Is the 2021 Federal Election a Change Election? Updated

Everybody has heard of the so called "ballot question". That is the question voters ask themselves when they cast their ballot. Many commentators assert that the political party that convinces enough voters to cast their votes for their ballot question will win the election.

Will the ballot question be about the environment, the economy, child care, vaccines or some other issue? In general it is none of these or any other issue.

I know of only one election in the last 40 years where an actual issue was the ballot question. That was 1988 when Canadians were asked to decide whether Canada should ratify the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Note that this was the agreement before NAFTA.

For every election since then the key ballot question has always been "Do I want a change in government?" That's it. Everything else was secondary and might have informed that decision but it always boiled down to that question.

In general humans do not like change. It frightens us. It confounds us. It clouds the future because you never know what the implications of change will be. The status quo, on the other hand, offers stability and predictability which we find comforting. As a result we only make changes when we are forced to or when a situation becomes so outrageous that change in the best option. However, even then we usually are not happy making the change. It is deemed necessary but for the most part we will not be too enthusiastic making it.

From a political standpoint this means that the incumbent party has the advantage in most elections. Most of the time voters are going to choose the status quo over change. The exceptions of course are those elections where the incumbent has worn out their welcome and voters decide that a change is necessary. That usually happens after a government has been in power for a very long time, which in Canada usually means eight or more years. 

Looking at all of the change elections of the last 40 years they were in:

• 1984 - when Canadians finally grew very tired of Pierre Trudeau and the Liberals
• 1993 - when Canadians grew tired of the Progressive Conservatives
• 2006 - when the scandal plagued Liberal finally convinced voters that a change was necessary
• 2015 - when Canadian said we have had enough of Stephen Harper.

Check the intervals between those elections and you will note that none of them are under the eight year mark I mentioned above. As well, for all of those cases it was obvious when those election campaigns started that there would be a change in government when all of the votes were counted. 

So that brings us back to the question above. Will this be a change election? The Liberals have only been in power for six years and there is no sign that a desire for change is strong in the country. Yes, the shine the Liberals had in 2015 has long worn off but that does not mean that Canadians are necessarily ready to pitch them to curb just yet. 

The Liberals' opponents are going to try to convince Canadians that a change is necessary but that is what happens during every election. In general, government opponents do not succeed in convincing voters to change if that sentiment was not already there. 

We will have to see if this election bucks the trend but if I had to guess I would say that it will not. Leaving aside that the Liberals have been in power for less than eight years there is also the upset and change that we have all been living through for the past 18 months. It can probably be argued that enough Canadians will decide not to add to the uncertainty we have been living under during that time by changing governments as well.

Update: Just to expand on my thought about change elections. The first election I ever voted in was the 1984 federal election. Including that election we have had 11 federal elections since then. Of those 11 only four of them were change elections. In other words change elections are very infrequent and the conditions need to be almost perfect for one to happen.

The First Couple of Days of the Election

So the first three days of the election are behind us and these are my first impressions.

It is boring as hell.

The media is doing what I said they would do and pumping up Erin O'Toole and using paid pollsters to provide the "data" to "prove" he actually has a shot at winning.

As well, predictably the media and the Opposition parties screamed about the "unnecessary" election even though they had been speculating about one for months. The stated reasons for their consternation are ridiculous at all levels. 

Although my favourite is their claim that the PM only called the election because he believes he can win a majority government. What stupidity. Of course he did. That is what PMs in this country do when they are leading minority governments. I always get a chuckle out of people when they complain about politicians acting like politicians. That is like complaining about a snow storm in January. Certainly, it might make you feel better but it is a pointless exercise otherwise.

All elections outside of the regular election cycle are risky so Mr. Trudeau would not have called one unless he was confident that he could win it and win a majority government besides. I believe the media and the Opposition believe the same thing, which is the real reason for their upset.

In all likelihood the Liberals have discovered that their support is baked in. Their base is secure and not going anywhere so they only need to find seven more percentage points of support and they will achieve their objective. With their handling of the pandemic and what is probably going to be the most coherent election platform of all of the parties they should be able to achieve that. However, when the final week of the election is upon us we will see if they are successful because that is when the non-aligned late breakers will make their decision.

The Conservatives are a mess. I am not so certain that their base is as secure as it has been for the last few elections and they seem to be totally unprepared to actually fight a pandemic election. Coming out against vaccine mandates when they are extremely popular among Canadians seems counterproductive. The same is true of baldly stating that they would cancel all of the Child Care agreements with the provinces, which may include Ontario before the election is over. Perhaps Mr. O'Toole is hoping to do what Mr. Harper did in 2006 when he announced a few very unpopular policy proposals at the very beginning of the campaign and counted on voters to forget about them by e-day. It did work for Mr. Harper but he was also up against a Liberal government operating under the weight of Adscam and the Gomery Inquiry.

Their election platform document is a thin gruel of the Conservative Party's greatest hits from elections past. There is not an original thought or policy idea in the whole document. They have not resorted to the dog whistling yet but it would not surprise me when they do.

Then there was the Willy Wonka video. It was widely panned but there seems to be some school of thought that it was actually planned that way. People point to the two Kiwis that helped to get Boris Johnson elected but they seem to forget that particular election was a referendum on Brexit, which by that point was widely popular in key parts of the soon to be DisUnited Kingdom. No such issue exists for this election, except for the pandemic and the Liberals have built up a great deal of goodwill among Canadians for their handling of the health and economic impacts of the pandemic. Maybe there is some deeper strategy in that video or maybe it is just more of the same from the Conservatives who have been personally attacking and insulting Justin Trudeau since it became apparent he would become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. At some point they may figure out that such an approach is not working and change tack. 

For the Conservatives the wild card is the other conservative parties. If they do reasonably well they are screwed. We will not know how well or how poorly they do until September 20 but it should be noted that they do not need to win seats to screw the Conservatives. They just need to siphon off enough votes from the Conservatives to cause them to lose close races against the other major parties

I am not seeing much from the Quebec media about the Bloc so I cannot say anything about them. In 2019 they were invisible until the debates so that will probably be the case again. We will have to see how Quebecers react to the debates to see just how the Bloc will impact the election.

The NDP is invisible. I suspect this election is going to be like most others and focus on the two main parties. The NDP will struggle for air time and attention. As per usual they will get more attention at the debates but I am not certain it will mean much by then. They received more attention in 2019 and they still lost half of their caucus.

The Green Party is a dumpster fire on a train wreck sitting on the deck of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. Elizabeth May might win her seat but that will probably be it.

