December 27, 2005
Let's try changing our political architecture: Why not create a bicameral Parliament for PEI?
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The plebiscite on electoral reform held across the province this past November saw the proposal for a mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) system decisively defeated by Islanders.
Proponents of the MMP model had argued for “topping up” the 17 single-member constituency winners to the legislative assembly with a further 10 MLAs elected from party lists, so that the percentage of seats gained by a party would more or less equal its share of the popular vote.
No votes would be “wasted” on parties with little chance of winning a seat through the current “first past the post” (FPTP) system, since every vote would count towards electing an MLA. Voters would not be forced to vote “strategically,” by casting their ballot not for the party they sincerely wished would win but rather for the one that had the best chance of beating the party they least wanted to win.
The greater equivalence between votes and seats would prevent lopsided majority governments with little opposition, and would also allow minor parties, which almost never win directly-elected seats, some say in policy formulation and decision-making.
Supports of electoral reform also maintained that if this resulted in coalition governments, it might force parties to cooperate with each other, leading to more responsive and harmonious forms of governance.
Detractors of MMP claimed that it would create two classes of legislators, with the 10 list members not accountable to individual voters and perhaps chosen by “backroom” political bosses.
MMP also would make it difficult for any party to win a majority of seats, thus creating either minority governments or lengthy post-election negotiations producing unstable coalitions and perhaps political gridlock..
Small parties might have to be courted as coalition partners and emerge as “king-makers,” with influence disproportionate to their actual numbers. All this would prevent strong and decisive leadership by any one party.
FPTP is simple and produces winners and losers, while MMP is concerned with balance and fairness in representation. To use the analogy of a hockey game, with FPTP, whether one team beats another 9-0 or 5-4, it wins, the other loses. MMP, on the other hand, in effect allows every goal to count: The losers in a 5-4 game, according to this perspective, should be awarded some points and not go home empty-handed, as might those who were shut out 9-0.
Might there be a way to cut the Gordian knot and satisfy the critics in both camps? I would suggest changing the very political “architecture” of our legislative branch by creating a bicameral provincial parliament. After all, in the 19th century PEI did have an upper chamber, the Legislative Council.
The composition of the lower chamber, the legislative assembly, would remain as it is at present: 27 members directly elected from districts across the island, the winner in each riding being the candidate “first past the post” with a majority or sometimes, in a multi-party race, a simple plurality.
The upper house of, say, 21 members, which we could call a senate, would be elected through straight proportional representation (PR), with all its members chosen “at large” from the lists drawn up by the parties running for office. A threshold clause of five percent of the overall vote would be included, to prevent the election of cranks and extremists: No party receiving less than that would be allowed representation in the senate.
Since electors would mark two ballots, one for the candidates running in their particular riding in the lower house, and the second for the all-island party lists contesting the upper chamber, they could also vote a “split ticket,” choosing the candidate of one of the large parties for the legislative seat (to ensure strong majority government), while selecting the list of a smaller third of fourth party in the senatorial election, either because that party more truly represented their own ideological preference, or simply to ensure that the senate provide a proper “watchdog” role over the governing party in the lower house.
In some future election, we might see the election to the legislature, using the first-past-the-post system, of 20 Liberals, six Conservatives, and one New Democrat,. The island-wide popular vote for the parties on the second ballot, however, might result in 44 percent of the electorate choosing the Liberal list, 39 percent the Conservative one, 12 percent that of the New Democrats, and five percent the Green one. This would see nine Liberals, eight Tories, three New Democrats, and one Green Party member going to the senate.
Our hypothetical bicameral parliament would now consist of 29 Liberals, 14 Conservatives, four New Democrats and one Green. Still not truly proportional, as in a pure PR list system, but not nearly as lopsided as the current “winner take all”method of electing legislators.
And it would provide other benefits as well. In terms of division of powers, the lower house would remain pre-eminent. The premier and cabinet would, as now, be responsible only to the lower house, and could only be removed via a vote of non-confidence or the defeat of a government-sponsored bill in the legislature.
So we would still have a strong majority government because, given the nature of island politics, with its strong two-party system of Liberals and Conservatives, the outcome in the legislative assembly would (as in my example) invariably result in one of the two major parties winning more than half the 27 seats.
The composition of the upper chamber, however, with its members elected in proportion to the votes cast for each party, would doubtless include smaller groups such as the Greens and New Democrats, allowing their voices to be heard as well.
The senate would therefore be able to more adequately represent those people and interests, be they class, ethnicity, gender, occupation, or otherwise, whose points of view might otherwise be ignored or overlooked in the “winner take all” direct election of the members of the lower house.
Not beholden to voters in specific constituencies, as is the case with MLAs, the senators could afford to take a broader view of the issues of the day without worrying that it might cost them their seats. The upper house could function as a “chamber of sober second thought” (as our federal senate was originally meant to do) and perhaps, when it debated legislation that had first been introduced in the lower house, serve as a check on hasty, ill-informed or unreasonable proposals.
While it would not be able to veto laws passed by the government in the legislature, the senate could, through committee work, public hearings, and other means, propose amendments or modifications which might, in its view, improve the proposed legislation. It would also have the power, by a two-thirds vote, to request that the legislature re-introduce such bills, though it could not force the lower house to make modifications should that body refuse to do so.
Still, the cabinet would be wise to take the senate’s suggestions into account before the final passage of a bill into law in the lower house, as it would not need to fear that this might result in the fall of the government, as would be the case if the ruling party’s legislation were defeated in the assembly itself.
True, this model, with a total of 48 lawmakers, would cost taxpayers more, but is it not worth the price? Such a system might alleviate the concerns of those who fear that PR brings in its wake weak government, while addressing the frustrations of those who feel that their votes for smaller parties “don’t count” with FPTP.
And it might even, as a bonus, produce a less adversarial relationship between government and opposition.
