Michael Den Tandt on the Brexit and Canada: Two crucial lessons for Liberals

2016/06/28 1 Comment

Good commentary by Den Tandt on some of the lessons for the Liberal government, not to mention the Conservative opposition and the observations regarding Jason Kenney and Tony Clement’s support for Brexit:

Dear Prime Minister David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and the rest: Thank you, so very much. You’ve done the twin causes of stability and unity in your former Dominion of Canada ever so much good.

For what Canadian provincial or federal leader now, witnessing the catastrophic cock-up of your Brexit referendum, will do other than duck for cover next time there’s talk of a plebiscite here to dramatically restructure anything more important than a yard sale?

It was curious, bizarre even, to see senior federal Conservatives emerge on social media early Friday, as the “victory” for the Leave side in the Brexit vote became clear, to beat the drum for St. George. “Congratulations to the British people for choosing hope over fear,” enthused former minister-of-everything Jason Kenney, “by embracing a confident, sovereign future, open to the world!” Tony Clement, erstwhile Treasury Board president, called it a “magnificent exercise in democracy,” before slipping in a renewed call for a referendum on Canadian electoral reform.

Or, here’s another thought: The Liberals could shelve electoral reform and focus on more important stuff, this term, such as jobs.

Democracy is, indeed, magnificent. That’s why the Scots are now ramping up at breakneck speed for a do-over of their own 2014 referendum on independence from Britain, which post-Brexit surveys suggest will now swing in favour, because the Scots wish overwhelmingly to remain European.

Ireland, only recently at peace, now faces renewed turmoil at the prospect of a hard border separating Northern Ireland, still part of the United Kingdom, from the Republic of Ireland, soon to be Europe’s Westernmost outpost. Irish union, as the United Kingdom comes apart at the seams, is not out of the question. Hope over fear, indeed.

This is assuming, of course, that the UK leaves the European Union at all. Though it seems wildly improbable to imagine the referendum, 51.9 per cent for Leave, 48.1 per cent for Remain, being set aside, it is in theory possible, as long as Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which governs an EU member state’s withdrawal, is not invoked.

…All of which brings us back to Canada. Brexit is xenophobic; Brexit is anti-immigrant; Brexit is nostalgic, insular, anti-international and anti-globalization; Brexit is, most of all, an expression of English ethnic nationalism.The federal Conservatives under Stephen Harper, with Kenney himself in the lead, founded their 2011 majority on openness to ethnic pluralism. They undid much of that good work in 2015 with their niqab debate and “barbaric cultural practices” tip line. That any Conservative, Kenney most of all, should have failed to connect these dots is astonishing. Perhaps that’s why Canadian Conservative Brexit cheerleaders have also gone eerily quiet since those initial outpourings of joy.

But it’s not just the Tories who can watch and learn. There are now two threads connecting populist, anti-internationalist, xenophobic movements worldwide. The first is income inequality and poverty among the rural working class, which in England voted as a block for Brexit. The second is the fear of Islamism, manifested in suspicion of immigrants and refugees, which fueled the Leave campaign.

Fixing inequality, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals say, is their job one. But they face a looming economic catastrophe in the resource sector, which can only be addressed through pipeline development and freer trade. Working people need decent-paying jobs. From where will these come in Canada, if ideological and mostly urban anti-pipeline advocates, together with anti-globalization tub thumpers, are left to own the debate, as they do now? The Liberals need to build the case for pipelines and for liberalized trade, while they still have an audience for such.

As for Islamism, the Syrian civil war and ISIL continue to threaten Southern Europe and by extension the West. Until ISIL is destroyed and its territory taken away, there will be no end to the northward flow of refugees, and no political stability in Europe. Canada can do more and should do more to help Europe in this fight — while there remains a Europe to help.

Source: Michael Den Tandt on the Brexit and Canada: Two crucial lessons for Liberals | National Post

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ICYMI: Canadian and U.S. right not that different | Supriya Dwivedi 

2016/03/28 Leave a comment

Interesting to see this kind of commentary in The Sun:

The Canadian right also seems to be just as allergic to the term political correctness as their American counterparts. When former Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the election was underway, he made an overt reference to political correctness, stating, “now is not the time for political correctness”.

Several commentators noted it was an odd remark to make at the onset of the election, but as the campaign started to unfold it became clear why Harper made the reference. As much as conservative pundits might opine that those on the left are merely afraid of being anything other than politically correct, I’m not sure that the repudiation of things like the Barbaric Cultural Practices Tip Line, reference to “old-stock” Canadians and obsession with what Muslim women are allowed to wear during a citizenship ceremony was the embracing of political correctness as much as it was the rejection of veiled xenophobia.

More recently, in an interview with Embassy News Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia-Lambton) stated that Trump’s rhetoric has been positive for free speech advocates: “The only bright light is that he has sort of restored freedom of speech to America”. Gladu went on to assert that many people in Canada are fearful of saying what they think out of fear of being accused of “breeding hatred and fear”.

It’s worth asking where Gladu thinks she lives, considering Canada is still indeed a free state, and people are free to think, believe and say what they choose. Similarly, people with opposing viewpoints are free to say they disagree. That is what freedom of speech is. Evidently, confusing freedom of speech and freedom from consequences of that speech is something that Conservatives and Republicans have in common.

The Conservatives were not completely off-base in trying to appeal to nativist politics. The support is there. It just won’t win you a majority anymore. Canadians may not be as comfortable in the overt displays of racism as our American brethren, but we are inclined to dabble in our homegrown brand of racism that tends to be framed in a more palatable manner. It’s coded, it’s often implicit, but it’s there.

Perhaps we’re not the enlightened, toque-wearing citizenry that we like to make ourselves out to be, eh?

Source: Canadian and U.S. right not that different | DWIVEDI | Columnists | Opinion | To

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US Conservatives Call For ‘Religious Freedom,’ But For Whom? : NPR

2015/12/14 Leave a comment

Good article on the ongoing hypocrisy of the religious right and Republican contenders:

Such prejudice bothers some advocates of religious freedom, including Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“If we really believe in religious liberty, then religious liberty applies to everyone, and that means I’m not threatened by non-Christians having religious liberty,” he says. “I think the only way the Gospel can advance is with free consciences, and I think evangelical Christians particularly ought to be the most vocal about religious liberty for our non-Christian neighbors and friends.”

Robert George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and a leading lay Catholic intellectual, is also outspoken on the need to defend religious liberty for people of all non-Christian faiths, including Islam.

“It’s scandalous to me when members of a community say, ‘We don’t want a mosque in our town, because the Muslims are terrorists,'” George says. “The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathizers of terrorists. They want the same things for themselves and for their children that Christians want, that Jews want, that Hindus want, that all of our fellow citizens want.”

In the aftermath of the Paris and San Bernardino shootings, the fear of more attacks has inflamed anti-Muslim sentiment, fueled in part by Donald Trump and others who are highlighting the threat of “Islamic terrorism.” Those candidates who have emphasized the struggle for religious liberty as a mobilizing cause, from Cruz to Jeb Bush, have either ignored Trump’s repeated anti-Muslim comments or condemned them.

For some conservatives, however, recent events may bring a decision point. They may need to choose between opposing Islam and advocating for religious freedom. To wage both fights at the same time is likely to become increasingly awkward.

Source: Conservatives Call For ‘Religious Freedom,’ But For Whom? : NPR

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A Tory blend of burqa-bashing and sex-education protests: Cohn

2015/10/06 Leave a comment

Martin Regg Cohn on the odd alliances at play and how he perceives Canada has changed:

Welcome to Canada, a country of diversity that imagines itself a beacon of multiculturalism, a bulwark of secularism, and a bastion of pluralism (which means, by the way, freedom for and from religion).

Now, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is lifting the veil on the phobias still lurking beneath our vaunted tradition of tolerance. Who knew so many of us could get so hot and bothered about burqas and whipped into such a frenzy about homosexuality and sexuality?

When I returned to Canada a decade ago, after 11 years abroad as a foreign correspondent, I never fathomed that niqabs — a misplaced symbol of Islamist fundamentalism that I encountered overseas — would one day distract voters in a federal campaign.

And when I took over the Ontario politics column four years ago, I never imagined that dogmatic religious conservatism — the intolerance and inwardness I’d left behind abroad — would make a comeback in my home province.