The situation in Afghanistan could have an impact but I doubt the media will be able to focus on it for the next six weeks. It will eventually be forgotten by them as they inevitably move on to something else. However, stories of some Afghans, who helped Canadian troops when they were there, being murdered by the Taliban will not be a good look for the Liberals but I doubt it would move many votes. Canadians will have sympathy for those poor souls but not enough to really motivate them to vote one way or another.

As with all elections there is room for surprises and I am certain we will have a few before it is all said and done. However, it is widely believed that the Liberals are going to win and probably win big and so far I have not seen anything that would change that belief.

The Wholly Predictable End to the War in Afghanistan

The pictures coming out of Kabul are truly horrifying but they should surprise no one because this was always how the war in that country was going to end.

When the airplanes hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11 it was inevitable that the United States would respond with force. When they began to bomb Al Qaeda sites in Afghanistan I was supportive of those actions. 

Then the United States and some other countries decided to invade the country. I am not certain why. It could have been the factions fighting the Taliban convinced the United States that they could defeat them with US support. Maybe it was hubris on the part of the US administration that made them believe they could export democracy. Maybe it was just good old fashioned ideology that drove the US government the same as what drove the USSR before them. It was probably a combination of all of those factors.

The result was predictable. The US lead coalition overthrew the Taliban government but they failed utterly in destroying the Taliban. Many have compared this war with the one in Vietnam and there are indeed many parallels. The US intervention was designed to install a friendly regime but they failed to destroy the greatest threat to that regime. All they were able to do was suppress it. 

However, the failure in Afghanistan is on another level compared to the one in Vietnam. In Vietnam the US was fighting the Viet Cong, which was actively supported by the North Vietnamese, who actually sent troops into Vietnam to directly fight the Americans, and the North Vietnamese were supplied weapons and support by the Soviet Union. In Afghanistan the Taliban did not enjoy that kind of support from an outside power. Certainly, there might be some evidence of a faction of the Pakistani government providing some support but not on the scale of the North Vietnamese.

So after 20 years of futility and with no way to achieve "peace with honour" the United States just left. By some accounts some of the military units stole away in the middle of the night. It took a few weeks for the Taliban to get organized but when they finally decided to move their victory was inevitable. After 20 years they were still the only coherent political and military force in the country.

So now we are seeing the results. I am gobsmacked that Western governments are actually surprised by the speed of the takeover leading to the chaos we are now seeing. They should have seen it coming, and that includes the Canadian government, and began to take steps to rescue those Afghanis who would face retribution for collaborating with the coalition forces, weeks ago. Sure they started the process but it was ridiculously slow, bureaucratic and cumbersome. 

As it stands they waited too long and many of these poor souls will not make it out alive.

Well that did not take long

In my previous post I stated that the MSM in this country would spend much of the election pushing the narrative that the Conservatives are exceeding expectations and that they will be able to find pollsters willing to provide them with the "data" to "prove" it.

Less than 24 hours later we have seen the first instance of that narrative. CTV has reported that the "race has tightened" by quoting a Nanos poll that indicates the Liberals have lost 6 points while the Conservatives picked up 4 points and that there is a general agreement that an election is unnecessary.

Where does one begin?

I guess first of all this was predictable. My only surprise was I believed it would be the PostMedia folks who would start the narrative.

I have no idea what Nic Nanos is doing. I have always found him to be a piss-poor pundit because he often comes up with points of view that are not supported by his own data. However, I have to question his chops on this poll. Just three days before he released this poll he released one that indicated the Liberals were in the high thirty percent range while the Conservatives were in the mid-20s. Is he indicating that public opinion turned so dramatically in that three days for there to be an aggregate 10 point swing? Really? Public opinion does not work that way. The only time I have ever seen public opinion shift that dramatically, in such a short amount of time, was when the Auditor General released the report on the Sponsorship Program that triggered adscam. That report was dramatic and damning. Has anything like that happened in the last three days? No, so the dramatic swing is immediately suspect.

Part of the explanation that we received was this poll coincided with an increase in resistance to an election over the month the poll was taken. That begs the question of why was this not reflected in the poll released three days before this one? You would think that such sentiments would be felt and measured by all Nanos polls. Maybe the polls have different methodologies and I can agree that polls with different methodologies can create differences in the estimates, even when they are conducted by the same company, but a 10 point difference? 

As well, let's look at the whole idea that Canadians are so against having an election that it would cause such a huge swing. This is not a true "snap" election. The Liberals began telegraphing it before The House rose for the summer and the media and the Opposition Parties were quite happy to assist them by endlessly speculating on when the election would begin. The conventional wisdom saying it would be sometime in September was set over a month ago. I have stated in this space many times before that political parties have data analysis teams whose job is to "take the pulse" of the electorate. Those data analysts would have been collecting and analyzing data on the attitudes of Canadians with regard to having an election right up until today. If they would have seen what the Nanos poll is saying we would not be going into an election. Incidentally, the Opposition data analysts were saying the same thing to their leadership, which is why they have been pushing the "election is a bad idea" position for the past month. Apparently, their message did not take. 

I have been saying for quite some time that the public polls that are published in the media should be ignored. They are next to useless in telling you what is actually happening and if the final polls of the election come anywhere close to the actual final results it is a coincidence. I have stated that the most probable outcome of the election is a Liberal victory, with a strong possibility that they will form a majority government, but we will not know for certain until election night and all of the polls that will be published between now and then will not change that fact.

Prediction: How the Election will Unfold

So it would appear that we will be going to the polls on September 20 or thereabouts. Then again, maybe the PM's visit to the GG is for the purpose of having some tea and a visit with our new Governor General. It would be a hoot if that were the case. (It's not)

Any election is the Liberals' to lose. They have been in power for about six years, which in normal times is usually when voter fatigue with a government begins to set in. However, these are not normal times. All of us have been going through a once in a century health emergency and we are still going through it. However, many are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and one of the big reasons for that is the federal government's handling of the pandemic. Health wise the federal government has secured enough vaccines to allow everybody over the age of 12 to be fully vaccinated. Economically, many Canadians still have their homes, businesses and livelihoods as a result of the economic supports the federal government has been providing Canadians during the pandemic. The result is the federal Liberals have built up a great deal of goodwill amongst Canadians, particularly among the non-aligned Canadians, who happen to be the voters who decide elections. In the end, if the Liberals can run a tight disciplined campaign like they did in 2015 and 2019 they should win at least another strong minority with a good chance of winning a majority government.

