Wow. This is how it's supposed to be done.

Nice move on the part of the Liberals.  Instead of just raising points in the House which is pretty ineffective, ex-Justice Minister as well as lawyer has been having discussions with Quebec's justice minister, Jean-Marc Fournier concerning the omnibus crime Bill.  Quebec has objected to several sections of the Bill.

Not only does this move show support for Quebec, it offers a great opportunity to clarify Liberal objections to parts of the Bill, something difficult to do in the House where scripted CON notes make true debate impossible.  How can anyone seriously respond to charges that debating any section of the Bill means you are soft on crime, love criminals, or don"t care about victims of crime?

The Liberals are also showing that they can work with provinces and recognize how federal Bills can impact upon each one.  Shows respect and an understanding of provincial issues, contrasting starkly with Nicholson's failure to meet with Fournier despite requests.

Cotler plans to take several of Fournier's amendments to the justice committee's review of the Bill.

Quebec Conservative Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu accused Fournier and the Quebec government of being "soft on crime", something Rae dismissed as "ridiculous."

It's not about being hard or soft on crime, it's about being smart on crime, Rae suggested in French.

Good.  Needs to be said over and over and over.  Pro-active Liberals...about damn time.

Flaherty squeezes in a few Liberal notes

This is something I've never heard a Conservative Minister say:

On one hand, we have people urging us to slash spending across the board, no matter the effect it will have on services we provide to Canadians.  On the other, we have calls for billions of dollars of new spending that will impose deficits on our children and grandchildren for years to come or higher taxes that kill jobs and growth.  We reject both these extremes. We will continue with our balanced approach.

That's from Flaherty's speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce yesterday.  Them's centrist words!!!!!  Reminds me of...

Meanwhile, Liberal leader Bob Rae is emphasizing the traditional, fundamental philosophy of the Liberal party as he drives home the importance of "protecting the earning power of the middle class."

At the root of Mr. Rae’s speech is a claim – which will be hotly contested by the other parties – that the Conservatives and the NDP are guilty of populist pandering to their core constituencies.  “The trouble with the populist narrative, whether of the left or the right, is its essential dishonesty,” Mr. Rae maintains, “as if a simple bumper sticker ‘tax the rich’ or ‘tough on crime’ is really going to provide answers to the real issues we face as a country.”

As for the rest of the speech, pure harper conservative.  Jimbo's dime store crystal ball is as ineffectual  as ever, and he has to apply politic-speak to say the harper government can't keep it's promises to it's base -

Let me be clear: we will not be bound by ideology when it comes to making decisions to keep our economy strong and protect Canadians, their financial security and their jobs.

Translation: dear rabid base, my party fucked up so bear with me while I break a whole slew of ideological promises.

Heed the relentless and increasing calls from some corners to betray those principles, and watch all that they made possible vanish.

Translation: support those lefty-pinko-commie-dippers-and-libs and we're all fucked.  Because they're...bad.  And they love taxes and criminals, and they hate the troops.

While we must all recognize that the global outlook remains fragile, both the Prime Minister and I fully expect European leaders will turn these plans into action, and do what must be done to overcome an up-until-now unresolved crisis.  After all, these efforts were vital to our nation’s economic future, and built on the significant actions our Government has taken to keep our economy secure and resilient.

Translation:  It's not our fault!!!  And if things don't work out here, it's because those fence-sitting European leaders couldn't get their shit together.

We have responded to critical situations with flexibility and pragmatism, and we will continue to do so as situations dictate.

Translation:  we haven't got a clue what the future holds, so we may need to flip-flop as we have done for the past four years.

Good move Rae.

The entire Liberal caucus walked out on the vote to appoint Michael Ferguson as AG.  The Liberal Senate followed their example.   The NDP stayed and voted because, as OL critic Yvon Godin said, "I want to make sure that Canadians know which way we vote. They know where we stand on this."

Well, the Liberals not only made it very clear where they stand, they drew attention to the issue and refused to validate an illegitimate process.

Flanked by his caucus, Rae said the Liberals "will not sanction or legitimize this process by participating in a vote which we believe is fundamentally illegitimate. This process is that wrong and that bad."

About "minimal risks" and training missions

Let's look at some of those “minimal risks” Harper says our soldiers will face under his latest support the troops extension of the Afghan mission.  Let’s not include rebuilding and development efforts, just the training mission (emphasis mine throughout) -

We are very focussed on our operational objectives: training the 4th Brigade of the Afghan National Army in Uruzghan Province. We've made clear recently about the latest information that is available in terms of the time we believe it will take to complete our training mission in the province, some two to four years, and indicated that it's likely to see the Australian commitment after that period transition to a support role.

