Are political donations and Alberta's persistent condo problems related?

Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done. — Lord Hewart, Seventh Lord Chief Justice of England

The same might be said about governing. Governing parties should not only govern justly but should be seen to be governing justly. That is difficult when they receive large political donations from vested interests. To the impartial eye, they might understandably be seen to favour those interests. 

Such is the case in Alberta and the government's action, or lack of it, regarding problems with condominium construction. As more condos were built during the heated economy of the last decade, their construction has often left a lot to be desired. Hundreds of Albertans have been forced out of their condominiums because they were too unsafe to inhabit. Thousands of others have had to spend millions of dollars to repair crumbling buildings, many less than a decade old.

Last year, 300 residents of the Penhorwood complex in Fort McMurray were hastily evacuated in the middle of the night because officials feared the nearly new building would collapse. The owners voted to borrow $35-million to rebuild the entire project.

Owners in Bella Vista condo in Calgary, a building less than 10 years old, face bills between $77,000 and $189,000 each for repairs to the roof, eaves, balcony and parkade in a building where some of the condos are only worth $200,000.The owners are pursuing legal action against the developer.

Earlier this month, about 150 residents of the high-end Bellavera Green Condos in Leduc were given an eviction order because of serious fire-code issues. Fire chief Ernie Polsom reported that the one-year old complex contained “serious Alberta Fire and Building Code violations."

The provincial government has been promising action for some time. Last year, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs said the government is implementing changes such as a new home warranty program, better training for safety codes officers and increased fines for building-code violations. “It’s been a long process," she said, "but we’re getting to the end.”

The question is why the end hasn't been reached. A government committee, led by Conservative MLA Thomas Lukaszuk, issued a report in December 2008 which found Alberta’s system of construction and inspection was inadequate to protect home or condominium owners. Over three years later, nothing has been done and the woes continue.

Perhaps this is just a case of the mills of the gods grinding slowly, but an observer might be excused for wondering if he wasn't seeing an indebted political party hesitant to offend a major benefactor. Indeed, in the case of the Alberta Conservative Party, its major benefactor. The biggest donor to the Conservatives is not, as most would guess, the oil industry, but the construction/real estate industry. In 2009, for example, the Conservatives received 69 per cent of their funding from corporations and 26 per cent of that came from the construction/real estate industry. Does the government's caution, at the expense of homeowners, result from an obligation to a very generous friend, or does it only look that way? In any case, this is a circumstance that fails to meet the standard of integrity laid down by Lord Hewart.

How Wall Street buys Washington

Oh, those fickle Wall Street bankers. In 2008, Barack Obama was their man for president. They lavished $71-million on the Democratic candidate, $10-million more than on his Republican rival. Goldman Sachs was Obama's major contributor. In the current campaign, they are laying out the largesse again, outspending all other special interest groups. So far, however, they have switched horses, investing twice as much in Mitt Romney's campaign as Obama's.

Romney holds a certain attraction for the bankers, of course. He is from their ranks, and he has promised to return Wall Street to the good old days of untrammeled greed. But, not to worry, Obama will get his share. That's how the bankers play it. They really aren't that concerned with who wins; their goal is to control the agenda and frame the debates. This means that, while they have their favourites, they are generous to both sides. No matter who wins, the winner is obligated to the bankers.

After all, they have little reason to be unhappy with Obama. Oh yes, he spoke out disapprovingly about the "fat cat" bankers and promised legislation to rein them in, but that was rhetoric for the rabble, designed to allay the righteous anger of the masses. The bankers understand that politicians have to display their populist side from time to time. All the while Obama was railing about fat cats, he was bailing out the banks with bundles of boodle and hiring the guys who had caused the problem as his economic advisers and chiefs of staff. Legislatively, all his administration has produced to control the excesses of Wall Street is the anemic Dodd-Frank Act (which Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal).

And then there's the tax issue. Back in the 50s and early 60s, The top marginal tax rate in the U.S. was 91 per cent. Today it's 35 per cent. Yet unemployment today is much higher and economic growth slower—pandering to the "job creators" clearly isn't an economically productive strategy. Nonetheless, seriously raising taxes is off the table, just where the bankers want it, even though the country is running massive deficits. Americans are, it seems, getting the government Wall Street pays for.

Al Jazeera's Bahrain doc wins another award

For a definitive record of the 2011 protests against the kleptocratic Al Khalifa family, rulers of Bahrain, one cannot do better than the Al Jazeera documentary "Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark." The courage and spirit of the uprising is well laid out as is the grim and sickening detail of its repression.

The film has now won the 63rd annual George Polk Award in Journalism. One of America’s most coveted journalistic honours, the award memorializes George Polk, a CBS radio correspondent slain in 1949 after writing critically about the fascist government while covering the Greek Civil War. Other winners, who are chosen from newspapers, magazines, television, radio and online news organizations, include Edward R. Murrow, Carl Bernstein, David Halberstam, I.F. Stone, Morley Safer and Walter Cronkite. The film was also awarded the U.K. Foreign Press Association Award for Best Documentary in November 2011.

The title is fitting as indeed the protesters were "shouting in the dark." Little attention was paid by the Western press compared to the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and now Syria. Nor did Arab countries who supported opposition to other Arab regimes such as Ghaddafi's or Assad's, show support for the Bahrainis. Indeed, quite the contrary. Saudi Arabia, with the support of other Gulf states, aided in the brutal repression of the protesters.

The documentary is of special importance to Western audiences, not only because Saudi Arabia, good friend of the U.K. and the U.S., helped in the oppression, but because the U.K. and the U.S. continue to supply arms to both the Sauds and the Khalifas.

Al Jazeera was in a unique position to bring this story to the world, as they often are in the Middle East. As the crackdown in Bahrain deepened, it was the only international news provider to remain in the country. The documentary can be viewed here.

Rick Santorum—an Antichrist?

Rick Santorum is a disturbing man. The candidate for Republican nominee for president has said things that if I were an American, I would find offensive if not frightening. For instance, he has suggested that people who don't live according to what he refers to as "God's law," have no claim to equality, making it clear he is referring to the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," i.e. the Jewish and Christian God. He has further insisted that "our founders said so."

Santorum would apparently deny fellow Americans equality because they don't think like him, because they don't accept his religious beliefs. This is more than devout, this is zealotry, this is creeping into Osama bin Laden territory.

He is wrong, of course, about the founders of his country saying so. Rather, they said, in the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal"—all men, no caveats. Nor is he right about the concept of equality somehow emerging from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To my knowledge, the first group to explicitly state that all human beings are equal by nature were the Sophists of Ancient Greece, a pre-Christian group of atheists and agnostics.

Santorum ought to have a sound knowledge of the Christian God. He is a devout Catholic, was once listed as one of the 25 most influential evangelists in America by Time magazine, and he and his wife were conferred with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an award accorded to Catholics who have displayed exemplary chivalry, nobleness or service to the faith. But how does one actually know the laws of the Christian God? Unless Santorum has a direct line, he must rely on the Holy Bible, specifically the New Testament, the testament of Jesus Christ. And there he goes off the rails.

