Will Homo sapiens evolve itself into extinction?

The notion that eventually we will create an artificial intelligence superior to our own has been around for quite a while. Now someone has boldly, perhaps foolishly, predicted a deadline.

Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering. has confidently predicted that computers will be smarter than humans by 2029. Normally I don't take predictions too seriously. I made a living in the oil business for years, largely engaged in forecasting, and if there's one sure thing I learned about predictions is that, within a minute after you've made them, they're wrong. Nonetheless, Kurzwell has impressive qualifications. He has invented world-changing devices, including the first flatbed scanner, the first computer program that could recognize a typeface, and the first text-to-speech synthesizer. He predicted the wide acceptance of the world wide web when it was still just a playground for academics, and he predicted a computer would defeat a world chess champion long before Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov. Furthermore, his employer is busy assembling the greatest artificial intelligence laboratory on the planet.

In any case, if he's right we'll be on our way out in about 15 years. These smart—very smart—machines won't have any need for us. They'll be able to design intelligences (brains) and bodies for specific tasks, intellectually and physically far beyond our capacities, and they'll take over. If we're lucky, they'll keep us around as pets.

So the future doesn't look so dark after all. By 2029 we should have pretty well messed up the planet for us, but we will then be replaced by beings vastly more adaptable to whatever environment we have created. They will also be vastly more suited to leaving this degraded planet behind and setting off for new worlds. They could design perfect space travellers—tiny robots that require trivial resources, can shut down for millennia if necessary, are immune to radiation, etc.—and become intergalactic explorers like we can never hope to be.

I only hope they treat the new worlds they find better than we have treated Earth. Just because they're much more intelligent than us won't necessarily meant they are any wiser. After all, we will be their moral role model.

Andrew Leslie's troubling views on defence policy

Andrew Leslie, former Canadian forces commander in Afghanistan, now adviser to Liberal Party chief Justin Trudeau, has been busy recently defending his $72,000 moving expense, particularly from attack by the Conservatives. Apparently the expense was within appropriate guidelines, so I have no intention of joining in that quibbling.

I am, however, concerned about his views on defence policy, seeing as he has the ear of Mr. Trudeau, possibly Canada's next prime minister, and his views are troubling. Mr. Leslie has been reported as saying, "It's not going to be peacemaking anymore, it's going to be counter-insurgency ... Counter-insurgency will not form the cornerstone of our operations, but it's right in the centre of our spectrum of capabilities we're going to train for."

Putting counter-insurgency at the centre of our capabilities raises a number of red flags for me. To begin with, it smacks of secret operations, and I've had more than enough secret operations from our and our friends' intelligence agencies. I don't need any from our military.

Apparently Leslie believes counter-insurgency is now priority one due to developed countries' concerns about the security threats posed by failed states. That kind of concern tends to be American, the kind of concern that got us into Afghanistan, and I don't want to see any more of that either. It leads to invasions of other peoples' countries, something the Americans just can't seem to quit doing, but then that's the price of empire. There are many things Canada can do, including peacekeeping, to get failed states back on track, things that don't involve killing people.

No doubt counter-insurgency is popular with militarists. It's the glamorous stuff, the Navy Seals and all that, and maybe the machismo will infect Trudeau as well. It was, after all, the Liberals who got us into Afghanistan, and they started by sending in forces from the secretive JTF2 without informing the Canadian public. That was more than enough surreptitious slaughter for me.

Leslie will quite likely play an important role in setting defence policy if the Liberals are elected to government, a policy we know little about. This will bear watching ... closely.

The brutal costs of the World Cup

As the scandal over Vladimir Putin's $50-billion Olympics begins to fade, equally sordid scandals about the World Cup come to the fore.

Brazil, which has won more World Cups than any other country. is holding the Cup this year. To date, things are not going well. Five stadiums scheduled for completion by the end of last year are still under construction. International Football Association (FIFA) President Sepp Blatter said Brazil was further behind schedule than any host since he joined the organization in 1975. Six workers have been killed in stadium construction accidents, four since late November as the deadline pressure accelerates. The waste of lives and money on what are widely seen as white elephants has galvanized street protests that initially had nothing to do with football. "Não vai ter Copa!" (No World Cup) is now commonly chanted at demonstrations.

The loss of life in Brazil is almost trivial compared to the veritable slaughter taking place in preparation for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The deaths of over 400 Nepalese migrant workers have been recorded on Qatar's construction sites and Nepalese make up only 20 per cent of the workforce. The workers, although generally healthy young men, are frequently diagnosed as dying of heart failure, not surprising considering they work 12-hour days in temperatures that can exceed 40C, often without adequate food and water, and are forced to live in squalid, overcrowded quarters with no air-conditioning and overflowing sewage. This in one of the richest countries in the world.

The 2022 World Cup organizing committee has threatened to punish companies who violate workers' welfare and FIFA could yet reassign the venue. The obvious question is why they awarded the Cup to a nation notorious for human rights violations and labour exploitation in the first place. But then these are not criteria for assigning international sports spectacles.

Paying a high price for insulting Mexico

In 2009, our government in its wisdom imposed stringent visa requirements on Mexicans visiting Canada, the harshest on any country. claiming this was necessary to deter increasing numbers of bogus refugee claimants. The complex and intrusive requirements included probing questions about potential visitors' families and their financial histories. The move was, and is, considered an insult by Mexicans and has chilled relations with their country. Mexican ambassador Francisco Suarez has referred to the visa as "a major irritant" that will cast a shadow over the festivities planned for the 2014 celebration of NAFTA's 20th anniversary.

The insult was difficult to understand. Mexico is after all our partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement which was supposed to open the participating countries to each other, not close them off. We do almost $30-billion annually in trade with Mexico. One might think that when dealing with a country that is so important to our economy, we could settle a problem without gratuitous and one-sided impositions.

Nor is it clear why the measure remains in place. Canada has revised its refugee policy since 2009 and a similar visa against Romania has since been removed. The U.S. uses an online system that provides almost immediate travel permission once travelers submit their basic data. It seems ridiculous that we have tougher requirements than the U.S. which has serious border and immigration issues with Mexico.

According to a report from the Canadian Council for Chief Executives, Canada's corporate elite, spending by Mexican tourists in Canada fell from $365-million in 2008 to $200-million in 2012. That's a $165-million a year penalty we are paying for our government's high-handedness.

A few weeks ago, our prime minister led a delegation of dozens of business people (plus a score of rabbis and a dozen preachers) to Israel, a country with which we do piddling trade, yet his government treats Mexico, the fifth largest market for our exports, with disdain. What strange economic idiocy is this?