There has been increasing indications that the Conservatives could be fracturing. Just looking at the public polls you see some estimates with the Conservatives down to under 50% in Alberta when they are generally in the 65% range. As well, in Ontario their estimates have them below 30% while the Liberals are above 40%. Those are remarkable results although I always say we should take all public polls with a truckload of salt. However, it these numbers turn out to be true then we could see a 1993 scenario where the CPC fractures into multiple parties.

The one advantage that this gives the Conservatives is really low expectations and expect the media to work that angle hard during the election. We need to remember that the National Post took an active role in creating a unified conservative party in this country after the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada shattered in 1993. They and the rest of the media in this country will be working to make certain that the current version stays united after this one. 

As a result, the media will be pushing the narrative that Mr. O'Toole and the Conservatives are beating expectations at every opportunity. If there is an uptick in the Conservatives' and/or Mr. O'Toole's polling numbers they will wax poetically on his political prowess and acumen. The pollsters will be very helpful in this by publishing polls showing those upticks. It is a foregone conclusion that the media will name Mr. O'Toole the winner of the English debate. Indeed, I would even hazard a guess that some commentators have already written the columns, only waiting for the debate to add some detail. The objective of all of this is to convince Conservative voters that the CPC has a shot at winning so as to convince those that might stray to other conservative parties to stick with the CPC. I believe the next few weeks will be a giant "save the furniture" operation by conservatives in this country.

Realistically, I believe that Conservatives have pretty much written off any idea that they will come out on top. They just want to make certain that they will have a united Conservative Party ready to go for the election after this one. Then again, if there are any really strategically minded conservatives left they should hope for the Liberals to win a nice comfortable majority government, with a united CPC in opposition, so that the CPC can use the four years to do what Andrew Scheer utterly failed to do, renew the Party.

All of this is bad news for the NDP. The media will be focused on the Liberals and the Conservatives. They will be looking for any gaffe by the Liberals and any sign of life by the Conservatives. The NDP will be virtually ignored and they will have the added injury of the media efforts to pump up the Conservative tires convincing some voters who may be considering voting NDP to stick to the Liberals to prevent a Conservative government.

As usual the Bloc will be the wild card in this election. They denied the Liberals a majority government in 2019 and if the Liberals are returned with a minority this time it will be because of the Bloc. Quebecers are extremely fickle voters so you never know which way they will jump. However, they were beneficiaries of the Liberal government efforts for the past 18 months, there is no controversial Quebec government Bill that could become an election issue and the Bloc leader is no longer an unknown quantity. The Bloc hit its traditional high water mark in 2019 so it has nowhere else to go but down this time. My only prediction for the Bloc is the English media will determine that the Bloc will win the French debate. Again, the columns are probably already written.

Of course, elections are crap shoots so we cannot discount the notion of an upset. Politics in this country is usually not that exciting but we are living in abnormal times so anything is possible. I do not foresee such an upset but we will have to wait until all of the votes are counted to be certain.

A few random thoughts

Mark Carney has decided not to become involved in politics, at least not right now. This really does not surprise me. He is a man on a mission and if he would have become an elected politician he would have been constrained by that fact. Now he is free to pursue his mission as he sees fit without having to worry about being reelected. The Conservatives should not celebrate his decision too much. He is going to be pushing for action on climate change. He is very intelligent, knowledgeable about how both the political and business world works, extremely credible and considering he lead the Central Banks of two G7 countries he can be considered business friendly. He is going to make it very difficult for conservatives to keep their head in the sand over climate change.

Many conservatives are rightly accused of weaponizing outrage when it suits their purposes but those on the progressive side can do the same. We saw that with the Montreal Canadiens selecting Logan Mailloux at the recent NHL draft and the outrage expressed by many. While what this young man did was reprehensible we need to have a little perspective for the simple reason being that people eventually learn to tune out outrage. Really, if you become outraged about a young man taking and distributing pictures of a young woman without her permission people are likely to dismiss you when you become outraged by someone committing a more egregious act. In short, you diminish the impact of outrage if you constantly resort to it in every situation. Personally, I learned what this young man did, thought that is not right, but was then left shaking my head when I saw the over-the-top reaction to his selection.

What is up with the Ontario Conservatives? The creation of a vaccine passport is a winning proposition. It is widely popular amongst most Ontarians, with only Derek Sloan types being against them and vaccines. So it is a no brainer that the Ontario government should create one but so far they have completely refused to do so. There has been speculation that the Ford government's handling of the pandemic has made it vulnerable in the next election. The fact that they are pursuing a policy that plays to their base but could alienate a broad cross-section of the rest of the Ontario electorate may be a sign that there is some truth in that speculation.

Then there is my local Member of Provincial Parliament. He is a member of the Ford caucus and a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Each quarter we receive a Householder from him, which explains what his government has been up to in Ottawa. All of the previous Householders have been Conservative blue and he always signed them with his name a party affiliation on the back. We received one last week and it was bright Liberal Red and his party affiliation what missing his signature. I double checked and has not crossed the floor so he is still an Ontario Conservative. My riding is a swing riding so maybe the Member's internal polling is showing he is in danger of losing 2022. One simple fact for the Ontario Conservatives is if they lose a riding like mine the next election night could be gruesome for them.

Anti-Vaxxers and Vaccine Passports

I received my second shot two weeks ago so I am fully protected against the COVID virus. Yes I know there are some limitations but, according to the science, I only have around a 10% chance of catching the virus and if I do then I will have only a 1% chance of having a serious case of it.

What does this mean for the anti-vaxxers? I am a bigger threat to you than you are to me. The statistics are hair raising. Close to 100% of the people dying from Covid are unvaccinated. A similar percentage are the ones needing hospital care as a result of the virus. That means if I encounter an unvaccinated individual and I have the virus, either because I am asymptomatic or it is on my cloths or hands or whatever, and I wind up giving it to the unvaccinated person he is in grave danger. On the other hand, if I encounter a person who has it I am unlikely to contract it and even if I do it will probably just be a mild case.

The stupidity of the anti-vax crowd is that they believe they will be saved by "herd immunity", without them actually knowing what that actually means. Herd immunity means that the instances of a given infection are reduced, not eliminated. It should be noted that only one infection has actually been eradicated, because of a global vaccine program, while many more are still around but not a prevalent. COVID is going to be the latter. It is not going away. It will be with us for the foreseeable future and we are going to learn how to live with it. Those who are vaccinated against it will be better protected than those who are not.

Although the idea of a vaccine passport is a good idea I do not believe an effective one will ever by created. Not that it matters because many businesses are going to require proof of vaccination in order to do business with them. 

