Pierre Poilievre has a NAZI Problem

Let us state right off the hop that Pierre Poilievre is not a Nazi or a fascist. He may be an opportunistic career politician with limited real world experience, with no idea of how to actually form policy, with extremely limited political acumen and completely lacking in political scruples but he is not a porn star...Sorry, channeling my inner Grandpa Simpson...but he is not a fascist.

However he does have a problem with them.

He is not unique. The old Reform Party always had a certain percentage of supporters who had fascist tendencies.  The were very much in favour of using the power of government to control everything from who you slept with to deciding what is art to only financially supporting the industries they favoured. They have always seemed comfortable in the Party and the Party really did not do a whole hell of alot to discourage them. The fact a very heavy white English Christian only thread ran through this crowd should surprise no one. When the Reform Party gobbled up the Progressive Party of Canada that wing of the party came along with it.

Stephen Harper knew this when he took over the Party as its first leader and he was at least adept at keeping them at bay. Let's be honest though, he made promises to them and then broke them as soon as he won government. Of course, when Stephen Harper was the leader we did not have social media and that wing of the party was much smaller and much less radicalized. Oh yes, Stephen Harper also did not have the Peoples Party of Canada stalking him on his right flank. It should be noted that Mr. Harper's betrayal of the more far right members of his base laid the groundwork for the creation of the PPC. His short term strategy to stay in power had longer term consequences for the party he left behind.

So Pierre Poilievre would not be able to do what Stephen Harper did even if he had the political smarts to do it. So now he has to deal with an ever radicalized and loud group on his right flank while also trying to convince more moderate Canadians that they are not what the CPC really represents.

That goal was complicated by the Convoy (you know what I am talking about). That event laid bare for everybody to see that there was an element of our society that does not believe in Canadian democracy. They parrot democratic rhetoric but that is only to cover up their fascist tendencies. It is to his ever lasting discredit that Mr. Poilievre rode the publicity generated by them and actively courted their support to win the leadership of the CPC. They have been a millstone around this neck ever since he won. Watching him trying to keep them in the CPC tent while also trying to entice more moderate Canadians to his side has been fun to watch, since he is failing at both to a certain extent.

What Pierre Poilievre might really need to do is to completely cut ties with this wing of his party. Doing so will certainly be a gift to the PPC but what he loses on the right might help him gain support in the centre, particularly as the Liberal government gets longer in the tooth. If he had any political instincts at all he would be working towards that.

That brings us to the dinner where an avowed fascist, representing an avowed fascist party in the European Parliament, was the guest of honour and where four members of the CPC were attendees of the dinner. One of those Members is a person who ran for the leadership of the party, twice, is a senior member of the shadow cabinet and who would probably be a senior cabinet minister if the CPC wins government. Some are saying that they did now know who the MEP was but she attended that dinner in Alberta so all of these MPs would have had to travel to attend it. All of that would be on the government dime which means the trips would have had to be planned. No MP is going to go through that effort unless they know exactly why they are doing it. So their protestations are bullshit. They attended this dinner because they agreed with the views of the MEP and thought it would be worthwhile to listen to her and meet her. To most Canadians this is unacceptable and it will further remind them of their unease with the CPC as being a home for Canadians with extreme right wing views, something that has haunted the CPC since its creation. 

However this event might also be a perfect opportunity to break with that wing of the CPC, if Mr. Poilievre had the political acumen and guts to take it. By removing all of these MPs from caucus and forcefully denouncing the views of the MEP he would create a sea change in the CPC and he would set up a shift of the Party to a more moderate conservative party. It could be that what he loses on his right he would regain in the centre.

Then again maybe not. It could be that the whole of the conservative movement in this country has grown more radicalized and the number of Conservative voters who would desert the party would be much higher than I am assuming. 

I am not certain at this point but I suspect that the CPC rank and file has grown more radicalized. I believe that "moderate" conservatives are a dying breed and that breaking with the really radical elements of the party would cost votes that could not be recovered from moderates.

In which case we can repeat that Pierre Poilievre really does have a NAZI problem.