Santorum supports capital punishment, is a firm advocate of a citizen’s right to bear arms, supports the assassination of scientists working on Iran's nuclear program, supports the torture of prisoners, and believes the U.S. should pursue the Afghan war to a successful conclusion. In summary, he supports torture, murder and war against one's enemies—a very bloody-minded philosophy indeed.

This is all in violation of the laws of the Christian God, at least as expressed by Jesus Christ. It is more Antichrist than Christ. The prophet Himself had a lot to say on the matter. In Mathew 5:38-39, He advises, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." In Mathew 5:43-44, He adds, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Many passages in the Bible are ambiguous, but these are abundantly clear. Christ considered the point so important, He expressed it in two different ways. Nonetheless, not enough ways, apparently, to convince Santorum.

And Santorum is not alone. His competitor New Gingrich said he would do with America’s enemies what former President Andrew Jackson advised: "Kill them.” Even Barack Obama, who also claims Christian credentials, said that anybody who disagreed with the murder of Osama bin-Laden should "have their head examined." How odd that a Christian should in effect say that Jesus Christ should have his head examined.

Being a Christian is hard, at least in the sense of following Christ's (God's) teachings, and I have chosen a particularly tough command to obey, one I certainly couldn't. But then I'm not a Christian and therefore I'm not obliged. Those who claim to be Christians are obliged to at least try. Santorum, Gingrich, et al. don't seem to even be aware of these inconvenient commands, almost as if Christianity were unrelated to Jesus Christ. They are Old Testament believers—an eye for an eye. I know atheists who are better Christians than these guys. Mahatma Gandhi was an infinitely better Christian, and he was a Hindu.

What would Jesus do, indeed.

Syria and the reluctant alliance between al-Qaeda and the West

Al-Qaeda and Western nations agreeing on a policy of critical importance may seem strange, yet such is the case with Syria. Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of al-Qaeda, has publicly thrown his organization’s support behind the Syrian opposition. Al-Zawahiri called on Muslim fighters from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to go to Syria and join a jihad against Bashar al-Assad’s “pernicious, cancerous regime.” “Continue your revolt and anger, don't accept anything else apart from independent, respectful government,” was the al-Qaeda leader's message to the Syrians.

Neither the West nor the Syrian opposition welcomed the message. After all, Assad has long smeared the opposition by claiming they were tools of terrorist and foreign influences, while the protesters have insisted their goal is a secular democracy, quite antithetical to the goals of al-Qaeda.

Nonetheless, the call is being answered. According to Iraq's deputy interior minister, Adnan al-Assadi, jihadists are moving from Iraq to Syria and arms are also being sent across the border. "In the past, Syrians were fighting in Iraq," he said, "and now they are fighting in Syria." A pair of recent suicide car bombings that killed 28 people in Aleppo had the mark of al-Qaeda. So, the Syrian rebels, and the West, have an ally in al-Qaeda whether they want it or not.

Other Islamic groups have also voiced their support for the opposition, including Jordan’s increasingly powerful Muslim Brotherhood, who said it was an Islamic duty to support Syria’s rebel army.

The West has had strange allies in the past, most notably perhaps the collaboration with the Soviet Union to defeat the Nazis. An alliance with al-Zawahiri is hardly more unsavory than an alliance with Joseph Stalin. Not that there will be comradely meetings between the parties as there were during WWII. Al-Zawahiri has made that clear, warning the Syrians against dependence on the West.

The co-operation with the Soviets worked out well for the allies in WWII—the Soviets inflicted almost ninety per cent of the casualties suffered by the Germans. However, the East Europeans, who suffered for decades under Communism, may have been less grateful for the Soviet presence. We might expect the same result here. The Islamists will be fierce allies in the fight to overthrow Assad, but when the job is done Syrian democrats will still wish they hadn't come.

News flash—country rejects Olympic Games!!!

Hard to believe, but true—a country has rejected the possibility of hosting the Olympics. Rome had intended to bid for the 2020 Summer Games, but the Italian government has nixed the application. Italian Premier Mario Monti said it would be irresponsible to use taxpayer money to fund the Olympics with a guarantee that the government would cover any deficit, as required by the International Olympic Committee. How refreshing. If the Greek government had exercised the same sense of responsibility toward the 2004 Games, a project we now know it couldn't afford, the country might not have dug itself into such a deep economic hole.

Greece had estimated the cost of the 2004 Games at $6-billion and wound up paying $15-billion. And this is the drift into financial never-never land the Olympics tend to experience, cost overruns being a major part of the Olympic legacy. Canadians have some experience with this—the 1976 Montreal Games cost 12 times the original budget and weren't fully paid off until 2006. The 2010 Vancouver Games only cost four times the original budget.

With Rome out, five cities are left in the race: Madrid, Tokyo, Istanbul, Doha (Qatar) and Baku (Azerbaijan). Can their governments afford it? Spain is in a more fragile economic state than Italy and Japan's economy has been stagnant for years, so there's certainly doubts there. Turkey, on the other hand, is booming, while Qatar is petro-rich and rapidly getting richer, as is Azerbaijan. So some of these countries can afford the lavish demands of the International Olympic Committee; others—and, yes, I'm pointing a finger at Spain here—would be well-advised to adopt a little of Premier Monti's sense of responsibility.

2012—International Year of Co-operatives

 "Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility." — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

I heartily agree with the Secretary-General. Indeed, I believe that if we are to develop the culture of international co-operation that will be necessary to deal with climate change, to say nothing of other global problems, building more of our local, national and global economies with co-operative enterprises must play a major role. 

In seeming agreement, the United Nations has declared 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives. In the UN's own words, "The International Year of Co-operatives is intended to raise public awareness of the invaluable contributions of co-operative enterprises to poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration. The Year will also highlight the strengths of the co-operative business model as an alternative means of doing business and furthering socioeconomic development." Information on events planned throughout the year, as well as suggestions on how to get involved and participate, can be found here. More than billion co-op members around the world will celebrate the Year.

Competition has its place, but co-operation is a higher human value and therefore a more moral basis for economic enterprise. And in the competitive world order we find ourselves in, as the UN has said, co-ops offers a real alternative. We are relentlessly subjected to the mantra, "we must compete in the global marketplace." It is time for a new and more civilized mantra. I suggest, "We must co-operate in the global society." May the International Year of Co-operatives help bring such a change about.

Stephen Harper and the triumph of ideology over reason

Why did he do it? Why did Stephen Harper suggest we had a public pension funding problem when we don't? And why did he proclaim his concern at an international conference of all places?

Let's all repeat slowly: there ... is ... no ... funding ... problem ... with ... our ... public ... pension ... plans. Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, has made very clear that the Old Age Security (OAS) program is sustainable and affordable given the federal government's projected revenues and economic growth. And a recent OECD study found that "Canada does not face major challenges of financial sustainability with its public pension schemes." Page predicts that the OAS will rise from its current 2.2 per cent of GDP to 3.2 per cent in 2036, the baby boom peak, and decline thereafter. In other words, it will remain a minor part of the GDP for the foreseeable future. The other instrument of public pensions, the Canada Pension Plan, is fully-funded and actuarially sound.