Every year my wife and I go to Montego Bay to escape the Ottawa winter for a week. During these trips and during other trips to other warm locations in Mexico and the Caribbean I run across people from the US and Canada who are obviously the type of people who would support Donald Trump or Max Bernier. In all likelihood these folks will be the poster children for the anti-vaxxers and also they will be the poster children for being denied their winter vacations by the tour companies, airlines and resorts.

You see it will be a liability issue for these businesses and a whole host of other companies not in the vacation business. Just imagine if one of these unvaccinated yahoos came back from a vacation down south and developed a case of COVID within two weeks of their return. Those very same yahoos would then sue the vacation companies, resort and airline and if enough people became ill it would be a class action lawsuit. Forget that these unvaxxed assholes bear a large responsibility for their plight they would still receive a good payout from the vacation companies so that they can make any lawsuit go away.

So, to protect themselves, these companies will require proof of vaccination before allowing you to use their services. No vaccine, no vacation. This is going to be true of alot of companies as time goes on. Certainly the anti-vax crowd will complain and some politicians will make a stink over it but when those very same companies then tell those politicians that they will stop contributing to their election campaigns, if they try to prevent the companies from enforcing a "no vaccine, to service" policy, the politicians will back off.

Right now anti-vaxxers are not being vaccinated because they want to own the Libs or they saw something on Facebook or for other stupid reasons. So far most of them have not been impacted by their decision, either becoming ill or being greatly inconvenienced. Once the reality of their decision becomes apparent to them most of the ant-vax crowd will change their minds.

Residential Schools: A Personal Perspective

I never learned about Residential Schools when I was going through elementary and high school. The topic just did not come up. Then again I went through these schools in the 70s and 80s so it was a different world then.

It was only in University and afterwards that I began to learn about them and then it was only by chance. In an example of learning being a life long activity I kept learning more and more about them as more information came out. What I learned became much more troubling.

Now, of course, more than 1300 unmarked graves of children who went through this system have been found and it is reasonable to expect that the number will climb, by a great deal, going forward. My wife asked me how these children died. Many of them probably died of disease, such as TB and other ailments common to children before vaccines. However, a sizeable number of them would have died as a result of violence, abuse and neglect. Regardless, taking these dead children and burying them in unmarked graves instead of giving them back to their parents for burial according to their burial rights makes how these children died moot.

I do still believe that the people who set up and ran the Residential School system had good intentions, at least from their perspective. This is not to excuse what they did. After all we all know what the road to Hell is paved with. As well, any good intentions or motives they might have had does not absolve them of the outcomes of their actions. If I kill someone with intent, that is murder. If I kill someone without intent, that is manslaughter. Both are serious crimes and both carry heavy penalties.

As well, while I do believe they had good intentions I also believe that those intentions grew out of ignorance, self-righteousness and hubris. The politicians who set up the system believed they were "civilizing" the "Indians" while the churchmen who ran the actual schools believed they were saving the childrens' souls. It did not occur to any of them that the Indigenous people of this land did not need to be civilized or saved.

In short these people were not evil. They were blinded by ignorance and they were narrow-minded. 

Again, I am not making excuses, I am proposing an explanation for this tragedy. These men deserve the condemnation that they have been receiving. As well, the Catholic church has much to answer for and the current Pope is not going to escape that.

A great historical wrong was perpetrated on the Indigenous people of Canada long before many of us were born but it will be up to us to make amends for their actions.

American Slavery was not a Race Thing

So I got into an argument with a random guy on Facebook regarding the causes of the Civil War. As I state here the causes of the US Civil War goes way beyond slavery. Slavery certainly played a part but it was not the only cause and I would even argue that slavery was a symptom and not the actual cause.

As well, the argument eventually became about race because whenever you begin to talk about slavery in the US it always becomes about race. The key to this guy's argument was after the Civil War we saw the rise of the KKK, Jim Crow laws and all sorts of other laws that allowed for the legal discrimination against Blacks in the South. The one thing about bad behaviour in the South is it distracts from similar behaviour in the North. To many the North were saints who fought against slavery to improve the plight of blacks. 

Hogwash. Many of the discriminatory laws enacted in the South had counterparts in the North. In the North blacks could not work with whites in the factories. They were only allowed to do menial jobs or acting as servants only working for subsistence wages. They certainly could not hold public office or be educated for a very long time after Emancipation. Woe would be the black man that touched white woman let alone attempted to marry her. The examples of systemic racism in the North are just as bad as in the South. After all, some of the worst race riots in US history took place in Detroit, Michigan, a city so far north that Canadians in Windsor could see the smoke rising up from the burning buildings. As well, Dr. King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech within walking distance of the seat of government for the US more that 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. So the North was no better than the South when it came to the treatment of black Americans.

I would also point out that the fact that American slaves were black was the result of an historical accident. Slavery was an institution in the Old world long before the United States became an independent country. Slavery was practiced all over Europe. An interesting aspect of that institution was when it was at its peak the Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful states in Europe. 

In the 1500 and 1600s, the Ottoman Turks were constantly finding themselves in border wars and skirmishes with their white, Christian, European neighbours. When they won battles against these foes the officers that had money would be ransomed and sent home. The ordinary soldiers on the other hand would find themselves in Constantinople, which had one of the biggest slave markets in the world at the time. Further the Ottoman government allowed its vassal states in North Africa to prey on European merchant shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. When the Barbary Pirates and Corsairs captured these merchant ships they would receive money for the ship and the cargo and the crew, all white Europeans, would wind up being sold at the big slave market in Cairo. Interestingly these two slave markets would have buyers from Europe, men who were more useful as customers of the slave traders than being slaves themselves. They would not buy their fellow Europeans, of course, because as soon as they got them back to Europe they would be freed and their investment would be wasted. So those white Europeans would be sold to whoever else wanted them. The two slave markets sold slaves from as far away as Japan and China, along with people of the Middle East and Europe.

This went on for sometime but three things happened that began to change it. First, one country after another, in Europe, began abolishing slavery. Second, the Ottoman Empire began a slow decline and the supply of war slaves and slaves taken by the Barbary Pirates began to dry up. Third, some European explorers began going up rivers on the East and West Coasts of Africa and found a continent teaming with people, some of which were slavers themselves and who were happy to sell their slaves to these white people.

By the time the United States became an independent country the African Slave trade was the only slave trade in town. It was the only one around because the slave trading centres in the Eastern Mediterranean were a mere shadow of their former selves. So when Americans, from both North and South, wanted to buy slaves they could only buy the ones from Africa.

