Opinion polls taken in Canada over the past eight years have shown a consistent and often intense dislike of Donald Trump by a very large majority of Canadians. Many of these polls register up to 80% dislike for the past President and current Republican candidate and, in some significant regions of the country, the percentage gets close to 90%. As always, Alberta, Canada’s answer to Texas, is an outlier but, even there, strong majorities consistently react negatively to him. Which got me wondering: why is that?

Canadian and American similarities are so many, we often forget there are some fundamental differences between the two countries, their histories and their populations. Many Canadians, myself included, have family on both sides of the border, connections that go back generations and, at least until 911, for most the border scarcely existed as a barrier. I remember when I lived in Windsor Ontario and had to cross the border to Detroit almost daily being waved through with a smile whether going or coming back no matter what crossing I was using.

It’s fair to say most Canadians are genuinely puzzled by the allegiance millions of Americans show to Donald Trump. No matter how we approach the question, it just doesn’t make sense to us. That suggests a fundamental difference between the populations of the U.S. and Canada although I acknowledge there are many Americans facing the same quandry. What’s more, many of us have relatives and friends in America who support Trump, people who, until recently, we thought were virtually indistinguishable from us, which makes their allegiance even more puzzling.

Of course, there were policies and actions taken by Donald Trump as President with which Canadians disagreed, including the profound disrespect he showed for Canada and its leaders during and after the G7 meeting hosted by Canada, his apparent willingness to destroy the Canadian economy during the renegotiation of the NAFTA treaty, something one would hardly expect from our closest ally, neighbour and friend, his undermining of NATO that, in Canadians’ view, has been the bedrock of peace and security for the past eighty years, his cozying up to tyrants and dictators from Vladimir Putin to Kim Jung Un to Xi Jinping, and his general view that everything in life and relations between people and nations is transactional with a certain winner and a certain loser.

So, yes, there are many policy and stylistic issues that Canadians disagree with Donald Trump on, but one could argue that, in the long history of relations between the two countries, there have been other examples of deep disagreements without, it seems to me, the same level of animus by Canadians as exists towards him.

Part of the answer lies in the founding documents of the two countries. In America the slogan is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” with no reference to the collective. In Canada it’s “peace, order and good government”, suggesting a much less individual focused society with much more emphasis on stability. And Donald Trump certainly doesn’t represent stability while also advertising the worst excesses of selfish behaviour. In fact, he represents that part of the American experience Canadians generally abhor: the carnival barker; the evangelical preacher; the garish display of excess; the happy embrace of violence, and a complete disregard for norms of civility and community. So, in a real sense, the starting points are different and that helps to explain the views, but probably not the animus. That, I think, comes from a deep and very personal part of the Canadian psyche.

Like many Americans, Canadians are taught to be respectful of each other and to emulate behaviours that, by most standards, represent the best in the human experience: civility; good manners; accepting differences between people and groups of people; abhoring violence; finding compromise during conflict and generally valuing each person for their individual worth. And while I know these virtues are not unique to Canada, and that a great many Americans hold them too, it seems obvious now that many do not. Canada’s historical experience has profoundly shaped Canadians’ view of how their society should work and the role of each individual in it. A country founded on compromise between the descendents of the two European super powers of the seventeenth century, Great Britain and France, learned very quickly how to work together in the face of an often harsh and hostile environment and world. And that approach continues to this day, profoundly affecting the values of Canadians. In fact, as Canada has become much more diverse in the past decades, the need for that kind of view and approach has increased and, by and large, that is reflected in Canadians’ everday behaviour.

That doesn’t mean all Canadians are paragons of virtue and good behaviour. They most certainly are not. We have our fair share of sociopaths and narcissists and people who, for whatever reason, don’t want to play by the rules. The difference, though, is that, in Canada, not only are they not celebrated but, in fact, face profound disapproval and, as a result, generally have the good sense to suppress, or at least disguise, those antisocial impulses.

But there’s more. To Canadians, Donald Trump is an insecure, selfish little man; a narcissist who’s very existence depends on unending validation by standards that, to most adults, are ridiculous. He seems completely unaware of what he looks like to the rest of the world, absolutely consumed by the most trivial matters. And yet, tens of millions of Americans support him either because they are blind to his glaringly obvious faults or because they share those faults and behaviours themselves. Perhaps his worst contribution to America is giving permission to the darkest, most unattractive parts of American society. And so we see it expressed with startling pride, whether in Charlottesville, or on January 6, or in the seemingly endless torrent of mysogyny, homophobia, racism and anti-intellectualism that passes for public discourse in some dark corners of the American community.

There have been so many occasions when, if Donald Trump was in Canada, his political career would have ground to an abrupt and fatal halt. The Access Hollywood tape (“grab them by their pussies”); the “very fine people” reference to Klansmen and anti semites in Charlottesville; paying hush money to a porn star for sexual encounters while his wife was pregnant; the staggering incompetence during the worst pandemic to strike America in a century (injecting bleach); being found libel for sexual assault; being convicted on 34 felony counts; being fined nearly half a billion dollars for business and tax fraud in New York; indicted for election interference in Georgia; indicted for illegally taking government documents; indicted for attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. The list goes on and on and yet, for millions of Americans, none of it matters. And that’s why, for Canadians, we look at our American friends and relatives who are part of the MAGA movement and wonder whether there really was something to the “The Body Snatchers”. How else to explain the unexplainable?

