On January 20, shortly after his inauguration as President of the United States, Joe Biden signed an Executive Order cancelling the federal permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. This was not even remotely surprising given his role in the Obama administration that had refused to grant the permit in the first place, and his very clear promises during the Presidential election. Yet, within minutes, there were cries of outrage from Canada’s oilpatch and particularly Alberta whose furious little Premier went apoplectic. It was as if this was an ambush; as if a trusted friend had stabbed us in the back even though any moderately informed Canadian knew it was going to happen. In fact, we even knew when and how it was going to happen as that was communicated to us days before the inauguration.

And yet.

Premier Kenney, red in the face, went on national television descrying the action, attacking Ottawa for failing to more aggressively defend Alberta’s interests and demanding Canada immediately implement tariffs against American exports to Canada. In other words, Canada should start a trade war with the Biden administration on day one of its term. Huh?

His anger was undoubtedly stoked by the incredibly foolish decision he made a year earlier when, absent private sector investors willing to invest in the project, he decided the Alberta government would directly invest one billion taxpayer dollars and provide a further six billion dollars in loan guarantees to the pipeline. In other words, due to this extraordinarily bad decision the taxpayers of Alberta may be on the hook for seven billion dollars while the pipeline is effectively dead. Why, with an historically unpopular President in the White House and Democrats generally opposed to the pipeline, he thought this a wise course is beyond me; and why when the private sector was unwilling to make the investment this didn’t at least cause pause, beggars understanding.

But we didn’t hear anything about that in his reaction as he tried to focus the blame on Ottawa although it is manifestly clear the blame lies squarely with Edmonton. At one press conference Premier Kenney practically shouted that “if this hurt Bombardier in Quebec, or the auto sector in Ontario, or the shipbuilding industry in the Maritimes, Ottawa would immediately retaliate” which is, of course, nonsense. But it’s nonsense that plays to his conservative Alberta base, a significant proportion of whom, I suspect, would have preferred Donald Trump being re-elected and not just because of the pipeline but because his “populist” world view aligns nicely with their own.

And just in case there was any danger this dispute might be contained within Canada’s borders, Premier Kenney climbed onto Fox News to attack the Biden administration, something I’m sure appealed to Fox viewers and was noted by the new administration.

My question through all this has been: “what’s Plan B”?. As many of you know, I would have preferred the Keystone XL pipeline be completed, just as I support the twinning of the Trans Canada pipeline but, as I said earlier, it should have been blindingly clear to any reasonably informed person there was a considerable chance it would not be. The Keystone XL pipeline is mostly on American soil and, frankly, it is up to Americans to decide what they want on that soil. We may disagree. We may mount arguments that the decision isn’t wise for any number of reasons but, in the end, it is not our decision. So, what was/is Plan B? Unfortunately with Alberta, I suspect there is no Plan B; no alternative to get its oil to refineries; no real plan to transition away from its reliance on the extraction of fossil fuels; no plan to gain some kind of offset if the expected cancellation took place. It was their way or nothing. That said, it appears that once the twinning of the Trans Mountain Pipeline is completed, there will be ample pipeline to transport Alberta’s oil although that fact hasn’t gotten in the way of a tantrum. And, lest we forget, the twinning of the Trans Mountain Pipeline is only happening because Ottawa bought it with billions of Canadians’ taxpayer dollars.

I spent the better part of half a century negotiating contracts in Canada, many of them with governments, and there are a few lessons from that experience that could be usefully applied in Alberta. Especially in the public sector, when you are negotiating with a government or politician who has made a clear political commitment as a centrepiece of his/her campaign, there is no point in demanding he/she renig on it. It doesn’t matter how unreasonable you think it is; how many attractive alternatives you offer in its place; what kind of political pressure you try to exert. The world of politics has its own rules and expecting a politician to ignore them because you want him/her to is a fool’s game. President Biden made it clear from the beginning of his campaign for the White House that, if elected, he would cancel the pipeline. That may have been little more than a sop to the environmentalists on his left but that doesn’t matter. He committed to it and that is what he was going to do. And, of course, he did it right away. That a veteran politician like Premier Kenney would expect anything else raises real questions about his competence.

When it became clear Joe Biden was going to win the election the Alberta government should have pivoted to a Plan B if one had existed. It would have outlined alternatives that might be extracted from the U.S. or Ottawa in lieu of the pipeline. And it should have been developed with an eye to meeting the political needs of the leaders of Canada and the U.S.

But no, Alberta once again played the “victim” card and set about trying to damage Canada’s relations with the new administration in Washington. This really shouldn’t have surprised us because, if we’ve learned anything about Alberta in the past, it’s that it really isn’t interested in anything other than getting exactly its way and complaining bitterly when it does not.

Another example of this is its response to the roll-out of the COVID 19 vaccines in Canada (although I note Premier Ford in Ontario does a pretty good Jason Kenney imitation on this too). After blundering from one failed response to the pandemic to another, and then watching as Alberta predictably outpaced the rest of the country in infections, Premier Kenney now uses every opportunity to shift the blame to Ottawa by constantly announcing “Alberta is about to run out of vaccines”. No, Alberta is not running out of vaccines any more than British Columbia or Nova Scotia are running out of vaccines. The federal government tells the provincial governments when, and how many, vaccines they will receive, expecting they will then tailor their vaccination programs to align with that information. To say that “Alberta is going to run out of vaccines shortly” skates over the predictable organization and plan for the vaccine rollout. Yes, the interruption in the supply of the Pfizer vaccines because they are retooling their factory has delayed some of the expected deliveries, but that is hardly the fault of the federal government. And most Canadians know that including, I hope, most Albertans. What is really going on here is Premier Kenney attempting to deflect blame for his disastrous mismanagement of the pandemic in Alberta regardless how that might damage the fabric of Confederation.

