The Australian election

I haven’t had a chance yet to comment on the recent Australian election. It certainly was an abnormal election. The former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was dumped by his own party and new Prime Minister Julia Gillard called a new election. Rudd was dumped because his party had fallen behind the opposition in the polls. But in my view that decline in the polls could have been avoided had different courses of action been taken by the Rudd government. Firstly, the Rudd government should not have abandoned its climate change legislation. I realize it could not be passed in the Senate because of opposition obstructionism, but the legislation was very popular with the Australian public and abandoning it made the government’s popularity decline sharply. Instead the government, in my view, should have continued to push for the legislation. They could even have considered a double dissolution on the issue. In Australia, a double dissolution can occur when government legislation is rejected multiple times by the Senate. In the case of double dissolution, the entire Senate is up for election rather than the normal Senate half-election in which only half the members are up for election. After a double dissolution election, the Australian constitution allows for a joint sitting of both the House of Representatives and the Senate wherein a combined majority vote of both chambers can pass legislation that previously triggered the double dissolution. Labor certainly could have won such an election, in my opinion, if they had campaigned on the climate change bill and forgone their deeply unpopular mining tax (which also almost cost Labor government). Following an election victory for Labor in this scenario, there almost certainly would have been a combined majority for Labor in the two houses that could have passed the climate change legislation.
What is very strange about the climate change legislation is that the Green Party of Australia actually opposed the Rudd government’s climate change legislation on the basis that it did not go far enough and as a result the Greens voted against it in the Senate. This made the margin of defeat for the climate change bill quite wide. I believe this approach of opposing legislation because it does not go far enough is counterproductive. The nature of politics is compromise. In my view if you support something, you should always support legislation that meets that goal even if the legislation does not go as far as you want. Otherwise change will never be effected because people will be stuck voting against everything on the basis of it not going far enough and so nothing would pass and no progress would be made. To me it seems like a no-brainer that the Green Party of Australia ought to have supported the climate change legislation even though they didn’t think it had enough in it because something is always better than nothing.
Following the election, the Australian Senate composition does not change until July, but when it does change, ironically the Labor government will be in a better position in the Senate then they are in the House, in stark contrast to the government’s previous term when they were in a much better position in the House than in the Senate. Come July, Labor and the Greens will have a combined majority in the Senate. Given that the Green Party has given its support to the Labor minority government in both the House (through newly elected Green MP Adam Bandt) and in the Senate, the government will have a de facto majority in the Senate next July. Meanwhile in the House, Labor just barely holds on, being supported by the Green Party and 3 Independents for a very slim majority. Reinforcing the strangeness of the election is the fact that the two key independents giving Labor the majority are former members of the right-wing Australian National Party (one of the members of Australia’s centre-right coalition parliamentary group). Looking at the two members in question, however, makes their support for Labor less surprising. Both appear to have drifted away from the Nationals quite a bit in terms of policy. For example, both based their decision to back Labor in large part on the Labor government’s comprehensive program to build broadband internet to rural areas of Australia, a program that the National Party strongly opposes. Given that the opposition Coalition opposes the Labor government’s broadband program it appears that Labor’s support of the program and the Coalition’s opposition to it helped save the Labor government from defeat. Labor did manage to win the “two party vote” wherein under the Australian election system, vote preferences are distributed to the two main parties. They fell one seat below the Coalition, however. But to complicate matters, one of the newly elected National MPs from Western Australia declared that although he is a National MP, he was not part of the Coalition, effectively making the two main parliamentary groups tied for seats and giving Labor an opportunity to deny that the Coalition had won more seats than them. In the end, Labor won the election and I congratulate them for a well-earned victory and wish them luck as they govern as best they possibly can.

