In and Out ... of Office?

I swear to every thinking person who reads this blog -- the "in and out" scheme the federal Tories used for its national advertising during the 2006 election campaign is going to be the undoing of the Harper government.

They are pretending not to take the risk very seriously in public specifically because the issue is potentially fatal to their cause. The recent appellate court defeat on their civil suit takes away their crowing point about the courts being on their side.  And the charges laid against four party members (including two sitting Senators) puts a lie to this being an insignificant "administrative dispute."

Now, let me be clear -- as other bloggers and writers have already posted on the internet, this issue is not always the simplest to explain to people, is it the kind of thing cynical voters would not be shocked to hear about, given that it's politicians involved in this scandal, and it is likely to be forgotten in the heat of an election campaign. It's not likely this issue in isolation will bring down the government.

The reason this one will sting is because it's a definitive straw on the pile already perched on Canadians' collective camel-like back.

This is a party that campaigned in 2006 on being the party of accountability and transparency. How can they ever make that claim again if Elections Canada proves its charges in court? I mean, these charges stem from how they conducted themselves in the campaign that originally brought them to power. That would be the same election campaign when the Tories were beating the Liberals over the head with their copy of the Gomery inquiry report on the sponsorship scandal. They were going to change the culture of government, they said, and make sure this kind of thing could never happen again.

All while acting illegally in their own campaign advertising campaign. The hypocrisy and irony run thick and rich.

The Tories have collected a small stack of ethics-defying mini brouhahas over the course the past five years. They have created an almost militaristic environment for government MPs and Senators who are expected to toe the line or find another place of employment. The Prime Minister's Office could have taught Trudeau, Mulroney and Chrétien a thing or two about how to be top dog -- the centralized control of the government by the current PMO is unparalleled in Canadian history.  

The scandalous Afghan detainee imbroglio that led to a prorogation of Parliament feeds into the party's reputation as serial skirters of ultimate political responsibility. The earlier prorogation during the Coalition Crisis was another example of Harper's obsessive need for control and his party's willingness to do whatever is necessary to retain power, no matter the cost to our sense of fairness and our faith in democratic principles. The uproar over Bev Oda's handling of CIDA's Kairos funding decision is another instance where Tory pre-government rhetoric and the five-years-of-Tory-government reality don't line up. The examples of Conservative misconduct, arrogance and outright disdain for Parliament and other key institutions are numerous.

Add it all up, and it becomes obvious that taking a strong line of attack by lining all these examples up could be a powerful argument for opposition to Harper's government to make in any upcoming election campaign.

Will it happen? Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition will have its moment sometime relatively soon. But given the current plight of the Liberal party, it's tough to see them pulling it together enough to do the necessary damage. A physically weakened Jack Layton may not be the best messenger on the hustings if the electoral writ is dropped this year. And Gilles Duceppe will do what he always does -- win a majority of Quebec seats while having a minimal impact on the cross-Canada debate.

But if the Liberals and NDP can sharpen their knives just enough to inflict enough damage from both sides, it might be enough to deny a renewed mandate for the Tories. Sadly, the knives in opposition will be used mostly to try and take out each other for short-term advantage amongst the votes they already collectively command.

I wish I was optimistic that they can remove Harper from government. I'm not. But this agglomeration of greasy, sticky, grimy, slimy dealings from the Tories means any renewed mandate they earn in the future will be weighed down by the malfeasance clogging their engine of government. Moving ahead with a believable air of confidence and integrity will be extremely difficult to muster.

So will the in and out scandal undo Harper? Yes, sooner or later. But maybe not in 2011.

On the Kirpan & Canadian Multiculturalism

I have been thinking about the best way to respond to the news of Quebec's provincial legislature passing a resolution banning the kirpan from the building. I've shared links on the subject with friends through my Twitter and Facebook accounts, but I also have been dedicating some deeper thinking to the larger issue.

The Globe and Mail published an article today that says we in Canada may be heading for a debate on multiculturalism no one really wants to have. But let's review some of the issues that arise from this kirpan ban and think about broader implications.