The human legacy—one of the world's six greatest catastrophes

I was watching with interest the other night Jon Stewart's interview of Elizabeth Kolbert, author of a new book, The Sixth Great Extinction.

There have been five great extinction events in the past 550-million years of multi-celled life on Earth, events in which abnormally large numbers of species die out simultaneously or within a limited time frame. The last, and best known, was the Cretaceous-Tertiary event which wiped out the dinosaurs, caused by a massive comet or meteor striking the Earth 65

million years ago. The cause of some of the others is debated, but we know the cause of the sixth—us. Human activity is having a catastrophic effect on our fellow species.

Stewart's interview had me pondering legacies, not mine I hasten to say, but our species'. Over the great span of geologic time, Homo sapiens will leave a legacy, and what a tragic legacy it is shaping up to be. We are becoming the cause of one of the six greatest die-offs of life on Earth in over half a billion years—a destroyer of worlds.

Yet we are a moral creature and a reasonably intelligent one. One might think such a creature would pause in its activity, and reflect on what it will leave for posterity—its own posterity and the posterity of its home, the planet Earth. But there is little evidence of such reflection. Our leaders are obsessed with growth, of wringing ever more out of the planet and despoiling it in the process.

I have always been an optimist, but I see little room for optimism as I observe the destroyer of worlds march down its awful road. If we don't pause in our obsessions, reflect on our wayward ways, and apply our innate morality to our ambitions, our legacy will be dark indeed.

Our dangerous dependence on the tar sands

It sounds like good news. A new study, "Oil Sands Economic Benefits: Today and in the Future," states that tar sands production supported more than 478,000 direct, indirect and induced Canadian jobs in 2012 and contributed $91-billion of Canada's GDP, an economic contribution greater than that of the province of Saskatchewan. Government revenues in the form of tax receipts and royalties totaled $28-billion, over half going to Ottawa. Furthermore, the study claims that in 2025, the tar sands will provide 753,000 jobs, add $171-billion to the GDP, $61-billion going to the provincial and federal governments.

All of this sounds wonderful indeed, but in fact it is a curse. The tar sands are just too rich. No matter how much harm producing bitumen may do, corporations seeking profits, governments seeking taxes, and workers seeking jobs, just can't say no.

And the harm is immense. First and foremost, the tar sands are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emission in Canada and therefore our fastest growing contributor to global warming, the greatest threat humanity faces.

There are other harms as well, such as the serious harm tar sands production has done to our international reputation. Then there is the danger of becoming increasingly dependent on an industry that could collapse if renewables are developed faster than expected, or if our foreign markets become increasingly reluctant to buy our junk oil. This is a very unhealthy dependency, both morally and economically.

But what can we do? We are hooked. And with the money and the jobs flowing like good beer, no political party is going to turn off the taps. Like every civilization that ever collapsed because of excessive demands on its environment, we have no trouble rationalizing our self-indulgence. Sensible people can only cross their fingers and hope renewables will soon put this nefarious trade out of business. Until then, we will no doubt continue down the dark path of our addiction.

From the Wildrose, an interesting idea

Alberta's Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith has offered what on the surface sounds like a good idea. Her party is proposing the province transfer 10 per cent of all its taxes—personal and corporate income taxes, education tax, tobacco tax and fuel tax—and 10 per cent of any budget surplus, to municipalities to spend as they see fit. In the 2015-16 budget year, Smith says, municipalities would share in nearly $2-billion, $500-million more than they are currently getting.

As cities assume increasingly greater importance relative to  provinces, the debate over revenue-sharing intensifies. With limited taxing powers relative to the senior levels of government, cities must beg their provincial masters for grants for major projects. Consequently, they have long sought stable sources of revenue.

Smith claims the Wildrose plan, termed the Community Infrastructure Transfer, will provide more stable funding than the grant system and precludes municipalities fighting for new taxing powers. The plan will "give municipalities the right to choose their own priorities, with no strings attached, eliminating needless layers of bureaucracy and a patchwork of funding programs."

The Wildrose proposal was no doubt motivated by the party's strong opposition to new taxes at a time when Alberta's cities are seeking just that. The City of Calgary, for example, is looking at over two dozen ways of raising revenues and hopes to adopt some of them if it can negotiate a city charter with the province.

The Community Infrastructure Transfer concept seems a worthy contender for revenue sharing. It at least offers the government and the municipalities a yardstick for their negotiations.

gives municipalities the freedom to choose their own priorities, with no strings attached, eliminating needless layers of bureaucracy and a patchwork of funding programs that play to the whims of the PC MLAs in the Legislature - See more at: http://www.wildrose.ca/press-releases/just-the-facts-wildroses-plan-for-municipalities/#sthash.

Wildrose’s 10-10 plan gives municipalities the freedom to choose their own priorities, with no strings attached, eliminating needless layers of bureaucracy and a patchwork of funding programs that play to the whims of the PC MLAs in the Legislature. - See more at: http://www.wildrose.ca/press-releases/just-the-facts-wildroses-plan-for-

Flaherty bribes automakers—globalization at work

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's $500-million handout to the auto industry has engendered a bit of controversy. Dino Chiodo, president of the union representing hourly workers at Chrysler's Windsor assembly plant, says it isn't enough. Mark Milke of the Fraser Institute says it's way too much, claiming corporate welfare is a bad idea and the money would be better spent on social welfare programs and retraining.

I find myself—and this doesn't happen very often—in agreement with the Fraser Institute's Mr. Milke. At least in theory. In practice, however, Dino Chiodo may very well be right when he says, "If they don't do this, Windsor will be a ghost town."

Mr. Chiodo is simply recognizing the reality of globalization, or at least globalization as we have come to know it. And that is as a system where corporations reign supreme. They have been granted the upper hand over both workers and government. If a government doesn't bribe them generously enough, they move somewhere that has a more amenable government. And more amenable workers. And they are quite prepared to leave a ghost town behind.

Apparently Flaherty's largesse is supposed to be repayable, however as the automakers have the advantage we can't expect the government to be too demanding. Corporate handouts have a checkered history of repayment.

So as much as Flaherty's corporate generosity ticks me off, I have to admit he may be doing the necessary thing to keep jobs in Ontario.

Electoral reform—PR is not a voting system

Observing debates about electoral reform online and elsewhere, I notice one error cropping up consistently: the notion that proportional representation, like first-past-the-post, is a voting system. It isn't, of course. It is a goal, something you try to achieve with your voting system.

They are two different things and the difference is important because one frequently encounters the argument that PR doesn't work well in some country or other—Israel is commonly mentioned—therefore we wouldn't want it here. The problem with this argument is that we would never adopt the Israeli voting system. It is indeed proportional, but it's designed for a homogeneous country and Canada is anything but that.

