist has long pressed to have Emery charged under Canadian law. Under the terms of the extradition treaty, one can not be extradited if one is facing the same charge in one’s country of residence and one was arrested there. So far his efforts have not been successful. Canadian authorities seem unwilling to charge him under Canadian law, but are willing to send him to the States to face 10 to life in prison.

Needless to say, neither of what Chrétien or Martin proposed would have worked. One can not have, on the one hand, stringent enforcement for trafficking and, on the other hand, mere fines for possession. The problem is that at bottom the population rightly views marijuana as being pretty innocuous and this undermines the legitimacy of such a sharp conceptual divide. Indeed it undermines the legitimacy of Canada having any sort of marijuana laws at all. Even parking tickets have to be seen to serve some legitimate purpose for people not to view them as an unfair imposition. Such was not the case with the Liberals proposed Marijuana fines. Sure, Canadians understand that the Americans would not be pleased about legalization and as such there would be certain practical advantages to not legalizing it. However, that does not make marijuana prohibition in a general sense legitimate in their eyes; it just means that Canada is tailoring its own laws to meet the demands of Americans consideree so illegitimate that popular cultural considers them a symptom of madness “refer madness”. This can not stand. Any perception that Canada is enforcing laws to met with illegitimate demands of a bullying third party, whoever that may be, is simply poisonous to the health of a functioning democracy.