The Emergencies Act Inquiry

Well the inquiry is unfolding as I expected.

As each witness testifies the talking heads, both the professionals and the amateurs, cherry pick the testimony that backs up their particular biases and many have already concluded the Inquiry's findings. Of course, we have only heard from some of the victims of the "Convoy" , the city government and law enforcement, who have been collectively engaged in a cover-your-ass operation since they took the stand. 

We still have some of the key players from the "Convoy" to come, who will have to testify under oath and we also have the Federal government representatives, including the PM and some Cabinet Ministers to testify. Then the Inquiry will have to sift through thousands of pages of documents.

In short, the inquiry is far from over. All of the testimony from witnesses has not been heard and none of the evidence has been considered by the Justice conducting the Inquiry and his team.

So coming to final conclusions at this time is pointless. The inquiry will have the final say in a few months.

Some observations:

1. The invocation of the Emergencies Act (EA) was not taken lightly by the government. They would have considered it for some time, including having government lawyers weighing in on the legality of doing so. If those lawyers would have stated that the government would have been on shaky legal ground by invoking it the government would not have gone down that road. All of that would have been documented and it has been entered into evidence.
2. Related to that the Justice running the Inquiry is only allowed to consider the evidence presented to him. Most of the evidence is going to come from the Federal government. The evidence from the Federal government will indicate a pretty compelling case for invoking the EA. The Inquiry will consider the evidence in its entirety. It will not cherry pick from it.
3. The Federal government handed over thousands of pages of documentation to all of the lawyers involved in the Inquiry, including those who would like to assert the government did not reach the threshold necessary in the Act to invoke it. If there was a "smoking gun" showing the government was not justified it would have been leaked by now. The same if true if those lawyers believed that the government held back documents.
4. So far they are only talking to witnesses and those involved in ending the occupation of downtown Ottawa. The Inquiry still needs to examine events that took place elsewhere in the country.
5. Having witnesses being cross-examined makes "cover-your-ass" operations very difficult. Any spin a witness puts on their actions or the actions of their organization is quickly revealed to be just that. I have not watched all of the testimony but I have seen some and more than a few witnesses have squirmed under that cross-examination. 
6. While I know that many would like the Inquiry to expose the Conservatives' role in the "Convoy" I do not believe it will and I have never believe it would. Unless witness testimony or something in the documents points to something which would compel the Inquiry to summon Conservative official to testify they will not testify.
7. If Doug Ford does not testify the Inquiry will only be able to consider the evidence from the Federal government in rendering its decision on whether the Federal government was justified in invoking the EA. See points number 1 and 2 to see what that would probably mean.

While I am not going to conclude that the Inquiry will find the invocation of the EA was justified I am going to say that I would be surprised if it did not. Also, I will not be surprised that the findings will contain all sorts of caveats and nuances because that is what judges do when they render legal decisions.

In the end there will probably be enough in the findings to allow all interested parties to cherry pick what they need to advance their particular agendas.

We Really Do Not Deserve Democracy Do We?

So the average voter turnout for the Ontario municipal elections was less than 30%. The turnout for the last Ontario provincial election was only around 40% and the last Federal election pulled less than 60% of eligible voters into the polling stations.

Pathetic!

In order for democracy to work the citizens of a democratic country have to minimally participate by voting. They should participate much more between elections but at least they should drag their asses to a polling station when they have an opportunity.

I know many believe that their votes does not mean anything. The powers that be have worked diligently over the last few decades to reinforce that perception but of course it is not true. 

I have mentioned in this space before that democracy is not the default form of government. Authoritarianism holds that distinction. The past 300 years have seen an impressive run for democracy in the West but it is showing signs of breaking down everywhere, some places faster than others.

Part of the reason why is ordinary citizens have given up on it while some who have embraced authoritarianism are hijacking the language of democracy to push their objectives. The trend could be reversed if citizens would reengage but that is not going to happen. Those who fear the power of voters have successfully convinced those same voters that they have no power.

If I live long enough it will be interesting to see these new authoritarian regimes butting up against the impacts of climate change in 20 years or so. I have also stated in this space that we could see revolutions, in the current democracies, before the middle of the century and it is realistic to assert that it will be triggered by the impacts of climate change and automation on peoples lives and livelihoods and the lack of the political relief valves that are a natural feature of democratic systems.

But I digress. What it comes down to is we have the ability to change our world because we live in democracies. The most basic way to make those changes is to vote when given the opportunity, which although it happens regularly it does not happen that frequently. Being involved in politics between elections would be even better but barring that people have to minimally participate in the process by voting.  If we are unwilling to do that then the fall of the democratic systems is the inevitable result and the people who decided not to participate will have no one to blame but themselves for it.

Brian Mulroney has still got it

He is still a master of speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

On the one hand he states that the Conservative Party is heading in the right direction and then he advises them to move to the centre. If they were moving in the right direction would they not already be moving in that direction? Would he have needed to give that advice?

I have stated in this space a couple of times, in the past month, that moderate Conservatives have no real home in the CPC. They just do not. It has been taken over by Canadian Trumplicans and they have absolutely no interest in moderating their views to make moderate Conservatives feel comfortable with the direction the Party is headed. I have also stated that the only way for them to maybe change the direction of the CPC would be for the Party to be humiliated in the next election. That is the painful truth. To think otherwise is wishful thinking and a recipe for losing any chance of influencing the direction of the country for at least a generation.

You would hope that they would look past the next election but Brian Mulroney has demonstrated that they probably will not. They just cannot bring themselves to do it. As I stated before they dislike Justin Trudeau just as much as the Trumplicans in the CPC they just do not want to see him hanged for treason. For many moderate Conservatives it seems beating Mr. Trudeau is more important that actually having real influence in Canadian politics and society.

My Jewish father-in-law has a word to describe such people: schmucks.