And then there is Equalization, the program that distributes federal money to some of the provinces to ensure that all Canadians, irrespective of where they live, receive roughly the same level of public services. If you listened to Premier Kenney you would likely believe that once a week or so several large armoured trucks pull up to the Treasury Branch in Edmonton and load sacks of cash that are then trucked to Ottawa and then given, mostly, to Quebec. While there’s no doubt the Equalization system could use some change to better reflect the actual fiscal realities of the provinces, the belief that Alberta is being bled white by it is simply wrong and extremely mischievous. It should also be pointed out that the Conservatives were in power for eleven years that ended only a few years ago and Premier Kenney was a senior member of that government. But in all those years they didn’t fundamentally change Equalization. They did make some changes to it and surely if the unfairness Premier Kenney claims now existed then, that would have been a good time to address it. But they didn’t and he didn’t. And now we have him using the myth of Equalization to gin up his base regardless of the cost to Canada. Sounds like something that happened south of the border not so long ago.

As some of you know, I am a native born and raised Albertan. I moved to the West Coast in my teens but I still feel considerable affection for that province. Starting in the late nineteenth century, both my grandparents and then my parents worked hard to help build Alberta. Many of my ancestors are buried there. So it gives me no pleasure to call Alberta out. But call it out I must.

Alberta had the good fortune to be located atop Canada’s largest deposits of oil, not just the oilsands which, by the way, as a boy in Alberta we did call the “tar sands”, but also vast conventional supplies of oil first discovered in Leduc in the early part of the twentieth century. And it used the wealth from that oil to build a low tax and high service economy and government. It did not set aside reserves for the day the oil would stop flowing. Yet even today, as we in the rest of Canada hear the angry cries of Alberta and its claims to be impoverished, it still has the lowest provincial tax regime in Canada, including its vaunted lack of a sales tax. So don’t be surprised when there is less than complete sympathy when Alberta complains about its fiscal woes. Many of the tools to fix them are within its control.

And then there’s the tone. With the exception of the previous one term NDP government in Edmonton, most Alberta governments have made hay by attacking Ottawa and fostering the sense of victimhood amongst its citizens. Currently, we have a Premier who has taken this tactic to a whole new level, his response to almost any controversial issue entirely predictable and less and less effective in the rest of Canada. During one of his tantrums a year ago I asked that someone give him his teddy bear and take him to his room so the adults could have a conversation. And nothing has changed since then as he has increasingly turned Alberta into the spoiled child of Confederation.

just sayin

G

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At twelve noon today Joe Biden was inaugerated as the 46th President of the United States, ending four years of chaos, corruption and an assault on representative democracy by Donald Trump. Much of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief at that moment as the possibility of resetting global relations so the democracies can speak with a strong collective voice once again came into view. The challenges facing President Biden may well be greater than any facing an incoming President in the nearly two hundred and fifty years since the Republic was founded. I worry that his seventy eight year old shoulders may not be able to bear up under the pressure but anyone who cares about democracy in the world should wish him the best as he tackles these herculean tasks.

Aside from confronting the worst public health crisis in a century with a pandemic killing approximately four thousand Americans a day, he must deal with the economic fallout of that pandemic as America, like most of the developed world, endures a deep recession. That in itself would be more than enough to challenge the most capable leader but it is only the first of the challenges.

As the world witnessed during the summer of unrest following the killing of George Floyd, as well as the assault on the American Capital by a mob of protesters determined to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power, he must also confront the deep and seemingly intractable divisions cutting across all sections of the American population, whether racial, economic, social or geographic.

Perhaps most urgently, he must tackle the very real threat of domestic terrorism so vividly on display at the Capital on January 6th and at the Michigan state capital in Lansing last fall. This is made immeasurably more difficult by the utterly classless behaviour of the defeated Donald Trump as he fuels the fire of mistrust in all American insitutions. Polling showing a majority of Republicans still believing the election was “stolen” and not recognizing the Biden Presidency as legitimate confirm the worst fears of people who care about the survival of the American Republic.

And while all this is going on in America, the world has not stopped turning and will now confront President Biden with international challenges every bit as daunting as those that faced his predecessors in the darkest days of the Cold War. Enabled by the ineptitude of the Donald Trump’s foreign policies, North Korea continues to assemble its arsenal of nuclear weapons and delivery systems capable of threatening not only its immediate neighbours but also North America itself. Iran, freed of the constraints of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, moves inexorably towards a point where it will be able to create nuclear weapons capable of attacking its middle eastern neighbours including Israel. Russia continues to use all the Machiavellian tools of statecraft in the twenty first century to undermine democracy at home and abroad. A resurgent China, with its authoritarian creed and fearful use of technology to control its vast population, moves seemingly inexorably towards displacing America as the predominant world power while, at the same time, using its newfound wealth and military might to bully smaller countries while eschewing the norms of international behaviour. Populist dictators or wannabe dictators crop up around the globe, in some places supplanting democratic regimes, this a direct legacy of Donald Trump’s preference for autocracy over liberal democracies.

Then there’s climate change that threatens the very survival of the human race and that has already resulted in catastrophic events around the world, no more so than in America where out of control wildfires now regularly plague the western coastal states; where hurricanes of unprecedented intensity, frequency and duration now assault the American east coast from Texas to Maine; where massive flooding and droughts plague America’s breadbasket; and where rising sea levels threaten to inundate all or part of some of its most iconic cities. All this made incalculably worse by the ignorance or criminal disregard for science by the Trump administration, setting America and the world back in its efforts to confront this existential threat.

