Harper Discovers World

Hi! I know it’s been a while since I updated but…well, shit happens. Anyways, the title of this post is a bit snarky but then I shouldn’t hide the fact that I have an acerbic wit.

I just found this on the Edmonton Journal: PMO hires former White House spokesmen to plug Canada

I love it!  I quote:

It also comes amid persistent concerns in Canada’s business community about protectionism in the U.S. Congress. Lawmakers are considering policy initiatives this year that could have a significant effect on Canada, including energy and climate-change legislation.

So…did Harper just wait until he figured out Barack Obama was the real deal before making an effort to reach out? Hard to say since this quote is quite politically framed and if Harper didn’t have his eye on the economy, I’d be worried but does anyone remember his rather tepid congratulations to the president a few months ago?

In other news…

In each interview, Harper touted the success of Canada’s banking industry in withstanding the global financial crisis, while also promoting his support of Obama’s push for G20 nations to impose tougher regulations.

Hmm. Harper has been on record for criticizing the said banking system when it was created under a Liberal government. But now that it has saved his bacon, it’s the most awesomest thing ever!

Hey, it’s not entirely true that we don’t get noticed in American news. Just a few weeks ago, the Fox tv show Red Eye did a segment on the Canadian military that provoked outrage and a comment from Peter McKay himself demanding an apology! Of course, while the insult was grave and quite serious…let us be reminded that a) it’s Fox News, b) it’s aired at 3 a.m. and c) Peter McKay is the Minister of Defence–why did this matter even fall onto his plate?

I’m not saying that he shouldn’t have commented about the incident but elevating it to ministerial level gives these jerks more airtime than they deserve. Not that it had much of an impact and while I feel strongly about the nature of their comments, I can’t help but remember points a and b.

But anyway, my point is that Harper evidently just discovered there’s a world outside of Canada and ignoring a powerhouse like Obama isn’t a good idea. Harper has always appeared recalcitrant to deal with anyone left of himself (which makes just about everyone short of Kim Jong Il and Putin…kidding!) so this is an interesting outreach. I wonder how effective it will be. Harper has a fucking awesome public relations machine (no kids, he really does) so it’ll be interesting to see how this goes.

Armchair Expert

Hmm. I’m terrible at this blogging business. I write in a frenzy then stop as I go off and do something else. I’ve been reading up on social media for weeks now trying to figure out how to leverage it for my job but then as my roommate pointed out to me, I’m so constrainted by the restrictions of my job and the hierarchal structure in place that I can’t be free to say whatever I want about my project that would get it noticed. Social media isn’t going to help me with that–my “product” is more of an idea than a physical entity anyway, since it’s a conference I’m trying to sell.

But my roommate suggested that I brand myself instead and try to leverage that. It’s too late to brand myself FOR my project since it’s less than 5 months away and I doubt I get enough readership on this blog to generate that kind of interest. Nevertheless, my branding experiment starts now.

I’m something of an armchair expert in politics say…in foreign policy, having never actually worked in the field of foreign policy. I studied it at university but that wasn’t where my passion was (I just liked learning about it) but that can change, sort of. I might never have direct experience in foreign policy but as I was watching Darfur Now , the young activist whose name escapes me at the moment, said something along the lines of, “You have to learn to be your own expert”.

Sounds like solid advice to me.

Temporary Foreign Workers: Troubling Repeat

I was at a work-related event the other night and the topic was Temporary Foreign Workers. For those of you who aren’t aware, Canada currently employs roughly 250,000 temporary foreign workers to do a lot of low-skill labor that has cropped up in the last few years, especially within the province of Alberta. The event basically outlined the basic facts and history of Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) and the current problem due to the recession.

1. Temporary Foreign Workers: Not so Temporary

We call them Temporary Foreign Workers because that’s how the government convinced us to set up indentured servitude without raising eyebrows about the implicit human rights violatons of indentured servitude (which is, of course, a form of human slavery). The idea is that they will be sponsored over for a contractual period of 2 years to serve at the same job after which they can either apply to renew the contract or they must go home. The employer who sponsors them is responsible for their well-being as such adequate housing, medical needs, etc as well as airfare home when their contracts are done.

However, according to panel experts, one of whom is a trade lawyer, when the people are recruited, they are brought here under the assumption that this is permnanent and that this is a way to emigrate. As a result, they sell off most of their posessions and their lives in their home countries, often going into debt to finance this trip to Canada. Basically, they destroy their old lives in hopes of making a better, brighter future in Canada.

What ends up happening, or has happened quite often, is that they are stuck in low-skill, low-wage jobs that most Canadians wouldn’t be able to make a comfortable living on with no opportunity to further their education, change jobs or do anything that could make their lives a bit more bearable–including volunteering. Yes, you read that right. Apparently, some people are so afraid of these people integrating into Canadian society that they are prohibited from volunteering, as in, giving their time and service to someone else for free, either for leisure or just something to do.

