Rob Ford: The Man with the Midas Touch

Toronto mayoral candidate Rob Ford has unveiled his transit plans for the city he hopes to lead.

Ford is a lover of cars and a hater of cyclists. He plans to relegate two wheeled vehicles to the ravines of the city where they can spend time with four legged creatures. He’d like to send trade unionists and public employees to the ravines, as well.

As for streetcars, with or without dedicated lanes, Ford wants fewer of them. They slow down the flow of the SUVs.

To help move transit riders, he hopes to put the big bucks into building subways. His plan, with a price tag of $4.8 billion, was likely costed on the back of a lottery ticket. It bears about that much connection with reality.

Ford is supposed to be the “stop-the-gravy-train” guy. He spends sleepless nights counting rate-payers jumping over a fence.

That’s why his transit plan is so remarkable. New subways are by far the most expensive way to extend public transit. For every kilometer of additional subway, you can build more than fifteen kilometers (that’s a low estimate) of above ground transit lines.

How does Ford plan to pay for his “plan”? He’s going to try to hit up Queen’s Park for the money. And who pays the bills at Queen’s Park? Taxpayers----a lot of them living in Toronto! So while Ford safeguards the coins in your front pocket, he hopes to extract the folding money from your wallet.

With his Cadillac taste, Rob Ford is Toronto’s Goldfinger, the man with the Midas Touch.

Why the Gun Registry Vote Matters to the NDP

The outcome of the upcoming vote in parliament on the long gun registry matters to the NDP because the party has been suffering from a “What do you stand for" problem.

People with long memories know what the NDP has contributed to Canadian life. Medicare tops the list, followed by public auto insurance in a number of provinces, the championing of social programs, including decent pensions, and access for everyone who qualifies to post-secondary education. Once upon a time, the NDP fought for Canadian control of the Canadian economy, pushed for the creation of a publicly owned national petroleum company, Petrocan, opposed NAFTA, and even discussed the idea that wage and salary earners should someday own and control the enterprises for which they worked.

The CCF-NDP was established during the Great Depression to provide a sweeping program for the re-construction of Canadian society and the economy to replace capitalism with a broadly egalitarian alternative. Some called it the cooperative commonwealth, others social democracy and still others socialism.

The premise that drove the party and movement for decades was clear: by its very nature capitalism is an exploitative system that can never deliver true equality. The vision of a new kind of society motivated tens of thousands of Canadians to devote their lives to building the party.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the ideas and values alluded to above have very little to do with today’s NDP. If I were to tell a class of my students that the NDP currently stands for the transformation of Canadian society, they’d look at me with the smiles one reserves for those who ought to hang up their skates and give others a little ice time.

For the past quarter century, those who run the federal NDP have been dedicated to the proposition that the party should position itself close to the centre of the political spectrum, and should advance proposals that are pragmatic and practical. If fully implemented, the current NDP platform might slow the widening of the wealth and income gaps in Canada. That’s not a bad thing. But the party has trashed the vision thing. For those who believe that capitalism is a fundamentally flawed system, that Canada is unwise to put all its eggs in the basket of the American Empire, or who think that we have little time to halt the onset of irreversible environmental catastrophe, the NDP offers very little. Today’s New Democrats are liberals who are not even in much of a hurry.

That’s why the long gun registry vote matters so much to the federal NDP.

Once upon a time, the CCF did have a genuine base in rural Canada. When Tommy Douglas led the Saskatchewan CCF to office in 1944, the central plank in his platform was to protect a farmer’s home quarter section of land from foreclosure by the banks. Since then, the farm base of the NDP has steadily eroded as family farms have disappeared to be replaced by agribiz. Today, the NDP’s rural base is centred in regions where mining and forest products are the dominant sectors. Plenty of people in those regions own long guns and hunt.

For years, the gun lobby in Canada has propagated the idea among rural gun owners that there’s a basic difference between registering a car and a gun. Unlike the case of a car, registering a gun, the lobbyists say, is about freedom. The state ought not to know how many guns you have in your possession. Even if you make the registration free, and reduce the penalty for failure to register a fine of one dollar, they will object. For them, this is an issue of principle.

The principle, of course, has nothing to do with the Canadian experience. It is an outgrowth of the American Revolution and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which the U.S. Supreme Court interprets as giving individual Americans the right to bear arms.

Pushing the Second Amendment north into Canada is exactly what the gun lobby wants. This is a game for Tea Party wannabes, such as the Harperites. It makes no sense for New Democrats to be sucked into this maelstrom. Even if some members of the NDP are prepared to play games about the validity of registering long guns, the party cannot win a battle about who is prepared to serve up the biggest Tea Party.

Let the Harperites occupy that ground. As the facts come out, it becomes ever more clear that the long gun registry is a worthwhile and quite inexpensive law enforcement tool that saves lives. Plenty of people, it turns out, use long guns to assault other people and to take their own lives. Weapons need to be registered.

