Maritime Morning - Andrew Krystal

Today we learn of the proposed rate increase of 12.1 per cent — that, following a progression of hefty, steady, increases. This one, justified by the familiar, tedious refrain of higher commodity prices and world markets (the same stuff we hear every weekend at the gas pumps by the multi-national oil companies where the big boys play the victim and we pay for it). It reminds me of terrorists that highjack your plane and then complain to you about how they are forced into their actions by vile circumstances and a misunderstanding public.

What particularly irks the power punters of Nova Scotia is the announcement of record $57-million profits for the first quarter alone! A quarter of a billion dollars in profits in one year from a monopoly on the backs of the taxpaying customers of Nova Scotia who want to keep their lights and take a shower, is unpardonable. What is worse is that the Provincial government makes more tax dollars off of the increase!

Nova Scotia Power’s spokeswoman, Margaret Macmillan, no stranger in stepping up to the media plate when it comes to public relations problems for the company, reminds us that when the government gave it over to the private sector a few years ago it also gave up on a $4-billion dollar bill the Province owed.

Meantime, N.S. Liberal leader Steven McNeil said on-air today that the government is not in the power business, it is not what government does. In fact, government frequently screws up such businesses with bloated bureaucracies and top-heavy administrations, he added. But if you can’t run a business I retorted, how can you run a Province?

As it is, Nova Scotia Power is government regulated and their 12 per cent increase request (which translates into about $20 a month per Nova Scotian) is probably higher than they need. A higher number is pitched and they settle for a lower number is how that game is played. And so it goes.

You get what you pay for. And if you listen to Nova Scotia Power, we are lucky.

Since power is a necessity, and Nova Scotia Power is a monopoly, why not cap corporate profits and limit the actual salaries and pay-outs to an over-compensated, corpulent senior staff? Let them become one of us.

Government’s role is to look after essential services. Power is one of them. It should never have been sold off. It should never make a profit. If it does, it should be channeled back into public revenues.

Passing the buck is never popular with the public — because the buck stops here.

And we are power-less.

The recent controversy over the contention of municipalities to ban certain dog breeds (you know who you are) due to aggressiveness, provoked predictable outrage from doggie debaters who fear a repeat of Ontario’s reaction to dog related near death expeiences. Ontario has banned pit bulls.

The axiom, that there are no bad dogs, only bad dog owners, came under particular scrutiny on my broadcast this week. The postulate falls short when it comes to the nature of the ramifications of bad dog ownership: if you mistreat, or otherwise brutalize a poodle, the consequences are marginal; kids don’t die of poodle dog mauling.

The same isn’t true of Pit bulls, Doberman’s, and their ilk.

Say whatever you want, how can you really argue with my logic regarding ramifications?

If even one child is saved, or if even one person is saved from being maimed, isn’t it worth it to give up on certain breeds? Remember, specific dog breeds are not fundamental to human survival or to quality of life. It is an aesthetic choice, analogous to hand gun ownership.

I enjoy target shooting with pistols but I would give it up knowing that fewer handguns in circulation means less access. Period.

So, what about the black market in banned breeds or firearms for that matter? At least it is marginalized and subject to prosecution, despite the fact that a black market in animals means more abuse of the animals themselves.

I never did understand the over-emoted approach many have to their breed loyalties. For many, it supersedes their human affections.

All it will take is for one serious mauling or dead kid for the public to turn, as they have in Ontario.

Do you remember that tacky example of extreme kitsch that is that bizarre 1870 painting by Cassius Coolidge? Well, dogs don’t play cards. Not even Poker.

But, for many, George Orwell’s Animal Farm is something to be desired.
In that one, dogs vote when pigs rule.

George Orwell, in 1984, has his dystopia, the story’s ruling elite, reducing the dictionary word count every year in order to reduce the means of expression and qualification – thinking itself. You take away language and you take away meaning and critical thinking; without language there is no soul, no opposition, and no humanity — but boy, if you are government, do you get great poll numbers!

Today, we awake to Globe reporter Steven Chase who reveals that the NDP, through freedom of information act access, have revealed that the Department of National Defense sets quotas for how many times a year a military think tank it subsidizes must appear in the news media. The verb “appear” really means engaging in state sponsored propaganda.

