Majority Coalition Canada
type: channel
description: The Future of Canadian Democracy
date: 2015-03-16T02:05:42Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: Canada’s pathological political system
items: Time for a Liberal-Green Coalition?
items: Losing Confidence In Elizabeth May
items: Transforming democracy
items: In Search of Canadian Political Culture
items: Canadian democracy, past and future?
items: The Age of Razor Wire
items: The divine right of Prime Ministers
items: Harper’s anti-environment trickery
items: Israel's ultra-right example

Canada’s pathological political system
type: item
creator: stuzog
date: 2013-02-04T19:33:18Z
subject: Canada
subject: environment
subject: society
subject: Dr. Warren Bell
subject: Enbridge
subject: Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline
subject: Joint Review Panel
subject: Kelowna
subject: political system
description: Canada's social-political structure is pathological, Salmon Arm MD Dr. Warren Bell told the Joint Review Panel on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline at its hearings in Kelowna on January 28, 2013. The relentless marginalization of First Nations; an electoral system that generates non-representative governments; the huge concentration of political power in the Prime Minister's Office; and the rise of corporate influence have created a pathological society.
encoded: Doctor describes symptomology to Enbridge pipeline panel I am a family physician, in clinical practice for just over 36 years in rural B.C. As a professional reflex, I have a sensitivity towards the behaviour of others, and towards the impact of my own conduct. While still in medical school, I learned that many of the most important influences on a person’s health derive not just from what doctors do, or even from the choices made by patients themselves, but from broad trends in the community—from the immediate neighbourhood right up to the planetary environment. When I began my practice, however, the term “ecosystem” was unknown, and the term “environment” referred almost exclusively to a person’s immediate social or physical situation. Today, thanks to global telecommunications and transportation, and especially the Internet and social media, our worldview has expanded greatly. As we humans have multiplied exponentially, we have learned that we can degrade the functional capacity of our planetary home, which in turn affects our survival. In 1995, I helped to found the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment or CAPE. Our purpose was to scientifically examine the intimate inter-relationship between human and ecosystem health, and improve the former by addressing the latter. With 5,500 members, CAPE has become the environmental voice of the medical profession. Today, however, I am here not as representative of CAPE or any other organization. I am speaking as just one person, and as a physician. ‘Structural pathology’ I want to address what one might call “structural pathology” in the governance system in Canada, which has led to the contention surrounding the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project—which I have followed closely since its inception. Your work as members of the Joint Review Panel is taking place in a social context. As a medical professional—with, I might add, extra training in psychotherapy—I would like to examine four diseased eleme…

Time for a Liberal-Green Coalition?
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2011-05-06T17:54:29Z
subject: Canada
subject: Elizabeth May
subject: Green Party of Canada
subject: Liberal Party of Canada
subject: Michael Ignatieff
subject: parliamentary politics
description: While the national media pundits have been fantasizing about the possibility of a coalition between the remains of the Liberal party and Jack Layton's frothy orange NDP, the Green party's unexpected success in Saanich North has opened up a juicy, sizzling, and wholly tantalizing new prospect.
encoded: While the national media pundits have been fantasizing about the possibility of a coalition between the remains of the Liberal party and Jack Layton’s frothy orange NDP, the Green party’s unexpected success in getting its leader Elizabeth May elected in Saanich North has opened up a juicy, sizzling, and wholly tantalizing new prospect. How about a coalition between the Green party and the Liberals? To my mind, this is entirely more possible than any talk of a merger between the Liberals and the New Democrats, two long-established parties with widely different philosophies and decades of animosity piled up between them. But co-operation between the Greens and the Liberals is an entirely possible scenario. It’s happened before In 2008, West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast MP Blair Wilson briefly became Canada’s first Green MP after being ejected from the Liberal caucus and barred from renomination following allegations of election financing. May needed to have at least one Green MP sitting in parliament to be included in the upcoming televised leadership debate. After examining Wilson’s election finances, May declared them legitimate, even though the Liberals thought him so beneath even their own questionable standard of ethics that they won’t allow him to return to their fold. Politics, they say, is the Art of the Expedient. The trick worked for May: she was allowed into the leaders’ debate and made an impression; Wilson ran for the Greens but didn’t get elected. Justice works in mysterious ways. Both are centre-right Despite suggestions of NDP-Green similarities, there’s no love lost between them. In fact, they’re quite different. The NDP stretches from the far Left to slightly right of centre, while the Green party increasingly is becoming avowedly centre-right. Greens and Liberals are much closer philosophically, as their erstwhile leader Stéphane Dion demonstrated. Perhaps he and not Wilson should have run as a Green? His life would have turned out much better than his …