So in other words…they work according to what the employer makes them; they can’t do anything else, they are not allowed to volunteer and they can’t afford much since much of their money is sent home to support their families. Hmm…this sounds oddly familiar. Ringing any bells? No?

At the turn of the 20th century, Canada brought over tons of temporary foreign workers who worked in the lowest, crappiest, back-breaking labor imaginable to build a railway across Canada. This railway would link the country from coast to coast and make the flow of goods and services easier to bear. Where did they bring them from? China.

The Chinese did the back-breaking labour that was absolutely necessary for the railway development and were mistreated, poorly paid, exploited and isolated from the overall community. They were not allowed to bring their families over in order to make them go home at the end of the work.

This was 1880. One hundred and twenty nine years later (129), we continue to do the same to people from around the world.

Incidentally, many of the Chinese did eventually leave and many did not. Those who stayed became part of the fabric of Canadian multiculturalism, part of the mosaic as we fancifully call it. 129 years later, Canadian-Chinese are not openly regarded as aliens who were destroying a way of life. We became part of the community, we adapted and became Canadian with a proud Chinese heritage.

2. Jobs are Gone: Go home!

The recession has hit even Alberta (which is another post in itself) and many jobs, mostly in the construction sector, is gone. This is where many of the skilled TFW were employed. The comments most frequently heard at the event was, “The jobs are gone. So why don’t they just go home?”

Why would they want to? They thought they were emigrating permanently to Canada, which means that they really have nothing left in their country of origin (unless their families are still there) and they often went into debt to finance their trip with the intention of bringing their families over once they have been established. If they return home, they face the need to repay the debt, which they will likely not be able to. This would of course prompt retailation from debtors against their families.

Foreign governments also don’t want them back. The recession is bad for us in the wealthy Western world but many developing countries are far worse off. For many of these countries, this recession is probably one of the first they have experience since their GDP began to develop in terms of real money and economic purchasing power (the 1998 Asian financial crisis and the 2002 Latin American one notwithstanding). They don’t want an influx of unemployed people who owe other people money.

Ultimately, however, the recession won’t last forever and as part of many stimulus packages include rebuilding of infrastructure. In other words, all the projects that have been temporarily put on hold will eventually start again and people will find jobs again which puts us exactly where we’ve been all along–with a labour shortage.

Incidentally, the reason why these jobs don’t go to “deserving Canadians” is not because the employers won’t hire them; it’s because many Canadians reject these jobs as too demeaning and too little pay. For people who have been recently laid off, making $8.50/hr is not nearly as lucrative as $35/hr. That’s true…but I don’t know. I rather be employed somehow than not at all.

The most compelling reason to let them stay, however, is that the Canadian population is falling and is not replenshing itself fast enough. This is true of almost all democratic countries where the lifespans are considerably longer, incomes are considerably higher and the birthrate is considerably lower (in other words: rich countries = less people mostly due to the wide availability of contraceptives). GenY as they call us will not be enough to counter all of the baby boomers retiring, which means that we will soon face a labour shortage that is quite critical. We need these people to fill out the population growth. I know it doesn’t seem like it but the overall trend is moving towards one GenX for every two baby boomers.

Finally, Canada is always fearful of a brain-drain to the United States for professional vocations because the money is better down there. We are, however, gaining an influx of professionals from overseas who are trained in these vocations we are losing. The Canadian government hopes to persuade our own talent to stay home but even that does not stem the need we have for professionals. So…if poor countries are losing their best minds to the Western worlds, one of which is Canada, and Canada has need for professionals…why not test these professionals and accredit them?

It’s a cheap and easy source of labor and it’s mostly gain because the government doesn’t need to invest in these people in training; they already have most of the skills. They need to be brought up to speed on Canadian standards, certainly, but that is infinitely cheaper (and quicker) than waiting for your next generation of engineers, doctors nurses, etc to grow up, go through school and survive long enough to make a real living.

It’s easy to understand why most people don’t want temporary foreign workers to stay but it makes sense economically in almost every way. However, the Canadian government still should scrap the policy and revamp the immigration policies to bring their families over and help them integrate as quickly as possible. Because in about twenty-five years, these people and their families will have grown up in Canada, have become Canadian and contribute to the Canadian way of life. It kind of makes sense…

Next: the refugee problem…of sorts.

If Gov not responsible, then who?

“The dollar losses that Albertas are experiencing today have not come beause of individual ministers have done…they have come from forces that are well-beyond the control of the ministers of the Crown.”–Finance Minister Iris Evans, Feb 20, 2009

Right….except individual finance ministers are in fact responsible for administering, monitoring and executing fiscal plans that work to ensure the well-being of their province and to the citizens who live in said province. Since becoming Finance Minister, Iris Evans has not done a single thing to mitigate the financial calamity as oil prices began to fall. Well she went to Norway to find out how they save their money but as I said somewhere else, it’s too little, too late. This was the woman who happily crowed that she would be happy to see the price of oil rise to $200 a barrel because that would then guarantee Alberta’s future. This is the woman whose budgets always estimated oil at $55/barrel and never imagined that it would fall so low and all she can say as oil drops and Alberta faces job losses all the same as Canada and the world, is that “It’s not my fault!”