President Biden and his administration will need all the luck, good will and support possible to navigate through this maelstrom of crises.

Far and away the majority of Canadians celebrate the end of the Trump Presidency, one unlike any other we have had to deal with in our over two hundred year relationship. We welcome the return to “normalcy”, to behaviours neighbours, friends and relatives expect of each other and to the opportunity to move forward together. However, we Canadians shouldn’t let our relief at the arrival of the new administration blind us to the fact that the relationship always has had irritants and disagreements and they will not go away. The first example of this appears to be the Keystone XL pipeline and President Biden’s intention to cancel it. Of course that will anger Canadians in the oil patch and we are already hearing demands from Alberta that Ottawa do something, it seems anything, to stop the inevitable. The question I have is “why is anyone surprised?”. President Biden was part of the administration that originally cancelled it and has been clear from the beginning of his campaign for the Presidency that he will cancel it again. My question to those expressing outrage at this news now is what have you been doing in the meantime? What is Plan B?

And you can bet there will be disputes over softwood lumber in the next four years, disputes that we in Canada will consider an affront and entirely without merit. Also, with Senator Chuck Schumer now the Senate Majority Leader, expect new complaints and actions about supply management in Canada’s dairy industry. There will also be battles over “buy America” policies and how they may or may not offend NAFTA or whatever we are calling that treaty now. And many, many more. But the difference this time is we will be dealing with an administration that believes in laws and agreements and that follows accepted norms of international behaviour while also being respectful of other country’s needs. And that is cause for enormous relief.

Canada has had a relatively easy time in the world over the past 150 years. First of all we were part of the British Empire, protected and cossetted by Britain’s military and economic might. And then we rested comfortably next to the world’s sole remaining super power during Pax Americana. For good or bad, the Trump administration has changed that. Like many of our European and Asian allies, we will never quite forget the shock of seeing America turn as it did. And that may be a good thing. Hopefully, we will now take a more self reliant role in the world, including our commitments to defence and strengthening our ties with other democratic nations.

But this does not mean we should turn our back on America. Anything but. America, though flawed and wounded, remains the best possible hope for the triumph of democracy in the world or, at worst, its survival. It is in Canada’s interest to support and help America in any way it can as it grapples with the seemingly overwhelming challenges facing it. We should welcome the opportunity to join a democratic alliance assembled at the call of America to define and chart a place in the world, one that will, amongst other things, clarify and coordinate our response to a resurgent and authoritarian China. We should coordinate our policies and plans to combat climate change. We should enhance our defence capabilities, not just as an ally of America but as an independent first world country in the twenty first century. And where we can we should provide a model of democratic governance and civic responsibility to our friends, family and neighbours to the south.

But first, let’s all just exhale.

just sayin

G

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That was the headline on Wednesday, along with the information that this was the first time since 1814 when a combined British/Canadian force ransacked Washington and breached the Capital in response to the burning of Fort York, later known as Toronto, by American forces. But this time it was Americans doing the breaching. An angry mob unleashed by a desperate President Trump trying to fend off his inevitable removal from office after his defeat by President Elect Joe Biden in November’s election.

And what a mob it was. A motley collection of deranged white men and women demanding the fiction of Donald Trump’s victory be recognized and the certification of the vote just then occurring in Congress be stopped; people whose reality is so distorted by the darkest corners of social media and the “respectable” right wing press that no amount of reason, no offering of fact, no countering of the obvious lies they have been fed will undermine their beliefs. And they are prepared to do anything to “stop the steal”. Except for many of them they have no idea what “anything” is as shown by their disarray once they entered the Capital. Should they rampage and plunder? Should they deface monuments or destroy artwork? Should they hunt down Democrats and Rinos and chase them from “their house”? The fact is, most of them had no idea so they wandered around looking smug and dazed as they contemplated the seat of American democracy.

And let’s not forget the Fools who turned the event into a kind of carnival of the absurd, first and foremost amongst them, the sham Shaman, you know the guy with the “war paint”, the faux horns, the faux fur and the bare chest covered with temporary tattoos. His name is Jake Agnelli. Although not as elaborate, there was also Aaron Mostofsky, the son of a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, who dressed as a wannabe “Braveheart” although with the sensible precaution of a bullet proof vest labelled “police”. And so many others wearing their favourite fetishes, lifting Confederate flags and generally acting like spoiled children. I was reminded of “Lord of the Flies”.

Not to be forgotten, the crowd was ginned-up by an increasingly deranged President Trump and his court jester, Rudi Giuliani, both guilty in fact if not in law of suborning the mob to commit crimes against the American state, including a coup to overturn the legitimate result of a fair and free election. I’m not a lawyer but I hope appropriate charges will be considered against both of them and it will be made clear that no one, no one, can so outrageously attempt to disrupt the constitutional order without severe consequences.

Except for the deaths of five people, including a police officer trying to defend the Capital, and the desecration of the heart of American democracy, one might be tempted to dismiss this carnival as an outrageous prank that got out of hand. Those are huge exceptions but there’s more, much more. Along with the hysterics and the Fools, there were many American fascists, whether in the guise of “Proud Boys”, QAnon supporters, outright neo-nazis, supporters of the Ku Klux Klan and every other disgusting vermin that lurkes at the edges of American society. This was their moment and make no mistake about it, their intention was deadly both for their opponents and for democracy in America. These are “the deplorables” Hilary Clinton warned us about. And now here we are.