Losing Confidence In Elizabeth May
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2009-08-02T19:17:57Z
subject: reviews
subject: book review
subject: British parliamentary system
subject: Canadian politics
subject: democracy
subject: Elizabeth May
subject: parliament
subject: politics
subject: Westminster system
description: Book Review Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May has written an interesting and useful book on the precarious and dysfunctional state of Canada’s failing parliamentary democracy. Although an excellent lay-person’s guide to Westminster-style politics, her book provides no real insight as to how this inauthentic, fractious, and ethically corrupt mess can be cleaned up and genuine democracy attained. She knows the score, but fails to understand the nature of the game.
encoded: Losing Confidence power, politics and the crisis in Canadian democracy By Elizabeth May McClelland & Stewart 2009 ISBN 978-0-7710-5760-1 (paper) 280 pages $21.00 Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May has written an interesting but ultimately politically disappointing book on the precarious and dysfunctional state of Canada’s parliamentary democracy. Losing Confidence could be a useful lay-person’s guide to the undemocratic political games played in and around Canada’s parliament. But May provides no practical suggestions as to how this mess can be cleaned up and a genuine democracy established. She knows the rules, but fails to grapple with the nature of the game. Despite her disappointing lack of political analysis, this is undoubtedly Elizabeth May’s best book to date. Writing in a clear, well-researched, and readable style, May lays out just how far we are from having a genuine and functional democracy in Canada. Like Dorothy in Oz, she pulls aside the curtain to reveal the rottenness behind this country’s devious, pompous, outdated, and viciously fractious political system. Increasingly powerful PMO The first and possibly most useful chapter of Losing Confidence traces historically how the UK’s Westminster system of parliamentary democracy evolved into today’s political system, first by reigning in the power of the King, and then by raising the power of the people. But a shift has taken place in all Westminster-style governments. Starting in Canada in 1968 with Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Prime Minister’s Offices (PMOs) have progressively taken over powers previously held in the Privy Council. Successive prime ministers and their immediate circles of advisors have clawed back all power from cabinet ministers and even the top ranks of the civil service, to become the country’s Sun King. As a result, the notion of ministerial responsibility has been cast aside. MPs have been reduced to mere background hecklers in an increasingly-rancorous Question Period, while th…

Transforming democracy
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2009-05-08T20:52:37Z
subject: reviews
subject: Bolivia
subject: book review
subject: democracy
subject: Evo Morales
subject: globalism
subject: Hugo Chavez
subject: Judy Rebick
subject: politics
subject: socialism
subject: South American politics
subject: Venzuela
subject: World Social Forum
description: Book Review Political activist Judy Rebick has written a visionary and inspiring book that shows how applied people-power can transform politics from being élitist, secretive, and corrupt, into genuinely open, grassroots, and democratic systems. Her writing is highly-charged and visionary, but her focus on South American politics glosses over the fact that Canadian political culture is very different. Can western democracy be transformed, or are we just too affluent to organise for change?
encoded: Transforming Power from the personal to the political By Judy Rebick Penguin Canada 2009 ISBN 978-0-8020-2 (cloth) $75 ISBN 9780143169468 (paper) $24.00 256 pages Book Review Political activist Judy Rebick has written a visionary and inspiring book that suggests applied people-power can transform politics from an élitist, secretive, and corrupt process into an open, grassroots democracy that could radically and vigorously tackle the urgent issues of our time. Her writing is highly-charged and visionary, but her focus on the politics of left-wing South American countries, with a few exceptions, glosses over the fact that Canadian political culture is different. Can western democracy be transformed, or are we just too affluent to change? A prominent Canadian journalist, political activist, feminist, and writer, Rebick was born in Nevada, emigrating to Canada with her family when she was nine. President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women from 1990 to 1993, she soon became the leading and very outspoken voice of the Canadian feminist movement. CBC pinko feminist Rebick co-hosted a political talk show on CBC Newsworld from 1994 to 1998, then a women’s discussion show until 2000. She helped launch the left-wing online publication rabble.ca in 2001, becoming its publisher from 2001 to 2005. She currently occupies the CAW (now Unifor–Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University in Toronto. I guess that makes her a card-carrying CBC pinko feminist, a category of journalist that drives Canada’s right-wing conservatives into apoplexy. I’m warming towards her already. Rebick’s background puts her on the leading edge of progressive Canadian politics, and her book is a refreshing glimpse of a possible way to defend and improve western democracy. The book arose out of Rebick’s growing despair that by 2005, after decades of effort, the anti-globalisation movement had failed to counter the neo-liberal agenda, halt environmental degradat…