The “Conference of Defense Associations” is one such organization. The March 2007 government contract sets out “13 expected results” including:
Attain the publication of a minimum of 15 opinion pieces (including op-eds and letters to the editor in national or regional publications (including programs like mine). Attain a minimum of 29 media references to the CDA by national or regional journalists and reporters – including talk radio. This includes taping and making transcripts of my program.

I have had, in the past, the uniquely eerie experience of encountering a senior military member who told me that he never has a chance to listen to my show very often but he enjoys reading the transcripts! (We never provide transcripts.)

Media are also monitored by government organizations for their approach and political proclivities.

Even the Executive Director of the CDA, Alain Pellerin, is embarrassed by the media quotas revealed today and thinks they are a ridiculous measuring stick. The reason: they were found out.

The quotas were put in place in 2002 by a consulting firm because the government wanted, and the Defense department wanted, more measurable results. By results they meant better propaganda. Make no mistake about it — and it doesn’t matter if the Liberals or the Conservatives are in power because they both play the same game. The difference this time is that the government is actively trying to sell the Afghan war, and lives are on the line.

Meantime, Prime Ministerial powers, in both Canada and the U.K., are getting stronger and have already eclipsed, in relative terms, the power of the U.S. Presidency.

Consolidation of power is a reaction to both increased media scrutiny and an enlarged
Bureaucratic class that slows things down by the nature of its glacial ponderousness and red-tape loving ways (you know the kind of people in the office who love “meetings.”)

Consolidating power allows things to get done faster, but it also means an erosion of the democratic process.

Donald Savoie is worried about this; despite the fact he thinks things are bureaucratically top-heavy. He currently holds the Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at l’Universite de Moncton. He has been advisor to many Prime Ministers, and talked to me about them, most notably, for me, Pierre Elliot Trudeau (“He was painfully shy, but if you bit him he would bite back”).

Professor Savoie was speaking to me today about his new book Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability (in Canada and the United Kingdom). By “Court Government”, he means a King’s Court.

Prime Ministers these days, whether a Minority Government or not, are like Kings.

Donald Savoie mentioned to me that when in Charlottetown recently, Prime Minister Harper was asked about increased powers and government accountability and transparency and increased powers within his office, all things he complained about as opposition leader. In essence, what he said was that when in opposition you see things one way, and when you are inside of government other things become clear.

What really becomes clear is power: its accretion, assemblage, and execution.

The only complaint is when you don’t have enough.

On my broadcast today I had international relations expert Eric Margolis as well as Scott Taylor, publisher of Esprit de Corp magazine. Both weighed-in on the announcement yesterday by Stephen Harper to increase funding for the military.

It was a strange media event. The national media virtually ignored it too. It seemed to be a warmed-up previous announcement. There were no specifics regarding procurement — only generalities and extreme 20 year timelines and the earnestness of our PM highlighted by men and women in camouflage standing obediently behind him as stage props. The point Harper was making was that after years of neglect, the needs of the Canadian forces were being addressed. The truth is, there is a lot of catch-up to play and, at the end of it, with inflation etc, we will not be much better off really – even in 20 years and 20 billion dollars in.

The Afghanistan adventure is quickly eating up resources (8 billion) with costs rising. While the Federal Liberals have been callous and ruthless with military budgets over the years, the Conservatives are still not spending enough to cover what we are churning and burning through – not to mention lives.

I’ll come back to Afghanistan in a minute.

There is reason why, historically, we have been so cavalier about defense spending in Canada: the foreign ownership of all sectors of the Canadian economy, more than any other developed country according to Mel Hurtig (also on today) the author of “The Truth about Canada”. We have progressed from being a former British protectorate to being an American protectorate. Most of what we have to defend in Canada belongs to others anyway, and outsiders have no reason to take — or attack — what already belongs to them.

Now, here we sit, in May of 2008, with growing public disaffection with the whole
Afghanistan adventure, according to Mario Canseco, Director of Global Studies for Angus Reid. Calling from Vancouver, Canseco detailed the Angus Reid survey regarding our robust role in the Central Asian state where most of us are just saying “what the hell”?

So, what happens if we leave Afghanistan?

Shockingly, nothing happens.

