Here are two interesting pieces, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act, from today’s
Globe and Mail.
Jeffrey Simpson assumes that money, specifically lots of money for Québec and some money for Ontario will be the answer to the next ballot question. He could be right, history says he’s right. We, Canadians, have been, for most of the past 140 years, blissfully unconcerned about foreign and defence policies but mightily concerned about getting an extra ‘free’ penny from Jack, or
Jacques.
Sheema Khan, on the other hand, posits that Osama bin Laden is right, especially on a couple of key issues:
• Our (especially America which, often, acts for the rest of ‘us’)
presence in Islamic lands
is the problem; if we withdraw our foul, infidel bodies from the holy lands then he will stop being our enemy; and
• Terrorism works – it certainly appears to have done so in Spain.
That being the case, she suggests, we should avoid Spain’s fate by taking counsel of our fears – and
fretful isolationism is well established in Canada – now and doing a
cut and run while the running is still safe.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060905.wxcosimp05/BNStory/National/home
It's about keeping Quebec happy, Ontario not too unhappy
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Okay, now the fall political season starts in earnest. Enough shadow boxing. Let's get to the main event. What we might call the Great Triangulation will be central to the Harper government's fall agenda.
The Great What?
The three players -- it does take three sides to make a triangle -- are Ottawa, Ontario and Quebec. For the purposes of this triangulation, the Western provinces don't count. Neither do the Atlantic ones.
Why? Because Harperites already have the West locked up politically, and there aren't enough seats in Atlantic Canada to make the difference between a minority and majority. The Great Triangulation is essentially about keeping Quebec sufficiently happy that the Charest government can get re-elected, but not making Ontario so unhappy that the McGuinty government can credibly run against Ottawa.
Put another way, the Harper Conservatives need more seats in both Quebec and Ontario, and have the cash to try to bribe electors in both provinces. How to structure the bribes so that Quebec is sufficiently happy, whereas Ontario will not be grossly unhappy, is the essence of the Harper challenge.
Quebec, as we know, invented something called the "fiscal imbalance," a fancy phrase for Quebec not having enough money while Ottawa had too much. The essence of the Quebec demand: Hand over more cash, preferably through equalization increases.
Ontario, as we know, balked. Higher equalization wouldn't come from the Ontario government, since equalization is a federal program, but from Ontario (and Alberta) taxpayers. Those taxpayers, claimed Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, are already being squeezed by the entire fiscal transfer system.
What to do? Mr. Harper declared in the election campaign that he would fix this non-problem with a long-term solution based on "principles." His own Finance Minister, James Flaherty, upon entering the ministry thought the whole fiscal imbalance a crock. He hasn't changed his mind.
Mr. Flaherty has therefore been well pleased at meetings with his provincial counterparts and in media interviews to debunk the "fiscal imbalance" idea, or at least to lower expectations. This he did on instructions from the Prime Minister's Office, where the realization dawned (too late) that the government risked becoming prisoner to inflated expectations it had contributed to creating.
Happily for Ottawa, the premiers fell out among themselves on the "fiscal imbalance" at their grandiose confab in St. John's. Rather than facing a united front, the Harper government confronts a group of mewling premiers who can't agree on the definition of a "fiscal imbalance," let alone a solution.
This predictable provincial disunity leaves Mr. Harper lots of running room to craft a solution that will keep Quebec happy and Ontario not terribly unhappy. And last week, the PM pulled the plug from beneath an election promise to hold a first ministers conference on the "fiscal imbalance."
The Charest government is nothing if not stunningly brazen. A few weeks ago, it announced more than $300-million in spending for postsecondary education. That Quebec doesn't have the money mattered not, the ministers explained. It would be coming from Ottawa eventually, even though Ottawa has said nothing publicly. Spending somebody else's money before the money is announced could have something to do with pre-electoral politics in Quebec, and Premier Jean Charest's understanding of the emerging triangulation.
Quebeckers believe a fiscal imbalance exists. It's a myth, impervious to rational analysis, but almost universally believed. Because the myth is believed, it must be so, and because it is so, Mr. Harper must act -- for his own political sake and that of Mr. Charest.
Quebec and other equalization-receiving provinces will get additional funds. Ontario will be peeved, but Ottawa will also announce more money for postsecondary education on a per capita basis. This change will please Ontario, whose government correctly thinks that most federal money is distributed in ways skewered to help poor provinces rather than on a straight-up, per-capita basis.
By adding the extra money for equalization, and the postsecondary cash -- the sums Quebec has already announced -- the Charest government can claim that it extracted a tribute from Ottawa sufficient to warrant re-election.
By getting more money for equalization on a per-capita basis, the McGuinty government, while not being happy, will at least receive something.
The Harper government, sniffing for votes, can insist it has spread around enough money to satisfy the demands of both provinces and should, accordingly, be politically rewarded.
It's called the Great Triangulation.
jsimpson@globeandmail.com
I think Simpson is spot on in identifying Ontario and Québec as the
only real electoral battlegrounds: the West (less urban BC) is in a Tory head-lock; and Atlantic Canada, with only 32 seats, and less than half of those likely to shift one way or the other, is irrelevant.
I hope – being a Tory partisan (since 1967) – that he is correct in suggesting (without having written anything) that economic issues will push foreign policy back to its accustomed place – out of sight and mind.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060905.wxcokhan05/BNStory/National/home
The missing link between foreign policy and resentment
We must open our eyes to re-examining aspects of our actions abroad that anger so many
SHEEMA KHAN
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Shortly after the July 7 London bombings last summer, I attended a lecture on the rise of "homegrown" extremism. A security expert wove together various threads, including socio-economic factors, radical preachers and racism.