The flip side in urban Canada is also clear for the NDP.

If NDP votes in the House of Commons make the difference in killing the long gun registry, the Liberals will never let urban voters forget it. It will be their rallying cry in the cities in the next election. They will say that a vote for the NDP is a vote for Harper.

The last time that tactic worked big time for the Liberals was in 1993. I canvassed in Spadina in Toronto for the NDP during that election. At the door, I met people who were quite well disposed to the NDP but who were desperate to boot out the Conservatives. They planned to vote Liberal to get the job done. The fear of Harper’s dictatorial and irrational policies has been growing all summer. The desire to boot out Harper and to use whatever instrument is available to get the job done is on the rise.

The NDP, a party that doesn’t seem to have stood for much for a long time, is in danger of watching its votes slip away to the Liberals. And the clincher could well be the gun registry, an issue that is both substance and symbol. If the NDP can credibly be blamed for the demise of the registry, plenty of people in the cities will use that as their rationale for voting Liberal.

Watch out Jack.

Harper’s Party: The Curious Case of the Missing Conservatives

Despite its label and occasional bows to the lineage of John A. Macdonald, Harper’s Party is without conservatives.

Harper’s bazaar is inhabited by enthusiasts from the Christian Right, anti-government devotees, advocates of economic and political union with the United States, opponents of abortion, people fearful of gay pride festivities, haters of trade unions, those who think you should be nice to everyone who is not different, lobbyists for the oil industry, and those who fear that global warming is a pointy-headed conspiracy. Binding them together is a proverb: To those who have much, more shall be given; to those who have not, less is only plenty.

Missing in this potpourri are conservatives. Traditional conservatives are not frightened of the state. They don’t fear the census, and they don’t believe that registering cars, or guns is step one on the way to the shadowy men in the black helicopters swooping down and taking our shotguns away. They don’t think that someday those with four-wheel drive vehicles may have to take up arms against the state.

They didn’t support the original Tea Party in which white men dressed up as native people threw tea into Boston Harbour; and they don’t support today’s Tea Party, financed by billionaires, and dedicated to the proposition that ignorance is a qualification for political leadership. They are inclined to the view that the state should control the means of violence and do not adhere to the notion that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution(that the U.S. Supreme Court interprets as giving Americans the right to bear arms) is the fount of liberty.

Traditional Canadian conservatives regarded the strong state as essential for the construction of a country next door to the United States. They were prepared to underwrite railways they thought were necessary for the creation of a transcontinental Canada. When they were convinced that it was required---as in the cases of hydro electricity, bankrupt railways, the sale of liquor, and broadcasting----they were prepared to use crown ownership to achieve their ends. They were elitists, who acted on behalf of big business; they were skeptical about democracy, and they didn’t have a populist bone in their bodies. For a socialist like me, they were not to love.

But let’s not confuse conservatives with Harper’s crowd. On both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, the elements that make up today’s political right constitute a combustible, unstable force that threatens the viability of democracy. In the U.S. where they are stronger and can rally vast throngs in the streets, they have immobilized a timid Democratic administration and its Congressional allies. In Canada, where they hold office in Ottawa, they have to be more circumspect, waiting for the day when they have a majority and can let loose their full dictatorial impulses.

If any traditional conservatives are worried by the spectacle before us, now is the time to speak up.

The Harper Plan for a Global Depression

At the G8 and G20 Summits, the Harper government is touting its plan for governments around the world to cut their deficits in half by 2013 and to stabilize their debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016. In a letter sent to G20 leaders on the eve of the summit, Harper declared that “advanced countries must send a clear message that as their stimulus plans expire, they will focus on getter their fiscal houses in order.” It’s a plan, which if enough governments actually signed on, would plunge humanity into a global depression.

In the autumn of 2008, as financial institutions in the United States, the U.K. and other countries crashed, the world came very close to a descent into depression. What pulled the global economy back from the brink was the willingness of governments, led by the United States, to inject vast amounts of capital into the economy. Without the direct spending begun by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, we would have seen a repeat of the 1930s.

And the global economic crisis is far from over. Alarming signs in both the United States and Europe make it clear that major economies are flirting with the danger of a second major crash. After a tax credit expired, housing purchases have plunged in the United States. New home sales in the U.S. dropped by 32.7 per cent in May, to an annual rate of 300,000, the lowest level since record keeping began. In Europe, the lesson being learned from the Greek calamity and the general risk of countries being unable to meet their debt payments, is that governments must adopt severe austerity regimes. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is a major proponent of this is as Britain’s new prime minister David Cameron.