In his initial response to the assault, President Elect Joe Biden stated “this is not who we are”, a sentiment echoed by other mainstream American political leaders. But the simple truth is this is who many Americans are and the sooner America comes to terms with that simple fact, the sooner it can secure its now tenuous democracy. I’m not saying all seventy four million American who voted for Donald Trump are fascists but I am saying that millions of them are. And just to bolster this assertion, a survey released on Thursday morning showed that forty five percent of Republicans supported the attack on the Capital. Let that sink in. Forty five percent. Forty five percent who thought it was alright to trash the seat of American democracy and to overturn the results of a fair and free election.

America is no stranger to fascism. In the early part of the twentieth century leading up to the Second World War the “America Firsters” led by people like Charles Lindbergh pushed for closer ties with Nazi Germany and fought to keep America out of the war. They were joined by “The German American Bund” and any number of smaller groups across the land. And those deadly strains have not died. Is it any wonder some of the protesters on Wednesday wore T-shirts announcing “Camp Auschwitz” or “6 MWNE”? For those of you who haven’t heard of “6MWNE” it stands for “6 Million Was Not Enough”. Wednesday was not the culmination, the proverbial “breaking of the fever”. In the minds of these people it was the prelude.

Steeped in the vicious racism of its past, America has tended to turn a blind eye to white extremists, usually treating them as singular and as an anomaly, not something that needs a full scale response. Part of this, I believe, is that much of American leadership and law enforcement over the years has been populated by white men, at least some of whom still harbour the hideous prejudices of the extremists. It’s too early to say for sure, but the initial soft response of the Capital Police to the attack may be an example of this. There is little doubt had the invaders been black there would have been much blood on the floor of the building.

So America, wake up. You may not get many more chances to confront and defeat the cancers that are metasticizing in your midst. Believing these forces can be marshalled and controlled is not only wrong, it is treasonous. Ignoring them and hoping they will somehow go away is almost as bad because history tells us they will not and when you have no choice but to confront them it will be too late. Appeasment never works with fascists or, for that matter, most other extremists. They must be confronted, restricted, shut down and, where necessary, separated from society. If there is currently no legal framework for this, one must be created. The attack on The Capital was a declaration of war and America ignores it at its great peril.

Just sayin

G

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At some point in the next six months I expect we will all slowly emerge from our caves, blinded by the sun, completely disoriented as we stumble into a post apocalyptic world. Okay, it won’t be a scene of utter destruction. Think instead of a world hit by a Neutron Bomb, you know the kind that wipes out mankind but leaves everything else intact. We will have to relearn how to interact with our fellow human beings, how to hug again or maybe just have a few people over for dinner. There will be lapses when, unprepared, we witness people behaving in ways that are currenty verboten. Hopefully, we will catch ourselves before we try to shame them.

What a year. I guess the biggest headline is COVID 19. How could it not be? It shut down so much of the world that we knew. It imposed limits on us that previously would have been completely unacceptable. And, of course, it took a terrible toll, killing over fifteen thousand Canadians and counting.

When the all clear is finally sounded there will be time to assess how we did, whether collectively as a province or nation or individually as we picked our way across the minefield of pandemic issues and restrictions. As a Canadian I think we rank somewhere in the middle when it comes to how effective our response has been, although living next door to the United States tends to make us feel we have done better than we actually have. There will be time for praise and criticism and hopefully lessons learned and applied before the next great health threat confronts us.

And how will it affect us individually? It being New Year’s, I see a number of columnists venturing into that field but most of their prognostications sound a bit like “hopes and prayers” to me. I accept it will have a significant effect on all of us who experienced it, although I expect the effect will be greater the older you are. And for those of us closer to the end of our lives than the beginning, I think it will be profound. For younger people, not so much. That’s just the nature of youth, not to mention that the disease was significantly less deadly in younger people. Speaking as an older person, I’m sure I will value more whatever years and experiences I have left, recognizing they could easily be fewer than I expect.

Although the pandemic is clearly not over, looking back to its beginning less than a year ago I feel as if I’m surveying ancient history. Remember the hoarding of toilet paper? What was that about? Not to mention the sudden disappearance of all sorts of foods from our supermarket shelves. We in the West are very spoiled. Those sorts of shortages were supposed to be confined to the Third World but all it took was a little bit of panic and, no matter the reassurances about supplies, people started hoarding here and all over the so called First World. What a fragile structure we rest upon.

The one enduring legacy I hope comes from the experience of the pandemic is the appreciation of good, strong government; the realization that government, at least here, is a force for good and is absolutely essential when things get tough. Like many of us over the years, I have tended to drift towards the devaluing of government in favour of the private sector. Not any more.

Were it not for COVID 19 the daytime soap opera of American politics would certainly have claimed first place for attention in 2020. As it was, it still managed to break through with distressing regularity, particularly as the American government’s epic failure to confront the virus fed the political firestorm. As those of you who have read my earlier blogs know, I am astonished that Donald Trump received seventy four million votes in the U.S. election, even while his administration was failing to meet its most important obligation: keeping the American people safe. Ironically, had Donald Trump confronted the virus when he first became aware of it in February and had he marshalled the resources of the federal government to battle it, he would have been re-elected in November. But he didn’t and he wasn’t, and that is a very good thing for the survival of democracy in the world although the chances of recidivism in America are great and, while I wish President Elect Joe Biden every success, I also know that the rest of us should never again rely upon the United States as the backstop for democracy in the world. In passing, let me also say that Donald Trump’s behaviour since he lost the election, i.e. major poor loser, validates the views of everyone who ever felt he was singularly unsuitable for the office of President.

