Politblogo

The Internal Life of Darkness

The latest mini-fad on the internets: The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster.  It's amazing.  It's written as though Darth Vader had a blog, and even takes his perspective as someone wronged (if evil).  However, I'm still suspicious that this is as much anti-Darth propaganda as the movies are, in that there are lies mixed with truth.  For instance, he appears to like unions; if this were true, then all the other evil acts must be the worst kind of slander.

Entertaining, nevertheless.

Les brisés et les briseurs

Adam Daifallah has a post on the apparently contradictory poll results regarding Quebec separatism (his analysis is slightly inaccurate and corrected in the comments):

There you have it. Even at the height of this sponsorship scandal, 56% of Quebecers want to stay in Canada. As Sheila Copps said on CTV last weekend, the separatists don't have the guts to ask a real question on separatism. Because if they do, they can't win.

To most ROCians, this is a puzzle: how can you want to stay in Canada, and yet want to vote yes on a referendum regarding sovereignty?  Are Quebeckers nuts?  Are they ignorant fools, tricked by their dishonest leaders? 

The answer is no, they are not exactly ignorant fools, but many of them suffer from misconceptions about the ROC--just as many ROCians suffer from misconceptions about Quebec.  I think, though, that this being an English-language blog, it is more fruitful and important for me first to illuminate an important distinction that many people in "English Canada" miss.

In a nutshell, the misconception (and hence common misinterpretations of Quebec poll results and so on) lies in the view of the concept of "sovereignty" vs. "separation."  The ROC tends to view the choice of Quebec as having to do with "separation," whereas in Quebec it has to do with "sovereignty."  In the ROC, it is taken as a process of alienation: that Quebeckers are rejecting Canada and its polity and people and culture out of a mysterious and unmanageable sense of historical resentment.  That they are "breaking" Canada.  This is what the word "separation" means. 

I was a pretty imaginative child (interested in politics at an early age), and I used to imagine masses of Quebeckers lining up at the Quebec border with giant saws, and then sailing off into the ocean without even waving goodbye... This sounds silly, but that is what many ROCians subconsciously think of the process of separation. 

Quebeckers in general do not seem to think of "separation."  They think of "sovereignty."  Even without the "association" part, it means something quite a bit different from "separation." Whether or not it has the same legal effect, it has a very different sense of sentiment.  Rather than wanting to disconnect from the ROC, it is often believed by Quebeckers that the status quo is a submerging of the Quebec voice and a source of resentment towards Quebec by the ROC--and that means you, Western aliens!  The sovereignty of Quebec means that Quebec will actually take its place as an equal voice, in charge of its own destiny, yes, but far from disconnected from the ROC.  Sometimes when resentful children move out of a stressful house, they can grow into a better relationship.  As this letter to Le Devoir put it,

Lorsque les fédéralistes mettent en garde les Québécois contre les séparatistes, ils disent que le PQ veut briser le Canada. Et l'image qui me vient à l'esprit est celle du pot de porcelaine qui se brise en mille morceaux lors d'une chute fatale. Ce pot est irréparable. Il n'en est pas ainsi du pays du Canada qui, comme un chat, possède plusieurs vies parce qu'il possède de nombreuses richesses humaines.

Mais plus j'y pense, avec les révélations de la commission Gomery, c'est le Parti libéral du Canada qui est en train de briser le Canada et non la séparation du Québec. Nous en sommes là.

He's saying that it is the Liberal Party that is destroying Canada, not Quebec separation: in sum, he is saying that Canada will have many lives, and one of these lives can include an sovereign Quebec.  For Quebec to separate is by no means to break Canada.  Or in this article by the leader of a Quebec union/left organization (illustrating once again the NDP's quandary in Quebec):

Aussi, plutôt que de freiner le mouvement d’émancipation du peuple québécois, nous invitons Françoise David, Pierre Beaudet et l’Option citoyenne à s’y inscrire et à conseiller à leurs camarades du Canada anglais de plancher sur ce que devrait être un Canada sans le Québec et les liens qui devraient unir les deux pays pour faire face à l’hyperpuissance du sud. Car la meilleure façon d’empêcher l’émergence de situations de conflits et de violence – une préoccupation que nous partageons avec Pierre Beaudet – est d’assurer une victoire décisive, éclatante et sans appel du Oui lors du prochain référendum.

