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On March 6.12

It recently came to light that the Government of Canada has approved the use and dissemination of information that “may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment.”  That was the directive from Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, to Canada’s spy agency, CSIS.  It overturned the existing policy that CSIS was not to knowingly rely on information obtained by such repugnant (and illegal) means.  Apparently, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper — precisely like the morally discredited former administration of George W. Bush south of the border, which it so closely resembles — has concluded that real or imagined expediency trumps not only the law of the land and binding international treaties (which outlaw torture), but also the core values upon which our nation is founded.  A government that is prepared to rely on torture is hostile to the fundamental principles which bind us together.  Such a government has betrayed its trust and forfeited its legitimacy to govern, opting instead to (in effect) wage war upon its own citizens.

Squalid Endings Make for Squalid Beginnings:  The Unfortunate Murder of a Tyrant

Moammar Gadhafi was a ruthless tyrant who ruled Libya for 42 bloodstained years.  The rise of overt opposition to his tyranny in 2011, as part of the so-called Arab Spring, was certainly to be applauded.  Canada did its bit, with the United States, Britain, France, and other allies, in belatedly securing Gadhafi’s downfall, even though we were quite prepared to do business with him at various times during his reign.  The NATO members and other countries which engaged in last year’s massive aerial bombardment of Gadhafi’s forces (and in the surreptitious on-the-ground organizing and arming of ragtag opposition forces) were not honest enough to admit that our real objective was regime-change.  Instead, we abused the terms of the limited mandate granted by the U.N. to protect non-combatants.  Still, few would lament the demise of such an ugly regime.  What we should regret, however, is the murderous end of its despotic head.  Gadhafi opted to stay and fight, until he was finally cornered in the town of Sirte.  Captured by his enemies, he was murdered by them in cold blood:  He begged for his life, and they deliberately put some bullets in him to kill him.

Some might regard death by murder as a fitting end for a man whose regime perpetrated the self-same lawlessness for decades.  But we do not agree.  The only civilized response to criminality is justice — and that means apprehending the villain and according him a fair and open trial, ideally, in this case, at the International Court of Justice, rather than in situ.  How can Libya hope for a better future when it starts its new chapter with more of the same bloody violence and murder that afflicted it for so long?  And what has the legacy of that lawlessness been to date?  According to Amnesty International, the same militias which ousted Gadhafi (with our all-important help) are now routinely torturing detainees suspected of being Gadhafi supporters.  Evidence of torture and other abuse was found at ten of the eleven detention camps A.I. visited in the first two months of this year.  The ramshackle provisional government we helped install controls neither the detention camps nor the armed brigades that run them.  And, a few days ago, armed men desecrated an Allied war cemetery in Libya, smashing the gravestones of Canadian and other soldiers who died there fighting Axis forces in World War Two.  It doesn’t get much more ‘squalid’ than that!

Kowtowing to China: Doing Servile Obeisance to Tyrants

Having inexcusably permitted (and abetted) the wholesale export of our manufacturing sector, and the thousands of jobs that went with it (a boondoggle perpetrated in the spurious name of ‘globalization’ that doubtless benefited corporate tycoons, even as it wrecked havoc and ruin upon ‘the 99%’), the political and business leaders of the United States and Canada now rush to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese regime.  Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was the latest to lead a pilgrimage, er, entourage, to do abject obeisance to the tyrants of the East, smiling in the best servile fashion and (figuratively) bowing in his cap-in-hand mission to drum-up trade and investment.

And, so it goes:  China gets our jobs; they make all the shoddy consumer goods we buy; and, in return, they buy our raw resources.  It never seems to dawn on our leaders to insist on our oil, lumber, minerals, and other natural resources being processed here.  Instead, Canada ploddingly does what it has always done:  It sells raw materials, and then buys them back — for a lot more money — in the form of processed goods.