And yet Human Resources Minister Diane Finley hysterically insists that, "We know there's a coming crisis, that's in Old Age Security, that's why we're taking steps now before it's too late because we do not want to burden future generations with massive, massive tax increases," and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty called Page "unbelievable, unreliable, incredible." It's true that Page indicated concern about sustainability last year but that was before the government reduced its projected health care funding.

So why is Mr. Harper's government making an issue out of something that has no business being an issue? I see two possible reasons. One, they don't speak to their Parliamentary Budget Officer or, two, they are manifesting yet again one of their defining characteristics—not allowing facts to get in the way of ideology.

We see this time and again: the building of prisons when the crime rate is falling; promoting dirty oil production in the face of climate change; spending billions on a technically suspect fighter plane to face a nonexistent threat; and of course abandoning the mandatory long form census to make sure facts don't clutter up policy-making.

Nonetheless, sometimes the facts will have their way. On the pension issue, for example, Finance Minister Flaherty seems to be backing off, reassuring the country on Friday that any changes to Old Age Security won’t take effect until at least 2020. And while Mr. Harper, the most ideological prime minister we've ever had in this country, once refused to attend the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics on a point of principle, he is now schmoozing the Chinese like a reincarnated Jean Chrétien. Even he is not immune to realpolitik.

Ontario shows greatest population growth

Per cents are not people. Per cents don't hold jobs, buy products or pay taxes. People do. Yet it seems that most of the conversation about the 2011 census report revolves around per cent growth, not people growth. The per cent growth is interesting, and much more simple to illustrate and discuss, but it's deceptive. It overlooks the real growth, the growth in residents: working, consuming, tax-paying human beings, i.e. the proper basis for policy-making.

Because of the emphasis on percentage growth, the focus of the discussion has been in the West where Alberta racked up the greatest percentage growth among the provinces. Indeed, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia all grew at a faster percentage rate than the national average. However, when it comes to population growth, over the census period (2006-11) Ontario grew more than all the western provinces combined. Even Quebec grew by more people than Alberta.

Alberta may be growing rapidly but only in smaller amounts from a smaller base than Ontario. Only when it is increasing its population at the same rate as its eastern sister, can we talk meaningfully about a demographic revolution. That won't be for a long time, if ever.

Yet another concern about the discussion surrounding the census report is the persistent assumption that population growth is a good thing—another fallacy that needs correcting. But that's fodder for another post.

Supreme Court Justice says U.S. constitution is dated

This will set the teeth of right-wing Americans on edge. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in an interview on Egyptian television, said she wouldn't recommend using the U.S. Constitution as a model for Egypt's new constitution.

When asked where the Egyptians should look for a model, she advised them to look around, particularly at constitutions written more recently, saying "I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the Constitution of South Africa. ... It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done." She even mentioned our Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a more contemporary example.

This will no doubt be considered heresy in certain circles in the U.S. but it is really just sensible. All she is saying is that there are other models, possibly  superior ones, certainly more modern ones, that could serve Egypt better than the U.S. model. After all, the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787 (albeit with later amendments tacked on), a time when the country still practiced slavery and "all men are created equal" meant just that—all men.

Of particular importance is that the American Constitution omits the most essential rights of all—as does ours for that matter—rights to the basic necessities: food and shelter, and in a modern society, health and education. (It does a citizen little good to have freedom of speech if he is starving or dying of a curable disease.) The South African Constitution goes a long way to providing these basic guarantees. Section 27 ensures: "the rights to food, water, health care and social assistance, which the state must progressively realize within the limits of its resources." It also includes a very modern right indeed in Section 24: "the right to a healthy environment and the right to have the environment protected."

Lacking such provisions, the U.S. Constitution is indeed showing its age. Perhaps the Americans should join the Egyptians in checking out some more up-to-date models.

Alberta and Saskatchewan vie for pollution title

Alberta is generally considered to be Canada's pollution champion. And it deserves the honour. With 11 per cent of the country's population it contributes 34 per cent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. Nonetheless, Saskatchewan can also make the claim. It only produces 7 per cent of the country's emissions, with 3 per cent of the population, but it is the big winner in per capita emissions with 71 tonnes of CO2 equivalent to Alberta's 64.

Industrial Ontario isn't even in the running. Despite having 40 per cent of Canada's population it produces a mere 24 per cent of the country's emissions. And its per capita emissions are an embarrassing 13 tonnes.

Alberta and Saskatchewan's advantages in the pollution sweepstakes include burning coal to provide 60 per cent of their electricity. Ontario, by comparison, relies on coal for only 7 per cent of its power, obviously a losing strategy. Alberta also owns the country's big ace in the hole—the tar sands. The tar sands are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country and will no doubt allow the province to eventually overtake Saskatchewan as per capita leader.

As for future prospects, my money is on Alberta all the way. With the tar sands in its corner, the province is already a world class competitor. In fact, if Alberta were a country, its per capita greenhouse gas emissions would be higher than any other country in the world. A champion indeed.

The real radicals revealed

The word "radical" is being thrown out a lot lately, particularly from the mouths of certain federal ministers. Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver garnered a great deal of attention when he published a rant about opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline in The Globe and Mail. He has backed off a bit since then, saying he was referring not to all environmentalist but only to those who wanted to kill tar sands development entirely.

Well, I would like to kill tar sands development entirely and if that makes me a radical, so be it. But let's be absolutely clear about one thing: the most radical behaviour in this whole affair is what is being done to the environment in northern Alberta. When the scars caused by a behaviour can be seen from outer space with the naked eye, that's radical.

Extracting resources from the planet faster than it can replenish them—that's radical. Polluting the planet faster than it can absorb the pollution—that's radical. And we are doing both of these things. It would appear that our whole damn species is radical. And in the wrong way.

If Messrs. Harper and Oliver are opposed to radical behaviour they should, as our elected leaders, be leading us away from this folly, toward a sustainable, no-growth economy. Instead they passionately support what is perhaps the world's most savage assault on Mother Earth while denouncing those who oppose it. The Prime Minister has called the tar sands “an enterprise of epic proportions akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s Great Wall, only bigger.” And, he failed to add, much, much dirtier.

Rather than enterprises of epic proportions, we might limit ourselves to enterprises of more modest proportions that respect the planet. A radical idea too, perhaps, but in the right way.

Anti-American or anti-American empire?

Americans are a militaristic people. That, I suspect, is why President Obama made praise of the military a major theme in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. He began his speech by praising the military and he ended by praising the military. And in between he practically boasted about murdering Osama bin Laden and made it clear he would wage war on Iran if it doesn't come to heel.

Furthermore he stated, with due humility, that "America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs—and as long as I’m President, I intend to keep it that way." In other words, he will maintain the empire.

No doubt Obama felt this appeal to American jingoism is necessary for success in this election year. Unfortunately, it also displays the arrogance that leads many to criticize the United States, criticism that in itself leads to accusations of anti-Americanism. I have been the target of such accusations myself from time to time.