This article is written in a much more aggresive tone towards the ROC, in that it makes use of old tropes about building Canada on the back of Quebec, etc, etc, and it is much more clearly "independantist" view of the situation.  Yet it too casts sovereignty as a force for unification rather than separation--unification in the face of global American hegemony.  It calls for building the necessary inter-"nation" links for this.

Lastly, sovereignty is seen as part of the ending the emotional dependence of the ROC on Quebec, thus establishing a healthy relationship, as hinted in this Le Devoir article posted on the militant site Vigile:

De nos jours, cette phrase apparaît toutefois de moins en moins juste aux yeux de nombreux observateurs. En effet, grâce à un singulier alignement des planètes économique et identitaire, les deux grandes peurs du ROC (rest of Canada) («englobement» et «éclatement») semblent jugulées.

Dix ans après le «grand effroi» qui a traversé l'échine du ROC dans les mois qui ont précédé le référendum de 1995 sur la souveraineté, «les périls guettant le Canada semblent aujourd'hui bien minces», affirmait le chroniqueur du Globe and Mail Lawrence Martin le mois dernier. Président d'Environics, le célèbre sondeur Michael Adams, joint à Toronto, affirme que les dernières enquêtes d'opinion de cette firme démontrent clairement que «les Canadiens forment un peuple qui a surmonté sa mentalité coloniale pour développer une confiance forte et grandissante en lui-même».

Quel décalage par rapport aux années 90 ! En 1995, non seulement le Canada risquait d'éclater, l'État central croupissait sous les déficits et sa dette. Cette année-là, le Wall Street Journal avait évoqué «la faillite du Canada», rappelle Lawrence Martin. Le huard entamait alors sa chute qui allait le mener à son plancher de 63 ¢US. L'union monétaire avec les États-Unis apparaissait à l'époque comme «inévitable» aux yeux de plus d'un économiste.

This article holds that English Canada is no longer what it was in 1995--an unsure, still-colonial entity, but instead is developing into a nation as Quebec is a nation.  The implication is clear, at least for the Vigile people: the time is ripe to establish healthy relations between the two nations.  To build a "Canada" reflective of its historical reality.

I wrote at the beginning of this that I hoped to clarify, even as I disagree somewhat with the underlying philosophy, why it is not a contradiction nor evidence of stupidity and dishonesty on the part of Quebeckers to choose both Canada and a sovereign Quebec: the terms of reference for what "separation" means are quite different and are expressed in a way that is not accessible to the concepts of the majority community.  But I also know that it works the other way: Quebeckers often view this through rose-coloured glasses, not appreciating what would be lost if the Trudeauvian vision is thrown aside in resentment.  And it overestimates how well the rest of the country would view it, and misunderstands the feelings of the ROC for Quebec.  But I think it is more damaging for the ROC to misperceive Quebec in some ways, because it leads to a lot of unwarranted passion and anger; and people in the ROC, for better or for worse, have much less access to the materials that would help them understand Quebec and how to respond to it.

As for me, I respect the feelings of Quebeckers and others, but still think that the somewhat centralizing vision of Trudeau is the right way to go.  But who asked me?

The geode-based economy

John Holbo talks about a movie experience with his daughter, and he mentions that his daughter proposed a geode-based economy for her fantasy kingdom.  I'm sufficiently ignorant of geological terminology to wonder what a geode is, so I looked it up on Google and eventually found, well, a geode-based economy.  Or at least someone selling break-at-home geodes.  Yes, people actually pay for rocks to be delivered to their home so that they can break them.  Sounds fun.

(NOTE: I am IN NO WAY associated with the sellers of this product.  Really.  No, I mean really, I'm not.)

Warren Kinsella

Warren Kinsella never ceases to irritate.  He is, of course, the very master of strenuously asserting the absurd.  Observe:

April 26, 2005 - This is true. He is correct. Thank you.

...

Chretien unaware of sponsorship mess; Liberals can win election, Martin says (Martin-Sponsorship)
  Source: The Canadian Press
  Apr 26, 2005 17:33
  By Colin Perkel
 
  WINDSOR, Ont. (CP) - Prime Minister Paul Martin says anyone found culpable in the sponsorship scandal should be punished severely but he doesn't believe his predecessor, Jean Chretien, knew anything about it.
 