The rise of Rob Ford

I get why a very large number of Torontonians want Rob Ford to be their next mayor. There has been too much spending under David Miller. Under Miller, there has also been too much banning of things occurring such as the banning of certain types of shopping bags and the once-proposed ban on Tim Horton’s paper coffee cups. In addition, there have been too many fees added under Miller, such as the mandatory five cent bag fee. So I can see why Torontonians are irate and want massive change. I just don’t personally believe that Ford is the right person to clean up the mess. Ford has promised to scrap the Toronto land transfer fee and car registration fee. I never supported the land transfer fee and I would like to see it gone too, but how would Ford pay for its elimination? It would be unthinkable to do it by cutting services. Yes there is plenty of fat to cut but I would support the elimination of the land transfer tax and the car registration fee only after it is established they can be eliminated without cutting services. I’d also like to see the bag fee eliminated and I know Ford is the most likely candidate to do this but I’m wary of a Ford administration for a number of reasons. Firstly, Ford has trouble getting along with other politicians. This problem he has is well documented. As mayor your job is to be as collegial as possible with council and this could go by the wayside with Ford as Mayor. Secondly, I believe Ford’s strongly socially conservative views are incompatible with representing a city as diverse as Toronto. His stance on gay rights is quite out of step with modern Toronto and could become problem (in my humble opinion) if he is elected mayor. Also one of his most infamous comments concerns funding for the prevention of AIDS. As documented on city TV news (http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/17952--councillor-rob-ford-under-fire-over-aids-comments), Ford said "If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn't get AIDS probably, that's bottom line." Those infamous comments made no sense and it is a fact that worldwide there are millions (I am not exaggerating when I say millions) of people who suffer AIDS who are neither gay nor users of exchanged needles.

I also strongly disagree with Ford’s idea of eliminating streetcars. It makes no sense and is not environmentally friendly no matter how “clean” the buses are that replace the streetcars. As far as Ford’s plan to cut City Council in half, how does it make any sense to have fewer councilors in Toronto than there are MPs representing the city?

I’d personally prefer George Smitherman to be mayor. He is almost as aggressive as Ford of course. However, his policies on the whole make more sense in my opinion and I like that he does not support mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi’s idea of reviving the Spadina Expressway by making it a tunnel. In my opinion reviving the Spadina Expressway even as a tunnel is a really bad and undesirable idea. After all it was opposed because of all the houses that would demolished and I don’t believe Rossi’s claim that to build his tunnel no houses would need to be demolished. I also oppose Rossi’s tunnel idea because it could quickly turn into a debacle like the Big Dig in Boston.

In Markham where I live the mayoral race is far less heated. Two people are running against incumbent Mayor Frank Scarpitti. Both ran against Scarpitti in the 2006 election as well. One of them is Partap Dua. He ran as an independent in the 2006 Canadian federal election in the riding of Markham—Unionville. He ran as an unofficial candidate for a new, unregistered, left-leaning party. Later that year Dua placed second in the 2006 Markham mayoral election. Also running is Stephen Kotyck. His plan is to cut waste and pare the Town of Markham down to essential services. But I strongly disagree with one of his proposals to cut “waste”. He considers having two transit systems in York Region, YRT and VIVA, to be wasteful. He proposes merging the two systems. I strongly disagree with this. Viva works very well as I have learned from riding it many times. Having two transit systems is not wasteful. Now, despite his suggestion of merging the two transit systems, YRT/VIVA is a Regional issue rather than a Town issue and if Kotyck were elected Mayor he would have to convince the entire York Regional Council to agree to his proposal, which is not likely given VIVA’s popularity. I personally am supporting Frank Scarpitti for re-election because I think he has done an excellent job as Mayor over the past 4 years.

New Brunswick election

For me personally the election in New Brunswick is kind of depressing. It was a massive Tory landslide. The Liberals were wiped out in Fredericton and Saint John. The very forceful strength for the Tories in Northern Francophone New Brunswick continues even without Bernard Lord as leader. Of course it is important to remember that this result does not show an embrace for the right as it would in many other provinces, or other countries. The New Brunswick PCs have always been a moderate brand of Conservatives who never have had specifically right-wing policies. There was very little right wing in the Tory platform and the Tories actually were to the left of the Liberals on the issue of tax cuts. That being said, the Liberals did run to the left of the Tories in some respects, notably in that it was the Liberals who promised a prescription drug government program. Nevertheless the New Brunswick Tory leadership continues to be Reddish Tory so one should not likely expect a hard right shift in governance in New Brunswick. This lack of polarization in New Brunswick (which is in contrast to the polarization we have seen in Ontario especially during the Harris years) could explain why the New Brunswick Tories in 1999 and 2010 have been able to sweep the province to an extent that former Ontario premier Mike Harris never could.

