More snow. Yay.

As I sit here tapping out this short entry, the skies have opened up and yet more snow is falling to the ground. It's accumulating on the vehicles parked out front. It was getting my leather jacket wet a couple hours ago, while I tried my darndest to move stuff into the new townhouse I'll be living in as of the end of the month.

I'm so sick of snow I could puke. And I'm so sick that I might just puke anyway (though coughing up a lung seems much more likely these days).

Canada is a beautiful country. But I'm not gonna lie to you -- it's much more enjoyable standing beside a barbecue in 30 degree weather.

So here's to spring. Hopefully it'll start showing its face soon, so I can pack away the winter gear and get more in touch with the Jamaican part of me.

I'm going to bed. Pass me a tissue, turn out the lights, and tell me when the snowfall is over.

March 21 and the politics of race

Unless you've been under a rock in the Rockies listening to rock, you probably know that some dude named Obama (pictured) made a speech about race in the U.S. Democratic primary race. Praised by some, dismissed by others, there is little doubt that the speech was Obama's most direct comments on the issue of race and has opened the floodgates to a national conversation on the issue. Whether it will eventually help Obama win the Democratic nomination (and potentially the presidency) is not certain, but it definitely has raised some questions for me.

If I were an American I would vote for Obama for a variety of reasons, but not because he is African-American. I would not vote for him because he is of mixed race. I would not vote for him due to his roots in the white Kansas town where his family is from. None of these reasons are compelling for me. But for others, that's what it's all about.

I'm not sure what that says about the American polity. I suppose I'll be able to form a more solid opinion once the Democrats choose between Obama and Hillary Clinton (who sparks a quite different debate about identity in politics that I will not discuss further here -- perhaps in a future entry). But it does highlight the difficulty Blacks face in the political world here in North America.

Black people, simply put, rarely occupy senior executive positions in North American politics. Obama is a rare Black senator -- only the fifth in American history and just the third that was popularly elected. The recently inaugurated David Paterson in New York is only the fourth African-American governor of a U.S. state. There have been Black members of the federal Cabinet, with Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell (pictured) being two recent and notable examples, but there have, of course, been no Black U.S. presidents or vice-presidents.

In Canada, Michaëlle Jean (pictured) is the first Black Governor-General and serves as the country's head of state (though the position is largely ceremonial). In the political field, there have been a limited number of Black Members of Parliament (such as Lincoln Alexander, also the first Black person to serve as Lieutenant-Governor of a province, Howard McCurdy, Ovid Jackson, and Marlene Jennings). Jean Augustine was the first Black member of a federal cabinet and in 1993 was the first Black woman elected to Parliament. In the current Quebec National Assembly, Yolande James serves as the province's first Black cabinet minister. Rosemary Brown was the first Black woman to be elected to any office by winning a seat in the B.C. legislature in 1972. Brown was also the first Black person to run for the leadership of a federal party, running a strong second to Ed Broadbent in the 1975 NDP race. McCurdy ran for the same position in 1989, losing to Audrey McLaughlin. No African Canadians have ever run for the leadership of the Conservative or Liberal parties.

Since there have been no Black leaders of a major political party in Canada, there have been no premiers or prime ministers from the African Canadian community. And frankly, there are no immediate or medium-term prospects for changing that particular fact.

It remains a difficult truth to comprehend for some Canadians, but a Black person in the United States stands a much better chance of becoming the head of the government than does a Black person in Canada. For those who believe the myth of Canadian racial superiority over the barbarian Americans, that must be a bitter pill to swallow. But there is little doubt that Blacks in Canada, though capable of attaining less senior positions, cannot hope to gain a leadership position in Canada in the current context.

How do we change that, and create an environment where anyone, truly, can become Prime Minister? On the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, that should be the conversation we are having about race in Canada.

An election is coming -- soon

Amazingly, my prediction came true.

Bob Rae and Martha Hall Findlay are in the House of Commons.

And Stéphane Dion's days as leader of the Liberal Party are numbered.

There's just no way the Grits can continue to prop up the Tories. And Dion can't afford to have Rae in the House for too long, tearing a strip off the government far more effectively than Dion has been able to up until now.

Bob Rae should have been elected leader back at the last Liberal leadership convention, and that is about to be brought home once he gets the chance to go after the Harperites directly on issues in his foreign affairs portfolio. Do you think anyone on the Conservative side of the floor can hold a candle to Rae on issues involving human rights and the intricacies of Canada's international responsibilities? Possibly the Prime Minister. Possibly. But since he won't be answering Rae's questions himself most of the time, the government front benches better get ready.

People can say what they like, but Bob Rae is a guy who's been around a long time and has a lot of knowledge and experience on files important to Canadians. His is a fresh approach within the Liberal Party -- he is free of any taint from the sponsorship scandal and has successful rehabilitated his image after his rocky tenure as an NDP premier of Ontario. I'm not in love with the guy but I think he's ten times better than Dion and at least three times better than the ineffectual Michael Ignatieff.

Neither of those guys would feel comfortable with Rae getting too much face time in the nightly news.

Bob had been conveniently seatless up until now, so Ignatieff had the floor to himself to play the "compare and contrast" game with the leader. People know now what they're missing with Iggy -- and it's not much. Since Rae is a far more gifted politician than either of those so-called Liberal leaders, it won't take long for his talents to become apparent now that he has a platform from which to speak, in front the cameras, where he can bash the government directly.