Well Minister Evans, it is your fault. You’re the one for responsible for managing your portfolio and while the global financial crisis is not your doing, you’re the one who is supposed to develop financial plans that would cushion Albertans from the worst of the recession. Had you and your predecessors bothered saving the Oil royalties properly, you would have an abundance of cash at this point to inject into the economy and cushion the fall. If you and your predecessors had not been so damn arrogant in believing that oil would never fall, then you are all fools. You lived through the previous recession. How could you *not* see this coming?

But to be fair, not all the blame falls squarely on Evans. The premiers Ralph Klein and Ed Stelmach most certainly deserves a fair share of the blame. After all, it is their wills that the budgets reflect and their plans and mandates that drive where our money goes. If the media reports are any indication, Ed Stelmach doesn’t have a plan. What is worse, he doesn’t even have a clue. Alberta is nearly broke (again) and our $13 billion is not nearly enough to sustain this province even though recent times have been so good to Alberta. There is no clearer indication that the Progressive Conservatives of Alberta can not continue to be the ruling party of this province. There is no one to blame for this calamity other than the ruling party since the feds have not done a thing that could drive the attention and the rage somewhere else. There is no National Energy Plan this time. No Trudeau to try to spread Alberta’s wealth across all failing provinces.

So Minister Iris Evans, if it’s not your fault, then who?

Youth Activism and Social Media

Unfortunately, this is not a post about how to get youth activism ramped up with social media–rather, it’s a post about my thoughts on the subject. Ironically, I haven’t beeen posting much lately because it’s been very hectic at work where I spend 7 to 8 hours a day talking about social media (a subject which I’m only just getting familiar) and how to promote my organization’s next conference, which is a youth conference on global and local community development and how youth leadership plays a role. Blogging is obviously one of the tools to use to generate interest but you couldn’t tell by me–my blog doesn’t get any traffic.

Nevertheless, I’m trying to figure out how to best utilize web 2.0 tools to market and network. Those are my objectives: market the GYA (Global Youth Assembly) and to network with entrepreneurs, youth activists, other NGOs…anyone who is interested in youth activism, social justice, community development on the local and global level.

I think that we can utilize social media/networking by doing more of the latter than the former. More networking, less marketing. My mentor likes to say that human rights is about relationships and she’s right. We don’t operate in a vaccuum–humanity is a social creature. We live and die by the relationships we have and we define ourselves by them. It’s no wonder that grave atrocities occur when one person does not recognize the relationship they have with another in the most fundamental way: as one human to another. It’s how people justify committing atrocious acts of violence throughout history. They are not human. They bear no relationship to what I know and what I believe. Therefore, my actions are not the same as if I behaved thusly to someone I have a relationship with even if it is bound only by custom.

Anyway, I’ll probably be posting more often just for the sake of posting and writing because I ought to and because I want to learn more about social media and the role it plays in the changing world of activism.

Free Speech?

Civil liberties is a fascinating topic for me mostly because it’s hard to answer the question of how much should be allowed or restricted in a society. The United States looks at it from the latter point of view: what can be restricted? And in a free society…precious little. In Canada, it’s the other way around, which is to say, how much should be allowed?. Canada has some pretty stringent hate-crime laws that usually revolve around the concept of doing harm. Let’s look at the first concept.

I intellectually support free speech with no restrictions, that everyone should be able to say what they want which means that I can do the same but in real-life, this rarely happens. People get really caught up in the language and the strangeness of non-offense so we all self-censor ourselves. When I do work up the courage to speak my mind, I do it with alot of hemming and hawing, adding caveats all over the place to indicate that this is an observation, it is not proven, experience may vary, etc, especially since I work with people who might very well be experts in whatever I’m giving my opinion on. Since I work in a politically sensitive job (no, I don’t know secrets, but political influence plays a huge role), censorship is necessary and encouraged. The government can’t really prosecute you for saying bad shit about it unless it’s true, then they can sue you for libel but even that’s pretty bad form, but ordinary citizens have this tendency to lob verbal missiles at each other willynilly.

Political correctness is the result of this weird junction of speaking the truth as you see it and not offending people while you do it. Don’t get me wrong. People say stupid shit all the time and nobody will prosecute you for it (unless it’s in good fun…) but there are times when people, especially prominent people, will say things that shocks you because it’s so contrary to what you know and expect. I have an especially hard time with this because I’ve been trained to be politically correct in my job, in academia and even on this blog.

But people who flout political correctness don’t usually do it because they have something they desperately want to say but are being censored–they just want to be able to say whatever stupid shit comes into their mind and half the time, it really is stupid and factually wrong. I find it harder and more surprising, to counter things that are not politically correct when it is logical and well-argued. Holocaust deniers, for example, are a strange lot (as the recent Vatican brouhaha can attest to) because it’s inherently illogical. What’s the point in denying the fact that the Holocaust happened? So that you can kick all the Israelis out of Israel, move the Palestinians back in and solve the Middle East issue? Probably not…too complicated.

