The road less cycled

Canucks mania has spread like wildfire in the Fraser Valley. Establishments frequented by hockey mad folk are thanking the heavens for the rush of euphoria that is helping to counteract the effects of the recession. People schedule tasks around Canucks games, gladly opting to take a few hours away from the grind to relax in front of the tube, knowing that remaining caught up in the status of the NHL playoffs will benefit them. You might think that that’s an odd thought; how on Earth can keeping one’s eyes fixed to a hockey screen displaying unrelated men vying to insert a black rubber disk into a net, and doing this for three hours, possibly benefit one?  Around playoff time we humans certainly exhibit some strange behaviour, but upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that it’s not as if this type of behaviour is at all impractical on a personal level. A lot of stuff I don’t like isn’t, actually.

Drivers and pedestrians celebrating the Canucks Game 2 win

Before I go any further, I just want to point out that until the last year or two, I was as big of a Canucks fan as anybody I know; hell, I made friends on the basis of talking about hockey and the Canucks together. Even today, I still get a kick out of watching the game; if I’m at home I’ll still follow the game log or watch the game despite having a grainy, wavy CBC image. We don’t have any cable TV; never have and I probably never will.

Recently however, I’m not really the kid who would want his sports section along with the morning oatmeal in Gr.5. I still want my oatmeal, but not so much the sports. But the question remains, what could possibly drive people to become so rabid over something so inconsequential?

The first big benefit is pretty simple. Hunkering down in front of “the game” relaxes people! Taking a few hours out of a busy day to do nothing productive and focus on cheering on a favorite team, be it mentally or physically, is a powerful urge because it gives us an excuse to take a long break. It would be one thing if that break was taken in isolation, but what’s even better is that in this case there are huge social benefits! Since everybody’s talking hockey these days, if you can join in or even direct the chatter by knowing what’s going on, you’ve immediately got a social leg-up. For basically doing nothing.

At the same time, though I’ve done absolutely no research on this and have no intention of doing so, I believe it’s been shown that having a championship team locally gives a region a big boost. There’s a general sense of euphoria as people have their innate desires of seeing “their” team win fulfilled. This tends to raise feelings of goodwill. Also, having a local play-off team gives people a reason to get together and celebrate, and what do people do when they celebrate? They buy stuff and consume it, so it boosts the economy. Whether it provides a long term boost is questionable, but there’s a high likelihood that all the simultaneous celebrations result in increased sales, which in turn makes local retailers happy and also boosts the euphoria level. As with the social benefits, this is all well and good until you think about the fact that all this is accomplished through manic support for a group of millionaires, most of whom have nothing to do with the local community and are only playing here because a General Manager, who also likely hails from somewhere else, had the aptitude to bring them in. By cheering these people on, we’re basically saying that being here by default makes you a better player or manager than all the other players or managers in the league. It’s senseless, but hey, it boosts the economy and makes us feel better so we’re going to go party, alright?

After Game 2, a 3-0 Canucks win in which Sundin scored the first goal, a buddy and I walked out to South Fraser Way to check out the celebrations. The dominant thought that I had as people beetled down Abbotsford’s main artery honking and waving and basically letting go of some steam, was, “Gosh, when does Abbotsford ever get excited about anything? Now look at this!” I’ve heard estimates of around 1000 people out celebrating, and that doesn’t include the many thousands more who stayed home. It’s basically a herd mentality; what we’re basically saying is that, “Even though few of the Canucks actually hail from Vancouver, when they win we feel happy and drink beer and consume other stuff and watch lots of ads, so let’s all join in!!” How’s that for logic eh?

Somewhat miraculously, I apparently am in near complete agreement with my brother on what I’m going to say next. This pretty much never happens. We respect each other, but live very different lifestyles and hold some pretty different viewpoints, so I’m pretty flabbergasted whenever we agree on something.

What I heard him saying yesterday is basically an exact replica of what I was arguing with my buddy a couple nights ago; that it’s great to see Abbotsford citizens out in numbers to support something, but how in hell have we come to a point where the only time they will ever come out in numbers for anything is when something of absolutely no consequence except how they ‘feel’ goes in their favour? How assinine have we become, and how has this happened? How is it that about issues such as land use or transportation or tax rates or pollution we raise nary a peep, by comparison, but when a bunch of millionares defeat some other millionaires by playing with marginally more skill, and subsequently causes the supporters of the other millionaires to be dejected and generate a collective pall over their goings on, that we rejoice!?

When our very food and drink is at stake because of development on agricultural land, and our ability to feed our family is threatened by economic rumblings, we clamor but do nothing, but when ‘our’ team wins we celebrate and drink beer and give ourselves a collective pat on the back.

Is that we’re completely happy with the way things are organized by our governments and leading personalities? Is it that we’re all too confused to adamantly advocate anything? Are we too apathetic to stick out our necks for anything when there is the slightest element of risk, which there is none of when celebrating a Canucks win? Have the forces of media forced us into enough of a philosophical straightjacket that we trust that our duly elected leaders will do the right thing?

So, you down for some drinks when the next series starts? Sure, I’ll buy.

I mean, you did read this far didn’t you?

There is an entire school of thought which revolves around self-directed learning: learning that is ongoing, in that one never stops doing it and actively seeks it out; inexpensive, in that one does not pay ~$150.00 per credit to do it; relationship building, in that one sometimes chooses to do it in collaboration with a close friend or group of friends who are interested in the same thing. Some people choose this option as an alternative to post-secondary education, figuring that they would rather live in and learn from the real world and use whatever leftover time they have to bolster their knowledge and awareness.