The landslide was so strong that Larry Kennedy, the Victoria-Tobique Liberal MLA who survived the 1999 Lord landslide was defeated in this election. Granted, that part of the province has shifted to the right federally since the 1999 provincial election. One bright spot from the Liberals perspective was that Liberal Chris Collins was re-elected in Moncton East – former Tory Premier Bernard Lord’s old riding. He won it by less than 200 votes but it was still major trend bucking. It makes some sense that he won it – he was the only incumbent Liberal running for re-election in a riding with the word Moncton in it, and Moncton is more Liberal than Fredericton or Saint John. Collins was originally a New Democrat, running for the NDP in the 1987 New Brunswick election. Needless to say he was defeated in this election because the New Brunswick Liberals won every single seat in the legislature. In 2003 he was inspired to run against Bernard Lord in his own riding when he found that the government and his local MLA, Mr. Lord, were not giving him enough government services to treat his son Sean for cancer. His son was being treated in Halifax and the government was not paying for the trips to visit his son in the hospital. In the 2003 election Collins lost to Lord by only 10% of the vote. Collins was elected to Moncton City Council in 2004. When the 2006 election came, Collins couldn’t run against Lord because he was travelling with his son outside the country at the time. However Lord resigned his seat when he lost the premiership and Collins easily won a March 2007 by-election. Unfortunately his son Sean passed away from cancer in July 2007 at the age of 13. After this tragedy, Collins was appointed to the provincial cabinet and was Minister for Local Government at the time of the 2010 election. He gets to be in opposition with 12 other members as the Liberals lick their severe wounds.

Senate finance committee

I have recently been watching the Senate finance committee examine Bill C-9, the budget implementation act. They are very slow at it because Liberal Senators do not like the bill. Liberal MPs didn’t like the bill either but they received instructions from their leader Michael Ignatieff not to stall the bill. Liberal Senators are known for not following their leader. For example, Liberal Senator Colin Kenny recently wrote an op-ed in which he defended CSIS chief Richard Fadden about his espionage allegations and actually appeared to contradict his party’s message on this issue when he said “Fadden did Canadians a service by pointing out that too many Canadian politicians are effectively on other countries' dole.” That is a clear contradiction of the Liberal position that Fadden’s allegations are unfounded.

So it is evident that Liberal Senators have a tendency not to follow the party line. As a result there are a number of Liberal Senators who actively wanted Bill C-9 to be split into multiple bills and studied individually. They were disregarding the fact that a parliamentary crisis would ensue if they succeeded in doing this. Progressive Conservative Senator Lowell Murray also wanted to break up the bill. Murray considers this bill an affront to parliament. I wouldn’t go that far but putting so much budget-unrelated content into a budget bill is very questionable.

During the committee meeting Ned Franks said in relation to the confidence issue of Bill C-9 that numerous financial bills have been defeated in the past in Canadian parliament and the government did not fall. Now Ned Franks is a parliamentary expert and knows in detail all the legislative history of Canada’s parliament all the way back to Confederation. But I found that comment odd. Most of those years he has studied had majority governments in which financial bills are never defeated. And my impression is that in the case of minority parliaments, if a financial bill is defeated then in most cases the government falls. My impression is that only if the bill does not meet the criteria as being “supply” would the government not fall if the bill were defeated. “Loss of supply” is an undisputed loss of confidence when it occurs. There was a case in 1967 when a financial bill the Liberal minority government introduced was defeated because it did not have support of any other party in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Lester Pearson was out of the country when the bill was defeated and there were serious questions at the time about whether the government had fallen or not when the bill was defeated. The government declared it was not a matter of confidence and continued governing and an election was not called until 1968. But this must surely be the exception and not the rule. The Liberals were defeated over a budget in 1974 when it is believed they purposefully introduced a budget that the NDP could not support in order for there to be a reason to call an election in which they believed they could get a majority government. When the Trudeau government was defeated over the 1974 budget, it was clearly a loss of supply and the government fell. The Liberals only stayed in power because they won a majority government in the ensuing election. So I do not see how there has been an opportunity in Canadian parliamentary history for there to have been numerous financial bills defeated in which the government did not fall and so I am unsure what Franks was referring to. It is possible that Franks is referring to times that budget bills have been defeated in the Senate. But again I think there is limited opportunity for this to have occurred because it has been quite rare in Canadian history that one party has a majority in the House of Commons and another party has a majority in the Senate. This anomaly would have been the case throughout much of the Mulroney years but I’m quite certain no such bill was defeated by the Senate then. Another possibility that occurred to me was did such a thing happen during the Diefenbaker years? Again that does not seem likely so I am unsure as to why Franks was referring to when he made that comment about budget bills being defeated.