The thesis was striking for its "absence of the obvious."
Questions came from the floor. What about the trauma of witnessing the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in the heart of Europe a decade earlier? Irrelevant, according to the expert, since the West intervened to save Muslims. This, in spite of research by Harvard's Jessica Stern that shows this event sparked militancy amongst some British Muslim youth. And the role of British foreign policy in Muslim lands? "It's the elephant in the room," replied the expert, refusing further comment. Yet one bomber declared in a posthumous video: "Your democratically elected government continuously perpetuates atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible. . . until we feel security, you will be our targets."
The "absence of the obvious" was present again following the recent alleged bomb plot at Heathrow Airport. In an open letter to the British government, prominent Muslim leaders brought up the connection between radicalization and British foreign policy. The British Home Secretary angrily dismissed their suggestions (as did a recent Globe editorial).
The American government also refuses to acknowledge any such connection.
The authors of Without Precedence: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission reveal that in the final report, 9/11 commission members were forced to dilute commentary on the "why" of 9/11. Commission vice-chair Lee Hamilton thought it important to acknowledge "a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was vital to America's long-term relationship with the Islamic world, and that the presence of American forces in the Middle East was a major motivating factor in al-Qaeda's actions." Instead, the report made peripheral mention of these issues.
This approach was in line with a 2003 Congressional report aimed at addressing the low opinion of America by Muslims worldwide. The inquiry aimed to find out why, what to do about it, and to marginalize the appeal of extremists. The main recommendation? Do a better job of selling America to the Muslim world. After all, a large proportion of Muslims expressed a desire for social justice, a fair judiciary, honest multiparty elections, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.
The report claimed the oft-voiced opinion "we like Americans but not what the Americans are doing" as unrealistic, since "Americans elect their government and broadly support its foreign policy." A disingenuous statement, since most voters examine domestic issues.
The official line from London and Washington has been echoed in Ottawa. The Conservatives dutifully repeat the mantra that domestic terrorism is hatched by those who "hate freedom" and everything that "democracy stands for." But this is not the whole picture.
Canada was placed on al-Qaeda's hit list in 2002 after joining the coalition to bomb Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda's declarations -- dating back to 1986 -- have repeatedly demanded the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East. Attacks on U.S. interests in Tanzania, Kenya and Yemen (the USS Cole) were seen as al-Qaeda's attempt to remove American troops from Saudi Arabia. The common thread linking suicide bombings is nationalism, not religion, according to Robert Pape who has compiled a database of hundreds of suicide bombers. According to Mr. Pape, the goal is "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory the terrorists view as their homeland."
In The Next Attack, authors Steve Simon and Daniel Benjamin point out that U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan; its support of autocrats in the Arab world; and its blanket support of Israel are fuelling resentment throughout the Muslim world. According to the authors, hard-core extremists are full of contempt for the West, and will not be affected by foreign-policy changes.
However, there is a larger pool that objects to foreign intervention, but does not advocate violence as an answer. A "tipping point" is possible if a small fraction of the majority becomes radicalized, leading to more devastation in Western capitals. Why not re-examine aspects of foreign policy that anger so many, the authors ask, in order to remove one of the many factors that fuel extremism?
The flip side is that government policy cannot, and should not, be held hostage to violence. Most would agree with this. Yet in their focus on al-Qaeda, some governments ignore the will of the majority. Take Spain for example.
Prior to the 2004 national election, terrorists killed scores of commuters on March 11. The government first blamed Basque extremists, in spite of evidence pointing to radical Muslims. A traumatized, angry electorate voted out the pro-Bush party of Jose Maria Aznar, replacing it with a socialist party that went on to keep its promise to withdraw troops from Iraq. Had terrorism worked? Well before 3/11, public sentiment was overwhelmingly (up to 98 per cent) against Spanish involvement in Iraq. The Aznar government ignored its own people. Did the bombings exacerbate this disconnect or vault foreign policy to a prominent electoral issue?
Public debate on foreign policy is long overdue. Undoubtedly, the politics of fear and patriotism will be used to silence dissent. Witness the fallout in Connecticut, where Senator Joe Lieberman's pro-Iraq war policy cost him dearly. The Bush administration spun this as a victory for al-Qaeda and accused Democrats of being "soft" on terror.
As borders shrink, citizens need to become more involved in how our nation conducts itself abroad, and how we are perceived. When Mr. Harper utters "measured response," it is understood as the Canadian position, and not that of a minority.
Our government is accountable to the electorate -- not to violent usurpers of our democratic system. Let's insist on a foreign policy with human dignity at its core, in harmony with our cherished principles of fairness, justice and equity. This will serve the best interests of Canada first (not foreign nations), both here and abroad.
sheema.khan@globeandmail.com
According to Ms. Khan anyone who disagrees with her thesis is using
the politics of fear and patriotism to stifle dissent.
Ms. Khan does not want a debate which might educate Canadians about what is being done by the
Islamists* and what the
Islamists want to do – if we ever leave them alone. She wants us to debate one issue, only: how quickly do we surrender?
I need to reiterate: Islam is not our enemy. Daniel Pipes keeps repeating something like: “If radical Islam is the problem then moderate Islam is the solution.” He’s right; the problem is the Arab/Persian
cultural purists and fundamentalist Islamic believers who have formed movements, like
al Qaeda, aimed at entrenching barbarism inside Islam and then making barbarism the central pillar of a new, militant Islamic
caliphate.
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* There’s that word again; and I remind members that I have explained it in considerable detail elsewhere and I use it for brevity.