In Search of Canadian Political Culture
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2009-04-23T18:36:29Z
subject: Canada
subject: reviews
subject: book review
subject: Canadian politics
subject: Nelson Wiseman
subject: politics
subject: University of Toronto
subject: University of Toronto Press
description: <span class="smallcaps"Book Review University of Toronto associate professor of political science Nelson Wiseman retraces the well-worn historical path In Search of Canadian Political Culture. It’s an erudite, insightful, and sweeping analysis of Canadian political history, but in the opinion of our reviewer it misses the mark in that it fails to provide guidance to those struggling for social and ecological justice on this planet at at time when the dominant human culture is out of control.
encoded: By Nelson Wiseman University of Toronto Press, 2008 ISBN 9780774813884 (trade) $85 ISBN 9780774813891 (paper) $29.95 384 pages Book Review Nelson Wiseman’s view of Canadian politics rests on the conventional and the traditional. He searches for Canadian political culture by looking to the past in historical review, although he does add some more recent social survey data to strengthen the core of his thesis. Wiseman sets out to prove is that if there is a specifically ‘Canadian’ political mode, it is expressed uniquely in each region, being formed from the interaction between the views of the existing local political élite and the social philosophy imported by each new wave of immigration. While this may appear to be blindingly apparent to any observer, it would appear that Canada’s political historians have “not taken the trouble to compare Canada’s regional political cultures: they have been telling the story of Canada at large or that of a specific province,” Wiseman claims. Well, duh…. What could those fellows have been thinking? Two identifiable parts The book falls into two parts, and would have benefitted by having them separated more clearly. The first five chapters deal with overarching theoretic concerns and is possibly more of interest to pol-sci students: frameworks and techniques of political science surveys and political culture constitutions and institutions as culture bi-culture, multi-culture, and aboriginal culture, and regional cultures. In the last five chapters of the book, Wiseman gets down to regional politics, painting an historical tapestry showing how each wave of new immigrants impacted the political culture of the time. If you are looking for a socially-aware account of regional politics, here’s where Wiseman’s political insights become a useful guide for the fascinated but perplexed. Five political regions Wiseman divides Canada into five regional political cultures. These are: Atlantic — Maritime provinces: traditional Québéc — the poli…

Canadian democracy, past and future?
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2009-04-23T18:02:28Z
subject: Canada
subject: reviews
subject: book review
subject: Canadian politics
subject: democracy
subject: Judy Rebick
subject: Nelson Wiseman
subject: Penguin Canada
subject: politics
subject: University of Toronto Press
description: Introduction Will Canadian politics simply perpetuate the battles of the past, or have globalisation and the Internet brought about a political sea change that will result in a radically transformed and more polarised political landscape? These two books represent radically different visions of Canadian democracy.
encoded: Two totally different views of Canadian political culture Will Canadian politics be simply a continuation of the feudal and class struggles of the past, or have globalisation and the global Internet brought about a political sea change that will result in a radically transformed and more polarised political landscape? Diametrically-opposed viewpoints Two recently-published books offer diametrically opposed insights into the nature of Canadian politics and the current state of our democracy. University of Toronto associate professor of political science Nelson Wiseman retraces the well-worn historical path In Search of Canadian Political Culture, while writer and feminist Judy Rebick believes that only by Transforming Power will environmental and social justice be achieved. The contrast between them is rooted in the unique tensions of this time. The traditional view held by politicians, pundits, the media and much of the voting public, is that politics will continue to be an unpleasant but important, mostly boring but occasionally amusing activity that requires its loyal citizens only hold to their nose and vote once every few years. Apart from the professionals and the political junkies, who joyously grant an election the same gravitas as a declaration of war, politics for most people is a remote blood sport of the affluent and intellectual that keeps society’s material benefits continuing to flow directly to the rich. Rejection of conventional politics Pundits, politicians and the public agree that there has been increasing and widespread rejection of conventional politics in recent years. Public participation in elections has fallen to an all-time low: in the 2008 federal election nearly 10 million voters, or 40.9 per cent of the Canadian electorate, chose not to vote — more than supported any one party. But the lack of public engagement with the traditional political process may not be due entirely to voter apathy. A growing and perhaps healthy scepticism with th…