Some days I feel like I’m still stuck in the Middle East watching Palestinians and Israelis at war with one another — or worse, turning on themselves: The baiting, the poking, the code language.

Overseas, it’s fear and loathing. Here at home, it’s smear and goading.

Sex-education protests and burqa-bashing are crossover issues. Like cross-dressing, they can be curious fetishes and phobias.

The fight against sex-education makes for strange bedfellows, for it is the flip side of the battle over the burqa. A vocal fringe within our Muslim minority — many of them clad, it’s worth noting here, in niqabs or hijabs — has made common cause with social conservatives protesting against the provincial sex-education curriculum.

It’s a classic case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Oddly for anti-sex-ed Muslim parents, their allies in intolerance of gays are in some cases Conservatives stumping on the campaign trail by stirring up mistrust of Muslims who wear the niqab (which tends to drag down all Muslims).

It’s a teachable moment for any Canadian tempted to join in burqa-bashing: Tolerance is a two-way street.

Not every single parent who has reservations about the provincial sex-education curriculum is homophobic. But if you read the work of the Star’s education reporters, Kristin Rushowy and Louise Brown, it’s hard to ignore the homophobic impulses driving many of the protest organizers — rallying religious newcomers by preying on prejudices they may have carried over from their homelands, where homosexuality equals criminality.

People who defend the right to wear a niqab in public (while requiring them to identify themselves when necessary) aren’t pro-burqa, as NDP Leader Tom Mulcair argued in Friday’s French-language debate, any more than people who are pro-choice are “pro” abortion. Their position is more a variation on the Voltarian dictum, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

One can disapprove of the niqab without disenfranchising women of citizenship and voting rights. But as a wedge issue, the burqa is unbeatable.

It presses our buttons, offends our sense of openness, makes it hard to connect with our interlocutor. Hence Harper’s undisguised glee in stirring up public mistrust of Muslims who cover up, and wounding his political opponents in the process.

Today the niqab. Tomorrow the hijab?

Will those armchair religious scholars who argue that the niqab has nothing to do with Islam (they are almost certainly right) next turn their sights on Canada’s ultra-orthodox Jews, the Hassidic (putatively pious) who persist in wearing black hats and silk stockings in public because they believe it an essential tenet of the faith (most Jews would disagree)? Shall we judge them next, stripping them of their garb as others did only a few decades ago?

Ah, but black hats and kippah and kirpans do not offend us as niqabs now do, you say? Recall that they were both proscribed in a proposed Quebec law banning religious symbols just a couple of years ago — so spare me the niceties on niqabs.

As for those who oppose an updated sex-education curriculum — the campaigning Conservatives having mischievously transposed a provincial responsibility to the federal polity — beware your bedfellows. All those Conservative candidates who tempt you into intolerance will lead you astray one day soon. Doubtless after voting day.

 Source: A Tory blend of burqa-bashing and sex-education protests: Cohn | Toronto Star

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Stephen Harper to pledge funds to help new Canadians find work in their field

2015/08/28 Leave a comment

Relatively few citizenship and immigration related announcements so far in the campaign. This recycled and possible expanded one from the Conservatives:

CBC News has learned that Harper will visit a Markham, Ont., manufacturing plant, where he will announce new money for the Foreign Credential Recognition Loan program.

The federal government introduced the program in 2011 as a pilot project. It was made permanent just this year, when the budget put aside $35 million for it over five years. Today’s announcement is expected to add even more money to the program.

According to the government, 36 per cent of new Canadians face financial barriers in getting their foreign credentials recognized. The costs range from $100 to $25,000, and can include paying for retraining or recertification exams.

Professionals affected range from physicians to those who work in the Red Seal trades, which include dozens of professions that have a set of nationally recognized standards, such as electricians, engineers and plumbers.

Source: Stephen Harper to pledge funds to help new Canadians find work in their field – Politics – CBC News

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A tale of Tory, tories and the torah

2014/09/27 Leave a comment

Emma Teitel’s well-argued rebuke to Conservative targeting of Jewish voters:

In a larger context, the Tory Pride comments are a microcosm of a fallacy to which well-meaning conservatives who support Israel’s right to exist are prone. I’ve mentioned before that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s ongoing defence of Israel, genuine though it appears to be, is so automatic and unreserved, it can be, for someone who’s Jewish, almost a bit creepy. No Israeli I know is as one-sided in his analysis of his homeland. Usually, when you live in a place for a while, you have at least a few critical things to say about it. I love Toronto, but I don’t like T.O. fixtures Rob and Doug Ford.