We have been a nation for almost 150 years and yet we have never seriously asked ourselves what would be the best voting system for the unique society we are. When we created the country, we simply adopted the system at hand, and being born out of the British Empire that was of course first-past-the-post. It was never a good system, particularly for a highly regionalized country, and since 1867 we have become even more regionalized—adding the West, for instance, a highly regionalized place in itself.

It is long past time that we asked ourselves what the most appropriate choice would be, or better yet, how do we tailor-make a system that meets our needs. We might start start by asking just what our needs are. The list would undoubtedly be topped by a system that provided a legislature that satisfied the will of the people. The need for this is exemplified by the current government—a political party that a solid majority of Canadians did not want running the government is doing exactly that. That may be electoral but it isn't democratic. The number one priority, therefore, would indeed be a system that provided proportional representation.

Other goals would include answering to our highly regionalized nature and providing equal representation for women (women make up half our population but only 22 per cent of the House of Commons).

Once we established what a truly Canadian voting system would require, we could then create it. But to do that we have to keep systems and goals separate.

Is the CRA reacting to political pressure?

Not being a conspiracy theorist and having great faith in the integrity of our civil servants, I find it hard to believe that the current spate of audits of environmental organizations by the Canada Revenue Agency is a result of pressure from the Harper government. Yet the pressure is substantial.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty recently warned, “If I were an environmental charity using charitable money, tax-receipted money for political purposes, I would be cautious," which sounds rather like a threat. Regarding suggestions that changing rules for charities could be seen as a way to silence critics of the government, he replied, “If the critics of the government are terrorist organizations and organized crime, I don’t care.” One wonders into which category he places environmental groups.

radical ideological agenda

radical ideological agenda

other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project - See more at: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Environment/2012/01/09/Environmentalists_other_radical_groups/#sthash.4e4jtryB.dpuf

Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver has been more explicit. Referring to environmentalists as radicals, he claimed they wanted to stop every major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families and wanted to hijack the regulatory system in order to pursue their "radical ideological agenda."

Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.

These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.

- See more at: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Environment/2012/01/09/Environmentalists_other_radical_groups/#sthash.FydZEDVl.dpuf

Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.

These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.

- See more at: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Environment/2012/01/09/Environmentalists_other_radical_groups/#sthash.FydZEDVl.dpuf

Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.

These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.

- See more at: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Environment/2012/01/09/Environmentalists_other_radical_groups/#sthash.FydZEDVl.dpuf

As for the Prime Minister, his enemies list is infamous and environmentalists are no doubt at the top. And then there's the fact some of the audits were scheduled after complaints by an organization founded by the PMO's director of issues management.

Quite aside from political influence, the government in effect paid the CRA to pursue environmentalists. In its 2012 budget, it allocated $8-million for the agency to take a closer look at environmental charities and their political activities.

All this is a lot of pressure to resist. So even though the agency is unlikely to take orders from their political masters, when the PM and two of his most powerful ministers are making their wishes known, and that PM is the most controlling in the nation's history, and the government even provides a not so subtle financial hint, the CRA would be less than human not to lean a bit in the right direction. At a time when the government is cutting the budgets of any agency that doesn't contribute to the tar sands mission, it wouldn't be prudent for any civil servants to look like they don't want to be on the team.

Supporting Keystone is supporting the Kochs

Criticism of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline focuses, understandably, on the threat it poses to the environment, both in its construction and in its enabling more production from the tar sands. Too often overlooked is the political mischief that approval will contribute to.

According to an article in the CCPA Monitor, "Petroleum Coke from Oil Refineries Polluting the Atmosphere," the pipeline will provide the infamous Koch brothers with a potential $100-billion in profits. Charles and David Koch are aptly described by Rolling Stone magazine as "oil-and-gas billionaires ready to buy any congressman, fund any lie, fight any law, bust any union, despoil any landscape, or shirk any (tax) burden to push their free-market religion and pump up their profits." They are also major players in the tar sands from production in Alberta to refining in Minnesota and Texas.

They are most notorious for funding attacks on climate science and attempting to muzzle the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Their political activities include funding Republican candidates and a maze of right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups (including the Tea Party movement). Nor is their politicking confined to the States. They have, for example, been generous contributors to our very own Fraser Institute.

The idea of reprobates like the Koch brothers making billions more to help them pursue their dangerous agenda would be enough in itself to make me oppose Keystone. However, the environmental implications are quite sufficient.

The Senate as citizens' assembly?

The best idea I've seen yet about what to to do with our constitutional albatross, the Senate, short of abolishing it, appeared in a recent issue of The Tyee. The article suggests random selection of "ordinary citizens to sit as senators for a limited period of time (perhaps one or two years)." The authors suggest that "with proper support and access to expert opinion, ordinary citizens can tackle complex policy problems. A randomly selected Senate would produce an assembly that is representative of the Canadian population in all its diversity."

The Tyee is talking about a citizens' assembly chosen by lot, a system of direct democracy known as sortition. Sortition was used extensively by the Athenian Greeks who had a certain distrust of elections. It is in fact more democratic than elections and a great deal more representative than the current Senate, or the House of Commons for that matter. 

Free of any grip of party loyalty, allowed to deal with their fellow participants on an equal, open, intimate and informal basis, participants in an assembly are willing to allow the heartfelt views of others to influence their own. The competitive, adversarial nature of conventional party politics is sharply reduced. By bringing people of all sorts together, assemblies create a more consensual, inclusive democracy as opposed to the hostile, partisan, macho democracy of party politics. In effect, they take the “politics” out of decision-making.

With the participants brought together as equals, assemblies eliminate social and financial inequality. The CEO of a large corporation sits down with the welfare mother; they can get to know each other and understand each other’s views and problems. They can conclude the issues under discussion while building bridges for the future. They escape the isolation that leads to people obsessing on their own world views, constantly reinforcing their own prejudices.

Particularly important in assemblies is the dialogue between participants. Good talk—vigorous, well-informed conversation, especially debate with those whose views differ from one’s own—remains a major ingredient of healthy democracy. It not only ensures better decision-making, it engenders respect for other views and refines the art of compromise. It offers the possibility of a politics of shared goals rather than a politics of angry difference.

There are two essentials for a sound assembly: random selection to ensure that the assembly is truly the people in microcosm, and mandatory attendance to ensure all the people are heard. Selection would still be distorted by Senate constitutional requirements such as regional representation, so unfortunately perfection would elude us.