But having said that, ladies and gentlemen, I make the point as I have made on so many occasions, it is a difficult and dangerous mission. The reason we are here in Darwin today to attend the funeral of an Australian soldier, and the news we are speaking about today of the death of another Australian soldier in Afghanistan, I think does indicate to you the risks that are involved in our mission.- Australian Defence Minister Faulkner, July 2010.

Wow.  Truth-telling on the risks of training exercises.

In this case, what Harper calls “minimal risks” -

Scott Palmer

The Germans discovered something about minimal risk training missions -

The attack shows just how dangerous it can be to train the Afghan army, which the German government in recent months has declared to be the main aim of the German mission in Afghanistan. "Anyone who thought that training the Afghans was a safe walk in the park ahead of pulling out of Afghanistan, has now seen the reality," commented one German army officer. "At the end of the day, training Afghan soldiers in Afghanistan means fighting side by side with the Afghans."
              
France is aware of the minimal risks of training missions -

The French soldier killed in Afghanistan on Monday belonged to a highly skilled team training Afghan soldiers. The French specialists focus on helping the local army operate independently, often under extremely difficult circumstances.

The Americans have had their share of minimal risks as well -

U.S. defense officials in Washington described the slain soldiers as Special Operations troops attached to the U.S. training mission for Pakistan's Frontier Corps, responsible for security in areas near the Afghan border seen as part of a global militant hub. (Three US soldiers dead, two injured)

Just a couple of reasons why Canada should re-think the whole minimal risks thing::

 
Cpl. Darren James Fitzpatrick, 21 years old

Fitzpatrick, a member of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, was on his first tour of Afghanistan since joining the Canadian Forces in 2006. Since October, he had served with the Operational Mentor Liaison Team, which helps train members of the Afghan National Army.


Cpl. Matthew McCully

A Canadian soldier marching into battle alongside the Afghan troops he helped to train and mentor died today when he stepped on a jerry-rigged anti-tank mine during the opening stages of Canada’s largest anti-Taliban offensive in nearly two months.  The soldier, identified as Cpl. Matthew McCully, was a member of Canada’s Operational Mentor and Liaison Team helping to shape their Afghan counterparts into cohesive, organized fighting units.

Harper stated  “We are proud of Corporal McCully’s contribution to our mission in Afghanistan,” considering this particular minimal risk a “contribution” we should be proud of.

Put names, faces, families to the minimal risks before you decide to force others to face them without consulting with Canadians, without even holding a serious debate, you poppy-wearing politicians.  Tell us about the ones who are killed or maimed while on routing patrol during such training missions, during reconstruction and development missions.  Tell us and those you send about the real state of unrest in Afghanistan, the real reason soldiers are being placed in harm’s way, the real reason they are being asked not only to give their lives but take lives as well, something they will have to carry home with them.

And quit wearing our soldiers deaths and injuries like they are some sort of your own personal badge of honour.  You're not the ones taking those "minimal risks."

No justification

While it is proper that Ignatieff is accepting responsibility for the Liberal mess concerning the vote on Rae's motion to include a broader range of family planning programs, including contraception, in a maternal health initiative for developing countries, there is no excuse for the handful of Liberals who voted against it, or for those who abstained.

According to some of these Liberals, they did so because they are opposed to abortion.

First of all, Rae's motion does not promote abortion, and speeches made in the House explain that it would be supported, only as a health issue, and only in countries where it is legal:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government’s G8 maternal and child health initiative for the world’s poorest regions must include the full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options, including contraception, consistent with the policy of previous Liberal and Conservative governments, and all other G8 governments last year in L’Aquila, Italy;


that the approach of the Government of Canada must be based on scientific evidence, which proves that education and family planning can prevent as many as one in every three maternal deaths; and


that the Canadian government should refrain from advancing the failed right-wing ideologies previously imposed by the George W. Bush administration in the United States, which made humanitarian assistance conditional upon a “global gag rule” that required all non-governmental organizations receiving federal funding to refrain from promoting medically-sound family planning.

This line is key to what is so objectionable about the opposition to the motion:

the approach of the Government of Canada must be based on scientific evidence, which proves that education and family planning can prevent as many as one in every three maternal deaths

By voting according to their own moral beliefs, likely based on religious views whether the members are currently believers in a god or not, those MPs are mixing church and state, something that must not be done. They know this, and failed to consider the science and facts above their own nebulous beliefs. In so doing, they are subjecting women and children to their personal narrow ideology.

