Telling lies about Canada: the new guide for immigrants

I confess to being a history buff. I am a member of our local heritage society, a member of the Alberta Historical Society and editor/designer of the local chapter's newsletter, and a member of Canada's History Society (and, needless to say, an avid reader of each issue of The Beaver). So naturally I read with considerable interest the history sections of the new guide for immigrants issued by the federal government . I was appalled. The guide, "Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship," presents a grossly distorted view of this country's past.

While it goes on at great length about Canada's wars, including an in-your-face poppy, it contains exactly one sentence on peacekeeping. About our non-military contributions to the international community it is silent. Nothing about foreign aid, whether it be food aid, helping countries create democratic institutions, or any of the other substantial contributions we have made toward a more democratic and equitable world. Nothing on our involvement in negotiating the Land Mines Treaty or on the leading role we played in creating the International Criminal Court, one of the finest contributions to international justice in all of history. And incredibly, nothing on our greatest international hero and father of modern peacekeeping, Lester Pearson, the only Canadian to win the Nobel Peace Prize, a man who actually ended a war.

By omitting the peaceful side of our contribution to the modern world, the document lies about us, a lie of omission. It carries the lie into our domestic affairs as well. It only mentions the Canada Health Act in one sentence, yet the struggle for Medicare was one of this country's greatest battles for what many Canadians believe to be the institution that more than any other defines us. Needless to say, the architect of Medicare and the man chosen "greatest Canadian," Tommy Douglas, is absent.

Perhaps the omission of the Liberal Pearson and the NDPer Douglas is not surprising in a Conservative document; nonetheless, we should be able to present a reasonable approximation of the essential Canada to newcomers. Instead we have something that is simply not us, a narrow part of us, yes, but much less than what we are.

The document does nicely illustrate why we shouldn't teach history in our schools. It is simply too difficult to teach fairly. If it were taught objectively such that it increased students' understanding of our species, including the Canadian version, I would support the idea. Unfortunately, it is more often used to propagate tribal myths. And the myths propagated are often warrior myths. History is often captured, as it has been in this document, by militarists.

How sad that that the picture of us future citizens will get is a view through the distorting mirror of militarism. I hope the guide will, at least, be kept out of the schools. We shouldn't lie to children.

The colonial legacy: why the Third World supports the Palestinians and we don't

One of the persistent divisions that crops up in the United Nations General Assembly has to do with Palestine. While the West can usually be counted on to support Israel's side on an issue, the Third World can be counted on to support the interest of the Palestinians. Such was the case with the recent votes on the Goldstone report which criticized Israel and Hamas for actions in the Gaza war.

This division in views arises for a variety of reasons, an overriding one being our relative experiences with the colonial enterprise. We in the West were the winners in the imperial adventures of the last few centuries. In North America we were particularly successful. We created our nations by stealing the lands of the native peoples and colonizing them. We have therefore an empathy, a bond, with the Jews in Palestine: noble settlers creating their country out of a wilderness amidst hostile natives. That's our experience, our history.

Third World people, on the other hand, have the opposite experience. They were the natives. They were the losers, the victims of the colonial enterprise. They were deeply humiliated and will take a long time to recover their confidence. The opposite experience gives them the opposite perspective. In Palestine, we see the noble enterprise of building a nation; they see the ignoble enterprise of stealing one from its rightful owners. We see the Jews as builders, they see the Palestinians as victims. We all see events through the lens of our own history.

Bias rooted in historical experience was largely responsible for the U.S. debacle in Iraq. The Americans saw themselves as liberators, the bringers of freedom and democracy. Their self-righteousness blinded them to the fact the Arab people see them as patrons of Israel, the last vestige of colonialism in the Arab world and the tormentor of Arabs. Until the U.S. forces itself to comprehend the sensibilities of the Arab street, its aims in the Middle East will be confounded.

Specifically, its ability to bring peace to Palestine will falter, and there is probably no issue more important to international order. The Palestine situation has created a toxic relationship between the Arab, and to a large extent the Muslim, world and the West. This toxicity has spread internationally, reaching New York on September 11th, 2001. It will continue to make mischief until the West learns to put itself in the shoes of the Arab people and appreciate their animosity toward what they see as a colonial imposition on their region. They may be right about Israel, they may be wrong, but they have to be understood. Trapped within the boundaries of our experience, we refuse to try. Meanwhile, the Palestinians continue to suffer, a just settlement moves further away, and the failure continues to spread its poison.