Self-directed learning is something that I’ve been trying to remind myself to do more often. It’s something that takes discipline, or just the absence of pesky friends who want to go and drink over some board games or something like that in the evenings. Giving in to that temptation too often is more likely than not to land one among what’s called the “deadbeat masses.” Giving in on occasion is, I think, a necessity for sanity. Giving in never at all might just saddle you with a frown and a scowl far more often is necessary. Anyway, self-directed learning is a way to create some discussion or banter about topics that schools and universities just don’t really cover, and that is probably a necessity.

So from time to time I’ll make this blog a little on the academic side, when and where I deem appropriate, by sharing what’s emerging from my episodes of self-directed learning, most of which I do while waiting for buses.

About a week ago, I  picked up “The Upside of Down” by Thomas Homer Dixon, and unlike most of my schoolbooks, despite me being enrolled in a degree which interests me, have been glued to its pages. In order to function, anybody needs to formulate something of a worldview; a way of thinking about the order or disorder in their lives that answers some of the big questions and explains how things work. My worldview, particularly in the last few months, really has no rhyme nor reason to it. Not much makes sense on a broader scale. I don’t really have much in the way of religion, having survived private high school without acquiring that. Economically, sustainablility is the very last of all the traits we’ve managed to acquire. Politically, a lot of the people in leadership positions are the wrong people to be there. Socially, so many seem stuck in the status quo. I think, thankfully, that I’ve managed to get one leg out.

Many people live their day to day lives smack-dab in the middle of a gigantic economic construct that is explained to them by newspapers, television programs, news hours, their paycheque, and the books they read. In large part, in North American society, this involves  a capitalistic economic structure framed around free enterprise, a consumer good oriented society in which many everyday consumables are made overseas and imported into North America, a large middle class that works in various sectors of the economy, many in service sectors, but some also in production or manufacturing, and a large automobile industry that employs much of the work force, from automobile maintenance, to repairs, to sales of new vehicles, to production of domestics, to automobile associations which lobby for space for cars. For pretty much all of this, high resource consumption is integral to the process, and also largely ignored and taken for granted. Now that capitalism appears to be failing, some people are starting to ask the odd question (odd behaviour, I know) and some bigger topics open up.

What Dixon has to say about all this is, I think, crucial. Dixon seems to like our banking system, stating that the Federal Reserve system brings added flexibility. With that out of the way, there’s lots of things that seem to be nagging Dixon. He calls these things Tectonic Stresses. They are:

• population stresses
• peak oil (less energy for more people, eventually maybe no conventional energy)
• environmental stress
• climate change
• economic stress (widening gaps between rich and poor)

If any one of these, or worse, several at once, rear their ugly heads, things would go downhill fast, Dixon says.

He writes, “Most of us in cities are now so specialized in our skills and so utterly dependent on complex technologies that we’re completely dependent on complex technologies that we’re quickly in desperate straits when things go wrong.“

Perhaps more importantly, he writes that, “Most of the five stresses spring from our troubled relationship with nature. Indeed, one of my most important points is that we can’t ignore nature any longer, because it affects every aspect of our well-being and even determines our survival……they (policians, corporate leaders, social scientists) tend to dismiss people who concern themselves with nature as, at best, softheaded do-gooders or, at worst, eco-freak fanatics.”

He goes on to say that, “….opinion leaders conveniently overlook the fact that every great civilization believes itself to be exceptional, right up to the time that it collapses.”

The route to success is either through long-term employment and saving for retirement through investing, or in the ownership of a potential business. A high tax load ensures the punctual payments of interest on the national debts, and as they did in ancient Rome, people complain incessantly that only two things are guaranteed: death and taxes. For some, perhaps only one of those, though some are worried they’ll soon be taxing ghosts too.

Xurbia.ca – they’ve got solutions to this kind of stuff

Dixon describes several scenarios of concern, one of them being the the failure of the power generation system, as happened on the East Coast in 2003 for an extended amount of time. He writes that, “…we can make much greater use of decentralized, local energy generation, and alternative energy sources (like small and medium scale solar, wind, and geothermal power) so that individual users are more independent of the grid.” This is what Dixon terms a resilience enhancing strategy, and it’s my view that not to make use of the technologies that now exist at relatively affordable prices, probably the most affordable they have ever been, is irresponsible from both a personal and societal standpoint. This is one example of both how a breakdown can be minimized in its intensity, and dealt with when and if it does happen.

Suffice it to say that in today’s day and age, we count on the institutions that we’re familiar with to continue functioning as we expect them to. We expect resource extraction and subsequent production to continue to employ people, even as evidence mounts that same pace extraction would be hazardous to ourselves and the planet. We expect universities and corporations and retail outlets to continue to pay our salaries; we expect people in developing nations to continue making the products we ‘need,’ because if they didn’t and we made them ourselves, we couldn’t afford them. We expect food and consumables to continue to be shipped around the world, and then to appear on the shelves of the stores we frequent. It’s in those paradigms that we happily function, remaining completely unprepared for things to change, and unaware of whether our planet could cope with large-scale changes if they were to occur.

Systemic change simply isn’t on our radar screens. I mean, the last time things got really tough was over 60 years ago.

A lot has changed since then. Only time will tell if the next 60 will be as nice as the last 60. And perhaps, it’s only fools who would count on it.

I have not slept well of late, at least not by my standards which typically involve drifting off within milliseconds of my head hitting the pillow and not stirring for eight to ten solid hours – more if I’m short on sleep for whatever reason (exams come to mind).

Tonight has been a particularly poor night. Admittedly, my rhythms are completely out of sync – I slept from around nine a.m. to eight p.m. today as I spent the night elsewhere and didn’t arrive home until 8 in the morning. So I was up and about for around five hours tonight before retiring once again to try and get my rhythm back on track. Now I’ve been tossing and turning for around three hours, a bajillion thoughts coursing through my head, so instead of continuing that exercise in futility, I thought I’d make myself a cup of tea and do some writing instead. So here I am, at five a.m., sipping rooibos and trying to transfer some thoughts from the maelstrom that is my brain to the thought absorbent medium that is the Internet, where they will soon be made public for all to access as they wish. Frightening.