The Pashtun tribes people (Taliban) will fight the Warlords. There will be some kind of arrangement (the same thing that has happened for hundreds of years), and Afghanistan will go on.

What about Al Qaeda? Won’t they be threat and plan another 9/11?  Answer: no.  

The Taliban leadership never knew that Osama Bin Laden was planning the September 11 attacks until they happened. They knew that the U.S. would retaliate. Small scale attacks on U.S. Middle Eastern or African embassies or other assets were one thing, but an attack on New York on such a scale? No. Don’t forget, the West had been doing business with the Taliban. Heroin production was extremely low during this period too.  

Right now, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden himself, as well as his top lieutenant Al Zawarhi, are hiding out in the tribal areas of Pakistan (our ally) and are operational. Afghanistan is unneeded as a haven. Bin Laden and co. has a new one. Moreover, the stinking cesspool of terror that is the Sudan in Africa (Osama’s former home before he packed up and moved to Afghanistan because we pressured him), is still operational; the Muslim extremists and anti-American warlords in Somalia (remember “Black Hawk Down”?) are still very much there, as are the terrorists in Lebanon that killed US troops with a massive truck bomb in the 1980’s are still there. In fact, Reagan left Lebanon right afterwards.

The sky didn’t fall in.

Nor did we invade Somalia (again) or the Sudan, or Libya, or Saudi Arabia where they grow, or Pakistan where they hide, or any number of countries that are part of the “terror” process. What “we” did do was invade secular Iraq which had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and, of course, Canada in Afghanistan.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but we will never win in Afghanistan as long as the Pashtun tribesmen and Taliban are supplied from Pakistan – and they will always be. It is their home, their region. They have nowhere to go and are highly motivated. When we beat them back they just crawl back across the border and reconstitute. Manpower is unlimited. It costs them nothing. They have nothing — and nothing to lose.

So, what about us?

There is no military solution. The issue of bringing women the vote over there and reformation of their tribal society is pure Canadian propaganda nonsense.

While we waste money, resources, and, especially, lives in Afghanistan, the world keeps turning, ignoring our tokenism, our folly and our ignorance of Afghani history; our grand, white, arrogance.

And the old brown hills, and the lonely, cold mountain ranges of Afghanistan look down, like a wise old man does upon a child he can no longer help, and with whom he can no longer speak.

In 1947, Robert Mitchum starred in Out of the Past, one of the best pieces of film noir Hollywood created. Film Noir was the genre of post-war filmmaking that frequently featured dark, wet, streets and urban shadows that exposed characters – people trapped by circumstance, by themselves, by forces outside their control triggered by a fatal flaw from their own character.

In Out of the Past, Robert Mitchum plays a small town Californian gas station owner who is in love with a local girl and who has his mysterious past catch up to him when a criminal comes to town, played by Kirk Douglas.

The past does return. The past is the present.

For Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, he is surrounded this day by his girlfriend, Julie Couillard, and the criminal associations of her family (her former husband) and her steamy sexual past: married to someone named Stephane Sirois, who belonged to The Rockers biker gang in Quebec, and then later common-law married to another small-time criminal named Gilles Giguere, a Hells Angel biker who was later murdered.

The story is so unsavory and Couillard’s links to crime so ingrained, so absolute, that even she herself was actively targeted for murder by Hells Angel boss Maurice Boucher during the biker wars of the 1990s. She was targeted because she was a community member.

Having a biker boyfriend in High school is bad enough. Marrying a biker is another thing; but living with yet another? Then there are the many people (quasi-bikers) that surround them – the associates, the businessmen, the hangers-on. It is a culture. It is a culture that Julie Couillard bought into, married into twice and supported.

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier says it is in the past – she says it happened a long time ago.

Now, to move even further into the past, Maxime Bernier declares she is an “ex” girlfriend. Prior to her alleged dismissal Bernier had trotted her out while visiting the United Nations in New York. The photo of Julie reminded me of what Peter C. Newman said to me about Barbara Amiell, “she was the kind of woman who would fall out of her dress and blame the dress”.

This makes me think of another thing: you can take the biker out of the girl, but can you take the girl out of the biker?

I guess it is all in the past.

The queston is, given Maxime Bernier’s low sexual standards, could Julie Couillard have done better?