A kirpan worn at the Supreme Court
(courtesy of globeandmail.com)

First, the offensive Louise Beaudoin, secularism critic for the Parti Quebecois who provocatively stated "Multiculturalism may be a Canadian value but it's not a Quebec one." This is typical hair-splitting predicated on a separatist agenda, designed to offend and therefore provoke a reaction that hopefully reinvigorates a flagging cause. For surely she must know that people who live in Quebec carry Canadian passports and are Canadian citizens. As such, our laws apply, and our values are their values. There will always be those in any society who rail against the predominant view -- I do so all the time as a poet. But this is still a place built (at least ostensibly) on the rule of law.

Values are shaped by the laws, customs, practices and desires of the population, not the wishful thinking of a small group of politicians and nationalist rabblerousers.

Beaudoin claims multiculturalism, which was enshrined in our Constitution when it came home from England in the early 1980s, does not apply to Quebec. True, the province did not sign the Constitution Act of 1982. But keep in mind an analogous situation -- in the world of labour, a group of employees continue to work for an employer, and continue to be paid, even in a situation where the collective bargaining agreement has expired. There are only two ways to end that situation. Either the parties agree to a new contract or a strike/lockout ensues.

Applying this to Quebec, they are still part of Canada, and are still subject to all its laws even though they haven't signed the new "collective agreement" under our repatriated Constitution. So until we kick them out of Confederation (lockout) or they declare independence (strike), they're still part of Canada and responsible to uphold all the laws of the land.

For once in my life I find myself agreeing with John Snobelen, the former Ontario education minister under Mike Harris, who wrote "throwing people out of the National Assembly because of their religious garb has everything to do with a growing xenophobia in Quebec." He goes on to say that "the banning of kirpans from the Quebec National Assembly is nothing more or less than the latest example of systemic prejudice in a province that has grown famous for official intolerance." The trend dans la belle province of doing everything possible to protect the French language, even if it means running roughshod over minority rights, flies in the face of liberal democratic principles.

If there ever was a place where de Tocqueville's warning about the tyranny of the majority has not been heeded, it's the Quebec National Assembly.

The other aspect of Snobelen's argument that rings true for me is the way security has come to trump all other considerations in our society. When it was suggested to Beaudoin that a kirpan was no more or less deadly than the steak knives readily available in the National Assembly's restaurant, she laughed: "Knives and kirpan are not exactly the same thing." No, they are not. You eat with a knife, and therefore it's not a security threat (even though people openly brandish them on a daily basis and they are used to cut meat). A kirpan is to remain under clothing and in its sheath at all times, and is a necessary article of a religious faith. No, they are not the same thing at all, Madame Beaudoin.

The response from the government was almost comical. Quoting from the CTV.ca article: "Essentially it's focusing on security, and we support the decision made by the security agents of L'Assemblée Nationale," said Liberal Cultural Communities Minister Kathleen Weil. "Security agents have to make those kinds of decisions on a daily basis, whether it's in courthouses or in airports or here." This is a failure of leadership on an unforgivable scale. Last time I checked, it wasn't the security agents who voted with the other parties to officially ban the kirpan, it was government MNAs. Not a single member of the governing Liberals present that day had the intestinal fortitude to stand against the bigotry emanating from opposition benches and vote against this offensive PQ-sponsored motion. If I still lived in Montreal I'd be working tirelessly to defeat my local MNA, regardless of political stripe, for voting for this. And if my MNA wasn't present for the vote because they were dodging it, I'd still work for their ouster for not having the courage to have their convictions recorded for posterity.

Let's face the facts -- trumped-up security concerns are the roots of many current evils.  This is just the latest manifestation of our acquiescence to diminished rights and protections in the name of protecting elites from the street.  Because ultimately, concerns about security by powerful people are less about protecting you and me and more about upholding various forms of hegemony.

In this case, the power structure being protected is one predicated on race and religion. It cannot, and should not, go unchallenged. As Balpreet Singh, legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada said, "when you get this message from the National Assembly that the kirpan - and by extension Sikhs - are not welcomed here, it does leave you scratching your head. I find it objectionable."