This weblog, in recent weeks, has taken on a definite political bent, as welcome developments in Parliament offered the prospect of a change of government, and with the extreme disappointment I feel in our current federal government’s absolute failure to address climate change, this is something which seized my complete attention and interest while it lasted. I felt, and still do, that a centre-left progressive coalition government would be the best thing that could happen for Canada politically speaking at the current time.

My thoughts around politics are, however, not that well organized. I remain unconvinced of several things: the potential for politics to truly enact lasting change; the legitimacy of a state that has consistently and horrifically marginalized Canada’s First People’s since before Confederation; and finally, with my current state of limited worldly experience, minimal knowledge of Canada’s political history, and partial understanding of the macroeconomics and financial structure on which our country is based, my suitability to overly engross myself in public life. I firmly believe there is room and need for youth in politics, but this should not come at the expense of personal development, and I fear that for myself, this would be the result. If and when I overcome those obstacles, and feel myself suited for active participation in government, be it as a citizen or as a representative, then and only then will I “re-enter the fray”, so to speak. I make this resolution only because I know how susceptible I am to directing more attention and time than is healthy to political debate and discussion.

I also know only too well how in politics everything that you make public can come back to bite you; should you ever become an elected representative, someone, either a media hack who needs a story or a political opponent who wants to take you down, will rifle through pretty much everything you’ve ever written or said to try to dig up some dirt, or worst of all, take something inoffensive and legitimate out of context so that it sounds offensive or ignorant. One need only look at how many times the things Garth Turner has written on his blog have been taken out of context by his opponents. At best, his online verbosity has given his opponents barrels of ammunition forcing him to too often be on the defensive, even when what he actually said was relatively innocuous.

Now it’s not as if I am constantly spewing out slurs, harshly denigrating those whom I disagree with, or in any way taking risks with my writing. Most if not all of what I write is completely palatable and unlikely to land me in hot water in the future. Nevertheless, it never ceases to amaze me how words can be twisted to suit an agenda or an unsavory purpose, and bearing that in mind, this blog is more intended as a thoughtful record of the clearest parts of my thought processes than it is a medium through which to vent and blow off steam. Having written here for around one year now (my first post was, in fact, on Dec. 3 of last year), I’m quite pleased with the volume and regularity of my writing, the level of readership, and actually, the quality as well. (for those reading on Facebook, these notes are automatically imported from my blog at www.streamrambler.wordpress.com). I’ll continue not hesitating to make this somewhat personal, but not overtly or shockingly so, and I stand by the original purposes I outlined for this weblog in my initial two or three posts. I feel, in fact, that to date it’s been personal enough that it’s possible to get a fairly solid idea of what I’m all about just by reading it.

Now that the furor over who exactly will govern Canada has subsided for the moment, I want to take a moment to discuss a very interesting point that was raised by a panel of pundits on The Globe and Mail.

To summarize briefly the line of conversation that took place among this panel, Jim Stanford defended the coalition, saying that that the roughly 1/3 support that the Conservatives received hardly amounted to a mandate to govern, and that the coalition, by virtue of collectively having the backing of 62% of Canadians, had more governing legitimacy.

This view was sharply rebuked by William Gee, who pointed out that by extension, this line of argument means that the governments of Pearson, Trudeau, Chretien, and Martin were also illegitimate, as each received in the neighbourhood of 40% support and were therefore outnumbered in terms of popular vote by the opposing parties.

Specifically, he writes the following:

“Jim Stanford’s argument that the Conservative government is illegitimate because the other parties combined got more votes is breathtaking.

Every government since 1953, when the Liberals got precisely 50 per cent of the popular vote, has been in the same position.

Lester Pearson formed minority governments in 1963 and 1965 with 41.7 per and 39.8 per cent of the vote respectively. Was he illegitimate?

Pierre Trudeau led a minority from 1972 to 1974 after winning 38.5 per cent of the vote. Was he governing against the will of the people?

Jean Chrétien won three majority governments with 41.3, 38.5 and 40.8 per cent and Paul Martin won a minority with 36.7 per cent, less than Stephen Harper’s 37.6 per cent.

I suppose they should have handed power to the opposition parties, too.

Come on, Jim. The practice in our system is that the party that wins the most seats gets a chance to form a government — period, end of story.

As one clever blogger pointed out, having the losing parties gang up to form a government is like having the three runners-up in the NHL playoffs claim the Stanley Cup because they scored more goals and won more games combined than the winner.”

Ignoring the fact that William Gee is wrong on one key point – the Conservatives were given the chance to form government and flubbed it – it’s my belief that Gee is absolutely correct; Stanford’s claims are breathtaking in that they accurately reveal the flaws in our current first-past-the-post political system. Under this system, all of the governments Gee mentions were legitimate, as is Stephen Harper’s, as would be a coalition government.

However, one has to question whether a government representing barely more than 1 in 3 Canadian voters should in fact be considered legitimate. The Canadian public in general appears not to have too many qualms with such a belief, but perhaps they should question this situation a little further. Democracy champions the principle of majority rule; yet 1 in 3 voters does not even approach a majority. That 1 in 3 votes can translate into 1 in 2 seats in the House of Commons is merely political sleight of hand that results in false majority after false majority, creating a political ideology roller coaster as power jumps back and forth from the left to the right. Under such a system, politicians and political parties do not compromise, or take each other’s ideas into account. Rather, they criticize and deride each other while acting unilaterally. Sound familiar? Welcome to politics in Canada.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The fact that too many Canadians seem to labour under the impression that we elect Prime Ministers and governing parties suggests that they would have a difficult time coming to terms with a new political system. That, however, is precisely what I would like to lend my support to. Calls for proportional representation in Canada are growing ever stronger as Canadians realize that what we are doing is not working. Opposition parties, having realized that cooperation is the answer to Harper’s right wing amalgamation, will continue to threaten to band together to overthrow the government if they do not obtain significant concessions. Coalitions are a part of Canada’s political landscape for the foreseeable future, and Canadians need to evolve their views to take this into account.