It’s not that debt doesn’t matter. At the heart of the U.S. economic malaise are three interconnected layers of debt: the national debt of about $12 trillion; the indebtedness of individual Americans of about $11 trillion; and the rising net indebtedness of the United States to other countries, a debt that now totals several trillion dollars. The current economic crisis in which these debts are the elephant in the room is forcing the repositioning of the United States to play a smaller role in the global economy.

That repositioning will continue for many years to come. But if the U.S. and other major countries slam the brakes on government spending, the world will be pushed into a deflationary downward spiral. Unemployment will rise and many countries will be pushed back into recession. The U.S. needs to deal with its debt problems in such a way as not to convert the current economic malaise into a catastrophe. Over time, the U.S. will need to sharply raise taxes for the rich and the affluent, refashion its trade relationships with China and other countries, and re-launch its crumbling manufacturing sector.

Massive skepticism about whether the U.S. political system and culture can successfully manage the transition is in order.

In the meantime, though, the potential consequences of the rush to austerity that Stephen Harper and others are championing are all too obvious.

Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have never had a clue about the economy. Two weeks after the October 2008 federal election, while financial institutions and markets around the world were crashing, Flaherty assured a business audience that Canada would not need to run a government deficit at all. A couple of months later, the intrepid minister of finance unveiled a budget that announced that Ottawa would have the highest deficit in history.

Now the Harper government is back to putting ideology ahead of economic thinking. The Conservatives plan to continue lowering tax rates for corporations and the wealthy and they are determined to slash government spending, except for military outlays. Bash public servants, hold down their incomes, and cut social spending---that’s the recipe. If adopted by a large part of the world, it’s a recipe for depression.

On the bright side, nobody outside Canada much cares what the Harper government thinks on this or any other subject. Recent polls show that in the U.S., Britain, France and Germany, most people take little account of Canada and Canadians and think of us as a minnow not a shark.

That’s cool.

This week, Stephen Harper is playing the twin roles of manager of the Deerhurst Inn and director of the paramilitary occupation of Toronto.

Personally, I look forward to the G8 and G20 getting the hell out of here as quickly as possible. Future summits should be held online, or if the massive egos that lead these countries insist on meeting in person, let them do so on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That’s more their speed.

Reducing the normally vibrant city of Toronto to a comatose vegetable has not been a pretty sight. We have been treated to the methods of a police state where there is no connect between the people and their supposed leaders. This must never be allowed to happen in our country again.

Let’s declare Canada a Summit Free Zone.

Aging Agitator James Laxer Enters Red Zone

Aging Agitator James Laxer, who is constantly on the look out for a demonstration to attend, entered the red zone of the G 20 summit this morning.

He rose early to be sure to make it to downtown Toronto before day’s end. Much to his surprise as he pointed his ten-year-old vehicle southward, traffic was exceptionally light. He later reported that he had never seen such non-existent traffic in the city. “It looked like downtown Calgary,” he uttered. “That’s one more achievement the Harper government can claim. They’ve killed Toronto, long regarded by them as a menace.”

Laxer’s car sped past Queen’s Park where he hoped to find some fellow mal-contents. On the south lawn of the legislature with heavily armed policemen, wearing flack jackets, standing by, he saw a tiny group of people waving their arms rhythmically. His hopes were dashed, however, when he realized they were doing Tai Chi.

The drive down University Avenue was even faster. Hospital employees at Mount Sinai were sitting outside drinking coffee (and puffing on cigarettes, oh dear) and serious looking spooks in bullet proof vests with ear pieces in place were standing at the ready in front of the U.S. Consulate.

At every intersection, the cops were in place, as Laxer sailed toward the Fake Lake. He noted a sign that warned that traffic would be halted south of King St. Not deterred, he drove south of King and then Wellington and found himself surrounded by chain fences on all sides. At Front St., he turned right and drove down a corridor with chain fences on both sides. Heavily armed police and paramilitary watched warily as his vehicle passed. Laxer later said it looked like they were prepared for anything, except maybe an earthquake or a tornado. A great weekend for donuts and overtime for thousands in uniform, he figured.

As he drove past the front door of the Convention Centre where world leaders will meet, he muttered to himself that with the fence in front it looks like the air force base at Plattsburgh, New York. “Shit,” he exclaimed. “The Guardian newspaper is going to make mincemeat of Canada again.”

Having carried out his one-person protest inside the red zone with the slogan----Workers of the World, Give Me a Call----he drove up Spadina still on the hunt for action. He parked on Bloor, no problem finding a parking spot, and went to Book City, where many revolutionary screeds are for sale. A woman in her forties was the only other customer. She said she loved the ease of getting downtown today and hoped there’d be many more summits held here.

Laxer went for a coffee, spied some Brazil fans, and shook his head in disbelief. “Well at least I got past the fence,” he told anyone who would listen.


(Photo above: Laxer stands in the centre of deserted Bloor St. and gestures to no one.)