Professor Henry Srebrnik
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
October 18, 2005
Defying Laws of Politics When it Comes to Quebec and Alberta
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
Our politics seem to defy many of the observations that apply elsewhere in the world. In Canada, you actually can have your cake and eat it too, if you're Quebec, or you may end up having neither, if you're Alberta.
Quebec acquires more and more of the trappings of sovereignty through an asymmetrical federalism that allows it "distinct" status within the country, and its citizens keep electing Bloc Québécois MPs to the House of Commons.
Yet the province also continues, thanks mostly to the Liberal Party, to have a disproportionate say in governing Canada as a whole.
Many of Canada's top offices, from those of the prime minister and the governor-general on down, are held by Québécois. Quebec's 7.56 million people make up about 24% of Canada's population but they are statistically over-represented in the federal bureaucracy and in many other institutions. And since 1968, every Canadian prime minister who has lasted more than a year has been from Quebec.
A decade ago, when it seemed the Yes side would win the Quebec referendum on sovereignty, a group of anglo Canadian Liberal cabinet ministers openly contemplated removing Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, a Québécois, from office, according to Breaking Point: Canada's Referendum, a CBC documentary televised this past September.
"If there would have been talks to negotiate the separation of Quebec, the Canadian population would have never accepted that on one side you would have representatives from the province of Quebec and on the other side a Quebecker as the representative of Canada," stated John Manley, a former member of Chrétien's government, who was interviewed for the program.
But things have now returned to "normal," it seems. Prime Minister Paul Martin has assured Quebec premier Jean Charest that he is open to the idea of broadening Quebec's role on the international stage.
The Gérin-Lajoie Doctrine, named after a Quebec minister in the 1960s who asserted that Ottawa did not have exclusive constitutional power over foreign affairs, has long guided Quebec's strategy.
Unlike other provinces, Quebec has a ministry dedicated to international relations, with a $100 million budget and a staff of 400. It has asked for its own seat at international summits and membership in multilateral agencies and UN-affiliated bodies such as the International Labour Organization and World Health Organization. Quebec already has its own seat at meetings of La Francophonie, the international club of countries with French culture.
The Quebec National Assembly a few years ago voted itself the authority to debate treaties and accords signed by Canada, if they concern an area of provincial jurisdiction. Quebec's "right to give its consent before Canada signs" any such treaty or agreement "must be recognized," recently declared Quebec's International Affairs Minister, Monique Gagnon-Tremblay.
The federal Foreign Affairs Minister, Pierre Pettigrew, agrees: He told the House of Commons that Quebec deserves a say in international forums discussing health, culture and education..
Pettigrew and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Lucienne Robillard, both francophone Quebecers, met on Oct. 7 with Gagnon-Tremblay and with Quebec's Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benoît Pelletier, also of course francophone Québécois, regarding Quebec's demands.
Both sides called the meeting "cordial" and "positive," even though nothing concrete was finalized and more discussions will be scheduled. "I didn't feel intransigence, I felt an openness," Pelletier later remarked. All this, while the rest of Canada stands idly by.
On the other hand, wealthy Alberta has almost no say in how the country is governed at the federal level. No Albertan has served as prime minister since Joe Clark was in office for nine months in 1979-1980. (The only other PM from there was R.B. Bennett, who served between 1930 and 1935.)
Thanks to sky-rocketing oil prices, Alberta has been running huge surpluses. But this is creating "Alberta envy" elsewhere. A poll conducted in mid-September by the Strategic Counsel found that 61 per cent of Canadians outside Alberta believe that the province's oil windfall should be shared to help those harmed by rising energy costs.
So will Albertans soon have neither their cake nor eat it? Not surprisingly, only 26 per cent of Albertans felt the same way, and Premier Ralph Klein insisted "it's not in the cards."
No wonder Albertans increasingly question their role, mostly financial, in sustaining a federation which allows them little input in decision-making, and even demonizes them as having values out of step with other Canadians, while coveting their cash.
Can anyone imagine a comparable situation in any other country as diverse as ours? Certainly Americans would find this bizarre. No state has a hammerlock on the presidency, nor are any completely marginalized and cut out of governance at the national level.
But then, in the United States, the individual states don't fight with each other as though they were little countries, as is the case in Canada.
Defying Laws of Politics When it Comes to Quebec and Alberta
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
Our politics seem to defy many of the observations that apply elsewhere in the world. In Canada, you actually can have your cake and eat it too, if you're Quebec, or you may end up having neither, if you're Alberta.
Quebec acquires more and more of the trappings of sovereignty through an asymmetrical federalism that allows it "distinct" status within the country, and its citizens keep electing Bloc Québécois MPs to the House of Commons.
Yet the province also continues, thanks mostly to the Liberal Party, to have a disproportionate say in governing Canada as a whole.
Many of Canada's top offices, from those of the prime minister and the governor-general on down, are held by Québécois. Quebec's 7.56 million people make up about 24% of Canada's population but they are statistically over-represented in the federal bureaucracy and in many other institutions. And since 1968, every Canadian prime minister who has lasted more than a year has been from Quebec.
A decade ago, when it seemed the Yes side would win the Quebec referendum on sovereignty, a group of anglo Canadian Liberal cabinet ministers openly contemplated removing Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, a Québécois, from office, according to Breaking Point: Canada's Referendum, a CBC documentary televised this past September.
"If there would have been talks to negotiate the separation of Quebec, the Canadian population would have never accepted that on one side you would have representatives from the province of Quebec and on the other side a Quebecker as the representative of Canada," stated John Manley, a former member of Chrétien's government, who was interviewed for the program.
But things have now returned to "normal," it seems. Prime Minister Paul Martin has assured Quebec premier Jean Charest that he is open to the idea of broadening Quebec's role on the international stage.
The Gérin-Lajoie Doctrine, named after a Quebec minister in the 1960s who asserted that Ottawa did not have exclusive constitutional power over foreign affairs, has long guided Quebec's strategy.
Unlike other provinces, Quebec has a ministry dedicated to international relations, with a $100 million budget and a staff of 400. It has asked for its own seat at international summits and membership in multilateral agencies and UN-affiliated bodies such as the International Labour Organization and World Health Organization. Quebec already has its own seat at meetings of La Francophonie, the international club of countries with French culture.