Citizens would be selected like juries are now, providing a constant rotation. Every citizen would share the prospect of becoming a senator. The possibility would keep people on their democratic toes and create a more aware and confident citizenry. And the sober second thought the Senate was designed to provide would be provided by the people themselves.

Prostitution—keeping the state out of our bedrooms

"There's no place for the state," a prime minister once said, "in the bedrooms of the nation." I hope Justice Minister Peter MacKay and his colleagues keep that sage advice in mind as they draft our new prostitution laws. The state's primary responsibility, indeed one might almost say the purpose of the state, is safeguarding the security of its citizens. However, because prostitution is about sex, governments often find it hard to resist morality-infused legislation to govern it, but resist they should.

If one consenting adult is willing to sell sex, and another consenting adult is willing to buy it, and they aren't bothering anyone else, then it's no one else's business, including the state's. The government should confine its legislation to ensuring that people engaging in this perfectly legal activity can do so safely.

As for moral objections to the trade, logically it is hard to defend the notion that selling sex is a bad thing. Sex in itself is quite a good thing—an essential part of life and one of its more enjoyable gifts. Those who believe selling it is a sin should not buy or sell it, but they should not expect those who do to submit to their moral prescriptions.
 
Of course it is thoroughly wrong for women to be coerced into the profession by dysfunctional family life, poverty, drugs or white slavery, and these pressures should be dealt with through appropriate legal and social measures. No one should be forced into a business against their will. But it is also quite possible a woman (or man) may simply be making a rational economic choice. If a woman can make twenty dollars an hour as a grocery clerk or two hundred dollars an hour as a call girl, choosing the latter is eminently reasonable.

Critics of the profession attempt to demean it by accusing prostitutes of selling their bodies. In fact, they don't sell their bodies anymore than hockey players sell their bodies. Both exploit their bodies to provide a service, and in both cases they are well-paid for the service.

Workplace safety is a common focus of legislation. The Supreme Court has clearly stated that sex workers deserve safe workplaces no less than other workers, and if the new law can ensure that, it will do its job. The sex trade should then be left to go about its business.

Speak up for science

Our federal government's lamentable attitude to science, or at least any science that doesn't benefit business, is one of its key features. Nonetheless, Industry Canada is giving us a chance to comment on science and technology policy by inviting responses tn a "Consultation Paper." This is your chance to offer your comments on how our policy should develop.

You can read the paper and then write up your suggestions and email them in to the address provided or, if you would prefer an easier route, you can take advantage here of the message Evidence for Democracy has composed.

Will it do any good? Probably not. The government is focused on science and technology that creates jobs and growth to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, and that won't change. However, maybe if enough progressives make their views known, the government will be deflected just a little toward science designed to stimulate innovation in the public interest as well as in the private sector, science designed to benefit the environment, public transport, health care, social services, and so on. And of course science designed simply to expand our knowledge, the kind of science that leads to the big breakthroughs. We might even encourage our government to facilitate an easy flow of information between scientists, citizens and parliamentarians in order to stimulate highly-informed discussion and debate on science and related issues.

OK, so I'm getting carried away, but other than a few minutes to compose an email to Minister Rickford, what can you lose?

Wealth gap—the greatest ever?

A couple of items I encountered recently demonstrated perfectly the extremes of the now much talked about wealth gap. First, was a report by Oxfam entitled "Working for the Few" which revealed that the world's richest 85 people own as much wealth as the poorest 3.5-billion, a staggering statistic.

At the other end of the scale, a recent Guardian article nicely illustrated the title of the Oxfam report. It discussed the living conditions of the migrant construction workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Last year, at least 185 Nepalese men alone died, over half from some kind of heart failure, which may seem odd for healthy young men but not when you consider they work 12-hours days in temperatures that can top 40C. Figures for the death rates of Indian, Pakistani Sri Lankan and other workers have yet to emerge. In addition to the appalling working conditions, the men live in squalid, overcrowded accommodation.

There is nothing new about a tiny group of the filthy rich living off the sweat of the masses. This is the story of human civilization. Nonetheless, it seems hard to believe that in these advanced times, the gap between rich and poor may be the widest ever. It is hard to imagine workers ever toiling in such lowly conditions as the labourers in Qatar while the richest man who ever lived is with us today—Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire.

Slim's fortune relies heavily on his monopoly over Mexico's telecommunications market, a stranglehold that neatly allows him to transfer money from the poor and middle class to himself. According to the OECD his monopoly, which he obtained largely through political connections, costs Mexican consumers over $13-billion a year excess for phone and internet services.

The rich live opulently while the poor die miserably, building our sports palaces—a story that stains the modern era.

Crime—a criminal justice problem or a health problem?

Place your finger on your forehead, just above the eyebrows toward the right side. It is now within centimetres of your conscience. Our conscience is not, as long thought, a theological abstraction, but is in fact an organ resident in our skulls. Furthermore, it can be measured and observed in action through brain-scanning techniques.

Our moral compass lies in our orbitofrontal cortex and in its communication with other structures in the brain. Here lies our social intelligence, our emotional regulation, our impulse control—our conscience. If the orbitofrontal cortex and associated regions are damaged, or if our neuronal communications are malfunctioning, we are unable to properly regulate our emotions and reactions; our behaviour may be inappropriate, even antisocial, even criminal.

According to the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, “Case studies as far back as 1835 have reported the onset of antisocial personality traits after frontal lobe injury. Such cases typically involve damage to the orbitofrontal cortex, which clinical observation has associated with ‘poor impulse control, explosive aggressive outbursts, inappropriate verbal lewdness, jocularity, and lack of interpersonal sensitivity.’”

This is intriguing but not surprising. We might expect that people who engage in antisocial behaviour would have different brains. The question is what we should do about it. The traditional answer is to label the more antisocial behaviour “crime” and subject its perpetrators to the criminal justice system.

But is this just? After all, no one chooses to have an abnormal brain. Whether the abnormality is the result of faulty genes, fetal alcohol syndrome, infant or child abuse, or head injury, the victim does not choose his or her fate. Is it just to punish someone for something over which they have no control?

We must always, of course, protect the public. And for more serious crimes, that will mean incarceration, but perhaps it's time to start thinking about incarceration less as a punishment and more as a form of quarantine in the same way we sequester people with contagious diseases. People with impaired brains have, after all, already been punished.

Unfortunately, We do not yet know how to repair a damaged conscience. We are a long way from abandoning the criminal justice system. All we can offer at this time is early diagnosis and therapy—empathic approaches rather than punitive ones. Nonetheless, our knowledge is steadily increasing. We are already recognizing that we can prevent much crime by reducing the incidences of fetal alcohol syndrome and infant and child abuse—healthy pregnancies and healthy infancies produce healthy brains. Drug and psychological therapies, even electronic implants, hold promise that one day we will be able to repair a malfunctioning conscience, perhaps even cure a serial killer.