Gone are the days of Harper’s public criticism of China’s lethal contempt for human rights.  While he was shamelessly cozying-up to China’s anti-democratic regime in pursuit of trade, what were his hosts doing?  Why, only gunning down two unarmed Tibetan protestors and vetoing (along with their fellow autocrats in Russia) a milquetoast resolution at the U.N. which dared to mildly admonish the murderous regime in Syria for making (very literal) war on its own people.

China is implacably hostile to the precepts of liberty, justice, and democracy.  It is an enemy of human rights.  That makes it our enemy; and its totalitarian regime should be anathema to our leaders.  Instead, they curry its favor, because that’s where the money is these days.  Befriending such a noxious regime and pretending that it is fit to be welcome in decent company among nations which recognize and vouchsafe basic human rights is to shamelessly substitute mercantile expediency for protection of the fundamental principles we in the West allegedly hold so dear.

The Banana Republic of the North?

The “robo-call” scandal that hit the news in Canada in recent days is a distressing sign that there is something rotten in the state of the true north strong and free.  Nearly a year after the May 2, 2011 federal election, we are belatedly learning about what looks to be deliberate, orchestrated attempts to subvert the democratic process.

It turns out that more than 31,000 complaints have been lodged with Elections Canada about telephone calls which misdirected voters to bogus polling stations.  Some calls were placed by live callers, others by the automated messages dubbed ‘robo-calls.’  Those doing the calling, whether in person or through a ‘robotic’ intermediary (i.e. an automated system programmed to make calls on someone’s behalf), fraudulently identified themselves as Elections Canada officials.  It seems their objective was to disenfranchise as many voters as they could.  And early indications suggest that opposition voters were the primary recipients of these fraudulent calls.  The practice is alleged to have taken place in dozens of ridings across Canada — including some where the victors (usually Conservative, it seems) won by margins as low as 18 votes!

We are told that Elections Canada and the RCMP are investigating.  The full force of Canada’s law enforcement resources needs to be brought to bear on this grievous affront to democracy.  In government, as in legal proceedings, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.  The current situation raises deeply troubling questions about criminal interference with the functioning of democracy in Canada.  Until it is satisfactorily resolved, it also raises grave concerns about the legitimacy of the result of the 2011 federal election.  No effort should be spared to get to the bottom of the alleged vote-tampering.  Those responsible should face the full force of sanctions under both elections law and the criminal law — up to and including penitentiary sentences.  In each riding in which a reasonable doubt can be made out about the legitimacy of the result as a consequence of criminal interference, said result should be nullified and a by-election called.  And, should the problem prove to endemic across many ridings, the current government should resign and call a general election to clear the air.  No self-respecting democracy can afford to live with nagging doubts about the legitimacy of its elected government, not, that is, unless it is to assume the ignominious mantle of the ‘Banana Republic of the North.’

© 2012 by John Arkelian.

On July 27.10

Yes, that’s right, TIFF, better known as the Toronto International Film Festival, has a new moniker, one that better describes its unattractive new modus operandi.  Forget about the current cinematic fad known as 3-D; the festival does it one better, having cornered the market on “4-D:”  “Discourteous, Disorganized, Disingenuous, and Disdainful.”  Gone are the days of civility, a warm welcome, and public transparency.  They’ve been left on the cutting-room floor.  In their place stands a coldly arrogant edifice comprised in equal parts of hype, hubris, avarice, and a haughty disdain for all but the favored few.  The people who run the festival fawn over supposed celebrities, the self-anointed Demigods of Tinsel Town before whom they shamelessly bow, even as they show nothing but contempt for the rest of us mere mortals.  Sure, there are still some good movies at the festival; but there have been fewer and fewer truly outstanding ones in recent years.  Quality is as endangered a species as civility at TIFF.  Cinephiles will have a far happier experience if they stay home and rent quality films on DVD or through one of the lawful download-providers.