Foreign Interference in Canadian Politics

Allegations of interference in the nomination of a Chinese Canadian Liberal candidate in Toronto, by the Chinese Government, before the 2019 election have surfaced.

On the face the allegations are hard to believe. First they are all based on anonymous sources, quoting documents that have not been released to the public and those anonymous sources are from CSIS. That is an organization where leaking operational data to the media carries heavy jail time if someone from that organization is caught doing so. Hell, people from CSIS are even forbidden from actually admitting they work for CSIS. Second, the meat of the allegations is a CSIS official briefed a senior member of the Liberal Party about suspicions of the candidate being supported by the Chinese government. It should be noted that a CSIS official would not brief anybody until it went through a rather comprehensive approval process and the particulars of that meeting would be recorded by both CSIS and the officials in the Party. Judging by the details in the news story it would not take long for both CSIS and the Party to figure out who was involved in that meeting, which means the journalist outed his source by publishing those details. I am no journalist but I am pretty certain that journalists are not supposed to do that and I am pretty certain that he would not do that. That sort of brings into question the verity of the whole scenario described by the journalist but he need not worry because neither CSIS nor the Party will produce any evidence to confirm or deny his allegations on national security grounds. Pretty convenient if you ask me.

That has not stopped Conservative supporters in a couple of media outlets from calling for a public inquiry into the whole thing. Such an inquiry would be pointless because the MP involved in the allegations would have the right to see the evidence against him, which is held by CSIS, and they will not release that evidence to a public inquiry. Of course, any inquiry could legally compel CSIS to release the information but that would severely damage CSIS's relationship in the Five Eyes, the partnership between the intelligence agencies of Canada, the US, Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand. That in turn would actually compromise Canadian security much more than what was described in the news story because it would cripple the ability of CSIS to gather intelligence but who cares if it would be an opportunity to own the Libs.

On the other hand some sort of public inquiry on the broader issue of foreign interference, all interference not just this one allegation, would be an eye opening exercise. After all I would bet my house that such interference has been going on for decades. That will not happen either because it would also be pointless. 

This story has been circulating social media for a couple of days but so far we have not heard a peep out of the CPC. You would think they would be all over this. The reason for this is they are probably aware that they have been receiving assistance from foreign actors for years. They did not invite it and there is really nothing they can do to stop it but with the state of Canadian politics right now people would assume the worst, which they do not need because many already assume the worst. That has not been helped by revelations that several CPC MPs, including a senior member of the Shadow Cabinet had dinner with an avowed fascist member of the European Parliament. (More on that in another post)

So here we are. Who knows where this will go but I am certain that a public inquiry will not be called and those very same Conservative commentators will scream cover-up, with the rubes eating it up. 

A word about Chinese interference in our politics. One of the issues exposed by this leak and the reaction to it is how petty and provincial is our politics. The Chinese do not care who is leading Canada because they consider the Canadian government to be largely irrelevant in the international community. There goal is not to influence Canadian policy. China is the second largest economy in the world, they are endeavouring to make it the largest and they are spending alot of money and effort to increase their military might. In short they are trying to become a superpower, if not the superpower, and the biggest obstacle to that is the Western democracies. They still set the agenda for international relations and China wants to change that. One way to do that is to undermine the political and democratic institutions of the Western democracies.

So the petty details of how they might have interfered in the nomination process in a single Federal riding are not relevant except in the context of their overarching goal. It is piecing together that bigger picture using these individual instances that we should be focusing on, or more precisely the Canadian intelligence community should be focusing on, and not going down a rabbit hole of a single instance.

The Ukraine War, One Year Later

If you would have told me this time last year that the Ukraine war would still be going on in a year I would have disagreed with you. While I did not believe Ukraine would just roll over I also did not believe that they would be able hold as long as they have.

A few months after the war started and when the Western media was saying that Ukraine was actually winning the war I stated in this space that they were probably overstating the case. Since then the Ukrainians have recaptured some territory but the Russians have still not gone away. Indeed, they have dug in for a long war.

Western media and many commentators are still saying the Ukrainians are winning and the Russians are losing. I am not so certain. From what I am seeing neither side is winning right now. It has descended into a war of attrition and the winner will be the one that can last the longest.