Here is the story of the last few days that has most occupied me:

Lt.-Col. Gordon Corbould, the new battle group commander, and Sgt. Tim Seeley, a civilian-military co-operation officer for Canada’s Provincial Reconstruction Team, were quoted Thursday by The Globe and Mail as saying that channels were being opened to moderate the Taliban.

Other officials in Kandahar, who spoke privately, backed up the military’s assessment, calling it creative thinking.

But MacKay, who told the Canadian Press on Friday that those same officials don’t speak for the federal government, took pains Saturday to reiterate Ottawa’s position.

“We are not talking to the Taliban. We are not having direct discussions with terrorists. We won’t, will not, that will not change,” MacKay said. He went on to also say that only government determines policy – not the military.

Good for Peter.

“What we are doing obviously in reconstruction, and development and daily contacts that happen is encouraging people to move away from the Taliban’s influence, to renounce violence.”
The Afghan government has the lead responsibility to draw people away from the Taliban’s grip, an effort the Canadian military supports, MacKay said.

Nearly two years ago, the NDP suggested peace talks be initiated with combatants in Afghanistan, prompting federal Conservatives to call Layton Taliban Jack.

“Two years ago, the military was beginning those kinds of discussions, we supported that, said so very publicly,” Layton said.

“People started calling us names and all of a sudden the official government position was that there couldn’t ever be any discussions. We think that that’s wrong.”

So, where did this all start? The military chatting up the Taliban (interesting because many in the military used the “Taliban Jack” line repeatedly because they don’t like Layton don’t you know.

It is only natural that when the military, under Rick Hillier, determined Canada’s military role in Afghanistan on the watch of a sleepy, unfocussed, Paul Martin government, that others in the military would pick up on the culture of swagger. Sure, if we want to talk to the Taliban, or whomever, we will. If we want to pressure the government’s direction, we will. If we want to correct the government, we will.

The problem for the military now is, that door has been shut.

Stephen Harper, who has done a masterful job of keeping his Western wack-jobs in the party in check, recently, and privately, laid down the law with Rick Hillier too – keep your mouth shut.

No more outbursts, no more embarassing the civilian overlords.

This is the same Prme Minister that wanted Canada to partake in Iraq – and he was stupid enough to fight an election on it in 2004. But that isn’t the point.

Whether it is a more aggressive military policy, or the wimpy blue helmet days, that thing called “policy” is the democractic will and democratic determiniation of the people that the politician repersents – not the soldier.What can never be tolerated is undue military influence upon national direction or military policy.

Defense Minister Mackay’s assertiveness in the face of in-theatre Taliban politics is a strong sign that this government is not going to tolerate loose cannons in the military any longer.
For Hillier, this leash was too much.

The recent announced resignation by Hillier is surely related to this new culture: there’s a new Sheriff in town, and he’s civvie”. The “hey, look at me” Rick Hillier tour is over.

It is all too ironic that the man who most thinks that he defends democracy is, himself, the most contemptuous of it.

Nicknamed “the big cod”, by some sychophantic acolyte apologist, Rick Hillier forgot that in the world he is swimming in being a cod isn’t enough.

Stephen Harper is the shark.

Well, it was a wild one on “Maritime Morning” today. So many of you sounded off a range of topics too numerous to mention.

So, here you go. Your comments will be posted in a day or so. You can check for them after the weekend. Remember, there is no topic police, so address whatever topic you wish. There was a lot of topic fodder for you this week, everything from the Nova Scotia budget, to Documentarian and host of “The Naked Archeologist,” Simcha Jacbovici, who called in from Israel to talk about the “Lost Tomb of Jesus,” where a U of T scientist recently determined that the odds of the grouping of names in the Talpiot location in Israel NOT belonging to the historical Jesus was one in 1600!

The problem with finding the bones of Jesus is that there was a wife with him and a son. That is why the Israeli government and the original discoverer just shut up about it so as not to offend.  

There was also a shocking census report today from Stats Canada saying that we are not doing any better in terms of income than we were 25 years ago! Young people have it rough, and the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer while the middle class withers away.

I had written a previous blog about middle class erosion. Sad to see how right I was.

Sometimes it is a lot better to be wrong.