Category Archives: Current Events

Frye Quote of the Day: “This is liberalism”

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Here’s a nice addition on the anniversary our nation was signed into law: Frye in “Trends in Modern Culture” describes liberalism as “the true faith in democracy”:

This is liberalism, the doctrine that society cannot attain freedom except by individualizing its culture. It is only when the individual is enabled to form an individual synthesis of ideas, beliefs, and tastes that a principle of freedom is established in society, and this alone distinguishes a people from a mob. A mob always has a leader, but a people is a larger human body in which there are no leaders or followers, but only individuals acting as functions of the group. Tolerance of disagreement and criticism among such individuals is necessary, not because uniform truth is nonexistent or unattainable, but because the mind is finite and passionate. (CW , 237)

Edward Greenspon in The Toronto Star today illustrates why the Harper government does not meet this standard:

For all its neglect, Liberalism actually stands for something important. It is, in the words of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, not a neutral concept but “a fighting creed.” It says: “That is not the way we do things” in the face of illiberal behaviours, whether these be misleading MPs about signatures on documents, failing to disclose the costs of fighter jets or prisons, proroguing Parliament rather than abide by rulings, attacking the legitimacy of independent watchdogs from Elections Canada to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, jamming the judiciary or weakening the channels of knowledge by which decisions can be taken on the basis of evidence rather than belief.

The C Word

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgjjWaUykKI

Gilles Duceppe of Stephen Harper: “I don’t like people lying”

Stephen Harper is pretending out of the gate that the issue in this election is the possibility of a coalition government involving the opposition parties — as though this outcome were some form of treason, when it is in fact a threat only to the prolonged life of the Harper government, sometimes confused by the Harper government as the institution of Canadian government itself.

Above, Gilles Duceppe reminds us that Harper wasn’t always so resistant to the idea of coalition government when the coalition might have been the Harper government.  Today, Duceppe produced a 2004 letter to the Governor-General signed by the leaders of the opposition parties — including Stephen Harper — advising her that the opposition might be able to form a government if the then Liberal minority fell.  At that time, such a maneuver would have been regarded as parliamentary procedure. Now the idea that opposition parties might co-operatively command the confidence of the House is an affront to Canadian democracy — despite the fact that maintaining the confidence of the House is how parliamentary democracy works, and that such an arrangement would, unlike the Harper government, represent the majority of Canadians.

More in The Gazette.

Conservative Scandals

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Conservative senator Doug Finley: charged with election law violation, along with one other Conservative senator and two Conservative operatives. The charges are serious enough that they are facing jail time.

A partial list from Lawrence Martin:

Just recently, we had the document-altering scandal featuring International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, who appears in the House of Commons for Question Period but refuses to answer questions on the matter.

Just recently, we had new revelations in regard to the government’s so-called integrity commissioner, the one who received 228 whistleblowing complaints and upheld not a single one. She left with a half-a-million-dollar severance package – and a gag order to go with it.

Just recently, we learned that the office of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney used ministerial letterhead to raise money for the Conservative Party. We’ve also seen a contempt of Parliament motion brought against the government for its refusal to disclose basic information on the costs of crime bills and on corporate profits. And we’ve seen the Conservatives release attack ads of such questionable quality that they were withdrawn.

Just recently, The Canadian Press reported that, in the tradition of l’état, c’est moi, the Prime Minister is insisting that “Government of Canada” nomenclature be changed to “the Harper government.” Some wag suggested the PM might want to change his own name – to Stephen Hubris.

Just recently, the PM appointed Tom Pentefountas as vice-chairman of the CRTC. Mr. Pentefountas comes equipped with two qualifications: his close friendship with the PM’s director of communications, and zero experience in telecommunications.

Also recently, four Conservatives, including two senators, have been charged with breaking federal election law.

There’s more.  Make your own list.

Contempt of Parliament

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Stephen Harper said in an interview today the voters “don’t care” about the contempt of parliament issue, and that it is “not the substance of the election.”

We’ll see. There is polling to suggest that this is indeed an issue among older voters.

How serious is this? In the entire history of the Commonwealth, no sitting government has been found in contempt of parliament.  And this government is guilty on two counts.