What the hell is this? The GG in military drag?

I avoided buying a morning paper yesterday to spare myself yet another dose of militaristic mush, and what do I find front and centre in this morning's Globe and Mail? Governor-general Michaëlle Jean looking like the head of the Girl Guides. Obviously my timing was wrong, I should have avoided this morning's paper.

What is this military binge were on all about?

For the first ninety years or so of our history we were proud defenders of the British Empire. That's why we fought in the First World War. Not for freedom but for the right of the British to lord it over Africans and Asians. We fought in the Boer War, for God's sake.

After WWII we changed tack, switched to the more moral and sensible course of peace-keeping. We even won a Nobel Prize for it. Now we are told that's over and done with and we are warriors again, fighting for the right of the Anglosphere to dominate world affairs, this time for the new version of Anglo power, the American Empire.

So now we must watch our Governor-General strut about in military uniform just like the royals love to do. Has the office gone to her pretty head? Does she think she's a royal now? Quite a switch for a lady who once flirted with separatists. Personally, I preferred the old Michaëlle.

Why is November 11th only for those who sacrifice in war?

Today, many Canadians will commemorate the sacrifice of men and women who died serving their country in battle. And why not? Sacrifice in a good cause is certainly honourable. Sacrifice in a bad cause, such as the First World War ... well, best save that for another day.

But why, on this day of memory, do we only honour those men and women who give their lives in war? We all serve our country, and people in various professions sacrifice their lives for the greater good. Fishermen, police officers, miners, firemen, loggers, journalists, and others take risks in their working lives serving the rest of us. When they too make the ultimate sacrifice, why are they not included in the wearing of poppies, the moment of silence, the memorial services of November 11th? Memorial services exist for groups other than the military but they are restricted to the periphery of our national consciousness.

Is dying in the act of killing others more honourable than simply dying in the service of others? Is a fisherman who dies at sea less worthy of commemoration than a soldier who dies in Afghanistan? Personally, I have a great deal more respect for a killer of fish than a killer of men.

I understand the primitive urge to defend the tribe. It is genetic and powerful, and has always made the defender of the tribe, the warrior, the first among men. But in an age when our weapons for that defence - nuclear, chemical and biological - can destroy us all, surely we must get beyond the primitive instincts and rituals of the warrior ethos. We should at least include equally in our rituals those who make the ultimate sacrifice in constructive endeavours rather than destructive ones.

The elusive truth about drugs

Earlier this month a great row erupted in the U.K. when the government fired Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, for claiming that evidence about drug harm was being distorted and the issue politicized. One of the things that intrigues me about the affair is Professor Nutt's findings about what he refers to as "a peculiar media imbalance in relation to drugs."

In reference to a comprehensive study in Scotland, he noted that over the decade of the 1990s, Scottish newspapers reported on 546 drug deaths out of the 2,255 that occurred. The reporting ratios were as follows:

• For aspirin, one out of every 256 deaths was reported
  
• For morphine, one in 72
• For heroin, one in five
• For methadone, one in 16
• For amphetamines, one in three
• For cocaine, one in eight
• For ecstasy, almost every death was reported
  

Certain facts jump out at the reader. For instance, the limited attention paid to legal drugs such as aspirin and morphine compared to the close attention paid to heroin, cocaine and even amphetamines even though amphetamine deaths were relatively rare. Ecstasy deaths were even rarer, yet the newspapers hardly missed a one, clearly creating the impression ecstasy is more dangerous than it is.

No alcohol deaths were reported on even though this would have added another 2,000-3,000 to the total, as many or more than all the other drugs combined. No cannabis deaths were reported either, but then you can't die of cannabis overdose.

Obviously, newspaper readers in Scotland get a distorted picture of the relative danger of various drugs. It would be interesting to see a similar study done in this country. If our newspapers are as biased as theirs, we may be basing our drug policies on misconceptions.

Is Obama abandoning the Palestinians?

The game has gone on for a long time. The Israelis steal more land in the West Bank, the U.S. dutifully chastises them, the Israeli prime minister visits Washington and the U.S. quietly submits to the new reality on the ground. Hope arose that the election of Barack Obama might finally put a stop to this charade and apply the necessary pressure to force Israel into ceasing its colonization and offering a just deal to the Palestinians.