And let’s not forget about the effects of climate change in 2020. While much of California burned my home city, Vancouver, along with many others was cloaked in choking smoke for days on end, making the sacrifices required by the pandemic even harder to endure. Oh, and what about all those hurricanes crossing the Atlantic Ocean, slamming into North America and adding new misery to their usual ferocity by then parking over coastal American states and flooding them with bibilical amounts of water. And yet the climate change deniers in Washington continued to fiddle.

There was also the explosion of anger after the killing of George Floyd leading to massive protests both in America and around the world including here in Canada. In the U.S. some of those protests led to looting and violence, including the extra judicial execution of Michael Reinoehl by U.S. Marshalls and local police, an execution that was subsequently praised by Donald Trump as part of his Law and Order campaign.

2020 also saw The Peoples’ Republic of China acting in particularly odious ways, whether effectively jettisoning the agreement that made Hong Kong semi autonomous, imprisoning more than a million of its citizens in concentration camps, failing to provide full and timely information on COVID19 when it emerged in its heartland, bullying smaller nations like Australia and, in the process, demonstrating the complete futility of entering into trade agreements with the PRC or, and especially for Canadians, continuing to engage in hostage diplomacy with the illegal detention of the two Michaels. All of this while delivering condescending lectures to other nations about how they should behave. Give me a break! Developing a coordinated response by the democracies to the PRC will likely be high on the agenda of the incoming Biden Presidency and Canada should be fully committed in that endeavour although, given the spinelessness of the federal government when it comes to so much to do with the PRC, don’t hold your breath.

Oh, and did I mention Murder Hornets? I’m not sure whether they first appeared in British Columbia or in Washington State but, whichever, they are now lurking in our midst, waiting to attack us and inflict terrible damage while, not incidentally, destroying bee populations. They’re kind of the icing on the cake for 2020 and, unfortunately, even after COVID 19 is behind us, will be waiting in ambush.

So, yes 2020 was an awful year although, for me at least, not the worst year of my life although certainly in the top two or three. And I am thrilled that it is over. Now we can wait patiently for the departure of Donald Trump from the U.S. Presidency and the end of the pandemic.

What will I do first once it’s over; I mean “really” over? I’ll exhale.

Happy New Year.

Just sayin

G

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America. Oh America. Such a complicated history. First, thirteen colonies in rebellion and the violent expulsion of twenty percent of its population who, effectively, founded English Canada. The orginal sin of slavery. The genocide of native American populations . The conquest and expropriation of much of Mexico. Lewis and Clark pushing to the Pacific and effectively confiscating a large chunk of British Columbia. Imperial ventures beyond North America, whether in Cuba or the Phillippines or Hawaii or the Carribean or Central America as European/American settlement spread out across the world.

And then the lumbering military and economic colossus of the second half of the twentieth century, at times chafing at the leadership role thrust upon it, at others, exploiting it ruthlessly to advance its economic and political interests, whether in Iran, Vietnam, Chile and, intermittently, much of Central and South America. Much of this the logical outcome of the core ideas of rugged individualism and unfettered capitalism and, with it, the unbridled acquisition of wealth. The constitution states that “all men are created equal” but, even if true, all men certainly don’t end up equal.

But through it all there was the idea, the idea that seemed to animate the very best impulses of western civilization and thought; that formed those impulses into ideas and then form, defying the odds and framing a constitution and political structure unlike any previously seen. The words, if not the practice, of: “all men are created equal”. The stirring lines by Emma Lazarus at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. The thrilling example of the young democracy coming to the rescue of the old in the Second World War. All of it. Confusing. Frustrating. But mostly hopeful.

None of this should have worked, at least based on the millenia of human experience, and yet, seemingly defying history, it did. At least for a while. Oh, there were many, many examples of failure, of corruption, of experiences that were the very antithesis of the ideas behind the American experiment but, on the whole, particularly in the years immediately after the Second World War and especially after the end of the Cold War, where it seemed possible the Americans had lit upon something magical, something that had eluded other human beings throughout history and that should be emulated as the best idea for governance.

And they celebrated that. The references to “the city on the hill”; to American exceptionalism; to American goodness; all were offered up and provoked the envy of the world. That America’s closest allies and neighbours found it a bit shallow, not completely true and sometimes downright irritating never got in the way of the admiration most of us felt for America. At heart we believed America and Americans were good and could be relied upon as our friend and ally.

Hindsight is twenty/twenty and with it we can now see early signs of failure undermining the American dream. For people of my generation that happened in the sixties and seventies when the increasing divide between the wealthy and the poor, between uban and rural, between young and old became more and more obvious, leading to conflict and polarization. And it was exacerbated by some terrible policy choices by America’s ruling elites. Yet even then, the fact that Americans would rise up and fight for their rights or to oppose policies and behaviours seemed to confirm that the foundation of the republic was still bedrock.

But by the dawn of the twenty first century the disagreements had become chasms.

I would like to think the apotheosis of this was the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and, with his defeat in 2020, the divisions will begin to lessen as Americans embrace each other as members of one national family. But the odds against that are large and growing. Of course this isn’t the first time America has been deeply divided, the worst leading to a civil war that cost the lives of approximately 620,000 soldiers and nearly 1000,000 civilians, this in a country with a total population at the time of 18,500,000. The simple truth is America has always had an undercurrent of violent conflict even when things seemed peaceful on the surface.