Canadians dislike Donald Trump for many reasons, including the chaos he brings to the world stage; his past treatment of Canada; his racism; his mysogyny; his seemingly endless quest to upend the American constitutional order; his insecurity; his narcissism; his bullying; and his vulgarity. But most of all Canadians dislike Donald Trump because he has soiled the image of our closest neighbour; our best ally and our friend.

Just sayin

GH

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With all eyes on the U.S. presidential election and, to a lesser extent, Canada’s 2025 election, we seem to have lost sight of the fact B.C. is having a provincial election very soon. In fact, it is only two months from yesterday on October 19th. And it could be a very consequential election although anyone saying that even six months ago would have seemed off base. While it is still the NDP government’s to lose, that is no longer out of the question and for circumstances few if any could have foreseen.

The recent prevailing wisdom was that the right/centre vote would split between the Official Opposition, the B.C. United, and the Conservatives, ensuring an NDP victory with a mere plurality of the votes. I’m no longer convinced that is the case. The most recent polling shows a tightening race between the NDP and the Conservatives with B.C. United relegated to third or, in some polls, even fourth place. How the once mighty Liberals, now rebranded as B.C. United, ended up being marginalized will undoubtedly be the subject of many future political science papers and seminars although most of the answers are pretty plain to see. First, there was the renaming (or “rebranding” as the newspeak would have it). Why, a party that successfully ruled the province for sixteen years and that would have extended that by another four six years ago but for the alliance between the tiny Greens and the NDP, believed a name change was a good idea escapes me. I speak as someone who voted for the Liberals through both the Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark years and who considered himself on the “left” side of that coalition, and who had no confusion over the relationship between the provincial Liberals and the federal Liberals or, for that matter, the federal Conservatives. And yet we were told the confusion was costing votes, particularly in the face of the resurgent federal Conservatives. So the name was changed, adding to any confusion that may have existed before. And, as someone on the left side of that coalition, I couldn’t help but feel this was pandering to federal Conservatives with little regard for the rest of us whose views would likely now be devalued.

Then there was the expulsion of Liberal MLA John Rustad from the Liberal caucus because of his views on climate change, views that are undoubtedly shared by many of his constituents in the Peace River. He then went on to join and lead the Conservatives, beginning a slow drip of defections from B.C. United.

While this was happening in B.C. the national political landscape was changing as Canadians tired of Prime Minister Jusin Trudeau’s Liberal government for too many reasons to itemize here. And just as that is true in the rest of Canada, so too is it true in B.C. where the national Conservative resurgence is creating coattails for the provincial Conservatives.

These, and the emerging policy differences, created fertile ground for a Conservative rebirth in the province and that is happening, including the possibiliity they might win the next provincial election. Of course the split vote between the Conservatives and B.C. United will allow the NDP to win some ridings that would otherwise have gone to the Conservatives but, if current trends continue, it isn’t impossible to see a complete collapse of the B.C. United vote with mass defections to the Conservatives. That is the NDP’s worst nightmare.

If anyone had suggested I would be considering voting Conservative provincially even six months ago I would have wondered what they were smoking but, as the issues in the election crystalize, and with the realization B.C. United’s time has passed (if it was ever even here), I am giving them a closer look. That’s because on a number of critical issues I give the NDP government a failing grade (full disclosure here: I voted NDP in the last provincial election). That isn’t to say they’ve failed on all fronts and, in fact, on some are doing as well as any government in the country (the housing crisis comes to mind) but on several issues I care deeply about they have not only failed but, in at least a couple of cases, have made the problems much, much worse . So, for me at least, the issue is will the Conservatives do any better and, also, are there skeletons in the Conservatives’ closet I should be concerned about?

Those of you who read my blogs know I am deeply upset at the deterioration of our communities as a result of rampant drug use and related disorder and crime on our streets. And on this issue the NDP government has not only failed miserably but has taken steps that made the problems much, much worse. I’m talking about the experiment of legalization of illicit drugs that, while it has been partially reversed, has had a terrible impact on our cities and towns. Where I live in the downtown core of Vancouver the evidence of the use and abuse of drugs is everywhere, whether it’s unconscious people lying in the middle of sidewalks, addicted people urinating and defecating in public, seemingly crazed people railing at the world, significant increases in property crime or, worst of all, random and unprovoked attacks on regular citizens. How anyone could have embarked on the project of decriminalization without thinking about the effects on the rest of the community is beyond me and is almost certainly a result of the overvaluing of the rights of drug users over those of everyone else. It’s not just a failure of policy, it’s a failure of imagination and leadership and the government must be held accountable for it.