Sorry. My mind is all over the place tonight. I can’t finish this post right now. I’ll come back to it at a later point.

Oh Iggy!

It has been nutters at work lately and I’m just too tired to churn out posts on politics when I spend most of my day crafting messages about another form of politics so Madcap is off to a very slow start. I will try to do better as there is lots in the news to talk about these days. This one is about Michael Ignatieff…sort of.

The budget came out today which means that it was the first sort of real test for Michael Ignatieff even though we all knew that he was going to support the Conservatives. This was no surprise to anyone watching since Ignatieff didn’t support the coalition and without the Liberals, the NDP had…well, nothing. Ignatieff basically told Harper to “behave and we will be watching”, a message which was supposed to sound very ominous but came off very….cheesy in light of the fact that Ignatieff already said he was going to support it before he said he was going to support it.

There is a very good op-ed in today’s Globe and Mail from Tom Flanagan that is really quite interesting as much as it pains me to say it (what? I never said I was non-partisan…) Flanagan is a professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary and is a fairly prominent Conservative advisor to Stephen Harper. He has very controversial views about Aboriginal human rights in Canada, most of which I think is utter bollocks and has inspired several other controversial political commentators including Ezra Levant. All I really know about Flanagan is that he’s very brusque over email (no, he was not one of my professors) and he really thinks that the Alberta Human Rights Commission is idiotic. That’s another post though…

Anyway! Back to the op-ed. In this article, Flanagan makes the point that Ignatieff didn’t actually say anything we didn’t already know about. Flanagan writes, “his position is relatively weak. In the end, he had to imitate Stéphane Dion – denounce the Conservatives’ budget but let it pass – and, like Mr. Dion, he may have to do it again and again.” Ignatieff doesn’t have a lot of ground to stand on. The Liberal Party of Canada is relatively weak and needs a lot of things–starting with strong leadership which Ignatieff is poised to give. Interestingly though, Flanagan thinks that Ignatieff is a bit self-centered, saying, “He is demonstrating guile and ruthlessness, but he has to do something about his narcissistic fixation with “I” and “me,” as in “It’s up to [Mr. Harper] to make the right decision and up to me to decide if he made it.”

That is actually quite funny because…he’s right. It’s not really up to Ignatieff whether or not he makes it because Ignatieff himself can’t make that choice. He forgets the central reason for the coalition: the Liberals can only defeat the Conservatives with the help of the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois. So saying that HE (Ignatieff) can hold Harper accountable is sort of deluded given that Jack Layton is not very happy with him right now.

Which, following Flanagan’s article, is another issue. Personally, I would be very happy of Jack Layton would stay leader of the NDP forever. He’s a buffoonish character whose platform usually makes very little economic sense though it makes great social sense (if you don’t know anything aboute economics) and he bolsters up the Liberals as the more central-left party. But the Left is turning into the GOP–the Grand Old Party AKA the Republicans that it is run by old white men (No, I am not saying they share Republican ideology. Don’t be absurd…). If I were the NDP, I’d start looking for a younger more dynamic leader who doesn’t come off as a whiny buffoon because he lost his precious coalition and his one shot at real power. Come on! Even armchair politicos could see it coming, that the moment Ignatieff took power within the Liberal Party, the coalition was doomed. It was just a matter of time. I admit that I didn’t see Ignatieff’s rise to power coming so fast because I didn’t think the Liberals would skip the leadership convention, but once that happened, it was pretty straightforward.

Unfortunately, after the bit about Layton is where I start to disagree with Flanagan. Such as:

“Mr. Harper needs to show them that he’s still a conservative by pushing some non-budgetary initiatives in the House of Commons. He could start, for example, with the criminal-justice measures from the party’s platform in the 2008 election. Why not make these a matter of confidence and run them straight at the Liberals? Will Mr. Ignatieff force an election on behalf of criminals? I don’t think so.”

Well from my very liberal perspective, Stephen Harper has in no way swerved left anytime during this campaign so I think Dr Flanagan is a little biased in this regard from his far right position. The fact that the Conservatives are on the hook for the budget means that the Opposition is going to be looking at virtually every other aspect of the campaign platform to hammer Harper on, not sit back and watch.

Of course, Harper’s criminal justice measures also includes the Youth Criminal Justice Act which would see mandatory sentencing for youth and other extreme measures to crack down on deliquent youth. I don’t understand why Conservatives (anywhere) think that a more heavy-handed approach reduces crime. It really does. The death penalty and mandatory sentencing usually results in a LOT of people in jail with virtually no rehabililtation which makes the prison system crammed to the max combining small time drug dealers and murderers into one big group. Prisons are VERY expensive to run and as the United States has so efficiently demonstrated, don’t get much better when privatized. What’s more, prison settings due to overcrowding and stressed-out guards can turn prisons into places that brutalizes the “weak” in ways that are very unpleasant.