I find it objectionable that people entrusted with upholding the public good can so regularly trample minority rights. I find it objectionable that the bigots are coming out, writing obtuse, inflammatory, xenophobic and racist statements at the ends of these articles and finding a repugnant wellspring of support for their hate. I find it objectionable that not enough people are angered by this creeping clawback of our rights protected in our Constitution. I find it objectionable that Quebec continues to spit on that document without a throaty retort from Ottawa.

Multiculturalism is indeed a Canadian value, and Canada stretches from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, from Peelee Point to the North Pole, and everything in between. It encompasses the cliff over the St. Lawrence River where French explorers established a settlement centuries ago, and the building in the modern city at that location that now boasts the ignominious distinction of "Canada's most xenophobic legislature."

Vive le Québec? Je pense que non. 

Regarding Poetry and Slam in Ottawa

I am thankful for the work of Ottawa Citizen arts journalist/blogger Peter Simpson. I had a chance to have a conversation with him at the 2010 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, held in Ottawa. He was sitting directly behind me in the second row at Finals Night inside the Dominion-Chalmers United Church. When he wrote about the ten best things he saw all year, he listed the Ottawa Capital Slam team's performance of their poem Wizard of Love at #10. In the lead-up to the festival he posted three videos of local slam artists to help promote the show. Over the years he has written about our scene, and the exposure in the capital's largest newspaper has always been appreciated.

But the year-end What was hot (or not) list published by the Citizen on Christmas Eve has struck a discordant note locally, as the occasional sniping between local "page" and "stage" poets got a sugar shot of journalistic energy from Simpson. He lists "slam poetry" as HOT and "other poetry readings" as NOT. In explaining this choice, he says of the non-slam events:

 

"Traditional poetry readings bring to mind the Rolling Stones' phrase 'dismal, dull affairs.' The atmosphere doesn't have to be so raucous that it distracts from the verse, but do they so often have to be funereal?"

As you can probably imagine, this has not gone over well with the page set. Amanda Earl, editor of Bywords.ca, posted her thoughts on her blog, as well as through her Facebook account. There is some slam-bashing in the FB comments (not from Amanda, but from others). This is unsurprising to me, because there are some out there who think slam is terrible poetry. And some of it is. But there's lots of page poetry that's unreadable tripe too, so I'm not sure what those comments are trying to prove.

I think it basically boils down to what's good. As Amanda has said, there are some forms of poetry (i.e. sound poetry) that cannot be translated both on the page and on the stage, and there will always be some forms of expression that are unclassifiable. But in general, great poetry sounds great when recited aloud and looks fantastic on the page, all at the same time. I live for poetry like that. 

I'm also not a slam artist, and even though I've participated in and organized many slams in the past I've never considered myself a "slam poet".  I am a spoken word artist who occasionally attends slams (rarely to compete, but to watch and learn). Every exposure I have to poetry that I didn't write is a learning opportunity, whether it's from an amazing poet reading work of extraordinary polish or the brand-new slammer sharing their poetry on stage for the very first time. Approaching poetry from this perspective enriches my life and my art. It also allows me to understand that no one has all the answers in poetry. It's the diversity of voices and forms that makes literary expression so powerful.

I just wish those who are too snobbish to even try listening to the lyricism and beauty of spoken word with open ears, or the slam lover who disparages the craft of highly skilled "page" poets, would get over themselves already. People are watching, they are forming opinions, and those perspectives based on stereotypes and B.S. reflect poorly on all of us poets.

Get over yourselves already, and support Ottawa poetry -- in all its forms!

The Challenge of Organizing Arts Events in Ottawa: The Nomadic Bill Brown

As much as it pains me to say it, the next edition of Bill Brown's 1-2-3 Slam originally scheduled for Thursday, October 7 may not take place.  This is because The Cajun Attic, the venue where the BB123 Collective has been hosting the show for the past year, closed its doors for good yesterday.