I don’t pretend to be an expert in the field of battling the current drug crisis but I do know a failure when I see one and our current approach just isn’t working and the blame for that lies largely with Victoria. We in B.C. seldom look to our neighbours in Alberta for guidance on public policy issues and, admittedly, sometimes what goes on in that province seems right out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, but on this issue perhaps we can learn something. There’s no question in my mind that the role of treatment and enforcement have to have at least as much importance as preventing overdose deaths and that requires a fundamental rethink of our approach as well as the commitment of appropriate resources to move forward. Of course we will hear from the many vested interests and naysayers who will bemoan the loss of addicts “rights” but my answer to them is simply “stand aside because we are coming through”. Enough is enough!

The second issue where I think the NDP deserves a failing grade is on healthcare, something I know a bit about. I am at the leading edge of the Baby Boomers who are retiring and entering that part of their lives when they require much more medical care than other population cohorts. The failures we are witnessing today will only get worse long before they get better unless we do a fundamental rethink of how we deliver medical care in this province. While the NDP government is throwing enormous amounts of money at the escalating crisis, that’s not even going to be a stop gap as long as we restrain ourselves within the orthodoxies of Canadian Medicare. The Conservaties have unveiled proposals that will help although, in and of themselves, they will not fix the long term and structural problems, but for people waiting to see a doctor or to get a consult and/or procedure there will be a significant improvement. For a long term fix we need political leaders willing to question some of the largely unfounded verities of the Canadian Medicare system and look to other jurisdictions for ideas on how to make the system work as it was originally intended. The NDP is apparently incapable of that work, perhaps because the mythology of the CCF/NDP and Medicare is so fundamental to its self image.

The third issue where I think the NDP deserves a failing grade is on climate change and our response to it. That may seem paradoxical because certainly on the surface, much of what it has done is cloaked in the language of fighting man made climate change. The problem with that, though, is that the NDP government fundamentally undermined the most important initiative governments could take in combatting climate change when it came to power and made changes to the carbon tax. The carbon tax was introduced by the Liberals under Premier Gordon Campbell, at the time the first such tax in all of North America. It was to be a free market tool to persuade consumers over time to make more climate friendly choices in their purchases and activities and, fundamental to its long term effectiveness, was that all revenues were transparently returned to the same taxpayers who were paying the tax. Without that important caveat, no one should have reasonably believed the tax could increase and continue public support. That tax and approach was continued by Premier Christy Clark and her Liberal government although, on a couple of occasions, they did sensibly pause the scheduled increases in response to economic pressures. However, when the NDP came to power six years ago everything changed. Motivated I guess by the ideological belief that governments are better able to decide how people should spend their money than ordinary taxpayers, they changed the tax so that only a portion of it would be returned to taxpayers and, even that, only to some taxpayers. The rest of the revenue was available to fund whatever pet project de jour the government wanted to fund so long as it had some veneer of fighting climate change. At the time of this change I predicted that it wouldn’t be long before there was a rebellion against the tax and, indeed, here we are today. It’s certain the carbon tax is now going the way of the Dodo bird, whether with the election of a Conservative government federally or with the election of one in B.C. And that is on the NDP.

I have no idea what will replace the carbon tax although I’m sure there will be something, if only because it would be intolerable to our trading partners for there not to be. I am also encouraged by former Green Party leader Andrew Weaver’s comments about John Rustad and the Conservatives, suggesting as they do that a provincial Conservative government will take climate change seriously and will find new ways to combat it.

The fourth area I give the NDP a failing grade on is managing the province’s finances. When the NDP took over government from the Christy Clark Liberals, B.C.’s finances were the envy of the country and, for the first few years under then Premier John Horgan, that continued as the government seemed genuinely to understand the importance of balanced budgets and controls on government spending. That all changed with Premier Horgan’s resignation and his replacement with the NDP government of Premier David Eby. The first sign of this was the govenrment’s rush to spend billions of surplus dollars left to it by its predecessor rather than using it to pay down the provincial debt. That approach continues as the government now projects spending leading to sharp increases in provincial debt levels. As a result there have already been two credit rating downgrades in a year by the S&P Gobal ratings agency. A number of my NDP friends tell me with all sincerity that government debt and deficits really don’t matter and they offer some combination of quasi economics mumbo jumbo to bolster that position. The problem, however, is that we know from history that is simply not the case. At best, government debt acts as a drag on the rest of the economy and, amongst other things, contributes to higher interest rates and costs and, at worst, leads to the type of economic crisis the government of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin had to confront in the nineteen nineties. But those memories seem to have evaporated as we drift towards future fiscal problems and crises.

So, am I giving the Conservaties a closer look for the October provincial election? Yes I am. Whether I ultimately vote for them will be determined over the next couple of months. Let the games begin.