And now we come to 2020. The election of Donald Trump as the forty fifth President of the United States brought all the conflicts to the surface; his divisive and offensive style giving permission to his legion of followers to shed whatever facade of civility they had maintained and to behave in ways that validated the worst suspicians of the other half of America. His re-election campaign is memorable for all the wrong reasons and now we have the spectacle of the wannabe dictator using every trick in the book (and quite a few that aren’t) trying to maintain his hold on power. He will fail but the poison he has unleashed will not subside easily. His mission right now, aside from raising as much money as possible for his future, seems to be to deligitimize the Presidency of Joe Biden who beat him fair and square in the election.

If this were just about Donald Trump that would be bad enough. But it isn’t. Aside from his many enablers in the Republican Party as he mounts his campaign against democracy, there is the stark fact that America’s governance structures, while they may have sustained the election, continue to fail on so many other levels, whether responding to the COVID 19 pandemic, offering relief to those suffering because of the economic shutdowns, or providing basic medical care to its citizens.

Many are treating it as news that democratic norms are the underpinning of a successful democracy and that when leaders are unwilling to follow them all the carefully articulated structures of government and democracy fail. But it shouldn’t be news. Democracies require consent at every level of society and when it is withdrawn they turn into something else.

In America today it’s not just people disagreeing over ideology or belief, it is so much deeper than that. There is an epistemological chasm stretching across this very divided nation. In other words, there isn’t even agreement over what is or is not a fact. This was perfectly encapsulated in the words of the memorable Kelly Anne Conway early in Trump’s Presidency when she introduced us to the notion of “alternative facts” which, to any reasonable and informed person, is nonsense. But it is precisely this nonsense that has seized perhaps forty percent of the American population in their response to the 2020 election. And there are few obvious ways to address it.

At a personal level I am somewhat familiar with this phenomenon. I had an aunt and uncle who farmed in Alberta. I loved them both and I believe they loved me. This was long before the internet or computers but they did have a television that beamed the words of American televangelists up to them on a regular basis, words that, in my view, were completely disconnected from reality but no matter how hard I tried, there was no way I could dissuade them from their beliefs that black was white, up was down, right was wrong and they were part of a beleaguered Christian minority under threat from all sorts of international conspiracies. And they weren’t alone in this. Their neighbours held the same views. By the standards of the day, my aunt was a well educated woman but that made no difference. And thanks to the internet and social media, we are seeing this same phenomenon on steroids, particularly in America but also in the UK. This seems particularly acute in the Anglosphere although Canada has been spared from most of its worst excesses so far.

Everyone who cares about democracy should wish President Biden the best of luck as he tries to close the savage divisions that cleave his nation. But it’s unclear how he can succeed in the face of such opposition even if the Democrats somehow manage to win the two Georgia Senate seats. How do you govern people who have a completely different view of reality, one that eschews fact and clings to the sort of make believe most of us shed with our childhoods? I suspect the best we can hope for is that a minority of those people will slowly rejoin their fellow Americans and realize the stakes in this existential battle.

I also think democracies must turn their attention to the distorting role social media is playing in our societies. Until this moment the idea of limiting exchanges on the internet has been anathema to me but now I’m not so sure although I concede the internet and social media are only part of the problem. Perhaps the bigger part is how we are failing to educate young people to think critically, analyze information, recognize fact and form reasonable opinions.

Just sayin

G

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So here we are. Nearly ten months into the pandemic and counting. Our world has been turned upside down. Most of us have sacrificed something in the fight against COVID 19, some a lot, some less, but most something. We have learned a whole new vocabularly: “bend the curve”; “plank the curve”; “social distancing”; “quarantine”; “surges”; “ventilate”, some completely new and others with new and sometimes terrifying meaning. And through it all, we have been urged to be patient, to be tolerant, to be kind, to be understanding of those around us who are having a similar experience.

In British Columbia where we have had very good political and medical leadership through this crisis, the mantra has been “Be kind. Be calm. Be safe.” constantly reiterated by the province’s Chief Medical Health Officer, the admirable Dr. Bonnie Henry. And, on the whole, we have been. It took a while to suppress the urge to shame and criticize when others around us were seemingly behaving in ways that were inconsistent with the guidelines we were being asked to follow. But, mostly, we succeeded which is probably one of the reasons British Columbia has fared relatively well in this struggle.

As a child of the sixties, the Kumbaya approach should be natural for me. But it’s not and I confess to having quite a struggle to hold the line at times. And now I need to vent.

Where to begin? How about at the top or close to it? And I can’t think of a better place to start than with the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney. Anyone who has been following the spread of COVID 19 in Canada should know by now that Alberta has the dubious distinction of having the highest rates of infection per capita in the country; that its hospitals are sounding the alarm at the real possibility they will not be able to handle the expected surge in cases in the coming weeks and, as a result, the Alberta government has requested the federal government and the Red Cross to assist in setting up field hospitals, perhaps bringing in the military. All this while the government of Mr. Kenney has refused to implement the kinds of mitigation measures applied elsewhere in the country, including right next store in British Columbia where, as a result, the rates of infection are significantly lower. It seems the “live free or die” mantra of his core supporters is more important than the advice of doctors or the needs of his citizens. I heard Prime Minister Trudeau declining to criticize Alberta’s approach which I guess is understandable, but as a Canadian with deep family roots in Alberta, I feel no such compunction. I mean, where do they get off asking the rest of Canada to rush to their aid when they refuse to take the very straight forward advice of experts on how to control the pandemic, advice that is being followed elsewhere and that is resulting in economic hardship there? I’m not suggesting we just turn our backs on Alberta. But really? Shouldn’t we at least be making it clear that this is a team sport and they are not playing by the rules?