The funniest thing Franks said was when he referred to a bill that legislated on navigable rivers. He said that he actually prefers non-navigable rivers because he likes going white water rafting!

Obama and Gary Coleman

I would like to discuss a famous actor who passed away recently. RIP to Gary Coleman. He was a great actor and I shall always remember him for the time he played himself in an episode of the Simpsons and for the voice he played in the game the Curse of Monkey Island (Monkey Island 3). In the Curse of Monkey Island Coleman played the voice of a bratty lemonade sales boy who scams his customers by using a literally bottomless mug that sits on a hole in the table. The lemonade he poured after the customer paid a nickel went to the ground and the customer is scammed when they find the mug empty. The game’s hero, Guybrush Threepwood, switched the bottomless mug for a real mug and when Kenny pours the lemonade into this mug Guybrush gets to drink it. Kenny storms off in a fit as a result of this. Later, however, Kenny sees the error of his ways and runs a legitimate cannon sales business that Guybrush buys several cannons from.

In politics, I am perturbed by Barack Obama’s poor approval numbers. I do not know if it is because of the Gulf oil spill, a still-recovering economy, or lingering unpopularity of his health care reform, but many Americans in my view are too quickly forgetting how much worse things were under George W. Bush. In regards to Obama’s lingering unpopularity over health care, this is unfortunately the case because the Democrats may have won the legislative battle but by then they had long since lost the media battle with the Republicans. The Republicans by the summer of 2009 had already gotten their negative story on the health care bill to be a largely accepted belief among many Americans. Democrats fighting back failed to reverse the minds of many who had been convinced by the massive Republican misinformation. This is harming Obama’s presidency far too much despite the fact that the health care bill he signed is needed, long overdue, and contains none of the Republican negative characteristics attributed to it. As I’ve said, Obama’s health care bill is only a first step in the effort the cover all Americans for health care. Republicans really ought to show more care for the poor who cannot get adequate coverage but then that would not be a typical Republican thing to do, the party that likes to ignore the poor. What concerns me as well is that no matter how much the economy continues to improve in the United States, voters do not give him credit for the recovery and in surveys continue to treat Obama as though the United States in is deep recession. Meanwhile in Canada it is equally disheartening how large a lead the federal Conservatives have taken in the polls over the Liberals. Now is a difficult time to be a Liberal much in the same way that in the US it is a difficult time to be a Democrat. One can hope for improvements in the future.

Ujjal Dosanjh

I was just watching on the internet the interview that Vancouver South Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh did with Stephen Colbert. Everyone should see the really funny part where Colbert and Dosanjh sing the Canadian National Anthem to the tune of the American National Anthem. I also love how Dosanjh responded to Colbert’s scenario: a gun is to your head and therefore you must choose to scrap either Canadian medicare or Canadian same-sex marriage, which do you choose to eliminate? Dosanjh’s answer: neither. Dosanjh also appeared on CNN to defend Canada’s public health care system from Republican attacks during the United States’ health care debate. The CNN host did not realize that it was taxes that paid for Canadian medicare and surprisingly thought that Canadian employers were somehow involved in providing Canadian medicare before Dosanjh set him straight. The host also got a viewer caller question about whether medicare is provided in Canada to illegal immigrants. Dosanjh did not directly address the question about whether care is provided to people who are in Canada illegally but stated more generally that anyone visiting Canada from abroad who has a medical emergency will be treated immediately without upfront payment even though as non-Canadian residents they obviously would not have a health card. Dosanjh said that in such cases the government sometimes tries to collect bills for this care later. Dosanjh is great handling these interviews and I’m very glad we got him from the NDP. I think he was also a good Minister of Health during his year in Paul Martin’s cabinet.