Just sayin

GH

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Several days ago I was shopping on Davie Street in Vancouver’s downtown core and while I was feeding a parking meter a crazed, large young man rushed down the street, waving his arms aggresively, and screaming threats. He wasn’t aiming them at me particularly but at that moment I was afraid. Although I am still a fairly large man, I am seventy five and my ability to defend myself is limited. Later I thought maybe I should carry a heavy cane in case I needed it to ward off an attack which got me thinking about the state of my city, Vancouver and, for that matter, so many other cities across the western world.

It has become an almost daily occurence in Vancouver where a drug addicted, mentally damaged person assaults someone. And that only includes the attacks that are reported. On the same day as my experience, a young woman who was pushing a baby carriage was chased and nearly assaulted on the seawall in Yaletown. Fortunately, passersby intervened and protected her. The police were called and they picked up the potential assailant and took him to jail only to release him shortly thereafter because of a lack of charges which, presumably, allowed him to continue his rampage elsewhere. Several days earlier another crazed and, presumably drug damaged, man stabbed two people along Granville Street, including the intersection with Davie. That assailant is still at large. At about the same time, another stabbing occured further up Granville. The police arrested the suspect and I presume, though I do not know, he is still in jail. These attacks are no longer the exception, they are now the norm. And this is intolerable.

I moved to Vancouver as a teenager over sixty years ago. I have no recollection of people begging on the streets, of homeless encampments, of crazed and violent people running rampant when I was growing up in the city. Even east Hastings, while not the nicest place in the city, was safe to walk through. But somewhere along the way, something changed.

Of course this is not unique to Vancouver or Canada. Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, has issued an order to remove homeless encampments across the state. Anyone who has been to San Francisco, LA or San Diego in the last few years will know how rampant those encampments are and how they have alienated whole districts of those cities for other citizens. It is estimated there are 180,000 people living in homeless encampments in California which makes Vancouver’s problems seem minor but we are catching up quickly. But ordering their removal raises the obvious question: “where are they going to go?”.

The question I have is: how did we get here? How, over a relatively short span of time, did we move from a mostly non existent problem to one that is making our cities increasingly unliveable? There are people better equipped than me to answer those questions but I’ve heard a number of theories, most of which seem inadequate to explain the problem but almost certainly add to the complexity of it.

The mass deinstitutionalization of people with mental disorders in the 1980’s, with inadequate or non existant support structures in place to look after their needs in the communities they were released into, certainly contributed. This happened all across North America and, in Vancouver, is best illustrated by the closing of Riverview Hospital in one of its suburbs. While that almost certainly had an immediate and noticeable impact, it doesn’t fully explain the scope and complexity of the problem even then, not to mention now thirty years later.

The rising cost of living in these cities has also contributed to the crisis. Why costs rose so dramatically in them differs but the end result is similar. And that is especially true for housing costs, particularly in Vancouver, where housing costs are now stratospheric compared to the average income in the city. A significant contributor to those costs is international immigration, particularly the influx of wealthy Asians seeking a safe haven for their money, if not their lives, in Canada. And it’s not just wealthy individuals, as Canada’s immigration policy has leaned so far into encouraging immigration that the inevitable and, one would have thought, predictable strains on the country’s ability to provide housing and basic services such as medical care are severely testing Canadians’ traditional support for immigration.

And then there’s the drug crisis. It’s hard to determine to what extent this is a cause or an effect of the other stressors, but there’s no doubt it is now a signficant reason for the chaos and random violence on our streets. It’s not just people who are drugged but also those who are both psychologically and physically permanently impaired because of their drug use. I say “permanently” because it seems to me that, for some at least, there is no possible recovery from the state they are now in. And these are likely the most dangerous to the other citizens of the city.

While important, all these seem secondary to something else: the fundamental change in how capitalist societies organize and reward work. For decades now we’ve been assured that globalization would be a tide that would lift all. While it is likely correct that it’s contributed to the dramatic reduction in poverty in countries like China and India, as well as large areas of the global south, it has had the opposite effect in the major western countries like the United States, Canada and much of Europe where well paying, often union, jobs have been lost to “offshoring” where labour costs are much lower. As this was happening we were assured that new “knowledge based” jobs would replace them but, as I think should be clear by now, expecting workers in industries like manufacturing and resource extraction to pivot easily to these new jobs is largely unrealistic, at least for current workers. And so there has been the loss of, for lack of a better term, lower middle class jobs and incomes leading to the breakdown of families and, ultimately, the despair on our streets. For both strategic and political reasons, countries are now trying to repatriate some of those industries but, given the goal of lowering costs, still accept the disappearance of many of them to low wage, albeit friendlier, jurisdictions. Even if there was a wholesale reversal, the damage is done at least for a generation and, without some kind of dramatic intervention, much longer.

What we are witnessing is not just a failure, but the possibility of civilizational collapse. Not all at once. Not with a French Revolution type overthrow. But rather with a slow grinding down of the bonds that cement our societies with the increasing isolation of the “haves” from the “have nots”. We are already seeing examples of this, particularly south of the border in America.

