Dear Conservative Party, can we stop throwing the word “democracy” around like a football please? Is that okay? You know how the Westminster Parliamentary system works: You know it’s not about who “got elected” but that it’s about “who can form a government”. If the people had given you a majority you could steam-roll everyone as you please. But the people in their infinite wisdom (I’ll go along with the trope for a moment, but there’s some bile rising here) decided not to. So that means that you get to form a minority government.

Seats in Parliament are what matters, not which single party got the most votes in the election. We don’t have a presidential-style system where the guy rules as long as he gets the most votes. If the Conservatives have the most seats, but not 50% + 1 of the seats, they form a minority government. If the Liberals and NDP get together and form a coalition, they suddenly have more seats and they can form the government. This is called “having the confidence of the House”, and if the ruling party doesn’t have that confidence, then the ruling party falls and is replaced by another party or coalition that does have the confidence of the house.

This is why, for those Canadians who seem too dense to understand this, we have a Governor-General. She’s there to oversee and make judgment on abnormal situations like this. She’s the ultimate arbiter of our democracy… and she wasn’t even elected. Gasp! Horror! She doesn’t have to answer to the people of Canada — she has to answer to the Constitution, the Ministers of the government, and (theoretically) the Crown. (Not to mention that the Senate isn’t elected either. Gasp! Horror!) She’s there so that, for instance, a Prime Minister can’t just dissolve Parliament and call an election every time he gets a vote in the House that he dislikes. You can google the King-Byng affair for a time when the Governor-General did just that.

The Governor-General is going to be making some interesting decisions. But there’s nothing back-door or anti-democratic about the proposed coalition between the Liberals and the NDP. It’s how the Parliamentary system was designed to work. The opposition doesn’t like a heavy-handed minority government, and doesn’t feel like being jerked around for the next three years with a confidence motion attached to every bill, budget, and bulletin that gets tabled in the House? Well, they’re free to topple the government.

There’s nothing anti-democratic about it. And if the people of Canada really feel like this is a bad idea, they’re going to punish the NDP and the Liberals in the next election. Which, of course, there will always be. A next election.

In the meantime, the Conservatives can jolly well stop their whining, and stop their deceitful attack ads. The Governor-General doesn’t make her decisions based on what the people think, okay?

I don’t think it’ll ever be published, in print or on the web, but I had to say something. I’ve also contacted my MP and the Right Honourable American Biotch, Jim Prentice. This is what I have to say:

No, these proposed changes won’t change a thing. They’ll merely make things that us ground-level Canadians do illegal.

The problem with the bill isn’t that it wants to combat piracy. That’s fine. Piracy is bad. If we want free stuff, we can create it ourselves and release it under a free license.

The problem is that it makes transferring my music (that I bought) or my movies (that I bought) to a device illegal if the content provider has placed any sort of digital restriction on it.

This gives corporations the power over my rights. They can grant me (if they wish) to power to copy, but of course they don’t because they want to sell me a copy for each device I own, not a copy I can copy myself. The legislation purportedly protects these rights, but in fact does an end-run around them.

Of course the law won’t stop copying files. This is what digital media is about: Cheap reproduction. And digital restrictions are fundamentally flawed and will always be circumvented. So Canadians will still be doing what they like with the media they paid for, but now it will become illegal to do so.

This legislation stinks of being written by American corporate and governmental interests. This isn’t the Canada I know, where we simply kowtow to our American cousins. It offends me (as a person who voted for the Conservatives), and if this law passes, I will find somewhere better to place my vote.

Amen.

When the Conservative government came to power, I was excited. Finally, the Liberals were gone! Even a minority government, I though, was better than nothing.

Two years later, I’m having major doubts. Some recent developments — especially restarting the Chalk River reactor against the advice of the CNSC — are beginning to cast the Prime Minister and his government in a very unflattering light. Coupled with the government’s delegation to the latest environmental summit including oil company representatives (WTF, Mr Harper?), this year’s closed-doors meeting with the US and industry regarding water supplies, and the recently tabled copyright bill (an absolute disgrace to every Canadian ideal, a shameful travesty that essentially looks written by media executives themselves, and something Mr Prentice should be embarrassed to have even proposed), it seems my government is shackling itself to the very industries it is supposed to regulate and govern.

I’m quite certain that elected officials in the States are essentially bought and paid for by big oil, big media, big guns, and the like. But here? That’s not the kind of government I want.

I’m strongly thinking of voting Green in the next election. I have no faith in the Liberals (who have essentially handed Mr Harper a shadow majority with their political ineptitude). I’m just glad the Conservatives don’t have a majority: imagine the damage he could do to this country if Mr Harper were unfettered from consensus!

To the south, Americans seem more socially conservative than they have been in fifty years. Although social liberals in the United States most certainly exist en masse, it seems axiomatic that the States’ social policy is drifting right-of-centre. Partly driving this shift is the disproportionate power of the evangelical political arm, which is to the social conservatives as the gay lobby is to the social liberals. The shift is also driven by the hopelessly broken American electoral system, in which the only two parties of any consequence, the Democrats and Republicans, are essentially cut from the same cloth and advocate policies differing from eachother in (what looks like to the rest of the world) minor details.

Yet, the United States has the largest military force in the history of mankind. The country is a cultural hub for the entire world. It’s the consumer power that drives entire economies. It’s a geopolitical superpower unlike any other before or likely to arise anytime soon.

What’s a simple Canadian to do? I am not an American, yet I am affected by the actions of that powerhouse on my doorstep. I am affected in countless ways. Some of these ways are too subtle to quantify. Others are so obvious they’re not worth talking about.