Heavy sentencing does very little to prevent crime since it’s largely an after-effect. It’s in no way a deterrent to actual crime unless the criminal is particularly chicken and/or is very boned up on his criminal justice law. Flanagan seems to disregard the fact that Ignatieff is an actual human rights expert and would recognize bullshit when he saw it. Notice how I am going to give Ignatieff the benefit of the doubt here.

Ultimately, I think it’s a tad too soon to be telling what kind of leader Ignatieff is going to be. The budget wasn’t a very good test in my opinion since we’re in the middle of a recession and elections are expensive. Not only that, Ignatieff hasn’t been leader long enough to really suss out what he’s really like and I think many Liberal voters are waiting to see who Michael Ignatieff is. For some of us, is he Canadian enough to get us? For others, it’s the question of whether or not he’s an actual liberal hawk or worse, an ideological flip-flopper that kind of dances the way the crow flies? In either case, it’s not Stephen Harper I’m worried about. It’s Michael Ignatieff.

With respect to Heinlein…

Wouldn’t you be surprised to know that this is yet another inauguration post? Everyone is talking about President Obama now, watching him with anxious eyes. After all, there are high expectations for Obama. I can’t help but wonder how many people are going to freak out and get angry when it turns out that Obama isn’t actually Superman and there’s only so much he can do before the rest of the world needs to get involved and/or rely on things that aren’t exactly known for precision?

Much like this new blog, I intend to keep my expectations low and wait for the results. Obama is under tremendous pressure to perform well and get everything kick-started. His critics will moan and groan how he isn’t sticking to his agenda, how he’s going to break his campaign promises (and crow if he does) and so on but the truth is, there’s only so much Obama can do as president. People forget that Congress is also involved in this whole legislating business and as a whole, they tend to be quite prickly. I think that Obama can do what he wants to accomplish but I don’t think people should be too disappointed if he can’t make good on all his promises. He has pledge an administration of pragmatism and sometimes…well, to paraphrase the title of a famous book, “Pragmatism is a Harsh Mistress”

Which is interesting. As a teenager, I thought Heinlein was brilliant and his semi-outrageous mode of thinking was scandalous but *so cool*. As a young adult with better critical thinking skills, Heinlein was awfully dogmatic in his libertarianism. In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, he concoted the phrase “TAANSTAFL” or, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. I’ve seen political conservatives use this phrase to throw in the faces of liberals, which makes me wonder about misconceptions regarding liberalism and the concept of “charity”, a word which for some reason, also encapsulates foreign aid, international development, economic development, etc.

Most people who work in the field of community development have long ago abandoned the concept of charity. Charity is something you give without expecting anything back in return. Most of us who work in the development field prefer to call it sustainable development, a phrase that means helping a community create a lifestyle that they can maintain for a better quality of life without the assistance of outsiders. In other words, because we know there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, we want to make sure that those who are less fortunate can obtain the tools they need to stand on their own without relying on others.

Which brings me back to Obama–anyone from around the world who expects him to save the economy and restore the American dreams without a lot of hard work, sacrifices and setbacks, anyone who expects him to do miracles but then criticize him when he might fail–well, TAANSTAFL. What are you doing to earn your lunch?

Double Standards

Okay. So one of my personal areas of interest is the notion of “faith and human rights”. Partly because I’m an atheist but mostly because I’m interested in the intersection of these two areas that I am most passionate about. I’m somewhat passive as an atheist–my point of interest is on the political level and how religion impacts social-political-cultural life but in my personal life, I am strictly hands off. I generally don’t tell people I’m atheist and I generally keep my mouth shut unless asked during religious discussions (and they do kind of crop up from time to time). But if asked, I will speak my mind (as I do about almost everything else).

So the British Humanist Association unrolled a series of bus ads across the UK with the statement: ”There is probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life” which has caused controversy. Religious people, normally Christians, are up in arms over the fact that these buses will be advertising all over the UK the notion that there is a possibility that there might not be a god. A bus driver even refused to drive one of these buses because it goes directly against his beliefs….

Which is a fascinating case of the pot calling the kettle black. You can be damn sure that if an atheist or agnostic refused to drive a bus with a religious advert on it (and they evidently do happen in the UK), there would be an equally outraged public outcry–about why atheists are so whiny. Gotta love the double standard. There’s also a lot of commentary going around how the atheists should have used the ad money to donate to charity because that’s what makes them “better” than the whiny Christians or religious types who proselytize through bus ads.

Which is a sneaky way of censoring atheists by not letting them have their say and making a false comparison. Voltaire was the one who said, ”I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” and this applies. I have zero problems with anything Christians say (I have a load of problems however, when rhetoric turns to action and all of the sudden, women in African countries can’t get workable contraceptives. IT”S A SIMPLE CONCEPT PEOPLE: CONDOMS=FEWER BABIES, LESS SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES. Sorry….pet peeve) and I expect that same courtesy to be returned when atheists have something to say.