The Quebec National Assembly a few years ago voted itself the authority to debate treaties and accords signed by Canada, if they concern an area of provincial jurisdiction. Quebec's "right to give its consent before Canada signs" any such treaty or agreement "must be recognized," recently declared Quebec's International Affairs Minister, Monique Gagnon-Tremblay.
The federal Foreign Affairs Minister, Pierre Pettigrew, agrees: He told the House of Commons that Quebec deserves a say in international forums discussing health, culture and education..
Pettigrew and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Lucienne Robillard, both francophone Quebecers, met on Oct. 7 with Gagnon-Tremblay and with Quebec's Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benoît Pelletier, also of course francophone Québécois, regarding Quebec's demands.
Both sides called the meeting "cordial" and "positive," even though nothing concrete was finalized and more discussions will be scheduled. "I didn't feel intransigence, I felt an openness," Pelletier later remarked. All this, while the rest of Canada stands idly by.
On the other hand, wealthy Alberta has almost no say in how the country is governed at the federal level. No Albertan has served as prime minister since Joe Clark was in office for nine months in 1979-1980. (The only other PM from there was R.B. Bennett, who served between 1930 and 1935.)
Thanks to sky-rocketing oil prices, Alberta has been running huge surpluses. But this is creating "Alberta envy" elsewhere. A poll conducted in mid-September by the Strategic Counsel found that 61 per cent of Canadians outside Alberta believe that the province's oil windfall should be shared to help those harmed by rising energy costs.
So will Albertans soon have neither their cake nor eat it? Not surprisingly, only 26 per cent of Albertans felt the same way, and Premier Ralph Klein insisted "it's not in the cards."
No wonder Albertans increasingly question their role, mostly financial, in sustaining a federation which allows them little input in decision-making, and even demonizes them as having values out of step with other Canadians, while coveting their cash.
Can anyone imagine a comparable situation in any other country as diverse as ours? Certainly Americans would find this bizarre. No state has a hammerlock on the presidency, nor are any completely marginalized and cut out of governance at the national level.
But then, in the United States, the individual states don't fight with each other as though they were little countries, as is the case in Canada.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
September 24, 2005
No matter what, Canadians think Liberal rule is just fine
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The Liberal government approaches the fall session of parliament, which reconvenes on Sept. 26, in good spirits.
Prime Minister Paul Martin has reiterated his promise to call a federal election within 30 days of the final report by Justice John Gomery into the sponsorship scandal, due next February. Martin's chief strategist and pollster, David Herle, in August assured Liberal MPs they can win a majority government by adding seats in the West and Ontario, with or without gains in Quebec.
And why not? Despite an endless series of scandals, and the evidence of corruption at the highest levels of government uncovered by the Gomery Commission, polls show that the opposition parties seem to be making little headway against the Liberals, who have now won four elections in a row since 1993.
Perhaps it is due to the fact that the federal Liberal Party, that most wonderful of political machines, has cleverly managed to remain the "default mode" of Canadian politics.
Other parties, such as the Bloc Québécois, the Conservatives, and the New Democrats, are "niche" parties that appeal to a narrow class, ethnic, geographic or ideological base. But the Liberals are the ultimate "big tent" party. Though there have always been internal differences and individual rivalries within it, the pragmatic desire by Liberals to win and retain power has always ensured a tendency towards the political centre--after all, that's where the votes are.
In most other places, if you try to be all things to all people, you end up pleasing nobody. (Marxist used to call this "exposing the contradictions.") But in Canada the Liberal Party is at one and the same time able to accommodate anti-American leftists and pacifists who periodically condemn the United States and its policies, sometimes in very uncomplimentary terms, while at the same time doing all in its power to keep the Americans sweet by cooperating with Washington on issues of trade, defence, and counter-terrorism.
So, while rejecting American requests to participate in continental missile defence or the war in Iraq, the Liberal government still manages to sustain a fairly decent level of military collaboration with the U.S. armed forces, both in North America and abroad, especially in Afghanistan.
The Liberals seem able to articulate and aggregate the views and interests of both workers and businesspeople, men and women, immigrants and the native born. They even manage to appeal to English Canadian nationalists while also retaining the allegiance of many "soft" Québécois nationalists.
When Canadians demand more spending on social programs, the Liberals borrow ideas--liberally!-- from the NDP. When it becomes necessary to battle deficits, they steer to the right and govern like Conservatives. Their flexibility is legendary.
Indeed, as the "fulcrum" party along the political spectrum, they attract high-profile people from both their left and right. Two of Martin's cabinet members, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh and Human Resources Minister Belinda Stronach, were previously members of the NDP and Conservative Party, respectively.
The party also renews itself every few decades by selecting as its leader a prominent public intellectual rather than a professional politician. In 1968, it chose Montreal law professor Pierre Trudeau to succeed Lester Pearson, and Paul Martin may, according to some, be followed by the internationally-renowned academic Michael Ignatieff, who has taught at Harvard.
And the electorate, perhaps appreciative of this wonderful sleight of hand, rewards the Liberals by ensconcing them as our permanent governing party. The opposition parties, green with envy, remain relegated to the sidelines, their status reduced to being either critics (the Bloc and Tories) or accomplices (NDP) of the government. Such is political life in Canada today.
No matter what, Canadians think Liberal rule is just fine
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The Liberal government approaches the fall session of parliament, which reconvenes on Sept. 26, in good spirits.
Prime Minister Paul Martin has reiterated his promise to call a federal election within 30 days of the final report by Justice John Gomery into the sponsorship scandal, due next February. Martin's chief strategist and pollster, David Herle, in August assured Liberal MPs they can win a majority government by adding seats in the West and Ontario, with or without gains in Quebec.
And why not? Despite an endless series of scandals, and the evidence of corruption at the highest levels of government uncovered by the Gomery Commission, polls show that the opposition parties seem to be making little headway against the Liberals, who have now won four elections in a row since 1993.