And then there is the Conservative MP, Derek Sloan, previously distinguished by his opposition to a law outlying conversion therapy in Canada, now stepping forward to present an anti vaccine petition to Parliament just as we are getting the first glimmerings of light at the end of the COVID tunnel. And while I’m on the subject, it’s not lost on me that the new Conservative Leader, Erin O’Toole, has yet to call him out on this. As I said on a Facebook post, if the Conservative tent includes Derek Sloan it will never include people like me.

Not to be overlooked in all this are the churches asking for special pleadings that would allow them to remain open to in person worship during the pandemic. In British Columbia they are most notable in the Fraser Valley where they seem to believe their religious beliefs trump the health and safety of everyone else. And they are not alone. In Alberta two Baptist churches have filed lawsuits against the modest restrictions in that province, claiming they are tantamount to the actions of a dictatorship. I’m a non believer but, even if I were a devoutly religious person, I would be appalled at the selfishness of these churches. And while I’m on the subject, why should religious groups have any special rights here? Yes, I know they do have Charter rights but that’s the subject of another blog, but the rest of us are also giving up many things that make our lives worthwhile, fulfilling and enjoyable. So why should they be an exception?

And of couse there are the perennial flat earth groups who are marching around maskless and defying medical health orders whenever they can, often insulting others who are trying to follow the rules. Are we even the same species? I assume they grew up in the same Canada as the rest of us, that they went to the same or similar schools, that they enjoy the way Canadian society is organized and yet here we are. Okay, they’re not nearly as numerous or as vocal as their counterparts south of the border but, really, that’s a very low bar and surely not one we aspire to meet.

I know. I know. Shaming people won’t cause them to change their ways. But it sure does feel good.

Just sayin

G

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https://geoffbc.home.blog/2020/03/24/aids-and-covid-19-then-and-now/

Four years ago almost to the day a minority of Americans voted for Donald Trump and, thanks to the Byzantine rules of the Electoral College, elected him President of the United States.  This, despite warning signs everywhere, whether his history as a racist, his record as a businessman who stiffed contractors and employees, his boasting about moving on women and “grabbing them by the pussy”, his mysterious foreign financial ties, his record of marital infidelity and his appallingly unpresidential demeanor during the Republican primaries and the subsequent election.  Although not a majority, over sixty million Americans voted for him.

In the subsequent four years almost every fear about his Presidency has been realized as he turned the office of the President into a money generating machine for his businesses; as he gave the back hand to America’s long standing friends and allies in the world and cozied up to some of the most unsavoury authoritarian leaders; as he worked to undermine a free and independent press; as he tried to weaponize the courts against his political enemies and  critics; as he ignored the science on climate change even as America burned and flooded and withered on his watch;  as he ignored the scientists and doctors and instead, midwifed the Corona 19 pandemic across America because it suited his political needs to do so; as he fanned the flames of racial injustice; as he worked to undermine Americans’ faith in their democratic institutions, going so far to say he might not accept the results of the next Presidentail election unless he won; and as he debased and coarsened political life in this once great democracy.

And yet, through all this his supporters stayed with him, some with glee parroting his most outrageous and offensive positions.  Hilary Clinton called these people “deplorables”.  It may have been impolitic to do so, but she was right.

But to me at least, the far more offensive Trump supporters are the “but” ones.  You know, the ones who say “well, I wish he wouldn’t tweet all the time, but…” or “of course I’m offended by his tone and language, but…” or “well I don’t agree with all his positions … but”  or “I do wish he would tone down his rhetoric, but…”.  You know who I mean.  We all do.  We all know at least some “but” Trump supporters.  And what follows  the “but”?  Well, it  is usually some version of “well, you know he is a successful businessman (wrong!) so he really knows how to run the country” or “I’m so tired of political correctness and being looked down upon by the California or New York elites and he knows how to put them in their place” or “he cares about the little guy” or, my favourite in terms of what we know of his Presidency, “he’s draining the swamp in Washington”. 

Each of these pitiful insincere mea culpas trying to separate these “respectable” people from the meanness, the corruption, the  filth and the degradation of this Presidency.  Well, they are not absolved because:

when Donald Trump says he can “grab women by the pussy”, so do they;

when Donald Trump describes racist anti semitic marchers chanting “Jews will not replace us” as some “very fine people”, so do they;

when Donald Trump fills the “swamp” with his toadying supporters and legion of grifters, so do they;

when Donald Trump describes members of the American military as “losers and suckers”, so do they;

when Donald Trump grovels at the feet of some of the most appalling dictators in the world, so do they;

when Donald Trump insults America’s long time allies and friends, so do they;

when Donald Trump abandons America’s allies in the midst of battle, so do they;

when Donald Trump fans the flames of racism and division, so do they;

when Donald Trump takes a buzz saw to gay, lesbian and transgender rights in America, so do they;

when Donald Trump ignores science on climate change and fiddles while America burns, floods, is devastated by hurricanes, and sees its crops across the midwest wither, so do they;

when Donald Trump lies about the potential devastation of the Covid 19 Virus and then pursues a response to it that is completely dictated by his politcal needs as millions of Americans get sick and hundreds of thousand die, so do they;

when Donald Trump casts doubt on the legitimacy of America’s democratic institutions and processes, especially voting, so do they;

when Donald Trump won’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election, so do they;

when Donald Trump encourages white and violent extremist groups, so do they.

Okay, so I credulously accept that some “but”  Donald Trump supporters may have voted without understanding who and what he really is although it takes an enormous suspension of disbelief in the wake of the Access Hollyood Tapes, his long and very public history in New York and the words he used to announce his bid for the Presidency;  ( “Mexicans are drug dealers, criminals and rapists”), to do so.  But just for a minute at least, let’s try.