Bob Rae's fond memories

What is going on here? A cow, a female cow, attacking a woman unprovoked? Cows are supposed to be docile. What happened? It is a good thing her grandson could drive a tractor and he got her the quick medical attention she needed. I always figured a cow might kick you if you try and ride her, but to engage in a prolonged attack for no reason? What is wrong with this cow?

Source for this crazy cow story:

http://www.theprovince.com/Alberta+woman+lucky+alive+after+attack/3075170/story.html


On to politics. Bob Rae is reminiscing about the events that happened 25 years ago this month when he negotiated the pact with the Ontario Liberals that toppled Frank Miller’s government. The Lieutenant Governor, John Aird, allowed the Liberal party to form a minority government because the NDP had reached an accord with the Liberals that in other countries such as New Zealand would now be called a “confidence and supply accord”. In other words, the NDP agreed to support the Liberals on matters of confidence and supply in exchange for the Liberals implementing several key NDP policies. As any studier of Ontario politics knows, it was the Liberals who were given credit for these left-leaning policies and the Liberals were given a huge majority government in the 1987 election that was called after the two year accord had expired. It is Bob Rae’s dream to bring such a similar accord to the federal government. Rae was one of the strongest backers of Stephane Dion’s aborted coalition accord with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois. The problem is English Canadians reacted so negatively to the Bloc’s involvement in the coalition and it is almost completely mathematically impossible for the Liberals and NDP alone to obtain a majority of seats. So as much as many people want such a coalition government it is very difficult. They couldn’t even convince Michaëlle Jean to allow the coalition. How would Rae and other coalition supporters get the next Governor General who may have strong Conservative ties, to allow such a similar proposed coalition in future?

Confrontational Tories

I am unhappy that the Tories are now prohibiting their staffers from testifying in committees. Doing so in essence goes against House of Commons rules and it creates needless additional conflict. It also prevents committees from getting to the bottom of important questions and is just the same old Tory excessive secrecy that Canadians have noticed but many of whom are not paying enough attention to.

UK election outcome

The United Kingdom recently saw a change in government. It has seen an unprecedented formal coalition government between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. It is quite amazing they have been able to form this coalition considering that the two parties disagree ideologically on many different issues. One of the early government policies has been a civil liberties policy, including the scrapping of Labour's plans for a national ID card. I agree with the general thrust of this new government’s civil libertarian policies. One Conservative policy I do not agree with that the Liberal Democrats were reluctantly forced to agree to as part of the coalition agreement is the redrawing of every House of Commons seat in the whole country. The Tories want the Commons shrunk to under 600 members. I do not agree with this shrinkage when in fact the Commons has had over 600 members since at least 1950. This policy may be a ploy by the Tories to redraw constituencies to favour the Tories more than the current boundaries, which are said to favour Labour. Hence how Labour got 35% of the votes in 2005 and 55% of the seats and how in 2005 Labour had fewer votes in England than the Tories but way more seats in England than the Tories. A purported reason to reduce the number of constituencies is to save money. But given that the Tories and Liberal Democrats have agreed to a fix term five year parliament, any such saving of money would not kick in until 2015. Nevertheless, hopefully with the Liberal Democrats as part of the government they will keep a check on the Tories so that they do not gerrymander the constituencies in the Tories favour too much. Furthermore, hopefully the Liberal Democrats will keep a check on the Tories more ideological agenda, if and where such ideological agenda exists.

McGuinty and the HST

One might wonder why Dalton McGuinty, who seems adept at trying political self-preservation, would implement the unpopular HST. I think it must be because he believes it will create jobs by the time of the next election and he can point to the HST being tax neutral. On the related question of why the HST is so much more unpopular in BC than Ontario I would guess it is because in BC the HST is not at all tax neutral because all of the federal exemptions are being applied to fuel so that the HST will not be charged on top of BC’s carbon tax.