As we gain ever greater knowledge of the brain, aberrant behaviour may eventually be considered more a health problem than a crime problem, and crime considered more a symptom than a sin. The very idea of punishment may become obsolete.

Inheritance—the ultimate free lunch

Watching Jon Stewart the other night brilliantly satirizing American right-wingers' laments about the poor exploiting social justice programs for a "free lunch," I was disappointed that he failed to mention the greatest free lunch of them all.

Ironically, while "there's no free lunch" is one of our favourite expressions, down through history most land, property and political power has been gained not by merit, not by the sweat of one's brow, but by that magnificent free lunch known as inheritance. The recipients of the great part of society's wealth and power have long been benefactors of nothing more than being born into the right family. In the case of diverse kings, aristocrats, and inheritors of great fortunes the largesse has been more banquet than lunch.

Since the Industrial Revolution, merit has increasingly replaced inheritance as the primary vehicle for obtaining both wealth and power, but the free banquet is still of great importance. Much of this country's asset base continues to lie in the hands of heirs. And even though political power is now gained primarily by merit through the democratic process, wealth has retained much influence. In the United States, great wealth has produce political dynasties such as the Roosevelts, the Kennedys and the Bushes. Power still flows through blood as well as the ballot.

Nor does wealth have to run for office to have its way. Politicians who are not rich often must genuflect to the rich to succeed. One of K.C. Irving's sons once told a premier of New Brunswick, "My father's never lost a New Brunswick election in his life." Old K.C. never ran for office but he was the richest man in the province and that was as good as being premier. And we are all familiar with ambitious British politicians pandering to press lord Rupert Murdoch and American presidential aspirants pandering to Wall Street for the funding without which they would never set foot in the White House.

We are curiously ambivalent about someone getting something for nothing. We don’t approve of it for the poor. If we must provide charity to keep them off the streets, we will, but sparingly and only until we can wean them off of it. We are concerned about the harm that handouts may due to their characters.

Yet we have no concern about the damage that inheritance, the most lavish handout of all, does to the characters of the rich. If we were as concerned about their characters as we are about those of the poor, and if we really believed merit should determine success in gaining either wealth or power, i.e. if we believed people should earn their rewards, we would be more determined to wean the rich off the free banquet than the poor off the free lunch.

Capitalism—an irrational system in an age of climate change

Capitalism is generally recognized as having one great strength. That, of course, is as a creator of wealth. Aided by the remarkable advance of technology (some would say inspired and facilitated by capitalism) it has created wealth unknown before in human history.

Capitalism is also generally recognized as having one great weakness. It is a lousy distributor of wealth. Indeed, that goes against its basic nature which is to accumulate. It is based on greed, not altruism.

In order to balance these two characteristics, to ensure that all would benefit from the wealth generated, Western countries invented the welfare state, one of the greatest of human social inventions. Capitalism would create the wealth and the welfare state would distribute it—a just and sensible balance. The rising tide of wealth would raise everyone's financial boat. However, the system is now breaking down. The rising tide is no longer raising everyone's boat, indeed it is raising increasingly fewer boats, and with globalization, capitalism has escaped the nation state and therefore the moderating influence of the welfare state.

And there is an even bigger problem. At a time when we are polluting the planet to the point of changing its climate while simultaneously exhausting its resources, a system committed to endless accumulation is no longer rational.

Simple good sense demands an economic system designed to fit comfortably within the limits of both the environment and the Earth's resources. Fortunately such a system is readily available—co-operation. Co-ops are tried and true economic vehicles, functioning with great success at local, national and international levels. A global economy based on co-operation, with our fellow global citizens and our environment, could escape the rat race of competitive capitalism that is compromising the health of the planet. And, as the icing on the cake, co-op's one member/one vote structure offers equality and democracy to workers and consumer/owners alike, unlike the plutocratic one share/one vote of capitalist enterprises.

Those who persist in defending capitalism must explain how it can be curbed to adapt to a world facing runaway pollution and resource exhaustion, particularly that it has now broken the leash of the nation state. If they can't, they have nothing to offer.

Mr. Harper's pilgrimage to Israel—more Canterbury Tales than trade mission

Trade missions have always been questionable vehicles for boosting the Canadian economy. Nonetheless, some can be justified by, if nothing else, the trade potential of the host country. For example, Jean Chrétien's Team Canada mission to China in 2011. China is now our second most important trading partner and the world's largest market. Huge potential there.

But Israel? Israel is a minor trading partner and offers but a small market. Yet our government is sponsoring a 208-strong mission led by our PM and including advisers, press secretaries, cabinet ministers, MPs, senators, chief executives of Canadian companies, lobbyists, RCMP security staff, various bureaucrats, members of the press, a priest and 21 rabbis. This motley assortment of travelers, particularly the priest and the rabbis, suggest the tour is more pilgrimage than trade mission, more Canterbury Tales than Team Canada.

This occasions no surprise given the Prime Minister's evangelical support of Israel. His justification of Israel's invasion of Gaza in 2008 in which 1.400 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians including some 300 children, as an "appropriate response" was as Old Testament as it was distasteful.

Most of the expense for the pilgrimage will be picked up by Canadian taxpayers, some of whom
will no doubt object to paying for Mr. Harper's spiritual adventures. Faith-based trade policy is not in the best interests of Canada, nor is faith-based foreign policy.

Our 150th birthday bash ... all about war

If there was any remaining doubt that the Conservative government has a militaristic view of history, check out Canada 150, the website for Canada's 150th anniversary. Note that the only subject with its own heading is "World War Commemorations." Then click on the "Road to 2017" and peruse the milestones. You will discover that out of 22 milestones listed, over 40 per cent commemorate war.

Apparently this does not reflect the interests revealed by Canadian Heritage-commissioned focus groups on the Canada 150 logo. TNS Canadian Facts, who conducted the research, reported, "From the words that people chose to describe this event, it is clear that the communications should focus on the celebration of Canada’s diversity and multiculturalism as a country, as well as appeal to the younger generation as much as possible." As for the younger generation, I counted only two milestones that originated after WWII. An extensive study by the Canadian Capital Cities Organization that included a Facebook campaign, an online survey and cross-country consultations seemed to agree with the focus groups. The words "mosaic" and "multicultural" came up repeatedly. Acknowledging First Nations treaties and contributions also came up frequently (incredibly, the government's milestones ignore the signing of the treaties, some of the largest peaceful land transfers in history).