The Age of Razor Wire
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2009-03-25T02:04:51Z
subject: Canada
subject: BC Ferries
subject: Canadian politics
subject: citizens rights
subject: corporatism
subject: democracy
subject: democratic freedom
subject: fascism
subject: politics
subject: security
description: A trip to a ferry terminal turned into a reminder of the fragility of democratic rights and the insidious way that both Liberal and Conservative governments have secretly adopted the self-serving corporate agenda of North American integration. Is the repressive, anti-democratic Security and Prosperity Partnership the beginning of The Age of Razor Wire?
encoded: Who exactly is ‘protecting’ our freedom and security? Blood on razor wire—the shape of things to come? Victoria, BC—It’s been troubling me for some time, but it took a favour to a friend to bring home to me what is happening. Since the events of September 11, 2001, there has been a slow but inexorable erosion of our democratic freedoms in the name of ‘protecting’ our security. Our basic democratic right to travel freely is under attack. If we do not collectively resist, an Age of Razor Wire lies ahead. That’s a fairly dramatic statement, so I’d better explain how I’ve come to think that way. I live in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, and I had driven to the BC Ferries terminal at Swartz Bay to pick up a friend. What I saw at there shocked me. It was a “wake-up” experience that, if I’m right, will be coming soon to a transportation terminal close to where you live. I found that razor wire, steel fences and security cameras were being erected to monitor and control the movements of the hundreds of thousands of British Columbians and tourists that pass through the terminal each year. What’s wrong with that, you say? Let me explain. Sweet little sea voyage BC Ferries used to be a crown corporation owned by the provincial government until it was turned into a semi-private corporation whose principal and only shareholder is—guess who—the BC government. For most British Columbians, riding a BC Ferry used to mean a break from the city, a sweet little sea voyage on probably the world’s cheapest, most scenic cruise line. (Of course, for laid-back Gulf Island dwellers, it also offered the exciting prospect of a night out on the town.) But since the Liberal government turned BC Ferries loose and hired steely-eyed American David Hahn to run it, the relaxed atmosphere at ferry terminals has slowly given way to crowds and commercialisation. The new ferries are bigger and faster, lacking the grace of the older fleet. Ferry fares have risen to the point that Islanders are complaining.…

The divine right of Prime Ministers
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2009-03-04T05:27:22Z
subject: Canada
subject: reviews
subject: UK
subject: book review
subject: Donald Savoie
subject: PMO
subject: politics
subject: prime minister
description: Book Review If you’re wondering why all recent prime ministers start behaving like autocrats once in office, it’s because Canada and the UK have moved to a Court system of government, explains University of Moncton public administration professor Donald Savoie. Not light reading, but an invaluable book if you want to understand Canadian federal politics.
encoded: Canada has moved to a Royal Court system of government Book Review If you’re wondering why every recent prime minister starts behaving like an autocrat once in office, it’s because Canada and the UK have both moved to a Court system of government, explains University of Moncton public administration professor Donald Savoie in this illuminating and insightful book. It’s not exactly light reading, but Savoie’s book is the best available explanation of the state of our nation today, and why so many of Her Majesty’s subjects are being turned off by Canada’s federal politicians, who have come to dominate a politicised civil service. A book with such a long title may not be your preferred literary cup of English Breakfast, but Savoie’s thorough discourse will enlighten anyone trying to make sense of the failure of the recent coalition, or the élitist, arrogant behaviour of Stephen Harper and his princely prime-ministerial predecessors. Westminster-Whitehall model The delicate relationship between Westminster and Whitehall, the centre of Britain’s civil service in London, slowly evolved over the almost eight centuries following King John of England’s acquiescence to the magna carta in 1215. This foundational act of western democracy ended the divine right of monarchs to unilaterally decide the affairs of state. Until the early 1970s, Canada’s parliamentary system followed the Westminster-Whitehall model of governance, which recognised a clear distinction between the government in parliament and the civil service. The notion of ministerial responsibility and the accountability of government to parliament both rest on this crucial division of players. An ideal civil service, according to sociologist and political scientist Max Weber, would deal with all citizens equally without regard to their position or wealth, according to a set of defined rules. Politicians would set policy after receiving impartial advice from their civil servants, who would then devise and efficiently …