Audits and private members bill

I cannot help but take MPs sides on this dispute on parliamentary expenses. I see it the way Chantal Hebert recently put it, MPs don’t want to be lynched by the media for their expenses. As NDP MP Yvon Godin put it, “Who is she to tell me the value of the money that I will spend”. I think MPs fear such an audit would not treat them fairly and end many political careers due to sensationalism. It is for this reason that I believe an alternative to an audit by the auditor general ought to be found to uphold accountability of the House of Commons internal economy.

Ontario Liberal backbench MPP Mario Sergio introduced a sweeping private members bill to amend the City of Toronto Act into the Ontario legislature on Thursday. I strongly disagree with the bill and it is unlikely to pass because it goes foursquare against the government’s policy on the City of Toronto. The bill would make sweeping changes. It would limit the total number of wards to the city to 31 from the current 44. This goes against current government policy of allowing the City of Toronto to draw its own wards in a way it sees fit. It would impose greater outside financial control over the City of Toronto through some new board created by this bill and presumably appointed by the province. This goes against current government policy of allowing the City of Toronto greater financial control of itself. It also imposes a term limit of two consecutive terms on all Toronto City Councilors. This is very much not a government policy and it would be wrong to impose term limits on the City of Toronto and only the City of Toronto while leaving other municipalities in Ontario without term limits. I oppose term limits. However, term limits are something Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi has in his platform. But to impose term limits on the City of Toronto without even a request from the City of Toronto to do so would be wrong. I am unsure of Sergio’s motivation for introducing this bill but I am strongly opposed to it.

Michaëlle Jean

Apparently, according to a Toronto Star article, Stephen Harper has decided not to renew Governor General Michaëlle Jean’s term and is actively looking for her replacement. I do not agree with Harper’s supposed decision not to extend her term. This is a minority government and in 2004 Paul Martin used the fact that there was a minority government to extend Adrienne Clarkson’s term. What concerns me very much is how many partisan Tories are on the speculation list. From a Globe and Mail News blog, possibilities listed are Tory Senate Speaker Noel Kinsella, Don Cherry (known Conservative supporter), and Preston Manning (Tory supporter and former Reform Party leader). Cherry was suggested on Twitter by former Harper communications director Kory Teneycke. The Globe and Mail blog says that wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen was approached for the Governor General’s job but he declined. Since then Hansen has claimed that he was never approached about the post and would actually consider taking it. I think Hansen would be a great choice if Harper insists on replacing Jean. He would be a much less partisan choice than those Tories listed. The Globe blog also lists the possibilities of diplomat John De Chastelain and Inuit leader Mary Simon. Both of those would be good non-partisan choices. In an update to the blog, it was stated that another possibility has surfaced: Wayne Gretzky. The blog refers to Gretzky as being from Tory ranks. I can only assume that this is said because Gretzky’s uncle Al Gretzky was a Conservative candidate in the 2006 federal election. Harper has close ties to Gretzky but that is mainly from the Olympics. Other than that there is no proof Gretzky is a Conservative supporter. But all the Tory names surfacing sadly makes me think that maybe a goal of Harper’s Governor General appointment is to ensure that they would never allow an opposition coalition like the one proposed in 2008 to take power. This is unfortunate in that such a partisan choice could mean that a coalition would be unable to take power even if after the next election the Liberals are only, say, 2 seats behind the Conservatives.

Oklahoma hate crime law nonsense

Recently a Republican legislator in Oklahoma slipped in an amendment to a bill to prohibit the state from handing over evidence in hate crimes against gays being prosecuted by the federal government to the feds under the new Matthew Sheppard Act on the basis that Oklahoma law does not have hate crime laws for gays. That is irrelevant because there is a federal hate crimes law for gays and it has long been established in case law in the US that federal law trumps state law. Therefore, if Oklahoma did pass the bill in its current form I would support the FBI coming in and seizing the evidence from the state authorities if necessary. The Governor of Oklahoma, Brad Henry, is a Democrat. So hopefully he would veto the bill if it got to his desk. It is, however, heartening to be reminded that some Republicans, even some in Oklahoma, support same-sex equality. In this article about the story, http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=16&articleid=20100322_16_A15_Abillt724803 ,

Toby Jenkins, who is president of president of Tulsa-based Oklahomans for Equality, was quoted. Jenkins defended the right of pastors to preach anti-gay sermons. He said he does not want clergy prosecuted. However, he is President of a pro-gay group. The clincher is that the article says that Jenkins is a Republican. So Jenkins is a pro same-sex equality Republican from Oklahoma. I bet few expected to be able to find one but there he is.