Also, just because atheists donated money to a funny ad they thought would help get the word out doesn’t mean that they didn’t donate money to a charitable organization elsewhere. There are people in the world with the circumstances to do both you know…it’s not a bizarro either or situation.

I don’t donate to religious causes and that includes World Vision but that’s my choice. People can donate to atheism adverts and that they’re choice. Or not. But for true religious freedom in a free society, atheists are the poster children for religious freedom–we can choose not to believe. Respect my rights, damn it!

Double Standards Rant #2

Yes, a double post in one!

So Ed Stelmach was busy whining to the media today that Alberta also needs a handout from Ottawa and that Albertans should expect Klein-era tax cuts to keep Alberta from the red.

Err…say again?

With regards to number 1–this sweet irony makes me want to puke. Granted, I live in Alberta and money from Ottawa would benefit me peripherally as well in this horrible economy but…Alberta HATES it when Ottawa doles out money to other provinces, mostly because of memories of the National Energy Plan that was implemented by Pierre Trudeau during the oil crises of the 70’s and 80’s when Alberta’s oil wealth was put into equalization payments to bail out the Atlantic provinces which were struggling. (And in case you fell asleep in Grade 11 social studies–natural resources belong in the provincial domain and this is why Alberta reaps the benefit of high oil prices because we get a cut of the total profits made from oil companies who own the machinery that pumps the oil. The National Energy Plan nationalized Alberta’s oil–essentially, Ottawa took away Alberta’s oil revenues to put towards other things like bailing out the East, which resulted in a severe recession in Alberta….).

But Steady Eddie is freaking out because oil is at $34 per barrel and estimates were for $55…laughably low when the height of oil prices reached $146 but now panickily high when it’s at $38. He’s even sent Finance Minister Iris Evans off to Norway to learn how they managed to survive on their oil revenues….

My mind boggles at this chain of logic (well granted, the Evans trip took place last week). I can’t even begin to vent how stupid this entire situation is because I can’t type that fast. Firstly…Norway has like insanely high taxes and has much higher royalty rates than Alberta does. Earlier in 2008, Stelmach steadfastly refused to reconsider raising the royalty rates (the rates they tax corporations for our cut of the oil revenues) because it would drive away business. What makes him think that’s the case? It’s true in manufacturing sectors but in the oil industry? It’s not like the oil companies who have invested billions of dollars in equipment and training can just pack up and leave without having essentially thrown billions into a tailings pond. Where are they going to go? Venezuela? I think they’re already there since Venezuela has been a member of OPEC for years now. (And no, Alberta can’t become an OPEC member…that would be a matter of international trade which falls under federal jurisdiction).

Secondly, Norway has been saving at this rate since the 70s (I think…it might be even earlier) which means that they simply sit tight during recessions and probably use the money to stimulate the economy the way they are supposed to.

Which means that the Alberta Government is approximately 20 years late in scheduling this meeting. Kevin Taft created this awesome plan that would have reduced government spending during the overheated economy and pour the billions into the Heritage Fund and wait for the economy to calm down or decline (which it has obviously happened!!) before spending it to revitalize our province.

This has been a criticism of the Klein Government for years now that Klein started shovelling money like crazy into a Heritage Fund (the rainy day fund) to pay off the debt accrued in the 80s during the NEP and economic crisis instead of investing infrastructure, health care, education, and services which would have done more for Alberta and Albertans than paying down the debt.

Government debt and budgets aren’t like personal finances whereby an individual should pay down debt before saving because you save more money that way in the long run (interest rates kill). Government budgets need to be a fiscal balance between surplus and deficit. Having a deficit means you’re spending more money for less but in an economic crisis, this injects money and projects into the economy which then stimulates job creation, which means people have money, which means they are more willing to spend. When a government is in surplus, this generally means that the government should step back and let the free market take over and make money hand over vist–and the surplus can then be used to pay down debt or invested into the Heritage fund for…rainy days. The ideal situation is when the government is neither in deficit or in surplus and is balanced….because we do live in a free market economy after all…

Klein’s reversal of this resulted in our current economic insanity whereby they used all incoming money to pay down debt but cutting back on services, health care, education, etc then spending like mad in a heated economy which drives up the cost of everything because now labor is in shortage and people can charge a premium for their skills and projects get pushed back and back because of the backlog.

This is why Alberta’s economic boom was not hailed as the next great thing because it has caused no end to a cascade of problems starting with but not limited to: homelessness, gangs, drug trade, shortage of labour, temporary foreign workers, infrastructure backlog, population growth, unsustainable economic development and so on.

So this is why Number 2–Stelmach needing to go back to Klein-era cuts to avoid deficits is so mind boggling.

Where the hell is Stelmach and Evans getting their economic advice from?  I’m not an economist and this is well beyond my area of knowledge but it seems to me that all the world governments and economies are desperately slashing interest rates to zero (which saves people money which they hope will force them to spend more) and injecting cash, tons of it, into the market to hopefully get people to spend. In other words, most of the world economies are going to drive their budgets into deficits on purpose in order to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

The Stelmach government, rather than see the budget go into the red, has decided that it would be better to lay off a bunch of people and cut back on services when people are already hurting.

Obama is prepared to take his country into a trillion dollar deficit zone in order to stimulate the economy under the shaky knowledge that it is better to keep people employed and working which helps the economy as people continue to have money to purchase things than to have them all unemployed and applying for welfare.

Stelmach is prepared to lay off hundreds of workers so they will have no income, cut back on all the services they will need to rely on it, in order to ensure that Alberta’s books remain in the black and that we are debt free. In the meantime, the delivery service agencies like the Food Bank, homeless shelters, battered women shelters etc can expect a massive influx of new customers with absolutely no money to cope with handling them.

Um…..Nobel prize winning economists have pointed out that the economy is doing so badly that we’re in Depression-era troubled waters, that right now, deficit spending is better than no spending, and that while having a trillion dollar deficit is bad, it will be one hundred thousand times worse without it.

So yes, Finance Minister Iris Evans. Toddle off to Norway to see how they managed their oil wealth. And for all you Albertan Conservatives out there who swore that they would never let this happen again, that if there was another oil boom that you would never waste it (it’s a bumper sticker of some kind…this slogan)….well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

The conservatives only have themselves to blame for this and yes, I’m going to be partisan about it. There was no NEP this time. Only stupidity on the stupidest of levels.

The Middle East

Is a complicated issue. But there are a few things that I would like to point out.

1. There seems to be an argument floating around that the Jewish people have a right to exist in Israel because it’s their ancestral homeland. Unfortunately, this argument is highly fallacious and there is a specific kind of fallacy that applies to this but I can’t remember what it’s called right now. I should point out that humanity is highly migratory and while certain ethnic groups have been settled in territories for centuries, the actual boundaries and claims to the land have shifted so often that it wasn’t until the Westphalian system of nation-states that the idea that one “nation” or in most cases an ethnic group, should have their “own” states–that is, territory exclusively their own. Saying that the modern Israeli State is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people and therefore they are “entitled” to it, is insane. Because if this were to apply to all modern states, everyone living in North and South America will have to migrate back to their ancestral homelands leaving this continent to the Aboriginal peoples, and China definitely gets dibs on Taiwan and Tibet. Since most people wouldn’t buy this as a legitimate argument (i.e. that ethnic groups belong on certain lands) why are the Jews the exception?

Well, they aren’t. Modern Israel is a product of turn-of-the-twentieth-century politics. Through a combination of the Zionist movement, decolonialization, the collapse of a 500 year old empire and something called the Holocaust, the European powers created Israel for the simple sake of feeling less guilty for the Holocaust and giving the Jewish people somewhere to go after said Holocaust. Altruistic? Not really. The British had been hanging on to Palestine since the end of World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and since the European powers were decolonializing, it was as good as time as any.

Is it any wonder then that the Arabs reacted so violently against a) having the Palestinians i.e. people living in Palestine, suddenly shoved into one small pocket or territory and b) having nowhere to go, end up as refugees in countries that can’t support them anyway, that they attacked Israel? The Israelis had the benefit of UN support since it was a UN mandated country and the Arabs, contrary to pundits and other ignoramuses of history, are not one big unified bloc.

Oooh that’s right. I said it. There is no such thing as a League of Arab Nationsalthough they have certainly tried. Middle Eastern politics becomes very complicated when you consider the myriad of tribal, cultural, ethno-socio, political powers that run that tiny area of the earth. The Egyptians were undeniably amongst the most powerful of that bunch in the mid-century but Egyptians are typically split three ways: people who call themselves Egyptians, descendants of the original Egyptians who lived there since the time of the Pharaohs; people who are Greek, Roman and Arab who migrated there over the centuries and Muslims who identify themselves as Arabs.

And those are just the Egyptians! Then consider Turkey, which is technically also an Muslim country but nobody in Turkey would ever identify themselves as Arabs because they’re Turks. Turkey is also insanely secular, turning their focus to become part of the European Union (as the Ottoman Empire had been the bridge between Asia and Europe during their imperial days) ignoring almost everything about the Middle East (as long as the Kurds don’t try to enter Turkey and carve out their own Kurdistan, which they’re trying to do now).

And then there is of course Iran, who are neither Arabs nor Sunni Muslims but rather, Shiite. I will get to Iran later.

Let us not forget Saudi Arabia which has its own brand of Islam run by clerics following Wahhabism, which is a particularly virulent branch that benefits the Saudi Royal Family more than it does anything else (which was founded also around this same time…) but is considered the power house of the middle east because of a) all the oil and b) Mecca and Medina fall within its borders. No other Muslim country would dare topple Saudi Arabia for the sole reason that it is every Muslim’s duty to make a pilgrimmage to Mecca and Medina before they die…

Jordan is a small country but respected. Unfortunately, they also have a large population of Palestinian refugees that they can’t support.

Syria and Lebanon hate each other and spend all their time fighting–and Lebanon also has a large population of Maronite Christians and don’t necessarily reflect the greater Muslim population of all the other countries.

And Afghanistan which has been a basket case since the 80’s and early. Afghanistan isn’t a real player in the Middle East but because it’s the gateway between this incredibly volatile region and Russia, it’s strategically important and it also borders Pakistan….which has its own issues with India.

And I could go on and on…but you get the picture. Middle East, is complicated.

But ultimately, with regards to Israel and the Palestinian issue–there can only be one real solution and that is the creation of a real Palestininan state, which will never happen as long as Hamas is in power. Hamas’s only objective is to see the eradication of Israel–no joke. It’s in the constitution because they view it as an illegitimate state, created for political reasons which serve the interests of the West.

Hamas likes to portray itself as champions of the Palestinian people and as much as I hate to admit it, in a way, they were. When Fatah was in power, they negotiated repeatedly with the Israelis but their inability to control the militant wing of Hamas made all negotiations tetchy to say the least. It’s sometimes amazing to me why nobody ever asks why the Palestinian people voted in Hamas over Fatah after the death of Arafat.

Hamas is also a social organization that provides tons of aid, education, health care and services to people living in the Palestinian Territories and as such, portrays itself as a benevolent caretaker of the people while the Israelis bomb the living daylights out of ordinary Palestinians.

Unfortunately, it’s primary objective is to see the destruction of Israel and the social aspect of the organization is most likely to be a propaganda tool of the party. I say this because it doesn’t logically follow that Hamas would spends tons of money on aiding Palestinians only to turn around and provok Israel into countless attacks and battles if there wasn’t something to gain out of it–which is to say, every time Israel kicks the shit out of Gaza, they win a PR coup and solidfy their position as anti-Israel with good reason. It’s a double whammy of a PR game and it certainly provoked enough reactions….

Except Egypt hates this shit because every time the Palestinians lose their power or water or supplies because Israel cuts off aid, the Palestinians end up in their country and the Egyptian authorities aren’t having any of that. Egypt recognizes Israel (I think…I’m pretty sure they do after Mount Sinai was returned to them…) which is why Egypt also tends to be the power-broker these days as the United States no longer has the moral or military aptitude to contain the situation.

Don’t get me wrong.  Almost all the Arab countries has their issues with Israel but it has nothing to do with the plight of the Palestinian peoples. Israel certainly doesn’t care about making allies in the region since they have nuclear weapons and is essentially the sole super-power in the region but therein lies Iran’s path to power.

Iran for the longest time was the arch-enemy of Iraq and not well received by the rest of the Sunni Arab world. Sort of a middle power out there, Iran is a far more socially liberal and modern country than most countries in that region. Iran is also fairly secular–while it is an theocracy run by the Ayatollahs, its period of modernization in the fifties and sixties provided the country with much of its modern progress as did the period between…hmm, I think it was 1998 to about 2004 when Khatami was President of Iran. In any case, he was a voice of modernization for Iran, which of course completely fell apart when Ahmadinejad came into power.

In any case, Iran has a lot of money and likes to fund Hamas and Hezbollah in Syria, inciting them against Israel. In the last few years in particular Iran has gotten intensely involved in Middle Eastern politics with the clear intent of toppling Israel once and for all. The Americans helpfully lent a hand by invading Iraq and creating a vaccuum in a delicate power situation which gave Iran the opportunity, one they have been pursuing for a few years now, of aggressively pushing their way into this solid Arab world. Why? Probably because Iran wants to be a regional super-power and is well on its way there.

Anyway, it’s bee a fairly long post already and I’m glossing over a lot. You’ll notice that I don’t give any specific details and there isn’t a lot of analysis, just a laying out of general thoughts and what I think are facts…and I didn’t mention the role of Islam in all of this.

Because, as it turns out, politics always comes first, even over religion. People who assume that “Islam” is to blame for most of the woes in the Middle East don’t know what they’re talking about. It is undeniable that Islam gives the wacky ideologues the divine inspiration they need to do the fucked up shit that they do but at the end of day, religion just gives them an excuse. It is not the cause of said events.

If anything, the Zionist movement can be said to have done a similar thing since…the establishment of the Jewish homeland is absolutely essential for the Second Coming….and is Israel really still Israel if it’s called Palestine and the people living there are Arabs?

I’ve noticed people in the west have a tendency to side fanatically with Israel over every action as a clear moral decision but it’s not that simple. I think that Israel has the right to continue existing–I’m not necessarily saying that their right is inherent but you can’t just “take it back”. But at the same time, I think that the Palestinian people also deserve their own homeland. Their grandparents were forcibly evicted from their own country at the whim and whimsy of the brand new United Nations…

And as history shows, humankind has a long, long, long memory….