And yet, I am a great admirer of much that is America. I love their respect for the individual, perhaps their greatest strength. I love what their culture has given the world: the blues, Hollywood movies, baseball—my cup runneth over. And I love their irreverence: I love Michael Moore, and Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, and I adore the Montana Supreme Court which recently contradicted the U.S. Supreme Court by ruling that their state's laws limiting corporate donations for political purposes would stand.

But I am anti-American something. Not anti-America the country, but anti-America the empire. I am anti the misguided, self-righteous, violent and all too often hypocritical behaviour the U.S. habitually imposes on the world. I am anti their efforts to dominate the world in their interest.

And I will continue to speak out against the empire. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world and as such deserves, as most liberal Americans would no doubt agree, the closest attention. As for accusations of anti-Americanism, that kind of name-calling simply means someone has run out of arguments ... and it isn't me.

Rivers drying up in England?

When trout waved lazy in the clear chalk streams, Glory was in me …

So wrote poet John Betjeman about his beloved River Kennet. Sadly, the trout have had trouble waving lazy in the Kennet lately. The river, like many in southern England, ran dry this past winter, a victim of high water demand and below-average rainfall. Brown trout and grayling had to be rescued by officers from the Environment Agency, and one fish farmer lost three tonnes of trout.

"When I started here 32 years ago, 60 per cent of the trout were wild fish," said the fish farmer. "Now I reckon it's down to 10%. The whole of the upper river has been destroyed. The lack of water flow means that we've lost almost all the ranunculus weed that holds lots of invertebrates and produces cover for the fish. This is unprecedented."

Alan Crook, an 80-year old who has lived by the Kennet all his life, remembers swimming in the river as a boy: "There were hatches to control the flow of water for the mills. The water there was 10 feet deep. We used to jump in from the bank and have a whale of a time. Now the river's so low that children could never do that. Those days are gone for good." The river is mentioned by Izaak Walton in his seminal work on the art of fly fishing, The Compleat Angler, published in 1653.

With millions of litres being pumped from the Kennet every day for municipal water supply combined with declining rainfall, those carefree summer days of swimming and fishing may indeed be gone for good. A recent report by the Environment Agency starkly warns that rivers across the country are at risk.

What is happening to England's rivers is an example of both sides of our assault on the planet: Our insatiable demand for resources combined with the dumping of our waste into the atmosphere. Declining rainfall, a result of climate change, robs the rivers of their life source while increasing demand for water depletes them.

As even England's green and pleasant land faces a future a lot less green and pleasant, we have yet another warning to mend our profligate and destructive ways.

Bully for you, Minister Baird

John Baird has never been one of my favourite politicians. There is too much of the bully about him. Nonetheless, I applaud him for his speech Monday in the UK in which he criticized other Commonwealth nations for denying fundamental freedoms to homosexuals and others. "Dozens of Commonwealth countries currently have regressive and punitive laws on the books that criminalize homosexuality," he said, referring to the unfortunate fact that homosexuality is illegal in 41 of the 54 member states. His position is particularly welcome at a time when gays are increasingly under attack in a number of African countries.

Last November, Baird condemned legislation in Nigeria that toughened anti-gay laws and made same-sex marriage punishable by 14 years in prison. The legislation also targets anyone who supports or even witnesses such unions or those who form gay-rights groups. In the 12 Nigerian states that have adopted Sharia law, same-sex sexual activity is punishable by death by stoning. Baird's view of all this was unequivocal. "The government of Nigeria must protect all Nigerians, regardless of sexual orientation," he said at the time. "Through the Commonwealth and other forums, Canada will continue to make this point in the most forceful of terms."

One suspects that there are more than a few members in the Conservative core that are not impressed by the government's stand on gay rights. That makes Baird's forceful views all the more commendable. In any case, he also criticized discrimination against those practicing their faith, emphasizing attacks on Christians, so the core is by no means overlooked. And then there is the new Office of Religious Freedom which should also ensure the core that Christians are firmly in the government's mind.

"For we cannot be selective in which basic human rights we defend," Mr. Baird said in his speech, "Nor can we be arbitrary in whose rights we protect." We can but agree.

One pipeline down, one to go

So Obama has sunk the Keystone XL pipeline—at least temporarily. He has said Trans Canada can apply again, so perhaps he's just being an election-year tease. Nonetheless, it's a victory against the tar sands monolith. And that's what it's all about, not just shutting down a pipeline, but shutting down the tar sands. James Hansen, one of the U.S.'s foremost climate scientists and the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said about tar sands development "Essentially it's game over for the planet."

With Keystone currently stymied, the next proposed "fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet” is the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline through B.C. to the coast. If the tar sands are to be strangled, one pipeline at at time, one market at a time, Northern Gateway is next up on the list.

Everyone who puts the environment first, who wants to help make sure it isn't "game over for the planet," can contribute to stopping Northern Gateway. National Energy Board hearings on the pipeline by a Joint Review Panel are underway and you can participate by writing a letter to:

Secretary to the Joint Review Panel
Enbridge Northern Gateway Project
444 Seventh Avenue S.W.
Calgary AB  T2P 0X8

or you can use the online form here. The deadline is March 13, 2012.

Gingrich drives Christ out of the room

During the latest debate by the candidates for the Republican nomination for president, Newt Gingrich declared, “Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: Kill them.” He got a standing ovation. Andrew Jackson was, of course, the president responsible for the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States to the West. 

For a party whose members ceaselessly declare allegiance to Christianity, Gingrich and his standing ovation would seem to heap more than a little contempt on their Lord and Saviour. Christ, after all, had quite a different idea about how to treat your enemies. In Mathew 5:43-44, He says, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." In Mathew 5:38-39, He says, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Christ's advice, it seems, is not welcome in the Republican Party. It's all an eye for an eye there.

A premiers' meeting with a significant feminine presence ... finally

The premiers' meeting this week in Victoria had a new look. Normally an assemblage of men in suits, this one had a definite feminine presence with four of the 13 premiers being women. These include host Christy Clark of B.C., Alison Redford of Alberta, Kathy Dunderdale of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Eva Ariak of Nunavut. Only four women have held premierships in Canada prior to the current group and now we have four all at once.

We have a powerful need for more women leaders in the modern world. Although human characteristics are distributed among both genders, those that involve caring are, on average, more predominant in women and those that involve aggression are, on average, more predominant in men. Perhaps when we were nomadic hunter-gatherers, male aggression was of evolutionary value, but in the highly complex, high-tech world of today, replete with nuclear weapons and massive assaults on the environment, it is not only redundant but dangerous. If we are to avoid catastrophe, we must have more caring, for ourselves and for our environment, and that means more of the feminine characteristics in leadership, i.e. more women.

Unfortunately politics, created by men for men, is an extremely aggressive business, violent in word and often in deed, unattractive to a feminine sensibility. Even those relatively few women who thrive in politics are often of a masculine nature—a perfect example being Margaret Thatcher who was once aptly referred to as the only man in her cabinet.

A lot can be done to create a more civilized and balanced politics, and one way is to get more women into the game. So I salute our four women premiers, may they herald a much more feminine future.

Harper—the prime minister of oil

In the paranoid corridors of Harperworld, opponents of tar sands development are radicals. And the most dangerous among the radicals are those who receive funding from foreigners.