There hasn’t been this type of income discrepancy in the western world since the days of the “Robber Barons” in America. In fact, I’m not even sure that was as great in these days when a very few are multi billionaires, with some testing the stratosphere of trillionaires, own an enormous percentage of the wealth being created. And, as history tells us clearly, this cannot continue or, for greater clarity, it will not. The only thing we might have some control over is how it will end and, even then, the acceptable options are limited.

I have little faith in the religion of government taking over, making choices for everyone, deciding who is going to be a winner and who a loser. And I have great faith in ideas of individual liberty and capitalist free will. That said, even the least regulated societies and economies, if they are to succeed, need some guardrails and, absent anyone else, that’s where government comes in. What is striking across the western world today is the lack of leadership on this issue. In Canada, neither the Prime Minister nor his likely successor are arguing for the type of fundamental changes necessary to get at the root problem of income disparity. It’s probably true that a relatively small country and economy cannot go alone on this but to not even be raising the issue strikes me as sleepwalking to disaster.

I’m not qualified to offer the answers on how to rebalance the distribution of wealth in advanced, democratic, capitalist societies without undermining the very forces that have made those societies economically successful. However I’m pretty confident it would start with reforms to our taxation systems that ensure the wealthiest amongst us pay their fair share. I’m also interested in the idea of a guaranteed minimum annual income, one that would replace all the boutique programs that we now have including Old Age Security, Welfare, all other income and housing supplements etc. The current programs cost tens of billions a year, if not more, and while their elimination probably wouldn’t fully cover the costs of a guaranteed minimum annual income, they would go some distance in that direction. I do understand the critics who claim such a plan would be a disincentive for people getting ahead, working hard and succeeeding. But I wonder if that’s really the case. I’m not suggesting an income that will be particularly comfortable, just one that ensures all Canadians have a roof over their heads, clothing on their backs and food on their tables.

In the meantime we should be addressing the immediate problems of homelessness, drug addiction and general civic disorder. And we should do so in a way that is effective, not one that genuflexes to the orthodoxies that claim the rights of drug addicts and petty criminals somehow supercede the rights of everyone else to have an orderly and safe city. As for the bigger problem, it sure would be nice if some mainstream politicians at least showed some awareness of the challenges in front of us because the alternative is unthinkable.

Just sayin

GH

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Canada will have a federal election no later than October next year. If current trends continue, the Conservatives will end nine or ten years of Liberal government then, perhaps even attaining the usually elusive majority in Parliament. Although the Conservatives are ahead of the Liberals by about twenty points in opinion polls, there is little real enthusiasm for them except in their base. In fact, commentators are already referring to the election choice as “choose your poison”.

Justin Trudeau led the Liberals from near obscurity back to power in 2015, replacing the tired Conservative government of Stephen Harper. He has subsequently won two more elections, albeit with minority governments, and it’s pretty clear Canadians are how tired of him, his approach and many of his policies. Without some major surprise, including a change of leader, it appears likely he will leave the Liberal Party just as decimated as it was when he became its leader. His continued insistence he will lead the Liberals through the election is yet another example of his hubris, no matter the consequences for everyone else.

So, what exactly are Canadians tired of in Justin Trudeau? I obviously can’t speak for anyone but myself, and I’ve always felt lukewarm at best towards him. To me, what I see when I watch him is performative art, including when he delivered the eulogy at his father’s funeral. Many commentators felt otherwise, citing that as the moment they realized his potential but, for me, it had all the hallmarks of a grade school drama production, you know, all sound and fury and signifying very little. And his performance as Prime Minister has done little to change that impression. In fact, it has often been strengthened (see the Trudeau family dressup trip to India).

I just don’t think there is much there there, and so when he opines on whatever topic, particularly those that have the potential to stir emotions, I see him lost in his own vainglorious drama production. And I don’t think that impression is limited to Canada. Although in the world of Trump, liberals across the globe were desperate for some kind of saviour and Justin Trudeau seemed to fit the bill with his seemingly effortless style, his colourful socks, his photogenic family, his loud pronouncements on feminism and social justice, all of which were right out of central casting. Actually, that’s not a bad metaphor because, with the passage of time, the emptiness behind the image became increasingly obvious. More and more people have come to realize it is all a performance that causes his government to focus only on those issues that fit the script, be it reconciliation with native Canadians, a seemingly endless cornucopia of new social and health programs and expressions of outrage over any issue around the world that offended Trudeau’s sense of justice or equity or, dare I say, feminism.

It’s not surprising, given its leader, this government’s programs and policies have profoundly changed how Canadians feel about their country and how the rest of the world views it. In fairness, it did a credible job steering us through the pandemic and re-negotiating the NAFTA treaty. But that’s about it unless you enjoy wallowing in endless self abnegation for Canada’s supposed past sins. Perhaps the most galling of these concerns “reconciliation” and the legacy of residential schools in Canada.