Perhaps it is due to the fact that the federal Liberal Party, that most wonderful of political machines, has cleverly managed to remain the "default mode" of Canadian politics.
Other parties, such as the Bloc Québécois, the Conservatives, and the New Democrats, are "niche" parties that appeal to a narrow class, ethnic, geographic or ideological base. But the Liberals are the ultimate "big tent" party. Though there have always been internal differences and individual rivalries within it, the pragmatic desire by Liberals to win and retain power has always ensured a tendency towards the political centre--after all, that's where the votes are.
In most other places, if you try to be all things to all people, you end up pleasing nobody. (Marxist used to call this "exposing the contradictions.") But in Canada the Liberal Party is at one and the same time able to accommodate anti-American leftists and pacifists who periodically condemn the United States and its policies, sometimes in very uncomplimentary terms, while at the same time doing all in its power to keep the Americans sweet by cooperating with Washington on issues of trade, defence, and counter-terrorism.
So, while rejecting American requests to participate in continental missile defence or the war in Iraq, the Liberal government still manages to sustain a fairly decent level of military collaboration with the U.S. armed forces, both in North America and abroad, especially in Afghanistan.
The Liberals seem able to articulate and aggregate the views and interests of both workers and businesspeople, men and women, immigrants and the native born. They even manage to appeal to English Canadian nationalists while also retaining the allegiance of many "soft" Québécois nationalists.
When Canadians demand more spending on social programs, the Liberals borrow ideas--liberally!-- from the NDP. When it becomes necessary to battle deficits, they steer to the right and govern like Conservatives. Their flexibility is legendary.
Indeed, as the "fulcrum" party along the political spectrum, they attract high-profile people from both their left and right. Two of Martin's cabinet members, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh and Human Resources Minister Belinda Stronach, were previously members of the NDP and Conservative Party, respectively.
The party also renews itself every few decades by selecting as its leader a prominent public intellectual rather than a professional politician. In 1968, it chose Montreal law professor Pierre Trudeau to succeed Lester Pearson, and Paul Martin may, according to some, be followed by the internationally-renowned academic Michael Ignatieff, who has taught at Harvard.
And the electorate, perhaps appreciative of this wonderful sleight of hand, rewards the Liberals by ensconcing them as our permanent governing party. The opposition parties, green with envy, remain relegated to the sidelines, their status reduced to being either critics (the Bloc and Tories) or accomplices (NDP) of the government. Such is political life in Canada today.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
September 7, 2005
Is it fair to criticize the new occupants of Rideau Hall?
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
Ever since questions began to arise regarding governor-general designate Michaëlle Jean's commitment to a united Canada, her support among Canadians has dropped precipitously. Paul Martin's choice of this Haitian-born Québécois broadcaster to be the Queen's representative unleashed a flood of complaints.
A Decima Research poll conducted in mid-August found that those who were unsure about her appointment climbed to 39 per cent from 25 per cent, while those who were decidedly unfavourable went to 22 per cent from 16 per cent. To already alienated western Canadians, in particular, she feels-ironically--like a colonial governor imposed on them by far-off Ottawa.
Her defenders have accused those who questioned her previous political connections to Québec separatists of "McCarthyism." The prime minister's own spin doctors called it a "smear campaign."
Apparently it is simply not the polite thing to do to wonder about her past--though I think these same people would be the first to protest if it turned out that an appointee to the highest post in the land had once been involved in, say, far-right or pro-fascist politics.
Such people might recall that a Québec lieutenant-governor, Jean-Louis Roux, was forced to resign his office in 1996 when it was discovered that as a youth during World War II he had worn a swastika and had taken part in an anti-Jewish and anti-war demonstration whose stated purpose was to wreck the offices of the Montreal Gazette, which strongly supported Canada's war effort.
In her statement of August 17 Jean denied that she and her spouse Jean-Daniel Lafond had supported the Québec independence cause. "Let me be clear: we have never belonged to a political party or the separatist movement." But is this not a matter of parsing words? Many people throughout history have supported and worked for a cause without being "card-carrying members" of a specific party or organization.
After all, in the film La Manière Nègre, a 1991 documentary produced by Mr. Lafond which examined independence struggles in Québec and Caribbean entities such as Martinique and Haiti, she is shown apparently toasting the prospect of Québec independence.
But the issue here is not simply whether Ms. Jean was in the past sympathetic to the idea of a sovereign Québec. Many Québécois have been and continue to be. I consider this to be a legitimate political option. The citizens of that province may indeed someday, in a peaceful and democratic referendum, choose to leave the Canadian federation.
However, in the film Ms. Jean is sitting with, among others, Pierre Vallières, a founding member of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ). This group of ultra-left terrorists created havoc in Québec for years and in October 1970 murdered a Québec cabinet minister. Surely Pierre Trudeau, who sent the Canadian army into the province to stop further FLQ activity, must be rolling over in his grave! Indeed, the founder of the Parti Québécois, René Lévesque, himself refused to share a platform with former FLQ members.
Mr. Lafond is himself a trendy French intellectual, a political child of the 1968 student uprising in Paris and a devotee of the radical French philosopher Michel Foucault. He fits in perfectly with the café society of the Quartier Latin in Montreal.
In his films and writings, he has denounced the shortcomings of Western society, and in his discourse has made use of all the politically correct left-wing clichés about colonialism, American imperialism, and so on. In 1994, regarding Québec, he was quoted in L'Humanité, the newspaper founded by the French Communist Party, as stating that "the situation in this country is more and more intolerable and, while no one today uses the violent means of the FLQ, we need to find the ways to overcome this."
Yet he is now about to become the "vice-regal consort" of the governor-general, a British colonial vestige of an office if ever there was one! Isn't our political system wonderful? It can absorb, neutralize and co-opt any "critical opposition."
Perhaps Ms. Jean and Mr. Lafond now regret having moved in circles that included former "theorists of liberation" such as Mr. Vallières. All of us, I am sure, once knew people we would no longer befriend. And it's clear most Canadians just want this whole controversy to go away, the sooner the better.