Americans bought slaves because they believed they needed them. They bought black slaves because they were the only ones available to purchase. They did not buy black slaves because they were black. The South also did not oppose the abolishment of slavery because the slaves were black. They opposed it for political and economic reasons and that is it.

To suggest otherwise is crap.

To the National Post: Both Justin Trudeau and Erin O'Toole Campaigned in Alberta This Week, Updated

The front page of the National Post today was quite amusing. You could almost see the gritted teeth of all of the columnists who wrote in the paper today.

They are gritting their teeth because we saw the latest and most compelling evidence that the public polls are right in indicting that the Conservative base is eroding.

First, the fact that Mr. O'Toole made an election style campaign stop in Calgary to assure Albertans that any government lead by him would change the equalization formula. As the the leader of the only party Albertans vote for he need not have done that. It would be understood. So maybe the Conservatives' internal data analysis is saying that Albertans do not seem to be as inclined to support the Conservatives this time and that they may be looking a one of the alternative conservative parties that have popped up in that province.

The second, Justin Trudeau also campaigned in Calgary and he subtly attacked the sitting conservative premier of the province.

There are several iron laws of Canadian politics. One of them is when a leader of a party campaigns in a party stronghold it is because they believe they are in danger of losing seats there. As a corollary when the leader of a rival political party campaigns in one of your party's strongholds it is because they also believe you will lose seats and that those seats will go to his party.

I would still caution Liberals to not read too much into recent political events. We are talking politics here and things can change rather quickly. However, there is a possibility that the apparent erosion of the Alberta foundation of the Conservative base is real and that it will last through an election. If that happens the Conservatives have no chance of winning. They were only able to win the 2006, 2008 and 2011 elections because of their iron grip on Alberta and their shaking loose enough votes in key parts of Ontario. If they lose just an handful of seats in Alberta their chances of winning go down to less than zero.

I am still not convinced that the Conservative base is really eroding. I do believe that when the chips are down and Albertans are voting for real their habit of voting for the Conservatives will kick back in. However, the actions of Mr. O'Toole and Mr. Trudeau this past week would seem to indicate that the Conservatives might actually have to work for it this time. And that leads to a whole other set of questions about how the Conservatives will expend their time and resources in an election if they cannot count on the support of Albertans when the writ is dropped. But that is a question for another time. 

Update: Yes the unofficial election campaign has started and the PM will probably drop the writ before Labour Day. None of the Opposition Parties want an election because the most likely outcome is another Liberal victory, with a high probability of a Liberal majority government. That is why the Opposition Parties have demanded the Ethics Committee be recalled to review something the Liberals did even through what they did is common practice for all political parties. They are hoping that some kind of controversy will discourage the Liberals from calling an election. 

Revisionist History

Yesterday it was announced that the Federal government and the Government of British Columbia have come to an agreement on funding subsidized day care in that province. This is great news for parents who have pre-school children needing care.

It is also a win for the Liberal government in a province where they are in a three way race with the Conservatives and the NDP. The Conservatives did not say boo about the agreement because they are going after different voters than the other two but the NDP was very quick to criticize the Liberals over the deal.

They were not actually able to criticize the agreement because it is a good agreement. So they criticized the Liberals by trotting out that old claim that the Liberals always promise to tackle day care but never follow through. To which it needs to be asked did you not watch the news yesterday where it was stated the two governments have an agreement? Also, did they not pay attention to the last budget which set aside a whole whack of cash to fund such agreements, saving the need to have Parliament agree to this particular one?

Some others have also pointed out that the last time the Federal government had an agreement with all of the Provinces to fund subsidized national day care the NDP joined the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois in defeating the government that negotiated that agreement and trigger an election. An election the Conservatives won who then promptly canceled the agreement along with the Kelowna Accords which had also been negotiated by that Liberal government.

I am talking about the minority government of Paul Martin between 2004 and 2006 of course.

This is where the historical revisionists in the NDP step up. They flat out deny that they had anything to do with the canceling of these two agreements, even though they voted to defeat the government that negotiated them before they could be passed in Parliament. They blame everybody else but themselves. So here is the history of how this happened.

Between 2004 and 2006 the Martin government negotiated both agreements. All of the stakeholders for the two agreements had signed them but both needed the approval of Parliament before they could be implemented.

The Martin government introduced the enabling legislation for the two agreements in Parliament in 2005. They were working them through the House. 

Late in the Fall of 2005 the Gomery Commission released its final report on the Sponsorship Scandal and it was a damning report. 

(As an aside it should have been damning. I have stated several times before that I know of only two instances of real corruption in Canadian politics, one being the Sponsorship Program that lead to "Adscam" and the other being PM Mulroney taking a suitcase full of cash from Mr. Schrieber.)

The result of the damning report was the Liberal polling numbers tanked. So the Opposition Parties saw an opportunity. They had the issue that justified defeating the government and polls were saying that all of the parties would feast on the Liberals in an election. However, and this is crucial, in order for the government to be defeated ALL OF THE OPPOSITION PARTIES needed to vote against it. That included the NDP.

They duly did vote against the government in a non-confidence motion and Parliament was dissolved with the enabling legislation for both the Kelowna Accords and the National Day Care program dyeing on the order paper. In the succeeding election the Conservatives won under Stephen Harper and the rest is history.

The simple fact is both agreements could have been saved if the NDP would have voted with the government. They did not, so they had a hand in their eventual cancellation. They may not have pulled the trigger on the gun that killed both agreements but they did load it and hand it to Stephen Harper so he could do it.

I know why they voted against the government. It was on the ropes and it looked like, and it came to pass, that all of the Opposition Parties would pick up seats from the Liberals so they went for it. The other reason why they did it is if the Liberals would have been able to pass the enabling legislation for both agreements they would have been big wins for the government, the type of wins that might have saved them in a subsequent election. (Although probably not)

Note that I have no problem with the NDP voting against the government. They acted like all political parties do when they sense an opportunity to win. My problem is the denial of this fact by the NDP and its partisans and the historical revisionism they resort to in order to deny it. Before Jack Layton won the leadership of the NDP the party could claim it was the progressive conscience of Canadian politics but Jack Layton's decision to join the other Opposition Parties in defeating Paul Martin, and killing the Kelowna Accords and the National Day Care programs in the process, revoked that claim. And nothing the NDP has done since would allow it to reclaim that distinction.

Right now the NDP is just another political party in the Canadian Federal scene, playing the same game as every other party, just not as well and no amount of historical revisionism will change that fact. 

The Definition of Insanity

We all know one definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. If that is a true definition then the Federal NDP has been absolutely bonkers for quite some time.