Harper’s anti-environment trickery
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2009-02-26T02:08:04Z
subject: Canada
subject: environment
subject: budget
subject: Canadian politics
subject: environmental protection
description: An environmental time bomb that could put all of Canada's rivers and coastal regions under threat of energy, resort or industrial development has been quietly hidden under cover of the billions of dollars of economic stimulus in the 2009 budget bill. Passing it would make the Liberal Party complicit with Harper in gutting Canada’s environmental protection legislation.
encoded: Environmental time bomb hidden in omnibus budget bill Canada’s rivers and coastal ecosystems threatened by proposed protection change, says Ecojustice lawyer Will Amos Ottawa — An environmental time bomb that could put all of Canada’s recreational rivers and coastal regions under threat of resort or energy development has been quietly tucked into the 2009 budget legislation. Proposed amendments to the federal Navigable Waters Protection Act threaten the long-standing public right to navigation, including the right to recreational navigation, stated a news release issued recently by the University of Ottawa’s Ecojustice environmental law clinic. “The proposed changes jeopardize access to waterways and reduce environmental protection by granting discretion to the Transport Minister to bypass the approval process for potentially harmful projects,” said Ecojustice lawyer Will Amos. Ecojustice and others believe that the proposed amendments were included without proper public consultation. Environmental assessment excluded Harper’s Conservatives wants to amend the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which dates back to 1882, to give the federal Transport Minister the ability to excuse whole classes of project from the need for approvals or environmental assessments, removing any environmental protection. This could impact popular areas used for sea kayaking, fishing, river paddling and whitewater kayaking, Amos wrote in a report to outdoor equipment retailer Mountain Equipment Co-op. But the environmental implications of this covert attempt at gutting Canada’s environmental laws could spoil even more that popular fishing holes or active whitewater kayak river runs. Already, BC premier Gordon Campbell is aligning with the government’s anti-environment thrust. Entire BC coastline at risk A line in the BC government’s recent throne speech supported the thrust: “A unified major project review process will speed up job creation in mining, energy, resort development and other are…

Israel's ultra-right example
type: item
creator: Stuart Hertzog
date: 2009-02-22T03:40:32Z
subject: Israel
subject: Avigdor Liberman
subject: Bejamin Netanyahu
subject: coalition
subject: proportional representation
description: With none of Israel’s major political parties gaining an outright majority in that country’s recent election, Avigdor Liberman, leader of the extreme ultra-right Yisreal Beitenu party, holds the keys to a right-wing coalition government that at least reflects public opinion in that country. Whether that may lead to Armageddon in the Middle East is another matter.
encoded: Its latest coalition government does reflect public opinion They don’t seem to like each other: Israel’s President Shimon Peres congratulates Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu Jerusalem — Whether you like the outcome or not, the results of Israel’s 18th national election demonstrate that proportional representation can better reflect a country’s politics than Canada’s ancient voting system. Following an election in which Israel’s two major parties both failed to win an outright majority, the ultra-right-wing Yisrael Beteinu party now holds the balance of power in the country’s 120-seat Knesset. Israel’s centrist Kadima party lead by former Foreign Minister Tipi Livni won 28 seats in the country’s 18th national election, just one more than former prime minister Bejamin Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party. But a visceral and some say, fascist appeal by Liberman that played to Israeli anger at continuing rocket attacks by Hamas from inside Gaza, and attempts to remove settlements in the formerly Palestinian West Bank, gave his small party a 15-seat ticket to the cabinet table. A deeply divided country I’m certainly not one to feel happy about the results of this election, and according to this observer, neither is Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is a deeply divided country, and its governments on average last only two years. They are often bizarre, patched-together coalitions between unlikely bedfellows; most don’t survive the full four-year term. But that’s not my point. The majority of Israelis supported their country’s recent armed excursion into Gaza, and want to continue to harass and destroy the democratically-elected but anti-Zionist Hamas. Where in Canada, an inconclusive election would still allow the leader of the party with the most seats in parliament to govern the country as if he or she had an overall majority, clearly this cannot happen in Israel. Proportional representation The distribution of seats under its closed party-list proportional …