For decades, centuries in fact, Canada has been governed under a system that only works because it distorts fractions. Some Canadians vote for parties, some vote for their MP, some vote for the Prime Minister, some vote strategically against another party or a PM. Proportional representation, though not a perfect system, enables the accurate representation of diverse political viewpoints and puts an end to false majorities.

Breathtaking Stanford’s argument is. What is even more breathtaking is that mainstream media is acknowledging that our political system is in serious need of re-examination. Stephane Dion may not have become Prime Minister, but nevertheless he’s made his mark on Canada. Let’s hope Iggy can finish what Dion started.

How can anyone still support this Harper government having seen what Harper is capable of? To accuse a member of the House of Commons of lying is considered unparliamentary; yet Stephane Dion did so without repercussion. That suggests that Conservatives know that Harper lied.

First Harper accused the Progressive Coalition of being photographed without a Canadian flag because a member, Gilles Duceppe, did not believe in the nation. Lo and behold, photographs and video of the event show not one, but two Canadian flags behind the three leaders. If that’s not a deliberate lie, I don’t know what is.

Then Harper said that Stephane Dion does not have the right to take power without an election. This too, is a lie, unless Harper really doesn’t understand how our parliamentary system works either. The Conservative government has not the confidence of the House; therefore the chance to govern can be granted to an alternative government having a majority.

As if that wasn’t enough, Harper then lambasted the coalition for catering to the seperatist Bloc, saying that his party would never consider such a thing. This too, is laughable, because on two seperate occasions, the Conservative Party made plans with the Bloc to form a coalition government, once with the intention of propelling Stockwell Day to the Prime Minister’s seat, and again in 2004. Finally, for Harper’s government to survive, it must gain support from the Bloc itself, because the NDP and Liberals won’t offer it. Another lie.

At any rate, Harper has blown his chances of a majority, having completely alienated Quebec. The anti-seperatist rhetoric has come across as very anti-Quebec, and the Conservative’s chances of gaining seats there should there be another election are virtually nil.

Our political system might be flawed in that it distorts the popular vote to create false majorities, but it retains the flexibility to accomodate a change of government without a $300 million election. This, of course, is something Harper will never admit, knowing that such an acknowledgement could keep power in the hands of the NDP and Liberals for years to come.

Canada’s political system is not designed to accomodate five major parties. It’s designed for the incessant revolution of power between two dominant parties. With the Bloc and NDP thrown into the mix, as well as a million people voting Green, Canada might see minority governments for quite some time.

We’d better learn to deal with it.

This blog’s gotten more political than it has been historically of late. I don’t expect that to continue – politics is not my forte and I am far from a political expert – I’m just an ordinary university student with an interest in how my country is governed and the gumption and urge to speak out now and again.

This is, without a doubt, a historic time in Canadian politics – a time that will be remembered for the precedent it sets for generations to come. It has exposed the weakness of our first-past-the-post parliamentary system. It has seen the resuscitation of a maligned, atypical politician who many had written off. It has seen the Governor General rush back to the country to make what might be the most important decision of her career.

Perhaps most of all, it has revealed that many, many, people do not understand how our democracy works. I’m no expert; not a political science student, not affiliated with any political party. Yet even I can see that there is something wrong when a party that lacks a majority of votes, lacks a majority of seats, and has managed to alienate not only all of the opposition parties, but many Canadians as well, tries to cling to power by spreading falsehoods about the democratic nature of his party’s impending loss of power.

This is a very simple formula that people need to understand. None of the opposition parties proved to be particularly popular with the Canadian public; still, together, far more people support them then support Harper’s Conservatives. The Canadian public fundamentally leans toward the left. This is the case and has always been the case, and that the left is uniting is merely a response to Harper’s uniting of the right (in backhanded fashion, many will recall).

This week has seen Harper expose his own hypocrisy, denouncing the very same tactics he himself explored in 2004. It has seen Harper once again call in the vaunted Conservative media machine in hopes of once again buying public opinion to favor him.

Let us hope this crisis ends with Harper accepting that his party has been given no mandate to govern and that the majority of public opinion still rests with the opposition parties. Let’s hope that next week, Stephane Dion is Prime Minister, the Liberals and NDP are calling the shots, and that our democracy is left intact, because if the coalition doesn’t happen, it won’t be.

As I feared, the Conservatives are blitzing the country in a public relations campaign aimed at riling Canadians up in anger at the proposed coalition government. It doesn’t seem to matter that the campaign seems to be based on the assumption that Canadians don’t really understand our political system. The fact remains that Stephen Harper’s government is unable to muster the majority that it needs to pass legislation, as the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc will not support his government. Therefore, according to the results of the recent election, Harper cannot govern. Hence, the door is opened for a majority coalition to form government, and that is exactly what is happening.

Strong federalist Stephane Dion, who has fought harder for Canadian unity than Stephen Harper ever has, has cut a deal with Gilles Duceppe that he is happy with. Would Dion really cut a deal that isn’t in the best interests of the country when he worked so hard to keep Canada united?

Harper should step aside, allow Dion and Layton to govern, and stop trying to plunge Canada back into another $300 million election campaign.

Stephane Dion may yet become Prime Minister of Canada, and Stephen Harper is twisting and turning to hold on to power.

The Liberal Party has boldly proclaimed its intention to attempt to bring down the Conservative government by forming a formal alliance with the New Democrats and counting on the Bloc not to spoil the party. By bringing forward a non-confidence motion at the first opportunity, the Liberal party can assume the leadership of a progressive coalition that will work together to further a joint Liberal-NDP agenda, and by so doing, disrupt the gradual march toward American style government that characterized the Conservatives first term in office.