I come from a long tradition of Canadian social liberalism, in that I’m Canadian. I also come from a short tradition of social conservatism, in that I’m third-generation immigrant stock. Depending on who you choose to believe, the influence of the United States in Canadian politics and social life is a terrible intrusion or conversely a long-needed correction.

I’m not going to spell out some long argument in favour of social liberalism, nor am I going to cast (too many) aspersions on our neighbours to the south. I will, however, point to results as a guide for my own cast of mind.

Canada is a secular government. This is, of course, ridiculous, as no-one can be truly secular. Everyone has a religious bias of some kind. Yet, secular government is the best thing we’ve found yet to protect disparate people from the ravages of raw religious power. We insulate everyone against that possibility by forcing those in power to separate church and state, to keep religion out of politics, to keep religion out of schools, and to keep religion in the churches and mosques. Impossible? Yes. But it works. It works most of the time. The balance sometimes sways too far in favour of anti-religious sentiment, but secular government works.

This secular government has resulted in acceptance in the form of multiculturalism, rights for minorities, gay rights, voting for women, abolition of slavery, tolerance, and that sort of thing. Some of these values are strongly antithetical to my beliefs as a Christian. Yet I accept that in a secular state, I cannot legislate lifestyle. If I could legislate lifestyle, I would be doing damage to my reputation as a Christian, and to the reputation of Christians as a group, and to the liberty of other consciences than my own. Thus I accept — and seek to protect — the secular state, and accept that this secular society will by definition accept and mandate things I find reprehensible.

What does this have to do with the USA? In the US, there’s a grand tradition of social liberalism as well. Yet there’s an even stronger current of social conservatism — the country was founded by religious fundamentalist extremists, after all — that stretches back to the USA’s very beginnings. Also, while Canada was founded by agreement, confederation, and negotiation, America was founded in the crucible of violence, civil disobedience leading ultimately to war, a war prompted almost purely by economic considerations.

The founders of the USA were, despite their origins, quite interesting people. They envisioned a secular state. They referenced a God that seems, in retrospect, to simply be some sort of elemental force. They separated church and state. They had seen what religion and political power does when mixed and didn’t want it repeated.

What happened?

Why is it now that some amorphous political arm of a bunch of squabbling evangelicals can command policy shifts in the world’s only remaining superpower? What happened to that secular state? Why does Canada embrace diversity while America embraces homogeneity? Why does America look like, to the rest of the world, verging on fascism?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. Part of it may be that the static political system in the US has existed so long that every participant instinctively knows how to game it. Part of it may be the almost comical fear that seems to pervade the US experience. Part of it may be the fierce nationalism that seems to periodically seize the national mindsphere.

As far as I can tell, it’s not a good direction to travel in. Isolationism? Bad. Fierce nationalism? Bad. Lack of tolerance? Bad. Religion dipping its censor into the inferno of politics? Superbad.

I just finished reading The Honourable Mr. Justice Watt’s decision regarding two subpoena issued against Derek Finkle. Essentially, after the Court of Appeals for Ontario ordered a new trial for Robert Baltovich, the prosecution decided that Derek Finkle’s book, No Claim to Mercy, a journalistic “true crime” investigation into Mr. Baltovich’s conviction of killing his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, would provide some sort of new evidence to the assist them in the re-conviction on Mr. Baltovich.

Now, considering that subpoenas duces tecum command “attendance for the purpose of giving evidence” (according to the Honourable Mr. Justice Watt), and direct the subpoenaed to bring whatever was described on the face of the subpoena, the issuer of the subpoena has to be fairly certain that what the subpoena describes is not only relevant, but — especially in this case — cannot be derived elsewhere. (Interestingly enough, the criminal code does not make any distinction between types of subpoenas, though the courts recognise two that I know of.)

In Mr. Finkle’s case, the police, or more specifically Detective Robert Wilkinson, simple sent a subpoena compelling production of written materials used in the creation of Mr. Finkle’s book. Later, it was joined by a second subpoena (issued by the same clerk, incidentally), compelling production of recorded materials and the like.

This is a bit strange. Actually, quite strange. First, the subpoena is remarkably sweeping. Second, Derek Finkle is unlikely to be called as a material witness for the prosecution. Third, there are other mechanisms in place for production of documents, all of which require explanations under oath. Fourth, the subpoenaed material could reasonably considered hearsay, making them inadmissible as evidence. Fifth, Mr. Finkle is a journalist, and as such is afforded special constitutional consideration.

Why did the police decide to issue a wide-ranging subpoena? As far as I can tell, Det. Wilkinson decided to do so simply because it was easier. A Document Production order, for instance, has a strong burden of proof against the issuer, and requires a statement under oath. A subpoena does not. And from Justice Watt’s statement, the subpoena was issued by a clerk without proper consideration, which the issuing office is required to undertake before a subpoena is issued. In effect, it was a boilerplate steam-roller of a subpoena, requested, approved, and issued without a whole lot of thought on the part of anyone involved.

But this is what got me. I find the last section of Justice Watt’s statement at once humorous and indignant — not to mention right on the money. In quashing the second subpoena, having already quashed the first, he said in section 95:

The subpoena issued on April 30, 2007 amounts to a fishing expedition under a colourable licence issued without authority. Fishing season is closed. The subpoena is quashed.

I don’t like to be a cheerleader, but rebuking police overstepping their authority, safeguarding freedom of the press, and firing off a witty sound bite in the closing? Niiiiiiice.

I sometimes wonder which I would least want to live in: a society where every glimpse of an ankle is a turn-on, or a society where one becomes quite deadened to revealing clothing. I’m still torn.

dan (however… I am not wearing suggestive clothes at the moment… no ankle showing!)