Is it fair to criticize the new occupants of Rideau Hall?
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
Ever since questions began to arise regarding governor-general designate Michaëlle Jean's commitment to a united Canada, her support among Canadians has dropped precipitously. Paul Martin's choice of this Haitian-born Québécois broadcaster to be the Queen's representative unleashed a flood of complaints.
A Decima Research poll conducted in mid-August found that those who were unsure about her appointment climbed to 39 per cent from 25 per cent, while those who were decidedly unfavourable went to 22 per cent from 16 per cent. To already alienated western Canadians, in particular, she feels-ironically--like a colonial governor imposed on them by far-off Ottawa.
Her defenders have accused those who questioned her previous political connections to Québec separatists of "McCarthyism." The prime minister's own spin doctors called it a "smear campaign."
Apparently it is simply not the polite thing to do to wonder about her past--though I think these same people would be the first to protest if it turned out that an appointee to the highest post in the land had once been involved in, say, far-right or pro-fascist politics.
Such people might recall that a Québec lieutenant-governor, Jean-Louis Roux, was forced to resign his office in 1996 when it was discovered that as a youth during World War II he had worn a swastika and had taken part in an anti-Jewish and anti-war demonstration whose stated purpose was to wreck the offices of the Montreal Gazette, which strongly supported Canada's war effort.
In her statement of August 17 Jean denied that she and her spouse Jean-Daniel Lafond had supported the Québec independence cause. "Let me be clear: we have never belonged to a political party or the separatist movement." But is this not a matter of parsing words? Many people throughout history have supported and worked for a cause without being "card-carrying members" of a specific party or organization.
After all, in the film La Manière Nègre, a 1991 documentary produced by Mr. Lafond which examined independence struggles in Québec and Caribbean entities such as Martinique and Haiti, she is shown apparently toasting the prospect of Québec independence.
But the issue here is not simply whether Ms. Jean was in the past sympathetic to the idea of a sovereign Québec. Many Québécois have been and continue to be. I consider this to be a legitimate political option. The citizens of that province may indeed someday, in a peaceful and democratic referendum, choose to leave the Canadian federation.
However, in the film Ms. Jean is sitting with, among others, Pierre Vallières, a founding member of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ). This group of ultra-left terrorists created havoc in Québec for years and in October 1970 murdered a Québec cabinet minister. Surely Pierre Trudeau, who sent the Canadian army into the province to stop further FLQ activity, must be rolling over in his grave! Indeed, the founder of the Parti Québécois, René Lévesque, himself refused to share a platform with former FLQ members.
Mr. Lafond is himself a trendy French intellectual, a political child of the 1968 student uprising in Paris and a devotee of the radical French philosopher Michel Foucault. He fits in perfectly with the café society of the Quartier Latin in Montreal.
In his films and writings, he has denounced the shortcomings of Western society, and in his discourse has made use of all the politically correct left-wing clichés about colonialism, American imperialism, and so on. In 1994, regarding Québec, he was quoted in L'Humanité, the newspaper founded by the French Communist Party, as stating that "the situation in this country is more and more intolerable and, while no one today uses the violent means of the FLQ, we need to find the ways to overcome this."
Yet he is now about to become the "vice-regal consort" of the governor-general, a British colonial vestige of an office if ever there was one! Isn't our political system wonderful? It can absorb, neutralize and co-opt any "critical opposition."
Perhaps Ms. Jean and Mr. Lafond now regret having moved in circles that included former "theorists of liberation" such as Mr. Vallières. All of us, I am sure, once knew people we would no longer befriend. And it's clear most Canadians just want this whole controversy to go away, the sooner the better.
Friday, August 19, 2005
August 19, 2005
Canada and Hans Island: Is it worth fighting for?
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
For the past several months, a dispute between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island, a tiny 1.3 square kilometre scrap of barren rock in the Arctic situated between Greenland, a Danish possession, and Ellesmere Island, now part of Nunavut, has been heating up.
Canadian claims are based on the discovery of Hans Island and the rest of the Arctic Archipelago by British explorers between the 16th and 19th centuries and their subsequent status as part of British North America. In 1880 the British government transferred its claim to the Arctic Archipelago to Canada.
In addition, Canada claims the water between the Arctic Islands as internal waters, a claim that is not recognized by the United States, and which has caused some conflict with respect to the enforcement of environmental laws. Should oil and gas be discovered beneath the waters, this could become even more significant.
So the quarrel over Hans Island may be part of a larger issue: who really owns the vast areas of land and water in the North American Arctic? It may turn into a test case on sovereignty claims along the Northwest Passage.
The current wrangle over Hans Island itself started in 1973 when Denmark and Canada drew a border down the Nares Strait, between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, but left the island’s status undecided.
Denmark claims that geological evidence points to Hans Island being an extension of Greenland, and therefore belongs to Denmark. The island is closer to Greenland than to Ellesmere.
Last month, in order to confirm Canadian sovereignty over the island, Bill Graham, our defence minister, paid a visit to Hans Island. “My act of going there was totally consistent with the fact that Canada has always regarded this island as a part of Canada,” he told the press. “I was just visiting Hans Island the way I visited other facilities of Canada’s.”
In turn, the Danish foreign minister, Per Stig Moeller, reiterated his country’s claim. He declared that standing firm was “crucial to being an independent state.” Denmark had already sent its own navy ships to the island in 2002 and 2003 and hoisted a Danish flag.
The ongoing fight brings to mind another story with a Danish connection. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act IV, Scene iv), Hamlet is puzzled to hear that the Norwegian prince Fortinbras has asked for permission to march across Denmark. He asks a soldier for the reason and receives this reply:
Hamlet: Good sir, whose powers are these?
Captain: They are of Norway, sir.
Hamlet: How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?
Captain: Against some part of Poland.
Hamlet: Who commands them, sir?
Captain: The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
Hamlet: Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?