The magnitude of such a development could not be overstated. The implications of such a move for Canada are immense, and could mark a turning point for the country. It would give Dion a chance to prove himself to Canadians as he was unable to do during the election campaign; to display some of his much vaunted “determination” and utilize his well developed diplomacy and negotiation skills to keep Parliament on track. He will have to do this in the face of inevitable Conservative obstructionism and filibustering. One has only to think back to the 200 page manual on how to disrupt Parliamentary committees distributed by the Prime Minister’s Office to realize that when it comes to procedural and disruptive tactics, the Conservatives are no slouches.

To date, Harper has reacted to the challenge by calling it undemocratic. This is a pure and utter fallacy. In fact, fallacy is a very weak word for the position Harper is taking. It is downright duplicitous. In fact, a progressive left-wing coalition would be the most democratic government we could have, given the current make-up of Parliament. A strong majority of Canadians voted against the Conservatives, and a Liberal led coalition would finally give those Canadians representation in our federal government. A party that received less than 40% of the vote does not deserve to govern unilaterally, and should be punished for attempting to do so. That past Liberal governments governed with a minority of votes is also an inexcusable shortcoming of our political system.

Harper has crowed about his “strong leadership.” Well, governing is about more than strong leadership. True enough, his party has taken decisive action at his lead, but this action has too often completely ignored the wishes of the Opposition parties who represent the true majority of votes. This is not leadership. It’s dictatorship, no different than the dictatorship of past Liberal Prime Ministers. It’s time that Canada’s political parties demonstrated some more skills than partisanship and divisive politics. It’s time they demonstrated that they understand the meaning of the words “cooperation” and “compromise.”

Make no mistake: the formation of a Progressive coalition government is the best thing that can happen for Canada at this point in time. It will give the NDP, long marginalized in the realm of actual policy, a say in legislation. It will give Dion the chance to lead the country that he so richly deserves for his principled, optimistic vision for Canada. It will rein in the power of a Conservative Party that has moved Canada ever closer to economic and environmental integration with the United States and Mexico, supported continued expansion of Canada’s tar sands, squandered the significant surplus that it inherited, cut the wrong taxes, did virtually nothing to promote alternative energy, and taxed income trusts after specifically promising not to. We may, in fact, see some action on climate change under a Progressive coalition; we may see the creation of a new economy that actually acknowledges the rapid growth of the green jobs sector; we may see Canada begin to regain its glowing international reputation; we may see Canada actually demonstrate the fiscal responsibility the Conservatives talk so much about, but do so little to implement.

Harper has delayed the showdown that is to come by postponing Monday’s scheduled Opposition Day  until Dec.8. The Conservatives will surely use this window of time to trot out all the tired arguments against Dion; to try to sell the lie that a Progressive Coalition would be undemocratic; the lie that the Opposition parties have not earned the right to govern. The upcoming week will be one in which Harper will attempt to sow division among those on the left, in hopes of provoking the Liberals or NDP to make a hasty move such as dumping Dion prior to the leadership convention. He will loudly protest that the Opposition has no moral right to assume the government.

Many had thought Stephane Dion was washed up as Liberal leader. It is unlikely that he can be ousted before the Liberal motion is tabled; by every apperance, he will be Prime Minister, if only for a few months. Should he perform well however, the Liberal party may well decide to keep him on. Such a move would not be without precedent; Trudeau himself was once re-instated as party leader, after which he went on to win the next election. Could the same happen for Dion? Time will tell.

History will be made in the coming week. Change cannot come from government alone, but a change in government will play a role. I have hope for Canada once again. Now if only the Oppposition parties can dredge up those arcane concepts known as cooperation and compromise and put them to use, Canada might just find itself with a much more representative government.

A mite dismayed am I at the quantity of electronic consumer goods I’ve been acquiring over the last year or so. Everytime I make such a purchase, I flinch a little bit, not because of the financial cost to my person, I can make up for that, but at the way I completely vouch for the sanity of our consumption based economy when I do.

To summarize, the last year has seen me acquire a laptop, a camera, headphones, and now a plug-in device for my cigarette lighter in my car, as well as a voice recorder. I felt like it was more, but that’s all that comes to mind at the moment. I’ve also gone a little overboard when it comes to buying/downloading music, if that’s even possible. I still don’t have a cellphone, blackberry, Ipod, or Mp3 player, which leaves me trailing most people I know. All of these things seem like necessities of life, and it’s nearly unthinkable to consider that a merely 25-50 years ago many of these accessories were not even available.

Whatever happened to the simple lifestyle characterized by hard work and strong community connections? What will happen when the 4 billion or so people who do not have the luxuries I do decide they want equality? There’s no doubt in my mind that the quality of my life is enhanced by these devices; I do not deny that I enjoy them immensely. Yet I also sense that they deprive me of time which could be used acquiring much more practical skills; wilderness survival, urban gardening, bike repair, the banjo, harmonica, flute, or mandolin, herbal medicine, etc.

In the end, I’m an optimist; while it’s clear that as a species we have the capacity to annihilate our life support systems, I don’t believe we have the capacity to annihilate the very reason for our existence; in other words, to fail at whatever it is we are supposed to accomplish. It has to be important that we learn collective self-restraint and abandon selfishness by embracing altruism and humility, and we have some level of free-will in determining our path, be it self-destruction or evolution to a higher level of consciousness, I have a hard time believing that all of this can end in the erasing of one of the universe’s chapters, namely the human chapter, with nothing to show for it. That we could simply fuck things up, orchestrate our own demise, and become a mere blip on the radar, a failed experiment on the part of God knows who.