The Harper government stands alone on this one. It has made parliamentary history, twice: first, in the finding of contempt, and, second, losing the confidence of the House as the result of that finding.

That sounds like a substantial election issue, and Canadians may care more about it than Harper is willing to acknowledge.

Quotes of the Day: Stephen Harper

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Actual photo

For non-Canadians, here are some observations from Stephen Harper after the defeat of the government on Friday for “contempt of parliament” (video after the jump):

*Canadians don’t care about the wording of bills in Parliament.

*The Canadian public care about their economic well being and their standing as a country in the world.

*Coalition governments are illegitimate and unprincipled.

All of these assertions are, of course, wrong.  The first is consistent with the finding of contempt of parliament, which also apparently extends to the people it represents; the second is a half-truth at best, and what it leaves out amounts to a lie of omission; and the third is absurd on its face — our mother-parliament in the U.K. is currently home to a coalition government. Besides, Harper’s minority government is about as corrupt as a government with so short a lifespan can be. A government actually representing a majority of the people would make a nice change.

Jonathan Allan reminded me today of this quote from Frye, which we’ve posted before and is much closer to the truth.  We’re not angels, but we’re just principled enough to make a difference:

Then again, Canada has had, for the last fifty years, a Socialist (or more accurately Social Democrat) party which is normally supported by twenty-five to thirty per cent of the electorate, and has been widely respected, through most of its history, for its devotion to principle. Nothing of proportional size or influence has emerged in the United States. When the CCF, the first form of this party, was founded in the 1930s, its most obvious feature went largely unnoticed. That feature was that it was following a British rather than American tendency, trying to assimilate the Canadian political structure to the British Conservative-Labour pattern. The present New Democratic Party, however, never seems to get beyond a certain percentage of support, not enough to come to federal power. Principles make voters nervous, and yet any departure from them towards expediency makes them suspicious. (CW 12, 643-44)

(Thanks to Lyla for the tip.)

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Quote of the Day: “They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits”

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It looks like the government will be defeated this week on a budget vote and an election called.

We are running a $40 billion deficit this year. This will be cited at some unspecified time to necessitate cuts in social spending. That’s playbook stuff. But the problem is that the Harper government is pushing for a further $6 billion in corporate tax cuts, even though Canada already has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the OECD.

Moreover, the Harper government also intends to purchase $30 billion worth of F-35 jet interceptors, even though they are not suited to either our foreign or domestic military needs. It isn’t, of course, an increasingly besieged public that will benefit by these policies. The Harper government has decided it somehow can’t afford substantial longterm increases in spending for education and health care, but that it can afford tens of billions of dollars worth of corporate welfare for Lockheed-Martin, while also further reducing already low corporate tax rates.

Here are a couple of representative observations from the patron saint of laissez-faire capitalists, Adam Smith, that might surprise some who consider themselves Smith-schooled laissez-faire capitalists:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.

For the record, Smith was for high wages, supported the right of labor to organize, and, as the quotes above suggest, understood very well the plutocratic disposition of unrestrained commercial interests. Corporate tax cuts are not among the laws of nature. They do not even necessarily make for sound economic policy.

As promised in an earlier post, we will be citing Frye extensively on Canadian history, culture and political traditions as the election unfolds.

(Chart from The Ottawa Citizen)

Quote of the Day: “The one genuine revolution of our time”

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A Libyan rebel at the frontline near Sultan, south of Benghazi, Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011

With ongoing developments in the Middle East — and the Midwest — in mind, here’s Frye in “On Human Values”:

“Ever since since about two hundred years ago, for a variety of reasons, and for better or worse, man has embarked upon a program of revolution. In the centre of that revolutionary program I see democracy. That seems to me to be the one genuine revolution of our time. . . . Therefore, one cannot identify democracy with a form of government like republic or monarchy. It is a process, and a process which, I should say, following the terms of the French Revolution, is a pursuit of liberty, equality and fraternity. If you pursue liberty and forget about equality you get laissez-faire, which ends in a most abominable tyranny. If you pursue equality and forget about liberty, you get a totalitarian state, which also ends up in an abominable tyranny. And consequently, the central revolutionary process of our time pursues simultaneously liberty and equality.” (CW 24, 15)

(Photo: Anja Niedringhaus/AP)