The Palestinians themselves were skeptical. As it turns out they were right to be. In direct violation of what both Israel and the U.S. agreed to in 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has supported Israel's position that it doesn't need to freeze settlement activity as a prelude to resuming peace talks with the Palestinians. According to Clinton, "This offer falls far short of what our preference would be, but if it is acted upon, it will be an unprecedented restriction on settlements and would have a significant and meaningful effect on restraining their growth." So, apparently the new American position is that growth of the settlements is OK as long as it's "restricted" and Israel defines what restricted means. As for the settlements that have been established to date, Clinton, not surprisingly, had nothing to say.

This is a severe slap in the face for Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. According to Alastair Crooke, a senior advisor to Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell, "This pulls the rug out from under everything [Abbas] has stood for." One wonders how many more humiliations he can endure.

The Israeli tail wags the American dog for a variety of reasons: guilt over the Holocaust, the similarity of cultures, the empathy of one people who stole their country from the natives for another people who stole their country from the natives, and so on. But shouldn't Obama, with his background, have been able to rise above this and do justice for an oppressed people?

Perhaps, but now he faces another reason. He desperately needs every vote in Congress to pass a health care bill, his most important piece of legislation, as well as an environment bill, his second most important piece of legislation. And who is the most powerful lobby in Washington, who has the most influence on Congress? Why, the Israeli lobby of course. Obama knows that if he offends Israel, the Israeli lobby could very well undermine his domestic priorities. Politics is all about tradeoffs, and it looks like the Palestinians are being traded off.

The dog continues to wag, under Obama just as it did under his predecessors, leading one to suspect that Israel's colonization of the West Bank will continue until there's no more land worth colonizing.

Will Canadians take up the challenge of global warming?

The response from our federal government to the Pembina Institute/Suzuki Foundation study "Climate Leadership, Economic Prosperity," is predictable. Outrage. "The conclusions it draws are irresponsible," says Environment Minister Jim Prentice, "The kind of economic consequences you see in this report are not necessary if this is done in an orderly way." Unfortunately, what that orderly way is our government has not yet revealed.

Once again one must wonder if we, humanity that is, Canadians specifically, are up to dealing with global warming. Seventy years ago our leaders called us to the challenge of dealing with Nazism and we responded. We were prepared to do whatever was necessary. This time the threat is vastly greater. The Nazis threatened Western civilization; global warming threatens all civilization and more.

Yet what is demanded of us is so much less. Then we were asked to make great economic sacrifice and even to give up our lives if necessary. The Pembina/Suzuki report only asks us to knock a few points of our GDP. Even with the sacrifice, we will still be richer in ten years than we are today, and Alberta, which is asked to make the biggest sacrifice, will still be much richer than the rest of Canada.

Nonetheless, our leaders may not ask it of us because they believe it will be too much. The last politician to ask, Stephane Dion, was not only rejected by the Canadian people, he was humiliated.

Nonetheless, I think we are as good now as we ever were. Dion simply wasn't the guy. If the right political leader stands up and challenges us to do the right thing, to make the effort necessary to realize the recommendations of the Pembina/Suzuki report, I think we would accept the challenge and elect that leader. Then again, maybe I'm playing Pollyanna.

Fox News and journalists lack of pride in their profession

U.S. President Obama's "war" with Fox News is a hot topic in American media circles these days. That there would be tension between a president and a news network that is out to destroy his administration isn't surprising. What is surprising is the lack of concern among American journalists about the way Fox demeans their profession.

I referred to Fox as a news agency out of generosity. It is in fact a propaganda agency in both news and opinion. Its news is biased and highly selective; if necessary it creates its own news for the purpose of Obama-bashing; and its pundits, "barking mad gasbags" according to John Doyle in the The Globe and Mail, routinely resort to bullying, distortion and outright lying. The network has brought journalism down not just into the gutter but into the sewer.

Yet few journalists in the U.S. seem concerned, although some, such as Jacob Weisberg in Newsweek, have spoken out. If a doctor behaved with the same irresponsibility toward his profession that Fox journalists do toward theirs, he would be struck off the register. A lawyer would be disbarred. Doctors and lawyers take pride in their profession. They set high standards and if any of their fellow practitioners can't meet those standards, they don't want them around.

I understand that journalists can't strike their malpracticing fellows off the register or disbar them, but they can defend high standards and excoriate those who fall to the level of Fox. Most, it seems can't be bothered. I'm not suggesting they don't strive for a high standard in their own work, but rather that, unlike doctors and lawyers, they seem to have no concern about the reputation of their profession as a whole.