No, there has to be something bigger, something we cannot discern, something beyond this world that we graduate to as the next step in our development. I’m not a nihilist in the sense that I think that no matter what we do, it’s of no consequence anyway so we may as well enjoy ourselves while we’re here in whatever way we know how. I’ve certainly moved a little towards nihilism on the idealism/nihilism spectrum, which is freeing, but at the same time I’ve still got one foot firmly in the idealism camp. I may not be a centrist on the political spectrum, but perhaps I am on what I’ll call the meaning of life spectrum.

Thanks for bearing with me Ironically, this treatise began while listening to Sam Roberts’ “Stripmall Religion”.

I’ve never disliked Bill Clinton, his political era being somewhat before my time. In a sentence, my impression of him is as a charismatic leader who presided over a period in which the United States was viewed much more favorably throughout the world, who was ravaged by the media, perhaps beyond his due.

Today though, Clinton meddled in Canadian politics by praising Premier Campbell’s carbon tax: http://www.thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Labour-Industry/2008/10/17/ClintonGiustra/

My problem with this is that his timing is terrible. If a carbon tax is such a good idea, couldn’t he have said so before Stephane Dion’s party, championing a carbon tax, was as good as flattened in the federal election? It goes without saying that the man’s words carry a lot of weight, and an endorsement of tax-shifting by taxing carbon and cutting income, without necessarily endorsing the Liberals, would nonetheless have gone a long way.

Oh Bill….if you believe what you say, why do you time your words to have minimal political impact?

It’s been a long time since I’ve written here. A great deal has happened, and nothing has happened. Having arrived back in Abbotsford at the beginning of September, I’ve only been home for a month now, though it feels far, far, longer. Being on the river and travelling the coast seems an eternity ago now, though as soon as I get a chance I’ll be striking out again. Due to my citizenship status I’m still restricted to Canada, but like GN on the SLLP trip, taking time to explore my own country is tremendously appealing. We live in such a diverse country that in theory, a lifetime of travel within Canada’s borders would continue to uncover new experiences and places. Eastern Canada and the North must be the next destinations.

In September, to recap, I enrolled in 5 courses and dropped three of them, scraped together tuition money by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin, attended innumerable delightful meetings with Students for Sustainability and the U-Pass committee, wrote in three editions for the Cascade, covering such beats as music interviews and foreign affairs (ie. Russia & Georgia at each other’s throats), met some extremely personable and intriguing young ladies, made some new friends, slept in too many times, spent too much time online, on e-mail, Facebook, The Onion, and various news sites, went to a lot of coffee-shops including Seven Blends for the first time (where the new owner is doing 16 hour days while caring for a family of 5 children), slept in my car once, washed my car zero times; rode my bike too few times, played too few board games, ate homegrown garlic, met a young lady from Mauritius, and watched with fascination as Stephen Harper dropped the writ and plunged the country into an election that will coincide with the American one in an attempt to extend his hold on power and by so doing drive the country’s reputation further into the ground. Perhaps I am biased or over-reactionary, but I see a comic in my mind’s eye that has Canada embodied by a figure underground up to the waist, with Harper holding a sledgehammer driving the figure further into the ground, with the sledgehammer representing the election, and then there’s a crowd of people watching lazily, commenting, “My goodness; look how decisively Harper swings that hammer. I’ve gone through periods in my history as an informed voter where I cheered for the Canadian Alliance (back when my opinion was based entirely on the one-sided slant from the media that portrayed the Libs as old, tired, lying and corrupt). I’ve sided in heart with Jack and the NDP, having read Jack’s book and admiring his vision for Canada and his experience with the Union of Canadian Municipalities. Recently, since Dion became leader and Garth Turner defected to the Libs, I’ve become a strong Liberal supporter, recognizing in Dion a principled, respectful, intelligent man who represents a different kind of politics; even Duceppe has briefly held my admiration. Today I’m hopelessly torn between the Greens and Libs; Green leader Elizabeth May is so authentic and dynamic as to make one actually believe she has a chance of connecting with the electorate like Jim Harris was unable to do, and Green policies may not be perfect but they’re as close to perfect as we’ve got in recognizing the fundamentality of environmental sustainability in creating a strong, stable, thriving, and enduring society and moving beyond the short term political stunts seemingly employed by the other parties.

I am only one person out of 33 million, but as one person I urge everyone to get out there and vote after talking to your candidates; political apathy is not acceptable, and in many ways is the reason for the gradual downward trend in the Canadian living standard and quality of our environment. The Cascade will hold an all-candidates meeting on the the 7th, and it’s your chance to meet some of the local candidates.

Phew; just realized that was one big chunk of text comprising about 15 minutes of typing; if only I churned out my homework or Cascade assignments so rapidly.

The guy in the picture to the right, Tyson Kellerman from somewhere back east, is one cool dude.  He’s cycling across the country this summer, and dedicating his trip to the Green Party of Canada.  I think that’s awesome.

Before I get to the political stuff, I’ve added Tyson’s blog to my blogroll – I encourage you to check it out.  What he’s doing is awesome and I definitely plan on doing some similarly long bike trips, whether they be across Canada, the US of A, or Europe. 

Now a warning.  Political commentary upcoming.  Those of you who suffer from Acute Politics Exposure Syndrome (APES) stop reading now and direct yourself instead to the following link: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/today_now_how_to_pretend_you_give

Politically, I’d have a hard time placing myself firmly in the camp of any of the major parties, as each have their strong points.  However, what I will say is that the Green Party has had a tremendous impact on the Canadian political scene despite never having managed to elect an MP.  By consistently capturing 5% of the vote in recent elections, and polling very close to the NDP and higher than the Bloc in recent months, and creating a five way vote split, they have ensured that it will be very difficult for either the Liberals or Conservatives to win a majority government.  Some say this will stall the country by throwing it into a deadlock; I say this will force actual discussion, cooperation, concession, and sacrifice, as well as a measure of prudence and greater represention of the electorate on important decisions.