The Russians have the manpower advantage. They can keep calling up reservists and throwing them into the fray. Yes, their casualties will be high but so will be those of the Ukrainians, who do not have the manpower reserves of the Russians. The hope that the Russian people will grow tired of the war and boot Mr. Putin is probably false hope. If he is still there now he will probably be staying.

The Ukrainians have the money advantage. They are receiving financial and military support from the West that should allow them to hold out much longer than if they did not. The Russians on the other hand are short of both money and military equipment. I noticed in a non-western media report last week that the Russians are starting to deploy their third string tanks. That is the new units being formed to continue the war are going into battle in tanks that were obsolete when Pierre Trudeau was PM of Canada. Having them go up against Western first line tanks and modern hand held anti-tank missile systems is a recipe for much death and destructions amongst Russian tankers.

So it is a question of which one will no longer be able to sustain the war first. Will the Ukrainians just run out of men to fight? Or with the Russians just run out money and equipment? 

I do not know the answer but I can say that the longer this goes on the weaker the Russian strategic position becomes. That will not change regardless of the eventual military outcome of the war. Then again, the Ukrainians are not going to come out of this war in great shape either and I would bet a sizable chunk of money that if they do prevail the same Western governments that supported them militarily will be alot less generous with funds to help them rebuild.

Like I said I do not believe that either side is winning and in the long run both will probably come out losers of this war.

Die Media Die

I have stated in this space before that I believe it is time to rethink the idea of freedom of the press and it looks like they are in the process of eliminating themselves from the national landscape. The latest example is the layoffs reported by the National Post a couple of weeks ago. For a news organization that was bare bones before the layoffs we can now say they are cutting the bone now. They are not alone. Everywhere we look the media in this country is showing signs of distress and the only thing that is keeping them afloat is support from the government, the same government they have been assiduously trying to overthrow for almost a decade.

Of course the reason for their distress is simple. I have stated before that the media in this country cannot turn their backs on around 70% of their audience and readers and expect to be successful. But then again that is to be expected when you consider that all of our news media, with the exception of the CBC, is owned in part or in whole by American business interests. These business interests are pursuing the same business strategy as they are pursuing in the US, namely appealing to conservatives and nut jobs where it works somewhat because there are sufficient numbers of them to make such a strategy viable. These companies are trying to pursue the same strategy in Canada even though our political culture will not sustain such a strategy. They are doing this for ideological reasons instead of business reasons, hoping to make Canada more "conservative" but they are not succeeding and they are running their companies into the ground in the process. 

The Liberal government could accelerate this process by stopping all support to these companies. If faced with tons of red ink in their ledgers these American businesses will abandon the Canadian market pretty quick. Sure they may hate Liberals but they hate losing money even more.

Some would argue that such action would leave Canada without a news media. No, it would leave us with a changed news media. There is always demand for news. We need to be informed. If the current group of media organizations cannot make a go of it something will rise up to take their place. In fact, the competition for the Canadian media space would be so fierce that the replacement media companies would have to be innovative and develop business models that are completely different from the current legacy media, which still has not really adjusted to the current news environment, trying to maintain a centuries old model instead of really embracing the opportunities presented by the internet.

So, I wish the legacy media would just hurry up and die already and/or the government should facilitate that by eliminating support and subsidies for them. The sooner that happens the better off all of us will be.

The Findings of the Emergencies Act Commission Surprised Me

When the EA commission was doing its work last fall and everybody was building their preferred narratives by cherry picking the parts of the testimony that supported them I mentioned everybody was wasting their time and the final word would go to Justice Rouleau. I further stated that in the end the findings of the commission would be equivocal and that everybody would be able to spin them to their own advantage.

I was wrong. The final conclusions were quite unequivocal. The Federal government was justified in invoking the Act because the situation last winter met the very high threshold outlined in the act to do just that. End of story. I knew that the commission would come to this conclusion but I was expecting some nuance.

What this decision means is Justice Rouleau completely disregarded the testimony of the Convoy Organizers that testified at the hearings. They spent close to a week pushing their woe-is-me-we-were-just-peacefully-protesting schtick. He did not believe a word of it. Remarkable.