Captain: Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
Hamlet: Why, then the Polack [sic] never will defend it.
Captain: Yes, it is already garrison’d.
Shakespeare is clearly making the point that countries will often instigate conflicts for no apparent gain other than national prestige and honour.
It seems that Canada and Denmark will heed the advice of the Bard. Moeller announced that he and Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew intend to discuss Hans Island next month during a foreign ministers gathering at the United Nations.
It’s true that the larger question of sovereignty in the Arctic is no laughing matter. But this particular squabble, with its opera bouffe quality, needs to be resolved.
Canada and Hans Island: Is it worth fighting for?
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
For the past several months, a dispute between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island, a tiny 1.3 square kilometre scrap of barren rock in the Arctic situated between Greenland, a Danish possession, and Ellesmere Island, now part of Nunavut, has been heating up.
Canadian claims are based on the discovery of Hans Island and the rest of the Arctic Archipelago by British explorers between the 16th and 19th centuries and their subsequent status as part of British North America. In 1880 the British government transferred its claim to the Arctic Archipelago to Canada.
In addition, Canada claims the water between the Arctic Islands as internal waters, a claim that is not recognized by the United States, and which has caused some conflict with respect to the enforcement of environmental laws. Should oil and gas be discovered beneath the waters, this could become even more significant.
So the quarrel over Hans Island may be part of a larger issue: who really owns the vast areas of land and water in the North American Arctic? It may turn into a test case on sovereignty claims along the Northwest Passage.
The current wrangle over Hans Island itself started in 1973 when Denmark and Canada drew a border down the Nares Strait, between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, but left the island’s status undecided.
Denmark claims that geological evidence points to Hans Island being an extension of Greenland, and therefore belongs to Denmark. The island is closer to Greenland than to Ellesmere.
Last month, in order to confirm Canadian sovereignty over the island, Bill Graham, our defence minister, paid a visit to Hans Island. “My act of going there was totally consistent with the fact that Canada has always regarded this island as a part of Canada,” he told the press. “I was just visiting Hans Island the way I visited other facilities of Canada’s.”
In turn, the Danish foreign minister, Per Stig Moeller, reiterated his country’s claim. He declared that standing firm was “crucial to being an independent state.” Denmark had already sent its own navy ships to the island in 2002 and 2003 and hoisted a Danish flag.
The ongoing fight brings to mind another story with a Danish connection. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act IV, Scene iv), Hamlet is puzzled to hear that the Norwegian prince Fortinbras has asked for permission to march across Denmark. He asks a soldier for the reason and receives this reply:
Hamlet: Good sir, whose powers are these?
Captain: They are of Norway, sir.
Hamlet: How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?
Captain: Against some part of Poland.
Hamlet: Who commands them, sir?
Captain: The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
Hamlet: Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?
Captain: Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
Hamlet: Why, then the Polack [sic] never will defend it.
Captain: Yes, it is already garrison’d.
Shakespeare is clearly making the point that countries will often instigate conflicts for no apparent gain other than national prestige and honour.
It seems that Canada and Denmark will heed the advice of the Bard. Moeller announced that he and Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew intend to discuss Hans Island next month during a foreign ministers gathering at the United Nations.
It’s true that the larger question of sovereignty in the Arctic is no laughing matter. But this particular squabble, with its opera bouffe quality, needs to be resolved.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Jerusalem and the three Abrahamic faiths
Henry Srebrnik, [Calgary] Jewish Free Press
Jerusalem is probably the most famous city on the planet, a place vibrantly imagined even by people who have never been there. It is the spiritual and religious heritage to one half of humanity and has also been central to the experience and “sacred geography” of Christians and Muslims.
All three faiths have claimed the city as their own over the centuries. This has made it one of the most explosive and emotional issues in the world.
The story of Jerusalem is history in a grand manner—an absorbing saga of prophets, priests, and pilgrims, of kings and conquerors, a city besieged, defended, conquered, damaged or destroyed, and rebuilt, some 40 times in 30 centuries—always in the name of God.
All the dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are condensed and symbolized in Jerusalem—and in particular in its walled Old City of 220 acres and thirty-five thousand Jewish, Christian, and Muslim dwellers, divided into the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters, where, in the words of Thomas Stransky, a Catholic priest in Jerusalem, “too much history crowds claustrophobic space.”
He might agree with the tenth-century Arab geographer Muqaddasi, who wrote that the city was “a golden basin filled with scorpions.” In today’s Jerusalem, too, piety easily becomes political, and politics transforms into piety.
The tremendous devotion felt by religious Jews to Jerusalem is demonstrated by the more than 600 citations to it in the Bible. The Temple Mount in the Old City is arguably the world’s most desired piece of religious real estate.
It is where King David erected an altar, and where Solomon and Herod built their temples. The Western Wall of the second temple is the holiest site in Judaism.
For Muslims, Jerusalem is known as Al Quds, (the Holy) and is the third holiest site in Islam, following Mecca and Medina. The Temple Mount is known as the Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), where Mohammed began his famous Night Journey to heaven. Ever since Caliph Abd al-Malik dedicated the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque at the end of the seventh century, it has been, except in the Crusader period, under the control of the Muslims.
Almost all of the sacred shrines and sanctuaries connected with the life and death of Jesus are found here. Among its many splendid Christian sites are the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa, and the Garden of Gethsamane.
Contemporary Jerusalem is doubly divided. As well as being a holy site for Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the city contains secular Israelis and Palestinians who also, we should not forget, ground their respective national identities within its borders.
The modern Jerusalem today includes not just the Old City but also East Jerusalem, formerly held by Jordan and annexed by Israel in 1967, as well as West Jerusalem and the 1994 western expansion of the municipal borders. The city limits now encircle ninety-four square miles and more than 650,000 inhabitants. About 62 percent are Jewish, 38 percent non-Jewish, most of them Muslim Arabs.
When the UN General Assembly in 1947 voted for the partition of Palestine, Jerusalem was to be part neither of the Jewish State, nor of the Arab State. It was to be an international city, a corpus separatum.