It shouldn't be up to the president to do their job for them, but apparently it is. Even in response to Obama's lead, they seem more interested in circling the journalistic wagons than accepting journalistic responsibility.

Canada drifts, Harper struts

Our federal government seems to be marking time. It seems to have only a vague idea what our future should be. Other than putting lots more people in jail, of course. Checking the Conservative Party website, all I see under Plan is a discussion of their current economic action. Not a word on anything else. I'm not looking for anything as grand as a vision, but some sensible plans for key areas would be a good idea.

As far as the biggest challenge facing us is concerned -- global warming -- our government does little, content to see what the Americans are going to do. When the U.S. firms up plan, we might get around to doing something. In foreign policy generally, we seem to rely on our southern neighbours. Our biggest domestic challenge -- bringing the native people's living standards up to the level of the rest of us -- doesn't seem to stir the Conservatives either. As for an election, even though the polls are favourable, they seem to have lost interest.

This lackadaisical approach puts me in mind of the last of the Klein years here in Alberta. Klein had no idea where he wanted the province to go and admitted as much. In fact, according to former Tory aide-turned-journalist Rich Vivone in his new book Ralph Could Have Been a Super Star, the only reason he hung around as long as he did was because his wife didn't want him to quit.

I hardly believe that's the case with Stephen Harper. My guess is he doesn't want to jeopardize his various opportunities to strut on the world stage. First, of course, is the Olympics, two weeks of world leaders traipsing through Canada. Then there's his hosting of the G8 and G20 meetings in June. Later this year there are visits to China and the Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore, and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago. There will of course be nothing but embarrassment in Copenhagen in December but then you can't win them all and global warming bores Mr. Harper anyway.

This is our prime minister's moment to bask in the international sun, leaving the cosmopolitan Iggy in the shade, and I don't think he intends to miss it.

A match made in heaven

It seems disaffected Anglicans have found a home. Those members of the faith uncomfortable with the ordination of women and gays are to find solace in the welcoming arms of the Catholic church. Pope Benedict XVI has by decree created a new structure that will allow Anglicans to join the Catholic church while maintaining their own liturgy.

How perfectly fitting. Anglicans unaccepting of the equality of women and gays will now find fellowship. Home at last.

The Canadian government's soft spot for dirty oil

Our governments' love affair with the production of dirty oil is well known. Both the Alberta and the federal governments dote on the tar sands, infamous as the world's dirtiest oil. Not as well known is our federal government's support for burning dirty fuel.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intends to ban Great Lakes' freighters from using bunker fuel. The agency claims the fuel's exhaust is likely a human carcinogen, and contributes to heart and lung disease, particularly in children and the old. Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, calls bunker fuel the "nastiest fuel known to man."

Our government is co-operating with the EPA's proposals for ocean-going ships but not for Great Lakes shipping. However, because freighters on the lakes cross back and forth between the U.S. and Canadian side, Canadian ships will have to comply with American regulations. Our government has, therefore, asked the Americans to weaken the new rules until ships can install smoke-stack scrubbers to deal with emissions. The problem is that the scrubber technology doesn't yet exist.

This is a familiar story. The Alberta and federal governments' answer to oil sands emissions is carbon capture and storage, another largely unproven technology.

From production to consumption, our benighted leaders are a pushover for dirty oil. No wonder dozens of countries walked out on Canada's address during the environmental conference in Thailand earlier this year. Our reputation as a weak sister on climate change is growing.

Conservatives and the politics of division

In 1987, Preston Manning created the conservative Reform Party despite the fact a conservative party, one quite friendly to Manning's home province of Alberta, was riding high at the time. Manning, it seemed, rather than join that party and apply his energies to nudging it in the direction he thought it should go, opted for a party of his very own. As a result, he divided the conservative movement and consigned it to a decade in the political wilderness.

Now another group of Alberta conservatives, the Wildrose Alliance, is setting out to break up the Conservative Party of Alberta, one of the most successful political parties in the history of the country. This makes even less sense than Manning's shenanigans since the leader of the Alliance, Danielle Smith, claims she wants to create a "big tent" party, which is just what the Alberta Conservatives claim to be and given their success, obviously are. One wonders how she is going to create this "big tent" in the future if the Alliance can't sit down with its Conservative brothers and sisters now. No matter, Smith, like Manning before her, must have a party of her own.