In 2021, the T K’emlups te Secwepemc first nation in Kamloops B.C. announced they had employed ground penetrating radar to locate the unmarked graves of children from the local residential school. They found over two hundred “anomalies” in the soil around the former school and quickly equated that with over two hundred graves. I should note that, since then, not a single grave has been confirmed, and not a single body recovered. And how did the Prime Minister react? With an unprecedented assault on Canada’s history and the leaders who created this country. The Canadian flag was lowered to half mast on all government buildings, where it remained for over six months, while Canada was pilloried as a land of genocidal monsters right up there with Adolph Hitler and Pol Pot. What the Prime Minister had so spectacularly forgotten, if he ever really knew it, was that he is Prime Minister of all Canadians, not just the five percent who identify as native.

And was there any moment when he said something like, you know, “sorry”; “sorry” I may have over reacted; “sorry” because even now three years later, there is no concrete evidence of the sort of mass killing that so titillated liberal elites in Canada and thrilled our international enemies? No, there was not. Instead, with no fanfare, the flags were just quietly raised  one day.

It’s not surprising, given the world view of the Prime Minister and his government, that their policy priorities are mostly some combination of issues du jour and feel good, so called social justice initiatives, including new social and health programs the country cannot afford, at least if it is to also meet its core commitments. Which brings me to defence. The first obligation of any government is to ensure its territory and citizenry are secure. And on this issue, the government fails spectacularly. It’s not news to note we are living in a newly dangerous world, one where the post Second World War structures and values are not longer secure, and one where territorial aggression, one country against another, is happening. The Canadian national anthem sings about “…the true north strong and free…” but, the way we are going, maybe not for long. Across the Arctic Ocean we have a revanchist Russia building massive military bases while China is announcing it’s a “near arctic” nation, presumably giving it some claim on the arctic or at least ocean passageways through it. With global warming, the melting of the polar icecap and the northwest and northeast passages becoming navigable for longer periods each year, it’s only a matter of time before Canada’s claim to sovereignty over the northwest passage is seriously tested. Something as simple as Russian occupation of a remote island within Canadian waters would be enough. And what would Canada do? Militarily, very little. We’d undoubtedly go to the U.N. and complain, but that would solve nothing. Our best hope is that the Americans would activate a kind of northern Munroe doctrine and come to our aid. But, if that is the strategy, how utterly pathetic. While I’d much rather have Americans up there than either the Russians or the Chinese, a much preferable course would be for Canada to defend its own territory and, if it won’t, then maybe we should just simplify things and present the northern coastline and adjacent territories as a gift to America. That might even bring us some kudos in Trump’s America.

The failure to adequately fund Canada’s defence is not solely the fault of the current Liberal government. In fact, it’s been a failure of successive Liberal and Conservative governments for decades but the changes to the world order make it a much more urgent issue now, one the current government seems willfully blind to.

I could go on with many other criticisms of this government’s policies but they are all apiece and flow from a worldview personified by the Prime Minister, a view that is characterized by magical thinking, dramatic gestures and blind self confidence.

By this time, you may have concluded I won’t be voting Liberal and I hope you’re right. But, and this is a big “but”, every day the Conservatives and their Leader, Pierre Poilievre, make it harder and harder for me to vote Conservative and, I suspect, I am not alone. Much as I’m tired of Trudeau, I have a visceral reaction each time I watch Poilievre. He reminds me of a school yard bully. You know the type. The kid who wasn’t attractive or popular but who was large and who compensated for everything else by being a bully and, in every respect, was just plain mean. I don’t know who is in Poilievre’s strategic think tank but him hurling childish insults that, presumably, he thinks are clever, is poison for me. In fact, if the Conservatives were to choose a leader who was most likely to send me scurrying back to the Liberal tent poison pill Pierre fits the bill.

Confronted with my dueling dislikes for both leaders, I thought I could find solace in ignoring them and, instead, focusing on their policies. I’ve already stated my criticisms of the Liberals and, in many areas, the Conservatives look like they will adopt policies that I support. Maybe. I say “maybe” because they have offered precious little in terms of specific policies and, where they have gone into even minimal detail, it’s had the opposite effect. The first of these is the carbon tax which, to the extent of my limited understanding, is probably the most effective tool to use to combat global warming. Their simplistic mantra “axe the tax” leaves me wondering what they will replace it with because, mark my words, they will have to replace it with something real and credible, if only to satisfy Canada’s trading partners. It’s only a matter of time before those partners start placing a price on goods imported from countries not doing their part to combat climate change and, despite being a G7 nation, that will include Canada if a new government irresponsibly backs away from out international commitments.

At least with regard to climate change, I understand there is a possibility of other approaches. They may not be as easy or as effective, but they may be possible. On a different issue, however, the choice is black and white. Pierre Poilievre has now stated he would use the “notwithstanding” clause to override the “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” in the case of criminal justice reform. That would be the final nail in the coffin of this most important part of Canada’s constitutional framework, conservative provincial premiers having so willingly laid the groundwork. Of course, the “notwithstanding clause” should never have been inserted in the constitution, but it was with the expectation it would almost never be used. How wrong that is turning out to be. One of the areas I incline towards Conservatives is on criminal justice reform but not at cost to the foundational constitutional document that should protect all Canadians.