He also did not take anything the various law enforcement organizations said either. They all engaged in "cover your ass" operations on the stand and none of what they said appears to have been considered. The same goes for the testimony of the City of Ottawa.

I stated that the Federal government would not have invoked the EA if they did not have their ducks in a row beforehand. So I knew that the final report would find that they were justified in invoking the act but I always thought that finding would be tempered by the testimony of the convoy leaders and law enforcement as Justice Rouleau would be compelled by his brief to consider their testimony. He did and he rejected all of it pretty much out of hand. 

Wow.

The report is also not very good for the Provincial government. But then again the Premier never took the opportunity to put his side of the story into the record. He just sent a subordinate in the person of the Provincial Solicitor General to testify, which did not have the same impact as the Premier testifying. As I stated last Fall by not testifying Doug Ford essentially made the Federal government version of events the only version Justice Rouleau could consider. 

As for the Conservative Party of Canada they are not mentioned in the report so they will not be hurt by it. Throughout the hearings, whenever testimony contradicting the Federal government line was presented, the CPC surrogates in the media kept pushing the "Trudeau government overstepped" narrative but the silence of the CPC itself was deafening. The reason is they knew that if they did speak up they increased the chances of compelling Justice Rouleau to ask that they testify at the commission. That would not do so they kept their mouth shut. 

I did not see it but Pierre Poilievre did have a news conference today where he talked about the commission, after it had finished its work and could no longer call him, but I pretty much know what he said: "Trudeau bad". The guy really is a schmuck.

So this sordid chapter is now behind us. As expected the government was justified in invoking the EA, unexpectedly the commission was unequivocal in that finding, once again Doug Ford has been proven to be incompetent when it comes to actually governing and Pierre Poilievre is still a schmuck.

Not Afraid to Make the Hard Decisions

Word today that the Federal government has withdrawn a couple of amendments to Bill C-21 that were quite controversial. They had the effect of banning some weapons that could be used by hunters even though those weapons did not fall under the definition of "assault weapons" per se but they had some characteristics in common. Note that there are such things as semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that have the primary purpose of being used for hunting. Looking at them they do not look like assault weapons, such as the AR-15. My father owned both a semi-automatic rifle and shotgun when he was alive. I had no problem with the amendments as I stated in my previous post but I also have no problems with their withdrawal either. To be honest I really did not care that much either way. I could see both sides of the argument for and against and I agreed with parts of both.

Of course, this will not stop the usual suspects from claiming that the Liberals "surrendered", capitulated" or "flipflopped" and of course they would be wrong.

It is actually quite rare for governments to give into pressure, especially when the policy they are pursuing is popular amongst the coalition that put them in power and they know that it will not hurt them because the people most effected by the policy would not vote for them any way. There were several instances where the Harper Conservatives found themselves in the same position and their reaction was to dig in and then spend alot of money on advertizements attacking the Liberals and/or the leader of the party. 

The current Federal government did not do that. They actually weighed the evidence and reconsidered their initial decision, despite knowing how it would play with their opponents, knowing that it would not help them one bit with those rural voters who already hate them and knowing that their gun control policies are quite popular with their voters. It was a hard decision and they made it.

One other thing. I have always said that we should ignore the polls and watch what the political parties are doing to gauge which way the political winds are blowing. If we are to believe the polls the Liberals are down, in relation to the Conservatives, but this decision would seem to indicate otherwise. Quite frankly, if the polls were correct the Liberals would not have taken this decision. They would be doing whatever they could to maintain the support of the coalition that put them in the government benches and their gun control policies are very popular with those very voters. Instead they took this decision, which will not help them one bit politically. A very strange decision from a government that pollsters are saying is in trouble. 

By the way, if you are one who does believe the polls I am looking for investors to build a bridge between Victoria and Tokyo Japan. If you are interested please leave your banking information in the comments to this post.

This government has shown that it is not afraid to make tough decisions, even though such decisions might be controversial. The two big ones were to finally pull the plug on the farce that was the Parliamentary Committee to examine electoral reform and the purchase of the TMX. But those two decisions were rather early in their time in government. The fact that they are still making tough decisions at this time is quite telling.