It’s nearly sacrilegious or heretical in our society to openly express acceptance of littering, or to actually engage in it oneself. In high school, Principal Neufeld spoke of using the amount of litter in the hallways as a barometer of student’s attitudes. At the time I agreed in full; and to some extent still do. If the hallways are cluttered with garbage of all sorts, it’s generally an indication that the students don’t give a shit, which would appear to translate to more than simply the cleanliness of the hallways; also their marks, morals, values, etc. Concern for one’s habitation (and make no mistake, school was and is a habitation) is a basic benchmark of character. Ever hear someone labelled a “pack-rat?” Well, I doubt that person was a socially respected individual.

There are exceptions of course; some people are just natural tinkerers, fixers, refurbishers, recyclers of whatever they can lay their hands on. These people are driven and can’t stand waste, hate to see anything thrown out. So they don’t. Instead, they’re always welding this gizmo to that gadget, and coming out with some pretty spiffy stuff. Kudos to them. But for every one of them, there’s five who never throw anything out regardless of it’s condition, and seem to attract “stuff” like a messy beard attracts food crumbs or blood draws sharks. The metaphors are appropriate, as more than likely they have the messy beard as well, and like sharks, their stuff will eventually consume them, weighing on their backs until they can turn neither left nor right and stagger with each step. Remember the late and brilliantly offensive George Carlin saying how, “Other people’s stuff is shit, but somehow your shit is stuff”?

Of course, dirty hallways can also be indicative of apathy at higher levels; perhaps the administration simply doesn’t care enough to adequately fund the janitorial department, or the janitors take every chance to slack off, or in the case of my high school, (remember, this is hypothetical) the private donors don’t care enough to actually donate in adequate levels forcing budget cutbacks, or hell, perhaps dirty hallways can be traced right up to those who control our money supply not caring enough to manage it wisely, generously, responsibly, or perhaps most of all, honestly. Truly, there’s a crescendo of implications.

But let’s not think about this too deeply; we might just hurt ourselves or actually accomplish something and we couldn’t have that. Oh no. Let’s just accept that littering is bad and those who do it are lazy and apathetic and that lots of litter means bad people and clean streets mean good people. Keep it simple, stupid.

Before I continue, let me point out that I’ve participated in garbage clean-ups, and not just at the behest of an elementary school teacher in a bad mood and equipped with lots of bright new shiny garbage picker-uppers, or, just to use my favorite childhood phrase, “super-dooper-pooper-scoopers.” No, stretches of Clayburn Road, Clayburn Creek, Ravine Park, and Downes Creek are all cleaner because I felt the desire to chip in and lend a hand, or in the case of Downes, herd some of the fearsome “Streaming Eagles” crew down into the creek to haul out whatever we could find.

What happened next, to use the Downes Creek example, to the 11 garbage bags of wrappers, busted sports balls, barely recognizable bottles, and other miscellaneous junk we hauled out of that creek? We put it in the school dumpster for a garbage collection agency to come and collect, and lo and behold, to dump it again!!! That’s right. We put in all the effort (a good part of our weekend as I recall, to haul this shit out, just so it could be re-dumped, several hours drive away. How does this make sense?

Moreover, what actually benefit did we do the creek? Sure it looked a little nicer to the human eye, but I don’t think a coho salmon decked out in bright red spawning colors would look at that little pocket of intertwined condoms wedged in a back-eddy behind a log, and turn tail back downstream because “boy, I don’t know if I can spawn in the vicinity of used condoms.” (and for that matter, the contents of those condoms might well enrich that streambanks nutrient profile, lol) No, that old tire wedged in the streambank might take thousands if not tens of thousands of years to decay, so it’s not significantly affecting the water quality. Nor is it likely to be impeding fish progress, or in any way posing an immediate threat to wildlife or the local ecosystem. One exception would be six-pack rings which can strangle waterbirds, or plastic bags which can do the same, but in general, I think we can agree that a lot of garbage is fairly harmless.

So now we’ve taken our 11 garbage bags and dumped them. All we’ve done is re-arranged the waste and emitted tons of carbon in order to do, and oh yes, we’ve bumped up the GDP a notch because us urbanites paid those Cache Creek hill-billies money to take our crap. Whoopee. Now the waste is all concentrated in one area where nobody can see it, instead of being spread out where everybody sees it. So what happens next? Well, out of sight, out of mind is what happens. We accept that we can simply send our waste elsewhere. We subconsciously condition ourselves to believe that it’s okay to generate copious quantities of waste because it doesn’t affect us tangibly. We don’t think twice about buying those oh so tempting muffins from the supermarket and throwing out the package afterwards only to repeat the process next week. Sure we can sometime recycle the package, but only for a limited time and not neccesarily for the same purpose, besides which recycling takes energy too. Eventually it’ll still end up in Cache Creek.

What if instead of doing those garbage clean-ups, we had dedicated our time to educating people about the automotive waste fluids which undoubtably affect Downes Creek? I’m by no means advocating apathy here. Merely that efforts be re-directed, as has become almost cliche in the health-care field, towards addressing the issues rather than the symptoms. Instead of picking up somebody else’s garbage, why not write to manufacturers indicating the future loss of your business should they not take whatever steps possible to reduce packaging? Or put time into re-vegetation of the streambanks (which we did, too)? Or any number of projects with potentially valuable long-term impact?

Do I regret participating in those garbage pick-ups? No; the exercise did me well and I made friends out of it, and gained some great feelings of accomplishment, because at the time, I believed wholeheartedly in what I was doing. My opinions have evolved; hey, if Stephane Dion can evolve his opinion of a revenue-neutral carbon tax that affects an entire country, I think I can update my thinking about garbage. Because, as I can’t resist pointing out, my thoughts ain’t garbage.