Conservatives love to deride knee-jerk liberals who can’t take a joke—the kind of liberals in whose company you dare not make off-colour remarks about sexuality or ethnicity. But conservatives are equally skewed by their own PC touchiness. Their breed simply takes a different form: Israel these days is one of their sacred cows, an object of their guaranteed optimism and goodwill. By this formula, Tel Aviv isn’t allowed to be just a gay-friendly city; it has to be one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world. Israel can’t just be an admirable, resilient country with flaws, it has to be, in its current form—in every form—irreproachable. To suggest that Israel can act immorally is to reveal your true colours: that you’d rather it didn’t exist.

These are false equivalencies, and they put Jews like me in an awkward position—the position, for instance, of having to defend the QuAIA (which I wish would disappear) from John Tory (for whom I’ll probably vote).

When everything constitutes anti-Semitism, nothing is anti-Semitism; words like holocaust and racism lose their meaning, and the resulting fog of moral relativism is bad for more than just Jews. And so, Mr. Tory and attendant candidates running for office, if we’re not part of the story, please leave us alone.

A tale of Tory, tories and the torah.

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Coyne: Conservatives’ incoherence really shows with Charter of Rights discontent

2014/07/18 Leave a comment

Good column by Coyne on the Courts, the Conservatives and recent cases:

“Judges don’t always get it right,” colleague Ivison observes. No, they don’t — neither do politicians, if you’ve noticed. But governments have lots of options in the face of an inclement ruling. They can redraft the law, for starters: It’s usually possible to preserve its purpose while removing the offending provisions. Beyond that? Amend the constitution. Appoint better judges. Make the case for a more restrained theory of jurisprudence. Change how the law is taught. Conservatives used to pride themselves on taking the long view of things.

Meantime, if Conservative MPs are so concerned about the powers of Parliament being usurped, I suggest they look closer to home. As defenders of Parliament, they’d be a lot more convincing had they not spent the past many years meekly surrendering one ancient Parliamentary prerogative after another, not to the courts, but to a far more voracious usurper: the executive.

Or if it’s the courts they’re worried about, there’s a simple way to remove them from the equation: Stop passing laws that are so clearly and flagrantly in violation of the Constitution see, for example, the prostitution bill. Insist, as the political scientist Emmett Macfarlane has suggested, that ministers screen bills for charter compatibility before introducing them in the House. Better yet, have committees of Parliament do the same.

As things stand, MPs seem content to abdicate this responsibility to the courts, so they can pick fights with them later. “Why elect people and pay them to do something the courts are doing,” Miller grumbles. Why, indeed.

Coyne: Conservatives’ incoherence really shows with Charter of Rights discontent.

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UK: From Burke to burkhas – why it’s time for Tory multiculturalism

2013/12/18 Leave a comment

Another sign of how Conservative parties are embracing multiculturalism and ethnic communities, following the lead of Jason Kenney and Canadian Conservatives. Further reinforcement of Doug Saunders piece a while back (When the right turns left on diversity). Of course, with UKIP, the UK Conservatives have a challenge on the right that likely limits how far they can go:

A multiculturalist Conservative Party would also be serving the nation by harnessing the huge amount of political energy that exists in many BME communities. As Dominic Grieve’s remarks imply, within Asian communities there is plenty of evidence that local electoral and party politics are taken very seriously. The problem, of course, is that this energy does not always have respectable outcomes.

Nevertheless, there may be something faintly admirable in the fact that people outside the mainstream can be bothered with traditional electoral politics, even when this involves slightly dubious methods. Isn’t it preferable to the apathy, nihilism and witless narcissism seen in much of white, urban working class Britain? Northern Tories might thus regard BME voters in the way that Disraeli regarded the newly enfranchised working class: as “angels in marble” rather than devilish aliens. The task now, surely, is to chip away at the marble.

Richard Kelly: From Burke to burkhas – why it’s time for Tory multiculturalism | Conservative Home.

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