This train of thought was triggered by a Tik Toc video released by Mr. Singh where he claims that all of the good work done by the government during the pandemic can be traced back to him. 

It is a tired old trope of the NDP to claim a) the Liberals are stealing the NDP's policy positions or b) the only reason why the Liberals propose progressive policies and bills is because the NDP "forces" them to do so. The NDP has been saying this since before it became the NDP.

What has been the result of this strategy? Simple, perennial third or fourth party status. No one believes them except for NDP partisans and the twisted arguments they put forward to "prove" their assertions would so offend Mr. Spock's sense of logic that they would drive him mad. It is interesting that the only leader of that party that did not resort to that argument was Jack Layton and we all know what he managed to do in 2011. When he died the NDP reverted to form and they have lost seats in the last two elections as a result.

The simple fact is the NDP have not figured out how to win an election at the Federal level. Mr. Layton might have been on to something but he never got the chance to see if it would push them over the top. Unfortunately for the NDP they forgot or ignored what Mr. Layton did to take them to becoming the erstwhile "government in waiting" and became insane once again.

As an aside, I have seen many NDP partisans mentioning that polls putting the NDP at 20% is bad news for the Liberals because it increases the chances of vote splitting. This just proves that many of these commentators do not really understand that concept. Vote splitting always benefits the political party that IS IN THE LEAD. So if the Liberals are indeed in the lead the split of the anti-Liberal vote can only help them not hurt them. If the Conservatives were in the lead then the split of the anti-Conservative vote would be great news for them, which is why Conservatives are always trying to create that split.

Further, in every election since 1984, the NDP has always polled well before the writ is dropped only to see themselves be around 5 points behind that polling when the actual votes are counted. That was even the case in 2011. 

So if we are look at current polls and take them as being accurate the most likely outcome of an election, if it was held today, would be

Liberals at 37%

Conservatives at 30% (assuming they hang on to their base)

NDP at 15%

Bloc at 4%

Greens at 5%.

That would work out to a Liberal government of about 180 to 190 seats. Of course if the Conservative base does erode down to 25% then the Liberal seat count goes up to around 200.  

Are the Conservatives Really in Trouble?

I have stated in this space and on other blogs many times before that the public polls cannot be trusted. So when you see a whole bunch of them indicating that the Liberals have opened up a double digit lead and that the Conservatives are in the 25% range you should take that with a sizable quantity of salt.

However, I have also stated that if you want to see how things are going look at what the parties are doing and saying. In that case there would appear to be some validity to the idea that the Conservatives are watching their base erode. I saw on Twitter that the Conservatives have released a video of a whole bunch of Alberta MPs extolling the virtues of the CPC to their fellow Albertans. That is odd because Alberta is the solid foundation of the Conservative base. The rest of the base my shift somewhat but they can always count on Conservatives in Alberta to vote for them. So why are they making such a video?

A few posts back I mentioned Erin O'Toole making a video stating that any government lead by him would defund the CBC and that such a video could be an indication of the erosion of the Conservative base because it would only appeal to that base. Promising to defund the CBC will not resonate with anybody but Conservatives and in actual fact would put off more than a few non-aligned voters.

The the Alberta MPs video could be another indication of the softening of the Conservative base.

Before Liberals and other Conservative opponents become too excited it should be noted that during the 2015 election there was a great deal of evidence to suggest that Stephen Harper was facing a similar problem. In 2011, Stephen Harper spent the first half of the election campaign throwing red meat at his base before pivoting in the last half to appeal to voters beyond that. That strategy along with a strong performance by Jack Layton and a pathetic performance by the Liberals lead to a Conservative majority government. In 2015, Stephen Harper started off with the same strategy but he failed to make the pivot half-way through, instead doubling down at throwing red meat at his base in the form of a niqab ban and a barbaric cultural practice snitch line. It looked like the Conservatives would be virtually destroyed. However, when the votes were counted, on election night in 2015, it was apparent that the Conservative base remained solid.

So no one should right off the Conservatives' ability to hang onto their base during the next election. Certainly Conservatives have other alternatives that they did not have in 2015 but that does not mean they will vote for those alternatives once they find themselves behind the little cardboard screens at their voting station.

There is increasing evidence that the Conservatives are losing their grip on their base. So the next election could wind up resembling 1993 when the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada shattered into three pieces. However, it is equally probable that when the time comes habitual Conservatives voters could go home to the CPC, maybe not being too happy doing it but doing so nonetheless.

In Defence of the First Past the Post Voting System

There are a large number of people who would probably be triggered by the title of this post. To them the FPTP voting system is an anti-democratic abomination of a voting system. They are wrong of course. It is a tried and true voting system that predates Confederation and that has served Canada well. 

All that being said I will agree that it has some very serious flaws but I would also assert that all of the alternatives that are proposed to replace it have different but equally serious flaws. In the end the flaws of the different methods of voting cancel each other out so opponents of the FPTP system need to come up with much more compelling reasons for changing how we vote.

There are some specific reasons why this system is an effective method for electing people.

First, every politician in this system must face their constituents, which means that local election campaigns can hinge on local issues. Certainly the national campaign is important but I have seen elections where a local issue has dominated the local election and the national campaigns were less important. For example, I worked for an Ottawa Member of Parliament in the late 90s. During that time there was a proposal before the National Capital Commission, the government department charged with taking care of government buildings and facilities in the Ottawa area, to widen one of the bridges that crosses the Ottawa River and connects Ontario to Quebec. My MP lobbied against the project because of the impact on traffic it would cause on both sides of the bridge. However, the MP for the Quebec riding on the other side of the bridge was a Cabinet Minister and his views prevailed. In the 2000 election all of the Opposition candidates going up against my MP focused on this failure to stop the bridge expansion. The Chretien government had just announced $100 billion in tax cuts but it was the bridge issue that dominated the local campaign in Ottawa West-Nepean in 2000. Federal politicians need to be able to address local issues and the FPTP system is very effective at forcing them to do that.

Canada is a huge country, with with six different regions, Eastern Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairie Provinces, British Columbia and the North. Each of those regions have different interests and different ways of looking at politics in Canada. The FPTP system allows them to express those differences very effectively. It is an open question of whether other systems would be as effective. Unfortunately, Canada is not a political petri dish so switching to a new system only to find out it is not as effective is not an option. However, it should be noted that with the increasing polarization of the electorate, which is falling along regional lines, the FPTP system may be losing its effectiveness in dealing with regional interests. That is a situation that needs to be examined and ways have to be found to mitigate any negative impacts it might have and that would include looking at how we vote. However, it will also need to be addressed by looking at facts and evidence in a non-partisan way which is not going to happen.