But the UN was never able to establish international control of the city. Instead, it was partitioned in bitter fighting in 1948 and 1949, between Israel and Jordan.
The idea of internationalisation was primarily an idea promoted by the Christian powers, particularly by the Vatican, and those Catholic states that were operating under the influence of the Vatican, who had much more influence in those days than now.
And indeed the Christian presence, at least in terms of population, has declined dramatically in the course of the past century. In 1900 there were more Christians in Jerusalem than Muslims. In the Jerusalem of 1948 the 32,000 thousand Christians made up approximately 19 percent of the population; today, at 12,000, they are less than 2 percent. (There are some 230,000 Muslims in the city.)
Now historically, Christians judged that the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 and the final expulsion of the Jews in 135 was divine punishment. Today things are very different. While there are remnants of this classical anti-Judaism among Jerusalem’s Christians, it is very minor, and becomes even more so now when they are in eclipse. The change in Christian attitudes is best symbolized by the visit to Jerusalem in 2000 by Pope John Paul II.
He prayed at the Western Wall to ask for forgiveness for centuries of anti-Semitism, an image, writes Stephen Crittenden, that may be the most enduring of his entire pontificate.
And what of Islam, and in particular Palestinian Arab Muslims? For those who belong to Hamas, God has given the entire Middle East, which includes the intrusive “Zionist entity,” as an Islamic trust (waqf) for all generations until the day of judgment. "Jerusalem should be forever united solely under Palestinian (read: Islamic) sovereignty,” reads its covenant. “The liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem wherever he may be.”
The extremists would not support the Palestinian Authority’s less radical desire for sovereignty over East Jerusalem, including the Old City. Hamas preaches and engages in violence and terror in order to destroy the state of Israel and replace it with an Islamic state.
Indeed, some Muslims, and even some secular Arab nationalists in Palestine, have been denying that the Temple Mount is in fact the site of the ancient Jewish Temple, by any historical or archaeological reckoning an absurd position.
What of the Jewish position on Jerusalem? After June 1967 Israel controlled all of Jerusalem for the first time in about 1900 years, a watershed moment for Jews in Israel and around the world. They were overcome by the euphoria of a victory that was stunning, unexpected, and seemingly complete.
It should thus come as no surprise that almost all Orthodox Jews now support the political slogan, “Jerusalem should and will remain the unified and eternal capital of the State of Israel, under the absolute sovereignty of Israel alone.” The steady exodus of so many not-too-religious Jews from the city in favor of Tel Aviv, and the immigration of so many Israeli and diaspora Orthodox Jews to the city, has had the effect of radicalizing its politics.
So what will be the future of the earthly Jerusalem? Israel has tried very hard since 1967 to imprint its presence on the whole of the city.
But Jerusalem remains deeply divided, a city of two thoroughly antagonistic and mutually hostile communities who hardly set foot in each other’s areas, who hardly communicate with each other, and who live very separate lives, mentally and culturally divided. Since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, this chasm has widened.
Demographic facts also favour the Palestinians. With the Arab minority currently increasing at an annual rate of 3 percent, twice the rate of the Jewish majority, Arabs are likely to form the majority of voters in Israel’s capital within thirty years. And that is one of the things that is impelling many Israelis to think that the Arab populated parts of Jerusalem should become part of the Palestinian state, rather than remaining part of Israel.
But no repartition of Jerusalem that would involve a return to the 1967 armistice lines would be acceptable to Israel, as it would necessitate the eviction of 200,000-plus Jewish residents of East Jerusalem from their homes. A settlement will probably have to be based on existing population patterns.
An alternative to a territorial partition might be an open city based on existing population patterns, so that the existing Arab populated parts of the city would be part of Palestine, and the existing Jewish populated parts of the city would be under Israeli sovereignty.
This is one version of the “condominium” solution—a form of joint sovereignty, perhaps only over the Old City, if not all of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is an essential component of any settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is not primarily a security issue, but rather a symbolic issue. It was at the Clinton-Barak-Arafat negotiating summit at Camp David in 2000 that President Bill Clinton discovered to his surprise that the main unresolvable issue was the ownership of this small piece of real estate.
The Jewish and Muslim holy sites are conjoined, nor can they be surgically separated. In any case, as the Israeli writer Avishai Margalit has asked, how does one divide a symbol?
It is of course easy, and perhaps even rational, to be a pessimist. Yet, as the historian Martin Gilbert has remarked, while “The twentieth century has often been a bloody one for Jerusalem, it has also been a century of creativity and satisfaction, exuberant life, determination, civic achievement, and perpetual hope.” Despite all the odds, we must all, in the words of the Psalmist, “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
Henry Srebrnik, [Calgary] Jewish Free Press
Jerusalem is probably the most famous city on the planet, a place vibrantly imagined even by people who have never been there. It is the spiritual and religious heritage to one half of humanity and has also been central to the experience and “sacred geography” of Christians and Muslims.
All three faiths have claimed the city as their own over the centuries. This has made it one of the most explosive and emotional issues in the world.
The story of Jerusalem is history in a grand manner—an absorbing saga of prophets, priests, and pilgrims, of kings and conquerors, a city besieged, defended, conquered, damaged or destroyed, and rebuilt, some 40 times in 30 centuries—always in the name of God.
All the dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are condensed and symbolized in Jerusalem—and in particular in its walled Old City of 220 acres and thirty-five thousand Jewish, Christian, and Muslim dwellers, divided into the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters, where, in the words of Thomas Stransky, a Catholic priest in Jerusalem, “too much history crowds claustrophobic space.”
He might agree with the tenth-century Arab geographer Muqaddasi, who wrote that the city was “a golden basin filled with scorpions.” In today’s Jerusalem, too, piety easily becomes political, and politics transforms into piety.
The tremendous devotion felt by religious Jews to Jerusalem is demonstrated by the more than 600 citations to it in the Bible. The Temple Mount in the Old City is arguably the world’s most desired piece of religious real estate.