And on so many other issues the Conservatives either aren’t saying or are providing mushy bromides. I have no idea whether or not they will move quickly to increase military spending; reign in federal government spending (if so, how, where and when?); or prepare us for a future pandemic. Although, on the latter, I am concerned about their, and particularly Pierre Poilievre’s, role during the last one.

So I sit here in Vancouver and watch and wait, hoping something will happen to clarify our choice in the next year and a half. The most obvious would be a decision by Prime Minister Trudeau to step down and allow a new leader and Prime Minister to lead the government into the election. I don’t know whether that would change the outcome given the huge disparity in opinion polls today, but I do know it would allow us to refocus and to have a better, clearer conversation.

Just sayin

GH

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I am a Gentile who believes strongly that the state of Israel has a right to exist in peace and security as a Jewish homeland and refuge. The attacks by Hamas terrorists on October 7 horrified me, even more so as the gruesome details of savagery and inhumanity came out. And I have strongly supported the right of Israel to respond militarily, but as the war enters its seventh month, I think it’s time to rethink Israel’s strategy.

The stated aim of the Israeli government is to completely eradicate Hamas, and yet, after seven months of intense fighting and bombardment, Hamas remains a formidable foe. Why is that? Aside from the obvious difficulties of fighting an entrenched and well armed foe that has had years to prepare for this conflict, there is also the question of whether Hamas and the Palestinians are separable. Most Western leaders and commentators have claimed that Hamas is not the Palestinians over these past seven months, and yet there is compelling evidence that is wrong. Of course, if Hamas and the Palestinians are inseparable, any solution to the thus far intractable challenges of co-existence between the Palestinians and the Israelis becomes much, much more difficult to achieve. It also removes the fig leaf Western politicians have hidden behind responding to the war where they criticize Hamas but oppose Israel’s response because it is hurting the “innocent” Palestinians.

It’s undeniable that Hamas fighters are Palestinians and poll and after poll of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank show considerable majority support for Hamas even after seven months of bombardment and fighting laid waste to much of Gaza. At the same time, world public opinion has turned, or is turning, against Israel, moving it towards the status of a pariah state. In fact, I suspect this is all playing out almost exactly as Hamas planned with its ultimate goal to completely destroy the State of Israel and murder its people.

Israel’s government, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has made things much worse with its enabling financial support for Hamas, its support of the settler movement on the West Bank, its complete lack of preparedness for the attacks on October 7, its implacable opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state and its divisive domestic policies. In fact, there’s growing suspicion the war is being prolonged to help the government politically, and certainly its recent decision to bomb the Iranian consulate in Damascus has only increased the vulnerability of Israel with the real possibility of a second war, this one on its northern frontier. The likelihood of that increased considerably yesterday as Iran fired three hundred missiles and drones at Israel.

Whether the continuation and escalation of the war is part of a cynical political maneuver, or whether it simply shows a lack of strategic wisdom and imagination, the facts on the ground now dictate a complete re-think of Israel’s strategy and approach.

It is difficult to accurately assess Israel’s success in the war but recent announcements it is having to re-fight battles in areas thought to have been successfully pacified suggest it is becoming mired in the kind of quagmire that defeated the United States in Vietnam and, effectively, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whether or not the number of Palestinian casualties is correct, and they are most likely deliberate over estimations by Hamas authorities, the daily images of women and children being killed can only strengthen the position of Israel’s enemies and move toward the point where the stakes are genuinely existential for Israel.

I do not know what a new strategy should look like, but the first step must be a ceasefire with the release of any surviving hostages. It should be followed by a process involving the key players in the international and regional communities with the goal of making the ceasefire permanent along with a real path to Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. There is no other realistic alternative and right wing Israelis who believe they can prevail and somehow push the Palestinians out of all of historic Palestine or, worse, kill them all must be marginalized if only for the sake the survival of Israel.

There are several reasons to stop the war now including, of course, ending the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza and freeing the hostages, but perhaps the most compelling is that it’s in Israel’s strategic interest to do so. 

The kidnappers and murderers from October 7 should still be hunted down just as the terrorists at the Munich Olympics were, but stopping the daily bombardments of Palestinian civilians will allow Israel to move forward to create and strengthen its alliances with neighbouring Arab nations. It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that at least one of those nations, Jordan, helped Israel repel the Iranian drone and rocket attacks last weekend.

I can’t fully appreciate the anger and fear Israelis must feel after the October 7 attack but perhaps that’s where friends come in, outsiders who are more dispassionate and better able to view the strategic landscape free from those emotions. I consider myself a friend of Israel, and my advice is offered in that spirit and, most of all, motivated by what I believe to be in its long-term interest.

Just sayin

GH

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The New York Times recently ran an article, “Screams Without Words”, detailing the sexual atrocities committed by Hamas and other Palestinian men when they crossed into Israel on October 7 and slaughtered approximately twelve hundred, mostly Israelis. The article is the result of weeks of research, considering videos, live testimony, and the evidence left behind. Although the Times is withholding some of the more gruesome details, what is provided is beyond horrifying: women gang raped while at the same time being butchered; breasts cut off and tossed around like footballs; nails and bullets driven into genitals; and so much more. 