Third, as I alluded to in my introductory paragraph Canada has used the FPTP system to elect its governments since before Confederation. It is a proven method of electing the government that we want and the governments that we need. I shudder to think what would have happened to Canada if John A. MacDonald would have had to share power with Opposition politicians who did not have the same vision for Canada he did. Or MacKenzie King having to share power during WWII or a succession of governments during the Cold War. The simple fact is, more often than not, the FPTP system elects stable governments, which all countries need to thrive.

The FPTP voting system is not perfect. No voting system is. However, it has proven effective and it forces federal politicians in this country not to forget about local issues. Although its flaws are well documented they are not enough to ditch the system without having another alternative whose flaws are just as well documented, acknowledged by the proponents of these systems, and ways to mitigate the impacts of these flaws worked out before switching systems. Just saying we should switch because you have faith that your preferred system is better, or "more democratic" without sound evidence to prove that is not enough. 

The Canadian Case Against Proportional Representation

I have been a critic of the idea of switching the Canadian voting system from First-Past-the-Post to Proportional Representation for quite some time. It is not that I dislike that particular way of voting it is just that I reject the notion that it is "more democratic" than any other voting system including FPTP.

I also have a problem with the fact that most of the proponents of PR, in Canada, are partisans for the NDP and Green Party. If anybody does not believe that they are proponents of that system because of naked partisan interests, I have a bridge to sell you in New York City. I have had discussions with proponents of PR who have rejected all other forms of voting that would allow "all votes to count" including ranked ballot and they have not been able to give a reasonable answer as to why. (I know why but they would never admit it.)

One of the arguments against PR is it can lead to unstable governments or allow the more extreme elements of society a chance to access some levers of power. The response of the proponents of PR is to confidently assert that PR in Canada would result in such stable governments as Germany or New Zealand. They reject out of hand any notion that it might actually resemble Italy or Israel or that Canada might suffer the same fate as Czechoslovakia, where a PR system completely failed in preventing that country from breaking in two.

The proponents of PR in Canada absolutely refuse to consider what kind of governments would result if that system was used in Canada. They just stick to the German or New Zealand example and take it on faith that Canada would be like them.

So let us consider this issue. Are they correct?

The assumption of PR proponents, in Canada, is under such as system only four national parties would make up the composition of the House of Commons. The Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Greens. With four parties there would always be stable coalitions and therefore things would be great. When you ask the obvious question of what about the Bloc Quebecois they confidently state that if they win 5% of the vote they get seats in the House but if they do not reach that threshold they do not. The big problem with that is 4% of the national vote for the Bloc equates to about 25% in the Province of Quebec. Do the proponents of PR truly believe that Quebecers would take the Bloc being excluded from the House after it won 25% of the vote in Quebec? Not likely and if they tried to force that through it would cause a national unity crisis in this country. So, Canada being Canada the solution to such a crisis would be to give way and make an exception to the 5% threshold for the Bloc Quebecois.

Of course, such a solution would only create problems in other regions of the country. The Prairie Provinces, the Eastern Provinces, BC and Ontario all make up distinct regions in this country and if a regional party in Quebec were to receive special treatment it would not take long for regional parties in the other regions to demand the same treatment. Again to prevent a national unity crisis exceptions would have to be made for those parties and the number of parties could be quite large. Conceivably, the number really has no limit, strictly regional parties could arise or a bunch of single issue parties only based in one of the regions could pop up, all demanding the same treatment as the Bloc Quebecois.

While not all of these parties would receive enough votes nationally and/or regionally to earn seats in the House enough of them would to make our parliaments much less tidy than what the proponents of PR believe it would be, where the House of Commons only has four parties in it. In the end the most likely result is a parliament that resembles the Italian or Israeli parliaments as opposed to the German and New Zealand parliaments.

As both the Italian and Israeli parliaments have demonstrated having that many parties vying for a seat at the government table provides large openings for extreme single issue parties to gain much more power and influence than they would normally have in a non-PR system. Right now the FPTP system provides some insulation against the really extreme crackpots from accessing the levers of power, although it is not perfect in doing so by any stretch of the imagination. However, a PR system in Canada would strip away all of that insulation with untold impacts on the social fabric of our country.

The simple fact is Canada is a huge country geographically, where each region has their own interests and ways of looking at being Canadian. Anybody that believes that fact would not impact how a PR voting system would be implemented in Canada is dreaming. That fact alone is a reason not to adopt a Proportional Representation voting system at the Federal level in this country. When you add all of the other reasons that I have discussed in this space before the case against PR in this country is quite compelling.

Will the Conservative Stay United?

In a previous post I mentioned that the fact Erin O'Toole released a video indicating that a government lead by him would defund the CBC was interesting because such a video would only resonate with the Conservative Base. Further I speculated as to why he would release such a video and mentioned that it could be their internal data analysis is showing an erosion of the Conservative base, as some of the public polls are hinting at. With the rise of the Wexit Parties in the Prairies and the PPC in Ontario and Quebec there are alternatives to the Conservatives. Whether they could be considered credible is debatable but I would also point out that no one took the Reform Party seriously until they exploded on to the scene.

This line of thought did cause me to explore this notion a little more. 

The last time a national conservative party was truly united was the Progressive Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney. Mr. Mulroney won two straight majorities that went through Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. 

Then in 1993 the PCPC shattered along regional lines. In Quebec their voters went to the Bloc Quebecois. In Alberta they went to the Reform Party and in Ontario they split evenly between the Reform Party and the PCPC. It remained that way until just before the 2004 election when the Canadian Reform Alliance Party (the old Reform Party) and the remnants of the PCPC merged (or the PCPC was swallowed whole by the CRAP, depending on who you talk to.)

This new Conservative Party of Canada managed to unite itself and win three elections but it is a crucial fact that they were only able to win one majority government when they finally managed to reunite the Conservative voters of Ontario and Alberta and a sprinkling of Conservative voters in other western provinces. Interestingly when the old PCPC voters who turned to the Bloc turned away from them in 2011 they turned to the NDP and did not turn back to the CPC. 

All of this is to say that the bonds that unite the Conservative Party of Canada have not really been proven to be strong and resilient. It is true that there are probably not many old PCPC supporters left in the party so what is left is probably quite happy with the party but the rise of the PPC and the Wexit Parties do indicate that the Conservative base is not monolithic and that it may not be as rock solid as conventional wisdom believes.

The CPC was Stephen Harper's baby. He was the one who did the work to create it. He was the only CPC leader who could keep the more extreme elements of the Canadian Conservative Movement under wraps. Without him the Conservative Party of Canada has not been the same.