This is a rather curious accusation coming from Stephen Harper. After all, he faithfully serves the oil industry, much of which is foreign-owned. And it was Mr. Harper who insisted we should join the Americans in their invasion of Iraq. I would not pretend to delve into the recesses of the man's mind, but I suspect he supported the U.S. simply because they are our friends and he believes we should always support our friends even when they are invading other countries. At the time, he claimed, "They are our biggest asset in this very dangerous world." But the world wasn't dangerous in the way he thought. He was conned by the claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and of course they didn't.

But there is no doubt that climate change is creating a very dangerous world. And "world" is the operative word—pollution cares little for borders. So Americans who believe that tar sands emissions are contributing excessively to climate change are obliged to help those Canadians who are working to reduce the threat. Harper was willing to use taxpayer dollars—your money and mine—to help his American friends, and to risk Canadian lives in the bargain, and he now resents Americans helping their Canadian friends with their own money—the hypocrisy reeks.

Nonetheless, Harper's hostility toward tar sands opponents is perfectly understandable. He is the oil industry's man—the prime minister of oil—and therefore anyone who attacks the oil industry attacks Harper.

Those who recognize the need to put the environment first deserve all the help they can get. They certainly can't expect much from "their" government.

Corporate chiefs beginning to see the dark side

The world's capitalists are worried. The World Economic Forum, an organization composed of 1,000 of the world's most powerful corporations, is concerned that the financial crisis gripping the global economy may be leading us to a "dystopian future."

In its report Global Risks 2012, the Forum warns, "a society that continues to sow the seeds of dystopia—by failing to manage aging populations, youth unemployment, rising inequalities and fiscal imbalances—can expect greater social unrest and instability in the years to come." It went on to say, "Two dominant issues of concern emerged from the Arab Spring, the 'Occupy' movements worldwide and recent similar incidents of civil discontent: the growing frustration among citizens with the political and economic establishment, and the rapid public mobilization enabled by greater technological connectivity."

Although we may quarrel with the Forum's priorities and their business bias (for instance, they had little to say about the undermining of democracy by corporate power, a major concern of the "Occupy" movement), they at least seem to recognize that "rising inequalities" is now a serious problem contributing to "frustration among citizens with the political and economic establishment." We must give the capitalists a little credit—they are learning.

Peacekeeping—"Canada can and should do more"

Sometimes a graph is worth a thousand words. A good example is a graph depicting Canada's contribution to U.N. peacekeeping that appeared in the December 2011 edition of Mondial, the newsletter of The World Federalist Movement. The graph, attached, shows Canada hovering around number one in the early 90s and then declining to 53th today. Out of almost 99,000 peacekeepers serving in 2010, we contributed the grand total of 198, mostly police.

We were a leading contributor under a Conservative government led by Brian Mulroney, our contribution declined under the Liberals, and then collapsed in 2006 under a very different Conservative government commanded by Stephen Harper. For a country that very nearly invented peacekeeping, and at one time had a reputation in the world as an honest broker, this is a sad development.

Author of the peacekeeping article, Michael Byers, points out that the United Nations is now deploying more peacekeepers that at any time in its history, yet some missions remain understaffed. In other words, we are needed. And as we have been boosting our military recently, and as we are finally pulling out of our misadventure in Afghanistan, this is an opportune time to meet that need. As Mr. Byers concludes, "Canada can and should do more."

Slowing Harper's rush to environmental ruin

The federal government, it appears, is in a hurry. We cannot exploit the tar sands fast enough and bad guys are getting in the way. In an open letter to Canadians, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver declared, "Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. 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 hydroelectric dams."

Wow—for someone who's criticizing radical groups that is quite the radical letter. Mr. Oliver went on to suggest the federal government will pursue ways to overhaul the hearings of independent regulatory bodies.

What, I wonder, is the rush. We are extracting resources from the Earth faster than it can replenish them and we are polluting it faster than it can absorb the pollution. The sensible approach at this point, if we want to avoid crashing our civilization, is to SLOW DOWN.

Slowing down development would accomplish at least four good things:

• Offer the planet more opportunity to recover from our assault on it.
• Give more sustainable technologies a chance to catch up.
• Make sure we do the proposed projects right, i.e. in the most sustainable way.
• Ensure we avoid projects that do more harm to the environment than any economic benefit warrants.

Oliver's comments came one day before federal regulatory hearings began on the Northern Gateway pipeline, designed to deliver crude from Alberta's tar sands to Kitimat, B.C. for shipment to Asia.
Over 4,300 people have signed up to address the hearing. Good for them. And good for us. This kind of interest in projects that have major environmental effects is healthy for the natural world, i.e. the world that sustains us. After all, the environment doesn't need our economy—indeed it would be vastly better off without it—but our economy ultimately depends entirely on the environment. Caring for the future of the environment is caring for the future of the economy.

Yes, in its currently depressed state the economy needs jobs, but trading jobs today for a ruined environment tomorrow is a fool's game. Unfortunately, our federal government is playing the fool

A good day for democracy in Montana

One of the biggest blows against democracy in American history occurred in 2010 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that government could not place limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions. The ruling, by essentially giving corporations the same First Amendment rights as citizens, opened the door to even further corruption of the American political system by big money, in effect allowing plutocracy to further dominate democracy.

But last week, the Montana Supreme Court took exception. In an extraordinary decision, the Court upheld the state's 1912-era corporate contribution limits. The decision applies only to state elections, but if appealed, and it probably will be, could provide a long-awaited opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the issue.

Writing for the majority, Justice  Mike McGrath stated, “Clearly the impact of unlimited corporate donations creates a dominating impact on the political process and inevitably minimizes the impact of individual citizens.” The Court ruled that various factors—a history of citizens fighting corporate corruption, political traditions of low-budget campaigning, and the vulnerability of judicial elections to corporate spending—were sufficiently compelling to preserve the century-old ban on corporate spending. It said it wanted Montana to remain a state where candidates run low-budget, personal campaigns and do not rely on anonymous, well-financed messaging from outsiders.

Even a dissenting judge, James C. Nelson, who opposed the ruling only because he felt bound to defer to the U.S. Supreme Court, lashed out at the Citizen United's decision. "I do not have to agree with the [U.S.] Supreme Court’s decision," he wrote, "And, to be absolutely clear, I do not agree with it. ... The truth is that corporations wield enormous power in Congress and in state legislatures. It is hard to tell where government ends and corporate America begins: the transition is seamless and overlapping."

Montana has a long history of dealing with corporate power. In the early 20th century, when copper companies dominated the state, Anaconda Co. controlled judges, legislators and newspapers, prompting the people to fight back with the legislation that the Court has now defended.

I will leave the last word to Justice Nelson: "Corporations are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people—human beings—to share fundamental, natural rights with soulless creatures of government. Worse still, while corporations and human beings share many of the same rights under the law, they clearly are not bound equally to the same codes of good conduct, decency and morality, and they are not held equally accountable for their sins. Indeed, it is truly ironic that the death penalty and hell are reserved only to natural persons."

Harper's paranoia reaches a new level ... a dangerous level?