The irony of Manning's political adventure, of course, was that his new party eventually made up with the old Conservatives anyway. His entire effort was ultimately pointless. The current pursuit of ideological purity, or whatever it is, by the true believers of the Wildrose Alliance will probably follow the same path. They will not so much create a big tent as wander back into the one that's already there.

Unlocking the emissions impasse

Here's a good idea. Writing in the Guardian, Prasad Kasibhatla and Bill Chameides suggest a solution to the conflict between the developed and the developing nations over greenhouse gas emissions.

The developing nations argue, quite reasonably, that developed nations contributed most to the problem of global warming, and have enjoyed most of the benefits, so they should accept most of the responsibility for reducing the offending emissions. The developed nations claim this would subject them to politically and economically unacceptable restrictions and they demand binding targets from the developing nations. The result is an impasse.

Kasibhatla and Bill Chameides suggest an eminently reasonable compromise they call "progressive convergence." Developed countries would agree to make an early start on reductions, and developing countries would agree to never exceed the average per capita emissions of developed countries. Developing nations would be allowed to increase their per capita emissions until they equalled those of the developed nations; thereafter they would be required to match the declining per capita emissions of the developed nations. The result would be nations in sum converging to a declining per capita emission rate. India has already indicated it would be willing to commit to such a scheme.

This approach would still lay a heavy responsibility on the developed nations which some, Canada among them, have indicated little enthusiasm for. However, it is eminently fair and may, therefore, pique the consciences of the malingerers sufficiently to convince them to accept their responsibilities. Well ... we can always dream.

Crime and punishment, with emphasis on the punishment

How stupid, depressing and regressive. That was my reaction to the headline in today's Globe and Mail that read, "Ottawa will expand prisons to suit tough crime laws." The Federal government has doubled its budget for building facilities to incarcerate all those people who will be caught up in its new tough-on-crime approach. A very expensive way to keep Canadians safe.

And not effective. Criminologists seem to agree that longer sentences do little if anything to reduce crime. The real tragedy is that this money could be used effectively if it were applied to compassionate crime-fighting rather than retributive crime-fighting. Apparently about half the offenders in youth detention facilities suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome, and probably a similar number in adult facilities. If this money were used to ensure that all the pregnancies in this country were alcohol-free, crime could be reduced dramatically. Furthermore, considering that most criminals come from dysfunctional homes, if we invested in reducing dysfunctional family life another great slice could be taken out of crime.

If the Conservative government will not be swayed by compassionate arguments, they should at least be amenable to economic ones. Programs that help ensure healthy family life, that help create nourishing environments for infants and young children, have been shown to pay off many times over through reduced expenditures on crime and from the beneficiaries growing up to be working, tax-paying citizens rather than criminals. It costs over $90,000 a year to incarcerate a criminal in Canada. That would go a long way to fund approaches that ensure kids won't become criminals in the first place.

How I would love to see a headline in the morning paper along the lines of "Ottawa will expand programs to reduce fetal alcohol syndrome and family dysfunction." I suspect I will have to wait until Mr. Harper and his vengeful crew are long gone.

Collateral damage ... where does it end?

Doctors in Iraq have recorded a sharp rise in the number of cancer victims south of Baghdad. In the province of Babil, about 500 cases were diagnosed in 2004. Two years later, the figure was almost 1,000. By 2008, it was 7,000 and this year there have been 9,000 cases to date.

Iraqi researchers believe the cancers are caused by radiation. The source of the radiation is a substance first used on the battlefield in the first Gulf war - depleted uranium (DU). The Iraqi people, and American and other military personnel, have been the guinea pigs in an experiment with what was largely an unknown material.

DU is a byproduct of the manufacture of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. The heaviest metal in the world, bullets tipped with it are so tough they can easily slice through tank armour. Unfortunately, when they hit a target, they explode, sending millions of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. These particles can be inhaled, pollute water tables and enter the food chain. Exposure can cause genetic damage even unto the next generation because they easily cross the placenta to the fetus. The U.S. Department of Defense admits that at least 40 tons of DU were left on the battlefields of southern Iraq.

According to nuclear physicist Marion Fulk, because uranium has a natural attraction to phosphorus, it is drawn to the phosphate in the DNA. As it decays, it releases alpha and beta particles with millions of electron volts. When a particle makes this transformation in the human body it releases "huge amounts of energy in the same location doing lots of damage very quickly." The body's master code is altered.

We tend to think of wars ending with negotiations or surrenders. And maybe they do, but the death and suffering can go on for generations.