Like too many of its movies in recent years, the festival leaves us cold with its endless queues; the over-crowding and insufficiency of repeat screenings that make it all but impossible to get into the films you want to see; the lamentable caste system pervading the whole affair that dismissively looks you up and down to determine if you’re a ‘somebody’ or (more likely) not and treats you accordingly (who’d have guessed that even the attendant press corps is ranked according to perceived import and that its members are susceptible to being demoted from prioritized to plebian without warning, explanation, or right of appeal); the excessive price tag on everything from admission tickets to the program book (a book whose production costs ought to be more than defrayed by its many full-page color corporate ads); the over-abundance of immodest hype; the general air of corporatism and clubbiness that distances the whole thing from ordinary folks; an inexplicable doltish readiness to tolerate the ubiquitous use in darkened cinemas of cell phones and text devices, whose display screens beam a blinding light into the unwilling eyes of other filmgoers; and an unseemly preoccupation with a planned $196 million corporate headquarters cum showpiece, the so-called “Lightbox.”  Just what an ostensibly not-for-profit organization is doing (besides empire-building) devoting so much of its energy and resources to the pursuit of a massive real estate development in pricey downtown Toronto is hard to fathom.  It seems that the palatial new digs will not come close to being able to accommodate all of the festival screenings (there’s been a crying need for years for more screens, bigger venues, and far more repeat-screenings).  That being so, what in the name of the hallowed silver screen is the festival doing as a would-be player in the worlds of high-finance and real estate development?   Sadly, it seems that the curtain has fallen on the festival Torontonians once knew and loved.  If you’re wise, you’ll avoid the unrecognizable thing that has usurped its place like the proverbial plague.

On May 14.10

Phosphorescent orange gunge flows freely from park into Lake Ontario

The Gulf of Mexico has a disastrous oil-spill to deal with.  But good old Lake Ontario has to suffer a few man-made indignities of her own.  A couple of weeks ago, I happened upon a noxious-looking, oily, phosphorescent orange liquid oozing out of a large drainage pipe on the beach at Oshawa’s Lakeview Park and making its way across three or four feet of sand before entering the lake.  In a quixotic attempt to do my civic duty, I contacted environmental officials with the regional, provincial, and federal governments to raise the alarum.  None of them were initially inclined to take meaningful action.  (I simply suggested that someone familiar with hazardous substances inspect the leak and take a sample for chemical analysis.)  Indeed, one spokesperson, who was remarkably short on tact, proffered the sarcastic rejoinder that if the public wants the provincial government to test possible contaminants, we should first be prepared to pay higher taxes.  (Hmmm…)  Anyway, action was finally taken — perhaps giving credence to the old adage that squeaky wheels get the grease, even if leaky pipes do not.  Apparently, the pipe opening was temporarily sealed, the pipe contents were sucked up by a vacuum truck and taken away to points unknown, and whatever residue is left will be flushed out of the pipes – right out into the lake, one supposes.  Best of all, samples were finally taken for analysis.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come back positive as concentrated death, as an unknown quantity of it made its way into the lake before anyone in officialdom lifted a finger to investigate.  Their  sudden flurry of belated activity suggests that the powers that be shared my concerns that the stuff entering the lake certainly looked toxic!  A photograph of ‘the Blob that Got Away’ accompanies this post, in case you’re curious about what you’ve been drinking lately.

Postscript (on June 27.10): It seems that a number of chemical analyses were done.  Most organic chemicals apparently came back below detection levels.  Some coliform bacteria was detected, but, apparently, not in dangerous amounts.  (According to an Ontario Ministry of the Environment spokesman, coliform bacteria is present in most water.)  The samples tested as “rather high” in iron, manganese, zinc, and chlorides.  Provincial staff are still assessing what the various materials identified in the test samples are actually from, though they think the source is unlikely to be paint (which is what the orange liquid resembled).  When I pointed out that the orange gunge was still there (and full of dead gnats, for whom it had proved lethal) several weeks after the pipe was supposedly flushed-out, provincial staff revealed that the one hundred feet of the pipe closest to its terminus on the public beach had not been flushed after all, since city equipment could not reach it.  Thirsty, anyone?  (Lake Ontario is the source of drinking water for millions of people.)

© 2010 by John Arkelian.

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