And any suggestion this was an isolated incident is contradicted by the multiple reports from multiple locations, signalling an horrific fusion of hatred of Jews and hatred of women. This isn’t all that surprising if you understand Hamas’ view of the role of women in society. They are valued only because they produce men. Nor is it surprising when you consider the behaviour of other, similar Muslim fundamentalist groups, like ISIS, that, given power, stripped away centuries of progress advancing the rights of women, while also forcing Yazidi women into sexual slavery.

If there was any doubt before October 7 what the fate of Jews and other non Muslims in Israel would be if Hamas were to succeed, it is gone now. Take Hamas at its word. Read its Charter. It’s all there, every hateful, violent, anti semitic, homophobic belief from the Dark Ages to the present day.

And in the face of this misogynist savagery, how does the world react and, more significantly, how do the defenders of women’s rights on the left react? By and large, with silence or, at best, equivocation. Where is the outrage when it is so justly warranted? Where are the international bodies whose duty it is to protect human rights and, specifically, women’s rights? After the initial silence, the rote, pro forma statements emerged, most qualified by a “but”, clearly seeking to not offend Israel’s critics or contradict the victimhood narrative so popular in so-called progressive circles.

I rarely watch the CBC but, on Christmas Day, because the other channels had replaced their news coverage with seasonal programming, I briefly tuned in to CBC News-world. The reporting on the conflict between Israel and Hamas consisted entirely of an interview with a professor from some university in London, England. It was clear from his name and accent that he was either an Arab or an Iranian. It was bad enough he spent not a second acknowledging the role Hamas played in starting the war or in fomenting so much violence leading up to it, or the repeated failures of Palestinian leadership to grasp opportunities for peace and Palestinian statehood, but the interviewer did nothing but lob softball questions at him providing further license for his diatribe against Israel and Jewish people. This from Canada’s public broadcaster!

Others have commented on the lack of balance in the news coverage and in the phenomenon of younger people, often of a progressive bent, to strongly side with Hamas in this conflict. Although I say “side with Hamas”, I have no doubt they would insist they were siding with the Palestinians, hiding behind the fiction the two are separable. If you were paying attention when you started this blog, you will have seen my description of “Hamas and other Palestinian men” as the perpetrators of the monstrous crimes on October 7, because once the barriers were breached, Palestinian men not officially part of Hamas, joined in the carnage.

All of this leads me to the question: how can people who say they are committed to the rights and dignity of women, and of gay and lesbian people, indeed of human rights generally, so easily and even gleefully align themselves with Hamas? I agree with those who feel that antisemitism has a lot to do with it and yet, when it comes to younger western people, it doesn’t feel sufficient or, perhaps even correct, to lay all the blame at conscious or unconscious antisemitism. Actually, I think something larger is at play here and it affects many more people than Jews. 

Over the past few decades the so called “anti colonialism/occupier” narrative has gained traction in western societies. It’s a reaction against several centuries of colonial exploitation by mostly western European nations, exploitation that included slavery, but its focus on European colonialism excludes similar behaviours by many societies and countries in the long history of mankind. Of course, with some exceptions, European colonialism is more recent than other examples of conquest, mass murder, slavery and exploitation visited by one group of humans upon another, and that makes it easier to identify it as the object for vilification, particularly because most of the wealthiest and most successful countries in the world today are the former colonial powers or their creations. One outcome of this is a mantra that denigrates Western societies and, particularly, so-called “white people” in those societies. Any conflict between people of colour and white people doesn’t require careful analysis and thought, just a visceral genuflection of support for the underdogs, always people of colour.

A terrible irony of history is that Jews, despite millennia of persecution and discrimination, are lumped into the “white people” group. And that means they are stigmatized as “settler/occupiers” where any conflict with others makes them the villain. Of course this isn’t confined to Jewish people and Israel. Many of today’s critics of Israel also refer to my own country, Canada, as the “so called country of Canada” and even lapse into the cultural appropriation of the term “Turtle Island” to describe all of North America (at least north of Mexico).

Aside from the immediate hate crimes we see being perpetrated in the name of this naive ideology, why does all this matter? It matters because, implicit in it, is a devaluing of the many good things Western Civilization has bequeathed to mankind, not the least of which is respect for human rights and, particularly, the rights of women and gay and lesbian people. In the long history of mankind, the West has behaved no worse than all the other rampant ideologies, beliefs and religions and, in some key respects, has behaved much better.

I think what offends me most about the defenders of Hamas in the West is their hypocrisy, their willful blindness to the appalling behaviour of Hamas and similar organizations and nations. That, and their intellectual laziness, their inability or unwillingness to delve into the detail and facts which, if pursued rigorously, would force them to confront the extraordinary contradictions in their world view. But that would require effort, something in seeming short supply in certain circles these days.

Just sayin,

GH

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