Mike Duffy, ho-hum.

 

Constitution making tool

It appears the Mike Duffy trial is going to dominate domestic news on the networks for the next month and more. I've been keeping up with what's being reported, but I'm beginning to suspect that the reporters sitting through the courtroom proceedings are starting to get really bored. Arguments and counter-arguments about what constitutes genuine “residency” and debating where government business separates from party business are predictable, but the fact is that both are muddy waters—or so it seems in the trial proceedings to date.

Let me clear up the confusion: place of residency is where you call home, where people go when you say, “Come on over for a coffee and a chat.” And when it comes to party vs. government business, assume that all business done by a politician is party business: wars have always been and always will be fought in order to promote a party's fortunes, for example. Budgets will be set to enhance party chances in the next election. Very seldom is there an utterance heard in question period whose first objective is not partisan.

Now I know that there is such a thing as “primary” and “secondary” residence—for the very few who can afford it—and that politicians have to have a domicile outside their constituency for periods of time. I also know that the times they are a'changin' and that in a time when a politician can give a speech in Ottawa in the morning, have lunch with a colleague in Regina and be interviewed in Vancouver in the evening, the rules as imagined when we first established Canada's bicameral parliament are bound to seem fuzzy and archaic.

Mike Duffy's trial will demonstrate in spades how poorly we've kept up with changes to our politics that would better fit the temper of the times, how hide-bound we are by tradition, our habits of thinking and the archaic ceremony of it all. A glaring example: suggestions for abolishing the senate are scoffed at because our constitution requires a level of unanimity that can't be achieved (or so it's surmised). In other words, our past dictates our future on that issue. Constitutions and Bills of Rights and Confessions of Faith and bylaws, etc. are all necessary, but when we treat them as law books rather than as living, advancing processes, they inhibit us more than they help us.

Mind you, we're still party-animals in our attitudes and ways of making decisions; some of us think more conservatively and some of us more liberally and that will affect how we react to change, how we make decisions collectively, what we assume to be necessary for our national and individual well-being. Harper's, Mulcair's, May's and Trudeau's behaviours are governed in large measure by non-identical, stable underlying worldviews. No matter how we restructure, there will always be conflict, negotiation, quarrels and dissatisfaction-with-outcomes.

The Mike Duffy trial may alert us to the degree to which we've failed to address restructuring to make the best use of our talents in governing ourselves as amicably and as fairly as possible, given the fact that we'll never be unanimous . . . on anything. The bickering over residency and party vs. government business are merely symptoms of this failure.

Abolishing the senate, inaugurating proportional representation in government would be good starts in a good direction, in my opinion.

A tolerant nation, but . . .

Eigenheim Winter

The federal government will quarrel with the Supreme Court again, this time because the wearing of a niqab by a conservative Muslim immigrant during a citizenship ceremony is considered "offensive" by the prime minister while the court interprets our existing law and Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect being so attired as a religious right.

            Some claim that Harper's picking of this as another fight is mostly a pandering to the demographic that can't tolerate difference (he probably knows that bigotry is so entrenched in Canada that you can actually win some seats by promoting intolerance). I personally agree with the sentiment that women being required to cover themselves thoroughly in order to prevent men's lascivious thoughts and actions is as objectionable as its reverse: the libertarian assertion that "I can wear as little as nothing wherever and whenever I want, so get used to it." But my convictions were shaped by Christian community and Canadian values, not by Islam or libertarianiam.

            No religious faith I know of can withstand the scrutiny of logic, especially when applied by someone not raised in the particular set of beliefs being considered. Requiring an orthodox Muslim woman to uncover her face in the presence of men who are not her husband is probably as traumatic for her as a Jehovah's Witness adherent being forced to undergo a blood transfusion, or an orthodox Anabaptist or Quaker being compelled to march in a military parade carrying a rifle.

            Of course the response from an intolerant right wing is and will always be, "Tough! You don't like it, stay out of my country!"

            The government spokesperson on CBC's Power and Politics defended its position by saying that a judge needs to be able to see a person's face during the administering of the oath of allegiance in order to be sure she's actually saying it.  Poppycock! The option of being sworn in separately in the presence of a female justice could be easily arranged.

            Petty as this last attack on religious freedom in the Charter seems, it's only another phase of our government's narrow range of tolerance. Far more scary is the entangling of Canada in a coalition seeking to defeat "jihadist" militancy . . . militarily. I wasn't raised to value niqab-wearing, sweat lodges or the healing properties in crystals, but I "believe" that love conquers evil; nothing else can.  Counterintuitive as it will seem to most, Canada's best role in the Middle East right now would be in providing escape options, sustenance, relocation  to those being steam-rollered by ISIS.

            Most urgently, though, we need a new government. The prospect of that happening without a progressive-side merger are looking slimmer by the day.

            So sad.

  

What the Crow Says

Speaker in the Crow Parliament

The message from the NDP nationally—and now beginning to build with Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party in Saskatchewan—is that the senate ought to be abolished. I agree and disagree. In theory, the House of Commons expresses the wishes of the majority of Canadian electors and the senate acts as watchdog to ensure that its decisions are fair and just regionally. Simple. I disagree with the NDP in that this is a necessary function and could actually be made to work if the senate were truly regionally representative and less of a hog trough for partisan has-beens.

            I agree, though, on the basis that the institution now appears to be well beyond redemption.

            But would abolition be an exercise in rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship? Is the current scandal involving false expense claims symptomatic of a deeper malaise?

            History will probably show that a truly functioning democracy eventually slides into corruption unless a few basic conditions are systematically met. The first is active participation—citizens need to be tugging at the reins to get at the ballot box, need to be crowding into arenas to hear debates, need to have learned —through rigorous instruction in school— to understand the system by which they're governed. None of these are currently actual.

           

            Secondly, the system needs to ensure that politicians are rewarded more for collaboration and compromise and less for partisan competition. I suspect that some ideal democracy of the future will have done away with the party system and will function more like the Rosthern Town Council, where councilors are chosen on merit and blocs are formed around issues rather than around party loyalties. The parliamentary chamber of the future will be round with seating assigned by lot.

            Thirdly, functioning democracies will be transparent and open. All debates, deliberations will be broadcast to the public. Question periods (if they exist) will be about garnering information rather than scoring party points. Skilled auditors will report monthly on government revenue and expenditures and all members' expense accounts will be posted on line.

            Double dipping by senators, kickbacks to Quebec politicians, manipulation by politicians using false or misleading information, the constant and unproductive bickering in parliament and in the media, attack ads, all these are enabled by the system under which our citizenry has organized its governance.

It's not so much time to abolish the senate as it is time to rethink the whole ball of wax.

            P.S. This won't happen unless electors insist on it. In other words, it won't happen. A warning appropriate to Canadians is that age-old one . . . apathy is the meat on which corruption feeds.