On November 3 they will vote again and there is no possibility, none whatsoever, they won’t know who and what Donald Trump is and what he is doing when they cast their votes.  There are absolutely no excuses this time.  If they vote for Donald Trump they are voting for him because they agree with him and like who and what he is.

As I have said to my many American friends and family:  “I trust the American people” and I still do although the last four years have often strained that to the almost breaking point.  But I still believe that on Election Day the majority of American voters will rise up, defend their democracy and send Donald Trump and his fellow grifters and enablers to the richly deserved dustbin of history where they will join the legions of wannabe dictators, Quislings and swamp dwellers.

Just sayin.

G

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Well the silly season in the campaign has definitely arrived. This morning the blaring headline concerns an exchange between the Liberal and NDP candidates in North Vancouver, both women, about “sexualized” language one used about the other. I have to say from a male point of view the comments in question seem pretty benign but then I am not a woman and I will leave it to others to judge.

We are now just over a week from the election. The one leaders’ debate is tonight and I have my first ever mail in ballot ready to be cast. So, where do I find myself?

In my first blog on the election I criticized Premier Horgan for calling the election and for subsequently trying to justify the unjustifiable defending that decision. Except for the leader of the Green Party who, for abvious reasons as the bride left at the altar, is still smarting from the early call, the campaign has moved on from it. I have friends who remain sufficiently angry about the early call they are going to “park” their votes with the Greens but that wouldn’t work for me.

In that same blog I criticized the NDP for the character attacks on Liberal Leader, Andrew Wilkinson and especially for ads targeting the gay and lesbian community suggesting the election of a Liberal government would lead to the loss of the hard won rights of that community. I did acknowledge there were probably Liberal attack ads I had not yet seen and that probably were equally odious. And right on cue, two days later one arrived in my internet account that, if it wasn’t so appalling, would have been funny. I don’t know whether the Liberal ad machine was trying to resurrect WAC Bennett’s cries from the sixties and early seventies that “the socialist hordes were at the gates” or whether it had just had too much exposure to Donald Trump’s approach to politics but, either way, it doesn’t matter. The ad was full of dire warnings that John Horgan and the NDP were stalking horses for a radical leftist takeover of the province. They were just waiting in the wings. The title of my last blog was “Stop Treating Us Like Children” and boy does that apply in this case too. I replied to the ad saying how distasteful it was but I suspect, other than having me removed from its circulation, it is still circulating around the internet.

So it seems there is plenty of stupid to go around.

I said there are three issues that will affect how I vote: a party’s approach to the chaos that is enveloping and destroying all the downtown Vancouver neighbourhoods and that is coming from the Downtown Eastside; the party’s proposals to fundamentally change Medicare so that reasonable access to services becomes a reality; and the plans each party has for a return to fiscal balance after the pandemic is over.

Not surprisingly, no one has really stepped up to the plate on any of the three although, on the issue of defending Vancouver’s neighbourhoods the Liberals got my attention with their so called “law and order” proposals. But even they didn’t demonstrate an understanding of what was happening to the neighbourhoods and was mostly about funding more police and having psychiatric social workers attend police calls for the sorts of disturbances occurring in the Downtown Eastside. It surprises me the Liberals weren’t more forceful and detailed because they are defending against a strong challenge in their seat of Vancouver False Creek where I live and where communities are right on the front line of the problems (for example, Yaletown). The other two parties? Well, aside from the usual bromides about developing new and creative strategies to end homelessness (where have we heard that before) and to ensure a safe supply of drugs, nothing.

On how and when to enact fundamental changes to Medicare in B.C. , that perennial third rail of Canadian politics, nada. Just the same old game of promising to throw more money at the current system. This really didn’t surprise me in light of the B.C. Supreme Court ruling striking down the challenge to Medicare’s monopoly as enforced by “The Medicare Protection Act”. I said then the court’s decision was a lost opportunity, one that could have forced politicians to roll up their sleeves and finally deal with the structural problems causing the well documented access to care problems in B.C.

And on the issue of how the parties will lead us out of the deep debt and deficits brought on by the pandemic response, really nothing. The Liberals are traditionally seen as the party of fiscal responsibility but their proposal to cancel the PST for a year and then to bring it back for at least another year at 3% blew that claim to smithereens, at least for me. As for the NDP, oh well at least they are behaving according to their playbook although some of their “vote buying” proposals are blatant even by their and the province’s historical standards. A thousand dollar “gift” (remember, it’s our money we are talking about) to almost all British Columbians. A four hundred dollar gift to renters. And all the bafflegab about it being somehow related to the pandemic response brings me back to my cri de coeur: STOP TREATING US LIKE CHILDREN.

So with no definitive positions addressing my most pressing issues, what should I do?

Well, the NDP did provide good, if not spectacular, government for the two years of their mandate before the pandemic hit and since have done an outstanding job guiding us through it. Those two statements are pretty irrefutable.

The Liberals have only been out of office for three years after sixteen in power and, watching them, it seems to me they could use a bit more time on the bench, time to sort out who they are, what they are, and what they are going to represent in the future.

Some, myself included, have had qualms about an NDP government with a majority. For me at least, most of those have been allayed, although I would feel better if their excellent Minister of Finance, Carole James, was able to run again. But, as we all know, she can’t for health reasons.

So in the end I think the NDP deserves to be relected (although it would be a delicious irony if they were re-elected with a minority and needing the support of the Greens who they so easily kicked under the bus at the beginning of the campaign…well, in B.C. elections you never know).

Whatever your views, get out there and vote.

Just sayin

G

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