It is insane (and fanatical) that anyone would not support family planning in a world where over-population has become a huge problem, one which is increasing exponentially. It is madness not to see that family planning is critical in a world where resources are becoming more scarce, where access to clean, safe water is an issue for many, where wars are being fought over arrable land, where sexually transmitted diseases ravage developing countries, where women are still suppressed through their inability to manage their reproductive rights due to lack of access to contraceptives.

By voting against Rae's motion, those Liberals have placed their own personal ideology before the rights and welfare of others while using their position to affect women and children globally. They have failed to separate church and state. They have also gone against their own party's stance on contraception.

While this motion wasn't binding, it was meant to send a strong message that Canada stands for women's reproductive rights and understands that those rights are essential to the health and welfare of women and children. Such a motion, had it passed, would have helped Canada at the G8 by showing that the country, while currently lead by a party of mysoginistic dinosaurs, is not made up of such.

As for the impact of the vote politically - the Liberals ended up looking weak (again), disorganized (again), with a leader who does not have the support of his party (again). Those few opposed could have made their personal views known, yet still have supported the motion for the positive aspects it offered. Hell, the Liberal party has compromised often enough over the past few years on Harper Bills because they didn't want to incur the wrath of voters by voting down Bills that contained some good despite crappy sections wedged in.

Passing this motion would also have shown how the opposition can work together, can agree on issues that stand to improve lives. It would have kept the focus on how dismally neanderthal the CONs are on women's and children's rights. Instead, the story is about what fuck-ups the Liberals are. Even among the left, focus is heavily on the Liberal failure and those few idiots who failed to see how beneficial passing this motion would have been.

To say, oh well, it wasn't binding anyway is no excuse. This was a chance to show some backbone, some solidarity, some strength of unity in the party, and to make a strong, public stand for women's and children's rights. It was also a good opportunity to call the CONs out on their atavistic policies in regards to women, children, and developing countries.

But the Liberals blew it.

Susan Riley has a question about Bob Rae

The more we see of Bob Rae -- and we seem to be seeing the Toronto MP a lot lately -- the larger the question looms: Why isn't he the Liberal leader?

No kidding.

I am not happy with Ignatieff, never wanted him as Liberal party leader, and care for him even less for his waffeling and soft stance on human rights issues.  Words are ok, but we need action.  Watching Rae over the past few weeks has given me some hope, though.

By contrast, Rae is funny, self-deprecating, knowledgeable and spontaneous. His criticisms of the Harper government tend not to be shrill, predictable or personal. But they can be heartfelt -- as when he recently denounced those infamous Conservative flyers that imply the Liberals are, at least, sanguine about anti-Semitism. Rae, whose wife and adult children are Jewish, called them "a new kind of gutter politics."

...Rae is also a better performer than Ignatieff in scrums and informal encounters -- more fluent, manifestly more at ease with a range of issues, sure of where he stands, able to acknowledge complexity without looking wishy-washy.

It isn't simply that I think Rae has greater voter appeal but rather that he embodies what a decent politician should be.  Smart, compassionate, honest, and courageous enough to question his own party and its actions.

The Liberal party doesn't tolerate one-person rule, not to the extend the Harper party does, at the very least.  What is often seen as in-fighting (and yes, true in-fighting does occur among the Grits), is sometimes healthy - if somewhat too-public debate.  This is why I find it very encouraging not only to see that the Liberal party has such people within it as Rae, but that he is being given such a high profile lately.  Must be a little scary for Ignatieff.

It is, however, good for the party and will likely draw back people who have been so turned off by the lack of honesty displayed by top politicians and their failure to connect with voters because they simply do not grasp that what most of us want is simply honest, transparent government where the concerns of those politicians are elected to represent are the real driving force behind shaping legislation.

We need to see more of this in practice.  MPs such as Rae and Kennedy not only speaking on behalf of the party, but clear assurances that the Liberal party is not a one man show and is truly made up of the many voices constituents elect.  Voices that are not muzzled, votes that are not forced.

Place these (and there are other good ones in the Liberal party as well) against Harper's usual suspects:

 - 'nuff said!

  - intelligent speaker, unflapable, ouzes integrity.






- intelligent, passionate, lots of integrity, too clean to be a target, calm

- still needs experience, especially in word-crafting to avoid statements that can easily be twisted, but he offers a fresh face representing renewal; intelligent, decent enough speaker, lots of appeal, plenty of well directed passion, oozes integrity


Intelligence opposing CON smirking, taunting, and childish diversions

Integrity opposing CON foot-in-mouth disease

Honesty opposing CON lies and channel changing

And let's not forget the cute factor: