Tag Archives: Canadian Forces

Releasing Government Bad News Under Cover of a Hockey Game

Based on the bad news coming from the BC and Canadian governments under cover of game one of the Stanley Cup finals, we should be wary of the Canucks going to seven games.

It used to be Friday afternoons were a great time for governments to release bad news. The week’s media cycle was drifting off into a weekend and there would be less room for public analysis than if bad news was released at 9am on a Monday. This is why I am always scouring news websites after 3pm on Fridays. Just in case.

But yesterday, game one of the Stanley Cup finals was a perfect day for bad news because the city, province and much of the country was fixated on the hockey game. Here’s what contemptuous filth emerged while we were anticipating the game…in case you missed it:

1. A few days ago, the BC Liberal government changed the date and time of budget estimates debate for the premier’s office to coincide with the hockey game. Budget estimates debates are when the opposition can examine the contents of each line item of the provincial budget. In a contemptuous, cynical obstruction of democracy, transparency and accountability, the premier decided that debate about her office budget would take place when virtually no one would be interested in watching on Hansard TV and virtually all of the media would be distracted.

2. On a related note, BC Liberal cabinet minister Moira Stilwell [whose Twitter introduction to her leadership debate was a moderate failure] tweeted on Monday how much she was distressed at the legislature sitting past dinnertime this week. I’m sure she was being at least somewhat facetious, since they might have to miss the hockey game:

The house is sitting till 9pm this week; couldn’t we just talk faster? #BCPOLI

Since it was her government that chose to keep the legislature closed for around 600 of the last 700 days, her hypocrisy is galling. But then, if she’s being facetious, that’s ok, right? No. That makes it even worse because of how little regard her government holds for democratic accountability.

But then she followed up that gem with this one last night:

The house sits tonight during the game-ridiculous!! Go #Canucks!

Honestly? I’ll tell you what is ridiculous: her premier rescheduling her office’s estimates debate to occur during the game. And I agree that evening sittings aren’t terribly valuable, but they are necessary when the government’s goal is to minimize the number of legislative sitting days, thereby minimizing the number of question periods they must endure, and maximizing the opportunities to vote closure on debate so they can ram through legislation with their majority of votes. This is why I’d particularly enjoyed the recent years of minority governments in Ottawa and why we’ll be bothered by lots of majority closure motions in the House of Commons in Harper’s majority.

3. CBC BC’s legislative reporter, Stephen Smart, also reported yesterday that the BC Liberals’ public sector wage austerity program of net zero wage increases will continue for two more years. We’ll see about that. Again, not the kind of news to release on a Monday morning.

4. Laila Yuile discovered yet another announcement buried in Stanley Cup hype that affects the safety of citizens using court services: the firing of a few dozen more sheriffs leading to the closure of even more courtrooms. This, all during a time when millions of our tax dollars are funding stick men/mimes on TV commercials to explain to us what the government wants us to know about their beloved HST.

5. Shifting to Ottawa, we found out today Foreign Minister Baird announced before yesterday’s hockey game that parliament will be using their majority to ram through a 90-day [or more] extension to the Canadian Forces’ military involvement in Libya, which is set to expire in 14 days.

All I can say is that I hope the Canucks win the Stanley Cup in four games to minimize the likelihood of more bad news announcements buried on game days.

Political announcements are starting to remind me of a Rolling Stones song:

One hundred thousand disparus
Lost in the jails in South America
CURL up baby
CURL up tight
CURL up baby
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover of the night [or, Canucks game]

Will 2011 Be the Year of Service With Integrity?

“Honour House is a refuge, a place of unity and composure for Canadian Forces personnel, first responders and their families to stay while healing occurs.”

Honour House Society

Think of all the people who selflessly serve our country and citizenry, often involving risking their lives. What is their healing worth to us when they suffer in the line of duty? And I’m not talking about Don Cherry building a career raging against what he feels to be the inferior Quebecois while hypocritically visiting the Vandoos, a Quebecois regiment in Afghanistan, over the Christmas break.

I have some small affinity with Romeo Dallaire and the emotional suffering he endured as Canada, the UN and the world abandoned Rwanda to its 1994 genocide. What kind of respect and commitment from Canadian society do our Canadian Forces personnel deserve when they encounter difficulties including PTSD, which is significant if not rampant in the Forces.

What kind of emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological and financial support do our first responders [police, fire fighters, ambulance paramedics] deserve when they encounter some of the most brutal circumstances humans endure.

Last night I watched a short clip from The Daily Show from a few weeks ago pointing out the hypocrisy of the US Republicans holding up financial support for health treatments for the 911 first responders suffering brutally ill health. This is just tragic, but sadly not very surprising. Canada’s treatment of our Forces personnel is less than dignifying as well.

Last night I also watched episodes 4.14 and 4.15 of the West Wing. They aired in February 2003 in a month when millions of people around the world protested the Republican invasion and occupation of Iraq, which was launched 6 weeks later, under cover of the lie that Saddam Hussein was connected to Osama bin Laden.

The episodes revolved around the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, humanitarian intervention and what the fictional president would do with his own Rwandan genocide. He stepped up, in case you missed the episodes.

This was also pretty much my final year teaching high school after some disturbing years of new educational policy by the BC Liberal government and Education Minister and Deputy Premier Christy Clark designed to undermine universal access to high quality education, part of the government’s multi-sectoral privatization agenda.

This was also a time when I was about to start a couple political science degrees culminating in my thesis on how Canada contributed to the Responsibilty to Protect doctrine, then demonstrated how to scuttle it with our participation in the kidnapping of Haitian President Aristide on 2.29.04, particularly galling after our contributions to restoring his presidency a decade earlier. Another contributing factor in the Haitian case is Canada’s neoliberal economic occupation of that struggling nation which has had economically crippling effects similar to the Duvalier eras. And I won’t even go into Canada’s shameful behaviour in Haiti since the earthquake almost a year ago.

February 2003 civil society exercises in democracy, my views of Romeo Dallaire and the preventable Haitian genocide and these poignant West Wing episodes contributed to my desire to explore the idealism of the responsibility to protect, to promote freedom from fear and want, and to enshrine human dignity as a core motivation on our planet and in BC. And sadly, exploring idealism is often matched with understanding how it falls short.

So today, so early in 2011, I think we all ought to reflect on what service means, what integrity looks like, what gratitude demands and how commitment to the human community calls us to act. Honour House is an important but nowhere near complete response to selfless sacrifice. It deserves our support. As does the One in a Million Fund and the Hire Canadian Military initiative, among other programs.

And the BC NDP and BC Liberal parties are spending the first few months of this year rebranding themselves. Service, integrity, gratitude, community and selflessness are appropriate benchmarks to consider when watching this process.

Will 2011 be the year of service with integrity?

I know as individuals we can support programs that have merit. We can also support political movements that reflect these benchmarks because if we do not demand commitment to high standards we will all accept an inferior society. And that would be our fault.

Let us lead by example and participate in society by acting with integrity and service to those in need, particularly those who selflessly serve us.