  "I don't believe that the former prime minister was knowledgeable,'' Martin said Tuesday.

So Chretien was totally naive about something whose basic outlines everyone else had the brains to suspect. 

Of course, Kinsella is probably telling the truth about his beliefs, in a very narrow sense.  Chretien probably never told Kinsella that he knew anything about it.  Therefore, Kinsella, being generous giver of benefits of doubts, knows that it's true that Chretien knew nothing about it. 

Things like that.  I take him seriously because people take him seriously, and he knows what he is doing.  But it is like an itch one cannot scratch.

Parliamentary Blackjack

I continue to be kind of busy, so posting is a little more erratic now than when I started.  In a few weeks I will become unbusy, and hopefully also inspired.  Anyway...

On this babble thread (Jack gets budget deal done), people are arguing about the current parliamentary situation and, in particular, whether Jack Layton's willingness to deal with Paul Martin is a hindrance or a help to NDP fortunes.  Here are the two possible strategies for the NDP:

1. Do nothing, let the Parliament terminate and have an election.  Outdo the CPC in outrage, demonstrate what the NDP would have done with the money, and link the corruption to the "legitimate" givaways of taxpayer money in the form of corporate tax cuts, etc.
2. Recognize that most Canadians do not want an election now, make a deal with Paul Martin that makes it look like the NDP has an effect.  For every possible way that the deal can fail or succeed, there is some argument that the NDP can make to show that it is making a difference.

Readers will know that I have mostly favoured Door Number One.  While I don't think that Liberals will fall much farther than the CPC from this point, they will never in this cycle gain the upper hand over the CPC.  Better that it should look inevitable that we'll have a CPC minority in Parliament (particularly with Quebec taken by the Bloc); deprived of the hope of avoiding the CPC, fewer people would be inclined to vote strategically.  We are going to have a CPC government at some point; better sooner than later, and better sooner than even worse scandals come out (as they may) and people tire of the Liberals and give the CPC a majority, and better sooner than closer to the Quebec provinicial election...

But there is a major case to be made for Door Number Two: what has been the biggest problem for the NDP so far?  Demonstrating that it is credible.  And having an effect on the budget is an effect that makes it more credible.  Also, making the sponsorship scandal the biggest question plays into the hands of the CPC, casting the NDP as the Little Opposition (as opposed to the Big Opposition).  Whereas dealing with the Liberals distinguishes the NDP, shows that it has an agenda that can be implemented, and shows that the Liberals are weak enough to be forced to implement some of it.  So this may indeed by a smart move, to deal with Paul Martin.  Time will tell which prediction is correct.  Obviously.

Mirages national and otherwise

I've been having a rollicking good time arguing about national unity on Norman Spector's web site in the thread about "National Unity."  I think a link that might work to get to the haloscan thread permanently is here.  Basically, I argue in favour of a centralizing federation that includes Quebec.  Sounds odd?  Well, this was my first substantial post to the thread, saved for posterity or as long as I decide I want to pay TypePad: 

One of the problems with Charles' belief that "we'd all be better off" (assuming that a majority of Quebecers share precisely his view of Quebec's relationship to Canada, nationalist or not) is that he believes that the ROC has no nonseverable "national" connection to aspects of Quebec. But a great deal of ROCian culture and history (a long history of leaders, for one thing) emerge from Quebec in one way or another.

Sure, the language barrier prevents most ROCians from watching French TV, although when I was living in Canada I do try...although there's very little, if any, made-in-Quebec TV sci fi, which is what I prefer to watch--it's all dubbed stuff. Whereas many of the "American" shows are filmed in Canada and have some Canadian actors. I'm sure more ROCians would watch some Quebec shows if an effort was made to market them in the ROC, but ROC media is produced either by private companies for whom it is cheaper to be American networks or by a CBC lacking vision (and maybe money). Quebec artists *when* they become world-famous in English media (which is, like it or not, the global lingua franca) often start out with ROC media. And so on.

But that's all besides the point. I and many ROCians not only have a sense of cultural and historic ties to Quebec in one way or another, but family too. I have friends and relatives in Montreal and Toronto, and I lived in Ottawa for a long time. That the only connection between the two is as just any two distinct neighboring "nations" sounds completely absurd to me. There are ties that bind that are much deeper than that, even if superficially they seem to watch different TV...