Put the three of them in a line and watch them go for awhile. Rae starts looking really good, really fast. That must scare the crap out of people who don't want the new guy to take over after Dion flames out. Better to confine his skills to use on the campaign trail in Toronto Centre rather than allow him to increase his profile before a national audience in the House.

Given all of that, I figure we'll vote by Canada Day. Stay tuned.

By the by(elections) ...

Today, Canadians in four ridings are voting for new Members of Parliament in what is being billed as a significant test for both Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion.

In the two by-elections in Toronto, both Martha Hall Findlay and Bob Rae are expected to score easy victories in safe Liberal seats. Both former leadership rivals to Dion, their presence on the parliamentary "dream team" could be seen both as a boon to the leader (who gains able representatives for Question Period, particularly Mr. Rae, who is known to be an able debater) and a potential challenge (could they outshine him as other MPs such as Michael Ignatieff have done?). But on the whole, I expect their presence to bolster the front lines and, hopefully for the Liberals, their party's fortunes.

The other two races out west in Saskatchewan and B.C., however, may prove to be a little dicier. Dion needs to win both to silence his critics (for now). A loss in SK (in a riding where he hand-picked the candidate, who also happens to be an ex-NDPer) or in BC (in Vancouver Quadra, John Turner's old riding) or both could be catastrophic for the bespectacled one's leadership.

I think that the Liberals will win three of the four races, losing in Saskatchewan but winning in Vancouver by a smaller-than-usual margin of victory. All told, tonight should be enough for people to dial back the outward criticism of Dion a bit.

And it won't likely be because of any stronger love or affection for the leader. Instead, the drumbeat for electoral war with the Conservatives will grow louder within the Grit caucus. And that could spell problems for Harper.

The Prime Minister has seen his party make uncharacteristic errors as of late. The NAFTA/Obama mess was a serious strategic error by a government renowned for running a leak-free ship. The Cadman affair still bubbles below the surface, threatening to explode at any moment.

But the most glaring miscalculation affecting the Tories' chances at a majority government is Harper's decision to hold the by-elections now. By assuming the government would no longer be standing, he figured these votes would never take place since a general election would have overridden the necessity for a mid-term vote. But the Liberals refused to oblige and, miracle of miracles, there's been no general election campaign.

If the Grits make a big splash and sweep today they can indeed gain some momentum as other commentators noted in their articles this morning. Combined with the other mistakes the Tories have recently made, Liberals might like their chances if they go now, before they get viewed irrevocably as the Harper government's political enablers. The risk to Harper is that people start to view the Liberal team, irrespective of their opinion of Dion, as the better group to govern. After all, the Harper team consists of Harper, Flaherty, Baird and a bunch of other people. Liberals may reason that they are as vulnerable as they ever will be right after a series of by-election losses today.

At any rate, any further delay in an election basically negates the need to bring them down early, thereby letting Harper become the first Canadian Prime Minister to serve his first four years in office at the head of a one-term minority government. By then, Canadians might be asking: "Why not give them the majority they want? They basically have it already thanks to the Liberals."

And there, ultimately, is the greatest risk to Dion -- parliamentary irrelevance. Coupled with internal dissent and an election loss a year from now, he'd be toast. Better to git 'er dunn when you've got at least a soft breeze in your sails.

I hope you're ready. This election campaign is coming sooner, rather than later.

The travails of ex-govenor Client 9

Since (soon-to-be-former) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was such an explosive, energy-drawing spectacle as an attorney and politician, it's little wonder that this scandal, whatever it ends up officially being called in the future (the Client 9 Scandal, the Emperor's Club Scandal and the tired, wholly unoriginal Spitzer-gate are my top three choices) is such a 20-car-pileup to watch. As far as political supernovas go, this one is pretty spectacular.

There's lots out there on this story, from the general synopsis to the real identity of call-girl "Kristen" to Kristen's MySpace page to a profile of Governor-designate David Paterson, courtesy of today's edition of the New York Times. Spoofs of Spitzer, including images (like the 'pimp' shot at left), mocking t-shirts and jokes from comedians, have already started to appear on the Internet. Though Wall Street acknowledged the downfall of one of its most tenacious pursuers with a mix of disgust and satisfaction, at least one news outlet thanked him for his sheriff duties, while another writes about a possible 'holy war' to bring Spitzer down prosecuted by Wall Street operatives. There's even an article making the claim that the FBI's investigation of this matter amounted to entrapment of Spitzer through the use of overly-broad federal sex and money-transaction laws.

The anger at Spitzer from exasperated New Yorkers is palpable -- the New York Post's editorial this morning nicely summed up a lot of the feeling across the city and the state: good riddance.

The scandal has not only been a huge problem in Albany, it has also knocked the Hillary Clinton campaign off-message. The reminders of Hillary's stand-by-your-man period in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky affair has forcefully brought moral issues back to the fore in the Democratic primary race, a development that does Clinton no favours as she struggles from behind to grab the presidential nomination from Barack Obama.

But how long do you figure it will be before we see a movie about this whole ordeal? The seamy, salacious nature of the thing almost demands at least a TV movie to allow Americans to revisit their revulsion and dismay again and again.

It's the American way.