Stephen Harper was in full psychic mode on a Calgary call-in show Thursday. He telepathically declared that Iran is "a regime that wants to acquire nuclear weapons ... and has indicated some desire to actually use nuclear weapons." An impressive feat—reading the minds of the mullahs.

The man is starting to look increasingly dangerous. As the Americans ratchet up their provocations of Iran, no doubt at the behest of the Israeli lobby, war looms and we can have little doubt that Harper, with his slavish devotion to Israel and his love of things military, would not hesitate to drag us into it.

The man feeds off paranoia. He pumps billions of our hard-earned dollars into prisons to protect us from the enemy within and weapons to protect us from the enemy without. Yet Canadians could hardly be safer. We live in a country with a low and declining crime rate. No other country has an interest in attacking us. Indeed, we have no enemies, unless of course we create them as Mr. Harper seems keen on doing with Iran.

According to psychologist and Harvard professor Steven Pinker and others who have researched the subject, we are living in the most peaceful period of our species' history. A fascinating talk by Pinker on the subject can be found here. What we Canadians really do not need is our prime minister exercising his psychic skills to manufacture hostility.

Obama disses due process

Another disappointment from U.S. President Barack Obama. On New Year's Eve, perhaps a time when he thought his nation was sufficiently distracted, he signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 which includes a clause granting the executive branch the power to indefinitely detain any person, including American citizens, it accuses of being a terrorist without charge or trial.

He attempted to modify his action with the curious statement, "I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions  ... I want to clarify that my administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation."

He is certainly right about the latter, which prompts the obvious question, if it would break with the most important values of his nation, why in hell did he sign it? What is his promise never to act on the power worth? Maybe he won't, but are we to believe that the next George W. Bush or Richard Nixon won't?

Amnesty International ridiculed Obama's assurances, stating "Once any government has the authority to hold people indefinitely, the risk is that it can be almost impossible to rein such power in. President Obama ...  has allowed human rights to be further undermined and given al Qaeda a propaganda victory."

A victory for al Qaeda it surely is. I have no idea what goes on in the minds of people like those who blew up the twin towers, but I suspect their motives might have been one, to create a war between the U.S. and Islam, and two, to fracture American values. They achieved both and Obama has assured that the fracturing of American values will continue.

Hopefully, this story is far from over. To my untutored legal eye, this power violates the Fifth Amendment to the American Constitution which states, in part, "nor shall [any person] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Many Americans, although obviously only a minority in Congress, still believe in their constitution and we may look forward, therefore, to a challenge of this legislation in the courts.

Congrats to Sista P

Not a bad way for the year to end, with the election of another woman as leader of her country. So congratulations to new Jamaican prime minister Portia Simpson Miller, or Sista P as she is affectionately referred to for her folksy, plain-spoken style. Simpson Miller's People's National Party won a convincing victory on Thursday with 41 seats in parliament to 22 for its opponents, the Jamaican Labour Party.

Simpson Miller's supporters have always respected her as a woman who was born in rural poverty and grew up in a Kingston ghetto. "She cares about the ghetto people," said one young admirer after the victory.

She has her work cut out for her dealing with Jamaica's poverty as well as its profound economic problems, including a debt running at 130 per cent of GDP. But that's for the new year. For the moment, I congratulate her again on her impressive victory and wish her success in dealing with the challenges facing her and her country.

Americans OK with taxes but not with the system

I admit to some surprise. Listening to the Republican contenders for the presidential nomination, you might think Americans wanted nothing more than to pay less taxes. In fact, according to a recent Pew Research Centre survey, most Americans (52 per cent) believe they pay about the right amount of tax. Interestingly, there has been a significant decline over the past decade in the number of both Democrats and Republicans who feel overtaxed.

What Americans don't approve of is their tax system, with 55 per cent saying it's unfair. When asked what bothers them most, only 11 per cent say the amount they pay. Twenty-eight per cent say the complexity of the system, and a whopping 57 per cent say that wealthy people aren't paying their fair share.

They are so unhappy about this that 59 per cent want Congress to completely change the system, only 34 per cent believing minor changes will do.

It appears that not only Occupy Wall Streeters are concerned about the increasing unfairness in their country. This bodes well for wealth distribution becoming an issue in the 2012 elections.

No-religion most successful "faith" in UK

"Give me the child and I will give you the man," the Jesuits boast. Indoctrinate a child in a faith and he, or she, will carry that faith for life. Or at least, most will.

According to the latest British Social Attitudes survey, not indoctrinating a child in a faith is even more successful. Of those brought up with no religion, 94 per cent still had no religion as adults. None of the religions came close to this retention rate. Eighty-seven per cent of those brought up in non-Christian faiths remained affiliated with their religion, but the numbers were much less for Christians with the Catholics at 62 per cent retention and the Protestants, including the venerable Anglicans, at 49 per cent.

So the Jesuits aren't 100 per cent right—in fact, only 62 per cent for their guys. A pretty poor show compared to the 94 per cent for the no-religion folks.

The survey indicated that about half the British population now belong to no religion, rising to nearly two-thirds of young people 18-24. And well over half of those who do belong never attend religious services. The number of people affiliating with a religion is steadily declining with the greatest drop among the Anglicans. Affiliation with the Church of England has halved in the last 20 years. The British, it seems, are just not very religious and getting less so all the time.

Chiquita si, tar sands no

Chiquita Brands has caused a bit of a flutter on the Canadian scene by announcing it will avoid using fuel from Alberta's tar sands. The company says it has joined 13 other companies in trying to reduce its carbon footprint.

The announcement is timely. According to an industry report, the intensity of tar sands carbon emissions—the amount of greenhouse gases created per barrel of oil produced—increased by two per cent from 2009 to 2010. The industry, and the Alberta government, have both made much of reductions in intensity even as overall emissions increase with increased production. Now even intensities are increasing.

This will not help the Alberta government meet its commitments for greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report by the Pembina Institute, if the province doesn't implement significantly stronger measures, its target for reducing emissions by 2020 will fall short by 70 per cent.

Chiquita's action is not universally appreciated, however. A group of tar sands cheerleaders has announced a boycott of the company. Not surprisingly, a couple of federal ministers have announced their support. Chiquita has offered many good reasons to be boycotted over the years—this is not one of them.

The invisible dead Iraqis

U.S. President Barack Obama has declared the Iraq war over. While he proclaimed what he once termed a "dumb war" a success, he lamented the heavy cost. "Over 30,000 Americans have been wounded and those are only the wounds that show. Nearly 4,500 Americans made the ultimate sacrifice," he said. What he didn't say was that at least 100,000 Iraqis have died, hundreds of thousands have been wounded, also many with wounds that don't show, and millions exiled.

He lauded American achievements—"a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people"—yet ignored the suffering of the Iraqis that was collateral to the achievement.

Needless to say the Iraqis, faced with rebuilding their country, political instability, rampant sectarian violence and millions of refugees, are not so sanguine about the "success." Neither Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki or President Jalal Talabani turned up for the departure ceremony in Baghdad. Uniformed U.S. soldiers belatedly moved into the seats reserved for the two Iraqi leaders. Perhaps an empty seat should have been reserved for the Unknown Iraqi Civilian.

The "one percent" win another one as health care CEOs clean up

As the Occupy Wall Street Movement campaigns against the unfair distribution of wealth in the United States, the "one percent" they hold accountable just keep on raking it in. According to the latest survey, American CEOs enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40 percent last year. Meanwhile, wages for the majority of Americans continue to lag inflation.

Surprisingly, the top earners weren't bankers. The big winner was John Hammergren, CEO of McKesson Corporation, the world’s largest health care firm. He "earned" $145,266,971 last year, most of it in stock options and perks. Runner-up was Joel F. Gemunder, CEO of Omnicare, the U.S.'s largest provider of pharmaceutical care for the elderly. He only managed $98,283,242.

Hammergren could, however, really hit the jackpot. If McKesson Corporation is sold, he is due a $469-million payoff. Not bad, a half-billion dollar reward for getting rid of your company.

With President Obama's new medicare legislation neatly designed to favour health care and pharmaceutical companies, these two industries can look forward to producing many more winners in the future.

Will global civilization avoid collapse?

I consider myself a lucky man. I was born in the right place at the right time to enjoy what may well be the peak period of civilization. Never has human society offered so much to those in a position to take advantage of it—physical luxury not even kings and queens could enjoy in past eras, intellectual freedom unparalleled since the ancient Greeks, an exceptionally wide spectrum of political choice, knowledge beyond anything available previously, social justice achieved by few previous societies—a cornucopia of gifts.

Now, unfortunately, civilization—global civilization—is faced with imminent collapse, taking much of this good stuff with it. If this sounds like an old man reminiscing nostalgically about the good old days, consider the evidence.

Climate scientists tell us the only way to avoid catastrophic and irreversible climate change is to hold temperatures to less than 2ºC above preindustrial levels. Furthermore, they warn us that even if current pledges by the world's nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are met, they will not be enough. More ambitious cuts are needed. These are the views of people who, unlike our political and business leaders, actually know what they are talking about. They are our wise men on this issue.

And what are the chances of achieving the necessary cuts? Unfortunately, not good at all. At the recently concluded Durban Conference, the best the world's nations could come up with was a deal to do a deal. Developed and developing countries will work on an agreement to be legally binding on all parties, but it won't come into force until 2020. This is the date the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calculates that emissions must peak and fall rapidly thereafter if we are to limit temperature rise to within the 2ºC.

So the doomsday scenario is not the view of cynical old men. The evidence is clear, and it tells us that according to our best science and political reality, we are firmly on the road to catastrophic and irreversible climate change.

It is possible, of course, that major polluters will impose the necessary limits without a global agreement. But the chances of that are not promising either. The world's major economies made pledges to limit their emissions at the Copenhagen talks in 2009, but these are having little effect and the possibility they will unilaterally expand these pledges is remote. Meanwhile, global output of greenhouse gasses continues to reach record levels.

We are doing what societies have been doing since human beings settled into the agricultural way of life 10,000 or so years ago. Civilization after civilization, society after society, has established itself, grown and prospered, then collapsed, and the leading reason for collapse is demanding more from the environment than it has the capacity to provide. And that is exactly what we are doing today. We are extracting resources faster than the planet can replace them and we are creating pollution faster than the planet can absorb it.

The major difference this time is that we are doing it on a global scale. Despite having the greatest perspective on history ever, and the greatest knowledge of science, we insist on making the same old mistake. It seems we have learned nothing.

There is some small hope. Occasionally societies have recognized their folly and changed direction. For example, in the 17th century the Japanese were doing what the Easter Islanders infamously did—deforesting their islands. They were faced with the same result—the loss of their most important natural resource followed by catastrophic social collapse. But they recovered in time by radically changing their culture, even their diet. They became masters of silviculture (forest management) and strictly regulated forest use; they relied less on farm animals and more on fish for protein, allowing farmland to be reforested; they used lighter construction methods for their homes; they developed more efficient stoves and relied more on the sun for heating; and they reduced their birth rates. The result was a stabilized population, more sustainable consumption of resources and today almost 80 per cent of Japan is covered with forest.

So it can be done. The question is can a diverse, fragmented, competitive and mutually suspicious global population do what a local, homogeneous population did? After all, the Kyoto nations are about to meet their collective target for CO2 emissions by 2012, when a more stringent second stage was to kick in. Unfortunately, that second stage has now in effect been abandoned. The sad reality is that we are not doing what is necessary and time is rapidly running out.

If the imagination and wisdom required to radically change our national and global cultures simply isn't there, if we have created a challenge that exceeds the capacities of our species, well ... civilizations come and go. Ours will probably go, but it's been a great ride. At least for some of us.

Americans and Western Europeans—different breeds

That Americans see the world differently from Europeans is not a surprise, but what may seem surprising to many is just how differently, and how similar Europeans' views are to each other.

For example, a recent Pew Research Centre survey showed that whereas 58 per cent of Americans thought that the freedom to pursue life's goals without state interference was more important than the state guaranteeing nobody is in need, only 38 per cent of British people did. Germans, French and Spaniards closely agreed with the Brits at 36, 36 and 30 per cent respectively. The numbers nicely juxtapose American individualism against European collectivity.

This contrast was also illustrated when respondents were asked if their country should have UN approval before using military force to deal with international threats. Only 45 per cent of Americans said they should whereas 66-76 per cent in the four European countries included in the study said they should.

As to whether or not their culture is superior to others, most Americans agreed. The Europeans were more modest, all four countries disagreeing, the Germans at 52 per cent and the British at 63 per cent. Surprisingly, a full three-quarters of the French did not think their culture was superior to others.

Religion is, not surprisingly, a major area of difference. Fifty per cent of Americans believe religion is very important whereas no more than 22 per cent of the Europeans do. And over half of Americans believe it is necessary to believe in God to be moral, a view shared by no more than a third of the Europeans. Only 15 per cent of the French hold that view. And whereas solid majorities of Europeans considered themselves primarily by their nationality as opposed to their religion, as many Americans considered themselves Christians first as considered themselves Americans first.

On the gay front, sixty per cent of Americans thought homosexuality should be accepted by society, a significant improvement over earlier surveys, but still well behind the Europeans where support for acceptance doesn't drop below 80 per cent.

The Americans and the Europeans, at least judging by these four Western European countries, are indeed different breeds.

Office of Religious Freedom shows its bias

The federal government's creation of what it terms an Office of Religious Freedom is not off to a good start. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, mentor of the new office, has created a panel to help lay out parameters for the proposed office. The panel is in itself hardly representative of religious tolerance. It consists of four Christians (two Catholics and two evangelicals) and two Jews. It appears anything outside the Judeo-Christian tradition is beyond the pale. No Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., need apply and—needless to say—no atheists. Even Christians from moderate Protestant denominations were excluded. Oddly, the branches of Christianity selected are two of the most intolerant.

Omitting a Muslim representative particularly stands out. There are twice as many Muslims as Jews in Canada, they are the fastest growing of our non-Christian faiths, they compose the world's second largest religion, and they have been most in the public eye, yet they are omitted in favour of two Jewish representatives.

Also conspicuous by their absence are representatives from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. Although their absence is, perhaps, not surprising. A neutral human-rights group may have made their religious colleagues uncomfortable by challenging them about their own intolerance, such as the vicious, Christian-inspired gay-bashing currently going on in Africa.

Religion is, after all, an arena of intolerance. Religions tend to be their own greatest enemy. The biggest threat to the freedom of one religion is usually another religion. Who has persecuted Christians more down through the years if not other Christians? Baird's panel could clearly use some neutral participants.

The makeup of the panel leaves one wondering if the object of the new office will be not so much promotion of religious freedom as promotion of Judeo-Christian proselytizing. In any case, as an atheist I am suspicious of singling out religion for concern about freedom. If we are to have an office to defend and promote freedoms, it should apply to all freedoms. Now that might be worth a few taxpayer dollars.

Alberta values are not Western values

Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson recently gave a talk to a standing-room only crowd of Torontonians about how a set of Western values has captured the country. Ibbitson was, I suspect, making a mistake common to Eastern pundits. He was assuming that what might be called Alberta values form a monolithic set of what might be called Western values. In fact, the idea that Alberta values are Western values is false, as is the idea that there is a monolithic set of Western values.

Alberta is a generally conservative province and its politics reflect this. Conservatism has a presence in other parts of the West as well, but to a lesser extent, while other philosophies are also powerfully represented. Manitoba, for example, has an NDP government and the NDP form the official opposition in two other provinces. Alberta is in fact the odd man out, the only Western province with a weak New Democratic Party.

Medicare was invented in the West and that was a triumph for democratic socialism, not for conservatism. The Kyoto Accord, much in the news these days, was least popular in Alberta but its popularity in Manitoba was exceeded only by its popularity in Quebec. Gay marriage was also least popular in Alberta, no surprise there, but popular in B.C. (again behind only Quebec). There is often greater disagreement on issues within the West than between the West and the East, as these examples illustrate.

The current state of political affairs in this country is due a lot less to a rise in  "Western values" than to recent self-destructive tendencies within the Liberal Party. Apparently in his talk, Ibbitson suggested the change is permanent—the journalist as prophet. He should keep in mind that it wasn't long ago the Conservative Party self-destructed and now it forms the government. The only thing we can be sure of is that things will change again.

In the meantime, while I recognize columnists' apparent need to simplify things, I would appreciate Eastern pundits respecting the real West rather than leaning on caricature. We are, in fact, a people of great variety, intellectually as in other respects, a people among whom views and values are strongly represented from left to right, progressive to conservative. It does us an injustice to pretend otherwise, even if it does make for good columns in the Globe and Mail.

Talking to Iran

I am beginning to get the uneasy feeling that we are psyching ourselves up for war with Iran. With the Americans' two Middle Eastern buddies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, egging their patron on, with the U.K. exchanging unpleasantries with the Iranians, and with Canada's new militarism offering a "ready, aye, ready" attitude, we seem to be moving in a dangerous direction.

All this is ostensibly about Iran developing nuclear weapons. If this is indeed Iran's intent, I fail to see how an attack would deter them. It might delay them, but it would also provide them with greater justification and probably greater determination.

True, they have signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, so arming themselves with nuclear weapons would indeed be naughty, but then they wouldn't be alone in failing to meet their obligations. The treaty requires the nuclear powers to rid themselves of such weapons and they aren't. And of course nuclear-armed Israel hasn't even bothered to sign the treaty.

If Iran really does want nuclear weapons, it will almost surely obtain them. Even North Korea managed that. And, considering Iran is in a nuclear-armed neighbourhood and it has a hostile relationship with three nuclear powers—the U.S., U.K. and Israel—a nuclear ambition would be understandable. The question, perhaps, is do we want to influence that ambition or would we rather wait for a nasty surprise as was the case with Pakistan? If the former is the case, then the answer is dialogue. Jaw-jaw rather than war-war, as Churchill put it.

Canada, rather than leaping to support every act of hostility toward Iran, might suggest the U.S. and Iran sit down and work out their differences across the table, not with preliminary talks but with unconditional, comprehensive negotiations. These would include Iran's nuclear designs as well as the Americans', and of course the Israelis'; Iran's support for Hamas and Hezbollah and the Americans' support for Israel; Iran's hostility toward Israel; American support for the assassination of Iranian scientists; the roles of the U.S. and Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan; and so on—everything on the table.

The Americans might keep in mind that the slide into mutual hostility began when they, in collaboration with the British and the Iranian military, overthrew the progressive, democratically-elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. An apology from the United States for this egregious act might be a good start.

Americans turn against the Tea Party

A recent Pew Research Center survey indicates that Americans, or at least those who have an opinion on the matter, are turning against the Tea Party. A year ago, as the Republican Party was making sweeping gains in the midterm elections, 24 per cent of Americans said they agreed with the Tea Party while 14 per cent disagreed. That has now reversed with 20 per cent agreeing and 27 per cent disagreeing. A majority in both surveys offered no opinion.

Even in districts which elected Tea Party candidates, support has changed significantly. Agreement has dropped from 31 per cent to 25 per cent and disagreement more than doubled from 10 per cent to 23 per cent. Again, most Americans had no opinion.

Apparently the Tea Party in action has turned out to be a lot less appealing than the Tea Party in theory.

Elizabeth May, Tuvalu and honest representation

I was intrigued by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's attempt to join the Tuvalu delegation at the Durban Climate Change Conference. As she explained, "If my government, the Government of Canada, does not need my help, I offer it to another government, one that works for my children because the Government of Canada does not work for my children, my grandchildren." Unfortunately, May missed the deadline so will be attending the conference as a mere observer.

Not only is May's attempt to collaborate with a nation that is disappearing under the waves praiseworthy, but it illustrates a problem with the way Canadian views are represented in the global arena. As May points out, "When Canada goes to an international negotiation, it doesn't go as the Harper government, it goes as Canada." Well, it certainly should, but unfortunately it doesn't. It represents only the Conservative Party. A great many Canadians, obviously including Elizabeth May, are not represented at the Durban Conference and are reduced to gnashing their teeth in frustration as Environment Minister Peter Kent "plays hardball." Many of us are, in this instance, better represented by the government of Tuvalu.

This applies to many, perhaps most issues. A government elected by 40 per cent of the voters purports to represent all Canadians on the world stage. This representation may be politically legitimate but it is morally fraudulent. The morally sound approach—the democratic approach—would be for a Canadian delegation to include representatives from all parties in the House of Commons, allowing them to debate and vote their consciences as they see fit. That, unfortunately, is hardly likely, certainly not with the current government.

Including all parties would not only represent Canadians more democratically, it would represent them more logically. After all, divisions in the world are less accurately described by nationality than they are by philosophy. Environmentally responsible Canadians have more in common with environmentally responsible Tuvaluans than they do with Canadian climate change deniers, or Tuvaluan climate change deniers for that matter ... if there are any.

All Elizabeth May attempted to do was ensure that Canada was honestly and morally represented. I salute her effort. If the government persists in denying large numbers of Canadians representation at international conferences, I hope the other opposition parties will follow her example.