Our poetry series has been a classic example of why it can be very tough to create and sustain an arts event in the city of Ottawa.  The show began at the Umi Cafe in Chinatown in September 2008.  In its first season, it provided a launching pad for a number of Ottawa's current crop of incredible spoken word artists - Graeme "Loh El" O'Farrell, Sean O'Gorman and Hyfidelik are just three of the slam newcomers who first got comfortable on the BB123 stage before moving on to brighter lights of Capital Slam and Urban Legends Poetry Slam.

But we experienced a difficult situation with double-bookings that led to the cancellation of the June 2009 show and the decision to move to Avant-Garde on Besserer Street. In the three months we were there, we had trouble finding traction and lost much of the audience we had built at Umi.  Our first anniversary show in September 2009 (where we introduced the 1-2-3 head-to-head format to Canadian slam) was our last hurrah.  We moved on to The Cajun Attic in October 2009, and hoped never to look back.

The space had most of what we needed - it was wired for sound, people could purchase food and drink, the stage and seating areas were in a nice physical layout, and for the most part things were smooth between the Collective and bar management.  Outside of one unfortunate double-booking incident, our year at the Attic was a fruitful partnership.

But bars and restaurants are capitalist creatures and this one didn't do enough to get its bills paid, so now that it's closed we are once again looking for another home.

The worst part of this is the extreme difficulty I have found over the last seven years, first with Capital Slam and then with Bill Brown, of finding solid, reliable venues of the proper size.  We are not music and our needs are different.  People having multiple conversations isn't considered polite at a poetry show.  Our events are usually best in rooms seating between 50-200 people, and there is a severe dearth of decent venues of that size in this city.  We are not theatre so most venues of that sort are inappropriate to the needs of a monthly poetry show.  The challenges are legion.

Capital Slam was nomadic for three and a half seasons before it moved into Mercury Lounge, and Bill Brown is suffering a similar fate.  Anyone got a 100ish seat venue with sound that might be open to hosting a poetry series once a month?  The challenges of organizing artistic and cultural events for Ottawans continues ...

Why Micheal Ignatieff Should Cheer for Tim Hudak

The Ontario government led by Dalton McGuinty is in trouble.

According to recent polling, the Liberals have fallen into a double-digit hole in voting intentions behind the PC opposition, and 7 out of 10 Ontarians think the government is on the wrong track. A series of missteps and the enduring unpopularity of the HST are behind the doom and gloom for the governing party.

Federal Liberals, take heart. The tide is turning in your favour.

Historically, the inhabitants of Queen's Park and Parliament Hill tend to be of differing political stripes. When the Tories were dominating provincial politics during the Davis years, Pierre Trudeau's Liberals was holding down the federal fort. When Frank Miller tripped on his own feet and lost Tory hegemony in Toronto to David Peterson, Brian Mulroney was running things in Ottawa. After Jean Chretien won power and Tories everywhere were in the doldrums, Ontarians took a chance on Bob Rae's NDP. And when Ontario soured after five years on its traditional third party, they yanked hard right with Mike Harris.

Now with the Harper Tories in federal power at the same time as the provincial McGuinty Liberals, Ontario is poised for another traditional shifting of political loyalty. Ontario holds its election in a year from now, and all current trends point to the PC's under Tim Hudak taking over at that time. I personally don't see how the Liberals avoid their fate -- no matter if their decisions turn out to be sage or folly, I believe the public has formed its enduring impression and will toss the bums out next fall.

Only the good Lord knows when the next federal election will finally happen, but I'd wager Harper would prefer to have it after the October 2011 Ontario vote. The irritants with the federal government are accumulating, though at this point it hasn't coalesced into a serious problem for them. At least not yet. 

But I think a time of accounting is coming for the Conservative Party of Canada. The Liberals seem to have finally comprehended that opposition status requires opposition action, and recent noise around the long-form census and the long-gun registry has exposed the government's wedge-sharpening, deaf-to-reason approach to their detriment. People are starting to look harder at their options, and as this continues I believe the Tories will begin to slowly bleed support to the other parties.

But ultimately, as history shows, a change in government at one level is usually followed quickly by a change at the other shortly thereafter. Ignatieff might want to send Hudak some clandestine encouragement, a Christmas card and well wishes this December.