Afghan detainees

I certainly want to get to the bottom of this Afghan detainee mystery. But even if the Sergeant-at-Arms forcefully seized all documents uncensored and made them public we may not have an answer about what government official knew what when in regards to prisoners being tortured. Conversely because the documents date all the way back to 2001, although very unlikely it could be for all we know that un-redacted documents show that the Liberals were somehow complicit in the torture of Afghan prisoners when they were in government. Although the Liberals must realize that that is a risk, to get to the bottom of this they certainly want the documents released. I am of the opinion that it is not reasonable for parliament to force the release of all the documents to the public uncensored due to national security concerns. Unfortunately the wording of the motion that passed in December was such that it had the effect of demanding the government release the uncensored documents to the public without restriction. Since then opposition parties have been backing off that demand by conceding that there are legitimate national security reasons not to release some of the documents and are instead asking that select MPs be shown the uncensored documents in strict camera under secrecy. If this occurred, it is not clear to me whether the MPs who saw the uncensored documents would be able to then publicly say that they discovered that the Conservative government and/or the previous Liberal government had complicity in the torture of Afghan prisoners and thus would not be able to embarrass the Conservatives on this matter as opposition parties had been hoping. So in the end the opposition may not be able to embarrass the government as they had hoped.

Obama's health care overhaul

I support the passage in the United States of the recent health care overhaul. Of course I believe it doesn’t go nearly far enough. But it was hard enough to pass the bill as it was. They had to get every single Democratic Senator to vote for it. One notable Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, would not vote for a health care bill that had a public option. Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman also refused to support a public option. I fully support the public option concept and found it unfortunate that it wouldn’t have taken effect until 2013. Universal public health care is always the ideal. Republicans rail against government takeover of health care. Yet that’s a concept I support, and even the American population supports that concept to some extent. As much as Republicans claim that Americans oppose “government takeover” of health care many polls have shown a majority of Americans support the public option, something that Republicans would indeed classify as a “government takeover.” In my view individual states that have Democratic legislatures ought to pass a single payer system for their own state and go beyond the new federal law. California is attempting to do just that right now. However California has a Republican governor, famous actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has promised to veto a single payer bill. Democrats do not have the votes to override a veto. Also passing budgets and budget related items is so difficult under California’s constitution that the single payer bill would actually need voter approval in a referendum. Voter passage in a referendum is no guarantee when the anti-single payer groups would inundate the state with misinformation in an attempt to defeat a single payer system. There is also no guarantee that a single payer system could be passed into law next year. The open California governor’s race is an exact dead heat between the leading Republican and Democratic candidates at the moment and if a Republican wins, they too would surely veto a single payer bill. As for New York, although New York has a Democratic governor, this Democratic governor is badly embattled and is not running for re-election. New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo is expected to seek the Democratic nomination for governor but has yet to announce his candidacy. But even if Cuomo becomes governor, a single payer bill is unlikely to pass unless the Democrats majority in the Senate is expanded. At the moment there is a very narrow Democratic majority in the Senate in which the balance of power is held by socially conservative Democrats. With this narrow majority, it is not clear to me whether a single payer bill could pass. Sadly it also seems difficult for states to implement a single payer system with the constant thorn of budget deficits that is affecting every single jurisdiction in both Canada and the United States. Nevertheless in my view this federal health care bill in the US is only the beginning of the long fight to ensure that the under privileged have complete and total health care coverage in all of the USA.

Baby Isaiah revisited

I'd like to revisit quickly the Baby Isaiah case again to respond to a comment made on my previous post on the subject. Somebody posted a comment and said that the term "brain dead" was never used in the article I linked. I have seen other articles on this case that do use this term, such as this one:



http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/01/19/12544441-qmi.html?cid=rssnewslast24hours


Nevertheless, if in fact Isaiah is not brain dead, why remove the ventilator? It is not relevant whether he would be able to live a normal life. If he is alive he is entitled a chance to live with the assistance of a ventilator.