Nor do the government's milestones mention Medicare and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, arguably the two most important Canadian achievements post-WWII, not only in themselves but in the fact that they are "live" history; they continue to affect us today in critical ways and will continue to do so well into the future, unlike the "dead" history of names, dates and old battles.

An informal online survey by the CBC had "Confederation and events of 1867" and "1982 constitution and charter" as the two most popular of the seven choices offered with "Canada's wartime contributions" and "past political leaders" least popular. The latter two provided most of the government's milestones.

The government's choices show a disturbing lack of generosity for any interests other than those which strongly appeal to Conservatives, particularly to their maximum leader. Most problematically, they represent a re-writing of history.

So, if the Conservatives still form the government in 2017, and the government's milestones are a sample of things to come, our 150th birthday celebration will be a very military exercise.

Religious persecution on the rise

The Pew Research Center recently published a study of religious persecution over the period 2007-12 and the results aren't pretty. Of 198 countries and territories included in the study, 29 per cent had high or very high government restrictions on religion and 33 per cent had high or very high social hostilities involving religion. Egypt had the highest level of government restrictions and Pakistan the highest level of social hostilities. Over the period, religious hostilities increased in every major region of the world except the Americas.

Religious minorities suffered abuse in forty-seven per cent of the countries for acts perceived as offensive or threatening to the majority faith, and in 39 per cent of the countries threats or violence were used to compel people to adhere to religious norms.

Women were harassed over religious dress in a third of the countries, and religion-related mob violence occurred in a quarter. About a fifth of the countries suffered religion-related terrorism and sectarian violence.

In 2012, the top five countries for very high social hostilities involving religion were Pakistan, India, Somalia, Israel and Iraq. The top five for very high government restrictions on religion were Egypt, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Also in 2012, the Middle East and North Africa saw both the highest levels of social hostilities and of government restrictions.

Government restrictions and social hostilities didn't necessarily coincide. For example, Jews faced social harassment in many more countries than they faced government harassment, whereas Sikhs faced government harassment in more countries than they faced hostility by groups or individuals.

That discrimination and hostility are occurring because of religion, either by or to members of various faiths, isn't surprising—bigotry and violence have always followed religion around. The extent surprises me, however, as does the fact that, in recent years at least, it is increasing.

World Economic Forum backs the Pope on economic inequality

Every year the World Economic Forum hosts a confab of the world's elite at the Swiss resort of Davos to discuss the state of the world. The Forum is funded by its 1,000 member companies, global enterprises who play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry or region. As this year's meeting rapidly approaches, the Forum has announced that the greatest threat to the global economy in the coming years is the gap between the rich and the poor.

On reading that, I immediately thought about the similarity of the pronouncement to the words of Pope Francis in his recent attack on the evils of unfettered capitalism. "Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world," said the Pope, "This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting."

These words earned him a torrent of abuse from the political right, including accusations that he was a Marxist. His response, "The Marxist ideology is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended," didn't help.

But what is the right to say now that an association of the world's leading capitalists appears to agree with him? With both the religious and corporate elites onside, it would seem that the argument about inequality is settled for conservatives, at least rational ones. The prevailing inequality in the world is a grave threat both morally and economically. Case closed.

The Conservatives turn on PR

It's not that all Conservatives are opposed to proportional representation. Senator Hugh Segal is onside and Conservative MPs Peter Braid, Stephen Woodworth and Scott Reid have presented Fair Vote Canada petitions to the House of Commons on behalf of their constituents.

Even Stephen Harper complained about our electoral system in a 1996 essay entitled "Our Benign Dictatorship" he co-authored with Tom Flanagan. "First-past-the-post voting encourages parties to engage in a war of attrition," he wrote, "Although we like to think of ourselves as living in a mature democracy, we live, instead, in something little better than a benign dictatorship." But that was then. Now Mr. Harper is the dictator and has put PR on his enemies list.

A Conservative pamphlet declares "Conservatives say NO to proportional representation" and suggests that it is to be rejected equally with Tom Mulcair and Elizabeth May. The pamphlet claims that "Our country was founded on the principle of Equality of Ridings first and foremost." This will come as a surprise to historians. Democracy, of course, is about the equality of citizens, not the equality of jurisdictions.

That the Conservatives should be frightened of PR is hardly surprising. If we had a fair voting system, truly representative of the Canadian electorate, a party that couldn't quite get 40 per cent popular support would never have been able to unilaterally form a majority government. In his essay, Harper prophetically stated, "Our parliamentary government creates a concentrated power structure out of step with other aspects of society." He has, it seems, decided to prove the truth of his own words.

The tar sands—our climate change nemesis

While Neil Young very publicly feuds with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and its ally the Canadian government, tar sands production continues to systematically advance Alberta's position as the country's pollution province. Already producing more greenhouse gasses than Ontario, despite having less than 30 per cent of its population, tar sands expansion will have it producing almost 80 per cent more than Ontario by 2030.

This will not surprise anyone but what may is that according to Canada's Sixth National Report on Climate Change, without tar sands production Alberta would be responsible for about the same emissions as Ontario. Furthermore, those emissions would actually shrink despite population growth. With tar sands production, on the other hand, emissions will increase by 40 per cent from 2005 to 2030.

The report predicts emissions will fall in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Quebec over that same period. Tragically, increased emissions from the tar sands will overwhelm the achievements of the other provinces.

Neil Young's arguments may occasionally slip into hyperbole, but his voice is nonetheless the voice of sanity. Albertans, and Canadians, will never meet their climate responsibility to the international community as long as they indulge in bitumen production.

Is Harper Americanizing our Supreme Court?

When I first heard about Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati's challenge of the federal government's appointment of Justice Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court, I had little interest, thinking this was just some esoteric legal matter that had little meaning to us laymen. But the more it I learn about it, particularly listening to the views of various legal experts, the more I begin to think Galati hit on something of great importance that many of us missed.

There is, for instance, the matter of Nadon's qualifications. According to constitutional expert Bruce Ryder of York University's Osgoode Hall, "He's a very accomplished person, but there are better qualified people, particularly on the Quebec Court of Appeal." And then there's the potential problem of the semi-retired Nadon assuming the onerous burden of Supreme Court duties.

And to this the haste in putting him on the bench, only 72 hours from the announcement of his nomination to his appointment. University of Ottawa law professor and former Supreme Court clerk Adam Dodek suggests that the vetting process, conducted by a committee of MPs, was "too narrow, too shallow and it was far too quick."

But these problems, and for that matter the obvious ideological cast of the appointment, shouldn't in themselves disqualify the man. Of greater importance is whether or not his distance from the practice of Quebec's unique form of law (he hasn't practiced in the province for 23 years) defeats the spirit of the constitutional requirement for Quebec's three representatives. Then there's the questions of whether his appointment meets the criteria set in the Supreme Court Act and whether the government has the right to unilaterally change the Act.

