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.