Obama's State of the Union Address

Barack Obama’s State of the Union address seems very good. Its great that he points out that he and absolutely everyone else hated the bank bailouts. But I would point out that I’ve seen conservatives in the United States blame the hated bank bailouts only on Obama and point to it as example of why Obama is socialist, etc. American conservatives backing Republican Scott Brown in the recent upset Massachusetts Senate election cited the bank bailouts as one of the reasons that they believe Obama is so terrible. But I would point out that the bank bailout bill was signed by George W. Bush in 2008. I’m not sure if Obama was even there to vote for the bank bailout – he was probably out campaigning at the time. American conservatives also have railed against Obama’s stimulus package. But their argument does not hold much water when one considers that Bush also supported a stimulus package in the fall of 2008 but Republicans in his own party filibustered the Bush-supported stimulus until the session ran out. All of these things were just being done to prevent the collapse of the economy and these bailouts and stimulus packages do seem to be preventing the economy from collapsing and seem to be even helping the economy to recover. So in conclusion I’d say a lot more work needs to be done in the United States capital but Obama has given a great State of the Union address.

Baby Isaiah

It may surprise long time readers to learn that I have found an issue with which I agree with pro-life activists. That would be the Baby Isaiah case. In this particular case doctors in an Edmonton hospital insist upon removing the ventilator of a 3 months old baby named Isaiah May. The doctors there are under the impression that Isaiah is allegedly brain dead. Isaiah had a tough birth in October wherein he was born in a rural hospital after about 40 hours of labour and no C-section was used despite the increasing apparent need for one. The result of this difficult birth was that the umbilical cord became wrapped around his throat and as a result his brain was severely deprived of oxygen at birth. Doctors believed he would live only a few days but it has been over 3 months. Now the doctors in the Edmonton hospital wanted to use apparently weak patient protection laws to remove Isaiah’s ventilator, which he needs to help him breathe, without parental consent. For whatever reason the doctors insist that this removal is in Isaiah’s best interest even though removing the ventilator would risk Isaiah’s life. Although the doctors allege Isaiah is brain dead, he frequently opens his eyes and moves his limbs. That’s not what happens when you’re brain dead. Thus his parents went to court and won an injunction to block the removal of the ventilator. The judge also ordered the parents to find an independent assessor of Isaiah to determine his neurological status in an independent opinion from the hospital doctors. I agree with this court decision because to me it is irrelevant how brain damaged a person is, if they are still living with continued brain activity, their life should be preserved with every medical effort possible including ventilators. Many people require ventilators to live, even those who do not permanently reside at a hospital. An example of this is American politician Brooke Ellison. In 1990, when Ellison was 11 she almost died when she was hit by a car on her first day of junior high school. This accident left her a quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator. She ran unsuccessfully for a New York State Senate seat in 2006 for the Democratic Party. There are many other people dependent on ventilators. Isaiah is dependent on a ventilator and so I fail to see how it is in his “best interests” for it to be removed. They ought to make a determination exactly how brain damaged Isaiah is. Even if the brain damage is severe and irreversible, that is irrelevant to this question because if a person is still living medical care is not arbitrarily withheld from them. Isaiah has not had a chance to learn to talk. How do we know he couldn’t learn to talk in future? Nor can they base a decision to withdraw life support on a person’s inability to talk. That is discriminatory. My feelings on this matter are summed up nicely by Isaiah’s mother, Rebecka May: "I believe any life is worth fighting for," (says Rebecka May, who pumps her breast milk for son Isaiah to receive through a tube). "Even if a person has disabilities, they deserve a chance; they are still a person; they still have emotions."

It is also interesting that the article I quoted from says that a goal of medicine is to not prolong dying. Yet how do we know Isaiah would die anytime soon if he stayed on the ventilator. We do not know that and therefore the doctors decision is arbitrary and indeed needs to be reversed.


Article source:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-two-faces-of-a-life-or-death-dilemma/article1445507/