It is where King David erected an altar, and where Solomon and Herod built their temples. The Western Wall of the second temple is the holiest site in Judaism.
For Muslims, Jerusalem is known as Al Quds, (the Holy) and is the third holiest site in Islam, following Mecca and Medina. The Temple Mount is known as the Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), where Mohammed began his famous Night Journey to heaven. Ever since Caliph Abd al-Malik dedicated the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque at the end of the seventh century, it has been, except in the Crusader period, under the control of the Muslims.
Almost all of the sacred shrines and sanctuaries connected with the life and death of Jesus are found here. Among its many splendid Christian sites are the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa, and the Garden of Gethsamane.
Contemporary Jerusalem is doubly divided. As well as being a holy site for Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the city contains secular Israelis and Palestinians who also, we should not forget, ground their respective national identities within its borders.
The modern Jerusalem today includes not just the Old City but also East Jerusalem, formerly held by Jordan and annexed by Israel in 1967, as well as West Jerusalem and the 1994 western expansion of the municipal borders. The city limits now encircle ninety-four square miles and more than 650,000 inhabitants. About 62 percent are Jewish, 38 percent non-Jewish, most of them Muslim Arabs.
When the UN General Assembly in 1947 voted for the partition of Palestine, Jerusalem was to be part neither of the Jewish State, nor of the Arab State. It was to be an international city, a corpus separatum.
But the UN was never able to establish international control of the city. Instead, it was partitioned in bitter fighting in 1948 and 1949, between Israel and Jordan.
The idea of internationalisation was primarily an idea promoted by the Christian powers, particularly by the Vatican, and those Catholic states that were operating under the influence of the Vatican, who had much more influence in those days than now.
And indeed the Christian presence, at least in terms of population, has declined dramatically in the course of the past century. In 1900 there were more Christians in Jerusalem than Muslims. In the Jerusalem of 1948 the 32,000 thousand Christians made up approximately 19 percent of the population; today, at 12,000, they are less than 2 percent. (There are some 230,000 Muslims in the city.)
Now historically, Christians judged that the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 and the final expulsion of the Jews in 135 was divine punishment. Today things are very different. While there are remnants of this classical anti-Judaism among Jerusalem’s Christians, it is very minor, and becomes even more so now when they are in eclipse. The change in Christian attitudes is best symbolized by the visit to Jerusalem in 2000 by Pope John Paul II.
He prayed at the Western Wall to ask for forgiveness for centuries of anti-Semitism, an image, writes Stephen Crittenden, that may be the most enduring of his entire pontificate.
And what of Islam, and in particular Palestinian Arab Muslims? For those who belong to Hamas, God has given the entire Middle East, which includes the intrusive “Zionist entity,” as an Islamic trust (waqf) for all generations until the day of judgment. "Jerusalem should be forever united solely under Palestinian (read: Islamic) sovereignty,” reads its covenant. “The liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem wherever he may be.”
The extremists would not support the Palestinian Authority’s less radical desire for sovereignty over East Jerusalem, including the Old City. Hamas preaches and engages in violence and terror in order to destroy the state of Israel and replace it with an Islamic state.
Indeed, some Muslims, and even some secular Arab nationalists in Palestine, have been denying that the Temple Mount is in fact the site of the ancient Jewish Temple, by any historical or archaeological reckoning an absurd position.
What of the Jewish position on Jerusalem? After June 1967 Israel controlled all of Jerusalem for the first time in about 1900 years, a watershed moment for Jews in Israel and around the world. They were overcome by the euphoria of a victory that was stunning, unexpected, and seemingly complete.
It should thus come as no surprise that almost all Orthodox Jews now support the political slogan, “Jerusalem should and will remain the unified and eternal capital of the State of Israel, under the absolute sovereignty of Israel alone.” The steady exodus of so many not-too-religious Jews from the city in favor of Tel Aviv, and the immigration of so many Israeli and diaspora Orthodox Jews to the city, has had the effect of radicalizing its politics.
So what will be the future of the earthly Jerusalem? Israel has tried very hard since 1967 to imprint its presence on the whole of the city.
But Jerusalem remains deeply divided, a city of two thoroughly antagonistic and mutually hostile communities who hardly set foot in each other’s areas, who hardly communicate with each other, and who live very separate lives, mentally and culturally divided. Since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, this chasm has widened.
Demographic facts also favour the Palestinians. With the Arab minority currently increasing at an annual rate of 3 percent, twice the rate of the Jewish majority, Arabs are likely to form the majority of voters in Israel’s capital within thirty years. And that is one of the things that is impelling many Israelis to think that the Arab populated parts of Jerusalem should become part of the Palestinian state, rather than remaining part of Israel.
But no repartition of Jerusalem that would involve a return to the 1967 armistice lines would be acceptable to Israel, as it would necessitate the eviction of 200,000-plus Jewish residents of East Jerusalem from their homes. A settlement will probably have to be based on existing population patterns.
An alternative to a territorial partition might be an open city based on existing population patterns, so that the existing Arab populated parts of the city would be part of Palestine, and the existing Jewish populated parts of the city would be under Israeli sovereignty.
This is one version of the “condominium” solution—a form of joint sovereignty, perhaps only over the Old City, if not all of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is an essential component of any settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is not primarily a security issue, but rather a symbolic issue. It was at the Clinton-Barak-Arafat negotiating summit at Camp David in 2000 that President Bill Clinton discovered to his surprise that the main unresolvable issue was the ownership of this small piece of real estate.
The Jewish and Muslim holy sites are conjoined, nor can they be surgically separated. In any case, as the Israeli writer Avishai Margalit has asked, how does one divide a symbol?
It is of course easy, and perhaps even rational, to be a pessimist. Yet, as the historian Martin Gilbert has remarked, while “The twentieth century has often been a bloody one for Jerusalem, it has also been a century of creativity and satisfaction, exuberant life, determination, civic achievement, and perpetual hope.” Despite all the odds, we must all, in the words of the Psalmist, “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
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