This latter it did with a legislative hustle that has become all too characteristic of this government. It inserted two clauses amending the Act in its 2013 omnibus budget bill. It was this little trick that first raised my suspicions.

One of these clauses specifies that a candidate who has "at any time" worked as a lawyer or judge with Quebec's civil code qualifies as a Quebec representative to the Court, thus qualifying Nadon. University of Montreal professor Paul Daly claims that if Parliament is permitted to make such "sweeping changes" to the nature of the institution, "it could pack the Supreme Court of Canada with sympathetic jurists" and even "do away with the requirement that appointees to the court be lawyers" or indeed abolish the Court altogether.

Suddenly the issue doesn't appear to be so innocuous. Is our Prime Minister intending to model our Court after the American institution, a repository of political partisans? Or is he trying to undermine an institution he doesn't much care for? Or does he just not consider the Court worth wasting valuable time on?

The Supremes have heard the arguments pro and con re the government's position and have now reserved their decision. I will await it with considerable interest.

The folly of aping U.S. emissions policy

Our federal government's policy on greenhouse gas emissions is simple: whatever the United States' policy on greenhouse gas emissions is. And that means a target of reducing emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 to 2020. But, as the Pembina Institute pointed out this week, there is a very large fly in that particular ointment. And the fly is that the two countries have very different emissions profiles.

The biggest challenge for the U.S. in meeting its goal is power emissions, particularly from coal-fired electricity. President Obama recognizes this and is committed to regulating new and existing facilities in that sector, and has directed the Environmental Protection Agency to do just that. Once Obama’s climate plan goes into effect, the U.S. should have a reasonable chance of achieving its 2020 goal.

But Canada's major challenge to meeting the goal is oil and gas sector emissions, particularly from tar sands production. So does our government have a plan to deal with oil and gas sector emissions? Not according to Prime Minister Harper. His government is—you guessed it—waiting on "our major trading partner." The problem is that the oil and gas sector being a much less important part of their emissions profile, the Americans are proceeding at a rather leisurely pace in imposing regulations. And of course they don't have a tar sands sector so they will never write emission regulations for bitumen production. Waiting to match the U.S. targets in this sector could mean a very long wait indeed.

In summary, the Americans are dealing with their biggest emissions problem and we are not. And then there is the further unfortunate fact that we are already way behind in meeting the 2020 target. We are lost, folks, we are lost.

Iraq—an Al-Qaeda playground

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The U.S. and its coalition of the willing invaded Iraq with the justification that it had weapons of mass destruction and Saddam was conspiring with al-Qaeda to use them. The country had to be cleansed of both. But of course there were neither WMDs nor al-Qaeda to be cleansed. So how ironic, and profoundly tragic for the Iraqis, that the country has now become a hotbed of al-Qaeda activity.

Violence in Iraq is growing every year, with 8,868 victims of sectarian killings last year, ninety per cent of them civilians. The violence escalates as the Shia-led government cracks down on Sunnis and the Sunnis respond with revenge attacks against the Shia.

All this is grist to the al-Qaeda mill. According to Iraq Body Count, a British-based NGO, "Al-Qaeda in Iraq has found fertile ground in all this discontent and has attacked the Iraqi government … by killing members of its army, its police forces, its politicians and journalists, as well as its Shia population. The last six months have seen the massacres of entire families as they sleep or travel to a holy place."

The Americans and their friends took the lid off the cauldron of sectarian hate and then left. And the prime beneficiary, in a textbook case of unintended consequences, is al-Qaeda.


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The Americans love us

Everyone likes to be liked and, boy, do our southern neighbours like us. A recent Pew Research Center survey reveals that of all the countries in the world, we are the Americans' favourite. Eighty-one per cent have a favourable opinion of us.

Oddly, Americans are not so well disposed toward their other neighbour. Only 39 per cent have a favourable opinion of Mexico. Yet Americans visit Mexico far more than any other country, over two million visits a year compared to second-choice Canada with 12.5- million visits. Another surprising result of the survey was that both Germany and Japan are much more popular with Americans than Israel, one of their closest friends. As might be expected, it is more of a favourite with Republicans than Democrats.

Not surprising, only a third of Americans look favourably upon China and Russia although, fortunately, only a small minority see them as adversaries. One country that is not much liked at all is Saudi Arabia. Despite its excessive influence with the U.S. government, barely a quarter of Americans have a positive view of that unpleasant dictatorship.

But they love us. Kind of makes you feel all warm and fuzzy doesn't it?

Afghanistan—the mother of all unpopular wars

There are unpopular wars, and then there are really, really unpopular wars. The Afghan war falls overwhelmingly into the latter category. According to a CNN/ORC International survey released this week, 90 per cent of Americans supported the war in early 2002, now 82 per cent oppose it.

This dramatic change in opinion is not confined to the U.S. Over 70 per cent of Brits supported the war in 2002, falling to 30 per cent by 2008. Similarly in Canada, support collapsed from 70 per cent to 35 per cent by 2010.

The rationale for Canadian participation was always muddy. While Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham was touting our role as "quintessentially Canadian ... helping to rebuild a troubled country," Chief of Defense Staff Rick Hillier was blustering about killing scumbags and bragging, "We are the Canadian forces and our job is to kill people." Prime Minister Paul Martin later said, "I had no sense that it was war. ... Our purpose was reconstruction." Stephen Harper’s first Defense Minister, Gordon O’Connor, suggested  the war was about “retribution” for the 9/11 attacks.

All this confusion wasn't surprising when our real reason, which no one in government would admit, was to placate the Americans for our failure to join the coalition of the willing in Iraq. Even Prime Minister Harper was sounding distinctly skeptical as our combat role wound down.

Yet it doesn't seem all that long ago that he and Peter MacKay were visiting the troops and puffing themselves up in flak jackets á la George W. Bush. Now they, and we, seem to be quietly forgetting the whole thing. I imagine a lot of Americans would like to do the same.

My persons of 2013

If Time Magazine can choose a person of the year, I can choose two: a man and a woman.

The woman, of course, is Malala Yousafzai, the courageous young Pakistani champion of education. Malala started speaking out—blogging actually—about education at the tender age of 11. In 2012, she paid a horrific price for her advocacy. Sentenced to death by the Taliban, she was shot in the head by a young extremist.