And I think that Quebecers, even if they want autonomy and the trappings of sovereign power, still largely prefer to have a closer political and cultural (let alone economic) relationship to the ROC than to other countries. But for me, in this global environment, that's not enough: at the moment, in developed countries, centralizing behaviour is the only way that the collective power of the public can withstand global private power.

So while I don't think that Trudeau was by any means right about everything, and in many of the things I think he was right about he had to be twisted into doing, I think he was right about the Constitution and the direction that the federal organization should go in Canada, Quebec included. I think that it's right and proper that the "national" identity of English Canada has dissolved as English Canada; I think it's perfectly fair for Quebec to protect its language and institutions, but as long as its institutions operate in tandem policy-wise with the RoC. And I think that the sooner the nation-state goes the way of the dinosaur the better; as long as it doesn't cause massive economic and political disruption..

I guess I'll also save this one:

Oh Mark, The presence of French TV channels in BC is a small price to pay for mobility and cultural accessibility in Canada. I hardly understand people who resent it.

There are many things that bind ROC to quebec, even if we leave out francophone-only culture. Montreal itself has a wealth of things that belong to both Canada and Quebec. There is a wealth of shared experience there. It's not my fault, and not Norman's or Trudeau's or Levesque's or ...'s fault that ROC anglos are not interested in this history or culture; and if what you say is true, we may split into 10 or 20 sovereign states right now. But I think the situation is not nearly as dismal as you suggest; otherwise far more Canadians would be indifferent to Quebec's independence then is presently the case. I was born in Alberta and have relatives there (I have family all the way from BC to Montreal at least) and they are not totally indifferent to Quebec, even in Alberta.

You may see bilingualism as a pretense, but some pretenses are worth the price. This entire situation to me gives Canada a character that no other country has. I'm living in the US now and it is acquiring this character by stealth as the hispanic population explodes. In Canada it may seem fake and artificial and state-imposed to you, but to me it holds out hope that we can preserve our cultural differences without deep territorial and cultural conflicts, and this is not something I want to lose.

As for bilingualism and jobs, I can only defer to Norman's experience in this, and add my own: having lived in Ottawa for a long time, I know a lot of unilingual anglo public servants, and they aren't all scrubbing floors or something while the franco overlords sit back quaffing fine wine. That there are a lot of francophone public servants is not entirely an artifact of discrimination; a lot of anglos can and do learn French, but there is realistically a lot more pressure for Quebecers to learn French. You'll notice that the discrimination-by-bilingualism trope is one encouraged by diehard nationalist Quebecers of similar views as Charles to provoke resentment of a bilingual state that is inconvenient to their nationalist ideology and agenda.

And most ROC anglos, while they are not fluent in French, do get some high school exposure to it whose function is not primarily to teach French (since that's hard to do in a high school setting anyway) but make students aware of it and prepare them for real contact with francophone culture should the need arise. Resentment of this fact is a behaviour encouraged by certain populist elements particularly in the West, who are weak mirror images of their counterparts in Quebec.

I wish, finally, to reiterate that I believe that Yes vote or No vote, most Quebecers and ROC anglos are far closer to the "centre" of the story than you or I or Charles or even Norman is. Naturally, the people who are most likely to write on message boards like this one are the ideologues of which I am probably one and surely Charles is.

I'm not a big fan of a lot of the points of view that Norman Spector holds, and am vehemently opposed to him on some issues, but he does run a fairly good comments forum.  At least this time.

When little changes

My burgeoning readership may wonder why my attitude here and elsewhere towards the sponsorship scandal has been rather close to ennui rather than outrage.  Is it rampant cynicism? Is it love of Liberals?  Then what?  Well, here's the thing: not much has changed.

• Did I dislike the Liberals as a party before this?  Yes.
• Do I dislike them after this?  Yes.
• Do I still think that the Conservatives are worse than the Liberals? Qualified yes, given that I believe that the Conservatives would give away openly what the Liberals give away behind closed doors.
• Do I think Canada can survive a Conservative government?  Qualified yes, again, particularly if it's a minority.
• Did I think this prior to Brault et al.?  Yes. 
• Did I think that we would have a Conservative government?  At some point in the future, yes, how could it be otherwise without a massive Reformatory meltdown?
• Do I still support the NDP?  Yes, before and after.