Neither do I regret, however, releasing two organic energy bar wrappers and a bag that contained mixed nuts out of my sunroof today. I may have ruffled some feathers, but that’s about all.

What I do regret is buying items wrapped in plastic in the first place. That is true apathy. I am conscious of this when I buy, and I will buy items wrapped in plastic again because I’m one person on a schedule, but perhaps it’s time to re-examine packed lunches and homemade snacks. Were I truly motivated, it’s what I’d be doing.

That’s right; brown-bag it. Just like your momma taught ya.

You might be able to detox in a matter of days, but the planet can’t. No, the planet, needs thousands of years, and you just might not survive that process. I, for one, would rather not risk it.

A Letter to the Editor I sent while all steamed up after reading the July 6 edition of the Abbotsford News.

I am tired of hearing the policy of pricing carbon dioxide emissions through carbon taxes and carbon trading systems trashed and mis-represented.

Yes, these new polices will have a slight impact on the price of gas at the pump as well as on consumer goods at the store. But this will be nothing compared to the rise in fuel prices we have seen in recent years. I remember when gas sold for 70c/litre. I’m young, obviously – I’m sure there are those who remember gas being half that or less. Now we are seeing double those prices and more. That’s right – a 100%+ increase, incrementally, in a few short years. What sort of reaction did this provoke from consumers?

That’s right; nary so much as a squeak of protest. Barely more than a grumble of discontent. We just took the price hikes square on the chin, and kept right on pumping and pushing that gas pedal.

Compare that to the carbon tax – a miniscule increase by comparison – and you’d be forgiven for thinking the sun would never rise again judging by the outcry in the media.

The difference? The gas price increases we’ve seen, independent of any kind of carbon tax, are market induced, while the carbon taxes are government driven.

When the markets impose price increases, we grin and bear it. Yet when the government enacts proactive policy, such as the carbon tax, an essential component of tackling one of the greatest threats to face mankind, all hell breaks loose. People talk of breaking out the pitchforks and kicking out those bums in elected office -the very ones who actually have the stones to take the necessary steps to combat climate change. (and even for those who do not yet accept the reality of climate change, you must agree that reducing pollution is a positive step).

People, give your heads a shake. What is this holy grail known as “the market”? It is simply the result of unilateral decisions made at the board room level of the top corporations, banks, and yes, some governmental institutions, in tandem with some good ol’ supply and demand. It is not some irresistible force which we must all be slaves to. At the end of the day, it is the consumer who determines how the markets will play out by way of what we do and do not consume.

We all know that oil and gas are limited resouces. Why not begin the shift away from them now, rather than waiting until every last barrel has been extracted from the pristine natural habitats where it is found? Why not embrace change now, and create a gradual transition that is under our control, rather than be shocked when we can no longer live in the high consumptive ways we are so accustomed to?

For once, our governments are taking sensible measures to motivate us to adapt to a different future. Let’s take our heads out of the proverbial tar sands, cut them some slack, and see if we can’t biccycle to work or the grocery store next time around.

My almost obligatory reaction to the recently announced BC carbon tax? I’m pretty stoked about it – I hardly expected the BC Libs to take this rather bold step. Despite the harmless nature of this tax, any concept of a new tax tends to get people up in arms before they really know what the implications are, so it’s quite rough political terrain for the Libs to wade into. With that said, I also know there’s a broad current of concern over climate change so I think that once people realize that in effect this will be revenue neutral they will get on board with it.

Some have suggested that the $100 cheque to be mailed out to each adult in BC amounts to little more than pocket money that’ll be spent at the first opportunity on trinkets and consumer goods, and that therefore this will have little to no impact. I disagree – it’s no different than receiving an income tax refund, and many of these same people laud an income tax refund as forced savings because they don’t have the discipline to save this money themselves. This $100 cheque can be considered in the same light – forced savings which people can just as well roll over into a savings or investment account as they can spend it on something trivial.

I’m part of a demographic which is very likely to be supportive of a carbon tax – I bicycle or take transit whenever reasonable, and I combine trips into town when I have to drive, and I really only have an automobile for out of town trips and to generate an income. Now it’s true that I happen to work as a pizza delivery driver, so I use a lot of gas and I’ll be one of the most impacted from that perspective. But that’s a personal lifestyle choice – no one’s forcing me to do that for a living, so I have to live with the consequences and I accept that.

The carbon tax will have an extremely complex effect on the economy (ie. raising food costs and encouraging people to seek out either jobs requiring less mobility and/or less consumptive ways of getting to them). One question I have is whether this will place local shipping companies at a competitive disadvantage, as fuel purchased within BC will be more expensive, especially as the carbon tax increases in size as the years pass as it’s designed to do. Exporting goods may become more expensive and these costs will have to be passed on to the customer, while little impact will be felt on imports. We need a North American carbon tax to level the playing field.

It would also make more sense to levy the tax at the source, rather than just at the pumps, so that industry would feel the pinch as well as the end-consumer. Or would it even make a difference, as the cost of the carbon-tax would eventually be passed onto the consumer anyway, and the economic shift away from carbon consumption will be felt by industry regardless in the form of decreased demand? I’m no economist, and have a basic understanding of supply and demand, but like a natural ecosystem, any kind of price changes, whether applied by social policy or laissez-faire economics has broad economic reverberations which can be extremely difficult to predict. The great conservationist John Muir once said that, “Whenever we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else.” So it is with nature and so it is with our economic systems.

I strongly recommend the following article by UBC Prof. Dr. William Rees on TheTyee: http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/02/26/TaxShellGame/

Also, there will be a talk by SFU climate and energy policy expert Dr. Mark Jaccard Tues. March 4 at 7 p.m. at Canadian Memorial United Church at 15th and Burrard. I’m generating carbon emissions that night instead of going to the talk, but there you go. Looks very interesting – visit www.vtacc.org for more info.