But she survived and has turned the tragedy into an opportunity to proclaim the good word for education to an international audience. She has become the world's most prominent advocate for girls' education, indeed for education and women's rights generally, and her courage, resiliency and charm have done more to undermine the cause of the religious fanatics than all the violence waged against them. She has exposed their message as the shriveled residue of barbaric misogyny that it is.

My man of choice is Edward Snowden. Time chose the Pope and it was a good choice of a good man. He is after all the leader of a community with 1.2-billion members, and he does seem to be turning the Church in a more humane direction. Snowden's accomplishment was of quite a different order. He has given the world a forceful reminder of the dangerous partnership of power and secrecy by exposing the Orwellian mischief of his country's National Security Agency and its allies.

The Agency, ostensibly protecting the nation's security, has in fact run amok. It has collected the calling records of millions of its own citizens, tracked mobile phone users around the world, listened in to the democratically-elected leaders of its allies, spied on oil companies and energy ministries, attacked private encryption systems, and tapped into fiber-optic lines used by companies such as Google and Yahoo. And it has had the full co-operation of its Canadian colleagues. Big Brother is indeed watching.

We know about these excesses only because of Edward Snowden. We owe the man a very big thank you.

I doff my tuque to these two remarkable people and their remarkable deeds.

Christmas? I do Xmas

One of the traditions of the holiday season is lamenting about the corruption of Christmas by commercialization or by foreign cultures that have invaded our pristine Christian shores. I have always been amused by these complaints, first because in my family's tradition, Christianity has never intruded on our celebration and second, Christmas has scrounged most of its traditions from a variety of quite unChristian cultures.

Before Christianity existed, festivals celebrating the winter solstice were common among European pagans. Merry-making helped pass the long, cold nights and the solstice, the resurrection of the sun, promised brighter days and warmer weather to come. Many of our customs came from festivals such as the Roman's Saturnalia—lights, greenery, feasting and drinking, singing, gift-giving, yule logs, and others. Christmas, you might say, is much older than Christianity.

More customs will no doubt be added from diverse sources as Christmas is increasingly celebrated globally, including in countries not of the Christian faith. The holiday has a strong secular past and a strong secular future—a festival for everyone. Thus has my family always enjoyed it and its traditions, whether derived from pagans or Christians, a secular holiday better identified as Xmas than Christmas.

Regardless of how or what you celebrate, I wish you a Merry Whatever and the best of prospects in the New Year.

Rebuilding the American middle class

When you consider that the United States is the richest country in the world, the state of its working class is shocking.

The country now has the highest proportion of low-wage workers in the developed world. Fifty-two percent of fast-food workers’ families receive public assistance in an industry that last year earned $7.44 billion in profits. McDonald’s workers alone receive $1.2 billion in welfare every year. One Wisconsin Wal-Mart costs American taxpayers at least $1-million a year in public assistance to workers’ families even though six members of the Walton clan, owners of Wal-Mart, are as wealthy as 48 million Americans combined. Another Wal-Mart organized a charitable food drive for its low-paid employees, and McDonald's suggested employees sell possessions on eBay to raise money for Xmas.

One in three bank tellers receives public assistance, despite working in one of the country's most profitable and privileged industries. Sixty percent of able-bodied, adult, food-stamp recipients are employed. Since 2000, the American middle class has shrunk in size, suffering reduced income and wealth. Income inequality is the largest since before the Great Depression.

This wasn't always the case, of course. At one time, most American workers were consumers who could afford everything they needed and a lot of stuff they didn't. They were the envy of the Western World. This elevated status didn't come about by accident. At the turn of the twentieth century, they were working for little more than subsistence wages, rather like so many are today. What happened was organized labour. Collective bargaining and union wages transformed low-wage workers into a middle class.

Corporate power and globalization are now transforming that middle class back into a subsistence workforce. Organized labour, like the welfare state, is confined to national borders, but corporations now operate globally. And American corporations are doing just that, shipping millions of high-paying, blue-collar, union jobs off to China, safe from the democratizing influence of organized labour. Those jobs have been largely replaced by retail jobs—including the infamous "McJobs" of the fast food industry.

At one time, these jobs were held largely by students earning pocket money or a little something extra to help with their education. But now, many people are faced with relying on these jobs full-time for life (the average age of low-income workers is 35). Part-time jobs have become careers. Unorganized, they are isolated and entirely at the mercy of their employers, and that means what it always has—they will struggle to get by while their employers enjoy incomes that can only be described as opulent.

American workers, however, are no longer accepting this one-sided arrangement quietly. They are fighting back. This year, fast-food workers in dozens of cities across the U.S. engaged in demonstrations, work-stoppages and strikes demanding a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour, paid sick leave and the right to unionize.

A dramatic increase in the minimum wage would be a huge help for low-income workers, but the only long-term guarantee of fair treatment in their workplaces is a union. Rebuilding the American middle class means rebuilding the American labour movement. Just as organizing blue collar workers a century ago made the American middle class, organizing service workers today is the means of rebuilding the American middle class.

And this is something Canadians need to watch closely. Our unions, too, have been under assault and low-wage work is becoming more of a standard here as well. If we want to maintain our middle class, we had best defend our unions.

Producing the wrong oil?

The Joint Review Panel has ruled on the viability of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and the result is as expected. The panel, established by the National Energy Board and the federal environment minister, has determined that the pipeline, which would carry bitumen from Alberta's tar sands to the B.C. coast for tanker export, would be in Canada's best interests and has recommended it subject to conditions. The federal government will now almost certainly approve the project. It cannot change the 209 conditions required by the panel arbitrarily; however, it can ask the National Energy Board to change them.

What the panel did not do is deal with the real issue, and that of course is the folly of producing from the tar sands in the first place. It excluded from its deliberations the environmental affects of tar sands development on the surprising basis that there wasn't a "sufficiently direct connection" between the project and tar sands expansion. The Pembina Institute demurred, pointing out that the greenhouse gas pollution generated by filling the pipeline would be equivalent to adding over three million cars a year to Canada’s roads.

Furthermore, the International Energy Agency has warned that no more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to keep the global increase in temperature below 2 °C, the amount above which apocalyptic climate outcomes will occur. If two-thirds of our fossil fuel reserves are to be left in the ground, then sensibly we should produce the cleanest oil first and the dirtiest, specifically tar sands oil, last, if we ever produce it at all. With all due respect to the review panel, producing bitumen oil first is not in the best interests of Canadians or anybody else.

Nonetheless, the Alberta and Canadian governments clearly want to produce it as quickly as possible while it's still worth something. We must hope that purchasers, particularly the U.S., will take the big picture view of our interests and reject any more bitumen pipeline capacity headed in their direction. In the meantime, environmentalists and Native groups still have a lot more to say about the Northern Gateway.