So what changed?  Not my vote, surely. Not how I feel about the Liberals: what's the use of getting worked up when you didn't like them anyway? What did change, I suppose, is that I think the time is probably more right than ever to get rid of them.  We are more likely now to get a Conservative minority, and if we wait too long we may be looking at a majority.  So if it's going to happen anyway, why not take the plunge?  For the NDP, this is the calculation I would make: a plunge now to squash the Liberals (if at all possible) without giving Harper too much more power down the road.

But in principle, we really just are where we were before.

My Adscam scapegoat

Actually, I still blame Mulroney for all of this.  If it hadn't been for Mulroney, we may never have gotten three crucial things:

1. An overwhelming Liberal majority without a Liberal-equivalent alternative party, since the Conservatives were totally crushed.  A very large section of the Canadian population, like it or not, wants a Liberal-equivalent party in power if not the Liberals.
2. A Quebec situation that culminated in a referendum that provided cover and justification for the sponsorship program (the justification that I discuss in a previous post).
3. A "Western alienation" situation that created an opposition party unpalatable to a large section of the Canadian population where a lot of seats were concentrated.  These people held their noses and voted Liberal.

Why did we get these things from the Mulroneyverse?

1. The GST.
2. The incredible, stressful fight over Free Trade.
3. Most importantly, Mulroney's egotistical and irresponsible promises to tinker with the constitution that ended up alienating Quebec (creating the scary referendum) and the West, destroying the Conservatives as a Liberal-equivalent.

What do we risk because of this?

1. The only party that can serve as a replacement are the Reformatories. As much as I like, for the most part, the NDP, barring a fluke they aren't going to form government.
2. If the Reformatories gain power, particularly in a majority government, they will do their best to give away the farm.  It'll be like the Liberals, only proud and public.
3. If the Liberals hold onto even a minority government, Quebec will be highly alienated.
4. There is no federalist party in Quebec that is a Liberal-alternate (as the pre-Mulroney Conservatives were).  There is only the Bloc.

While the Liberals are obviously immediately responsible for all of this, politically and historically speaking, I still feel comfortable pinning the blame on Mulroney for setting up a historic situation in which the Liberals had cover in which to rot for so long, and the options at present are all bad.  I also believe, despite Quebec-nationalist protestations, that if Trudeau's had been left untouched, and the difficulty of changing it acknowledged at the beginning, there wouldn't be the sting of disappointment and rejection after the failures of Meech and Charlottetown, and less of a separatism issue now.  It's the unrealized possibility of change that really stings, and it shows.

One thing for the NDP to do now, I think, especially since the more recent allegations are even worse, is to decide firmly to stomp on the Liberals.  We are going to have something resembling a Reformatory government, I think, particularly if this Corbeil guy testifies before Gomery and fingers what he promises to finger.  So may as well eat up as much of the Liberals as possible, rather than fear this prospect.  This is how I'm feeling now; maybe I'll feel differently tomorrow.

Bolton nomination fun

Here's an entertaining RealPlayer video on John Bolton's nomination being discussed by the US Senate committee responsible for this sort of thing.  The Democrats are highly entertaining to watch, actually, there's a lot of passion there, which is surprising seeing that a lot of US Democrats have been so bloodless until recently.  Are they getting it?  Maybe.  But they'll never be able to get it enough, since they are, to a large extent, beholden to the same masters as the Republicans, those masters that are, among other things, known as the Invisible Hand. 

But I did enjoy watching Sen. Lugar (Republican chairman of the committee) attempting to rationalize his reasons to shut down debate and have a vote early.  It was great.  And it was a lot more interesting than Gomery, which is starting to bore me.

Doo doo doot doot doot...

A Certain Person points me to what must be the greatest sympony concert on earth:   Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's Final Fantasy theme music concert.  It's apparently happening near the end of June.  The scary part is that a lot of musicians these days are (like me) from the generations that knew Final Fantasy well, so it's totally logical and predictable that something like this would happen.

The thing I want to know is, how many repeat markings are in the score?  I mean, the original Final Fantasy music had that fight scene music going on and on and on as you tried to reduce the monster's hit points from a billion to nothing.  Good times.