I do not know the answer to my question. It would not surprise me that they will somehow muddle through until they can finally get their act together but it would also not surprise me if the next election resembles 1993, and another united national conservative party breaks apart.

The Canadian Green Party

The only reason why the Canadian Green Party is on the electoral map in Canada is because of Elizabeth May. She put in the hard work and effort to take a fringe movement most people had never heard of and make it somewhat respectable.

The only problem is the Green Party and her became interchangeable. She was the Green Party and the Green Party was her. So when she announced that she would be stepping down as leader it was going to have a negative impact on the Party's standing among Canadians.

That means they had to elect a new leader who would be able to replicate what Ms. May had done and they would need to realize that it would not be easy or quick. Judging by the public statements of the new leader of the Green Party, over the last couple of days, it would appear that the Party did not elect the leader who understood that reality

Why is Erin O'Toole talking about defunding the CBC?

I noted on Twitter yesterday that Erin O'Toole has released a video where he states that he will defund the CBC. It is standard fare for the Conservatives because they have been talking about that since the CPC was the Reform Party.

So why is he bothering to mention this now?

As I have stated in this space and as comments on other blogs the best way to see how the political wind is blowing is to watch the political parties and not the polls. The polls might give you clues but they are too easily manipulated and most people do not know how to read them even when they are not.

I believe the defund CBC gambit by Mr. O'Toole speaks volumes. That is the reddest of red meat for Conservatives. It ranks right up there with denying climate change, lowering taxes and reducing immigration, particularly of folks of a darker hue and different religions. The fact that Mr. O'Toole and his team have decided to throw this out there now could be a big indication that their internal data analysis is telling them what the public polls are hinting at.

While I always take polls with a truck load of salt it cannot be denied that many of them are indicating that the Conservatives are below the 30% mark. And the 30% mark is the usual floor for the Conservatives. Hell, in 2015, when the desire for change was at stratospheric levels the Conservatives garnered 30% of the vote because that is their base. If these polls are true and the Conservatives have actually fallen below 30% that would seem to indicate that their base is eroding.

I did not believe the polls but now I not so certain. The defund the CBC gambit could very well indicate that the public polls are on to something. That has been part of the CPC ethos since forever. It does not need to be said and the fact they decided to say it anyway might indicate that the public polls are correct. In short, the defund the CBC gambit could be designed to shore up the base of the CPC because some of it could be leaking to other conservative parties, such as the PPC and the Wexit Parties. 

If the Conservatives have any chance in the next election they need to maintain their base. If they lose it they are guaranteed to lose the election with the possibility of being absolutely creamed. The fact they released a video that would only appeal to that base might indicate that it is not as rock solid as it has been in the past. 

This is not proof that their base is eroding but it is a significant sign and we will have to keep an eye on this going forward. 

General Fortin was not fired he was reassigned

My understanding of the arrangement that saw General Fortin overseeing the distribution of vaccines as they arrived in Canada was he was on temporary assignment, seconded to the Department of Health. Every time he appeared before the cameras he was in full uniform. Not once did I see him in civilian clothing so he was and is still a member of the Canadian Army, with all that comes with that distinction.

As with all temporary military assignments they can end with little or no notice for any reason, including no reason at all. My understanding is General Fortin is still a member of the Canadian Army and he still holds his rank. He was either sent back to his old job in the Army or asked to take leave pending the investigation that prompted his reassignment.

Part of being a member of the military is that the organization that the member works for can assign them to any job whenever they like, based on operational requirements, or based on other requirements. There is no real recourse for the member if they do not like the assignment accept for resigning from the military. Although, it should be known that the military usually does not give such orders without first consulting with the member to determine if that member would be agreeable to the assignment. If not, most of the time the military will make other arrangements. They can be more arbitrary is if the member has some special skills that are not easy to find elsewhere.

He can seek legal recourse regarding his reassignment. That is his right. However, his reassignment came from his superiors, so I would assume it came down the chain of command, which incidentally includes the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister. If he took orders from someone not in the chain of command then he would have a problem. So, I cannot see what he hopes to achieve with his legal challenge. 

Casual Racism, Ignorance and Hubris

This past weekend a mass grave containing over 200 indigenous children was found near the grounds of an old Residential School in Kamloops BC. The find has sparked off a great deal of shock, sadness, outrage and other reactions and emotions.

It has also generated some questions of why the Residential School system happened and the answer is invariably that it was racism, plain and simple, particularly on the part of John A MacDonald.

Unfortunately it is not that simple because history is not that simple. You have to put history into context in order to understand it and in order to attempt not to make the same historical mistakes again and again.

At the time of the establishment of the Residential School system white, European men had been ruling the world for three hundred years. The Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Germans, the French and the English had colonies on all of the continents. They managed to take these lands from the indigenous people of these lands without much effort. So naturally, they believed that the white race was superior to all other races and that they had been gifted the world by God.

In addition white Europeans were not accepting of other cultures, even when they were white Europeans. During the latter part of the 19th Century the English viewed the French with suspicion and contempt, the French viewed the Germans with fear and the Germans thought anybody born east of the Danube was from another planet. So if Europeans were not accepting of fellow white, Christian Europeans they would definitely not be accepting of non-white, non-Christian and "savage" cultures of the people they found in the new world. That is assuming they even recognized the people they found living here as having cultures, which was probably not the case. 

Finally the white politicians that implemented all of these policies believed that they were doing it for the benefit of the indigenous people. Who would not want to enjoy the benefits of European civilization? Keep in mind that these men were so ignorant they were mostly unaware of how uneven was the benefits of living in the European civilization was spread throughout their own societies. They were all wealthy, often owning land or some kind of business and they were doing quite well living in their civilization. As far as they were concerned their efforts were just and beneficent. I sometimes wonder if the lower classes of society would have been making the decisions whether some of the more egregious policies directed at the indigenous people would have been enacted. Probably some, as casual racism was not confined to the upper class, but perhaps not all.

As well, by bringing them into the shining light of God and his Son you were saving their souls from eternal damnation. 

Of course, the problem was the indigenous people did have their own cultures and wanted to maintain them so they had to be forced to give them up and become good Christians in a "civilized" society.

None of this is to defend these policies or the men who enacted them. What I am trying to do is to put all of this into historical context. You see there is a widespread belief that you can prevent repeating history by learning it but there is an underlying fallacy in that belief that just knowing of an event in history is enough to prevent it from happening again.

That is wrong. What you must learn from history is the context around an historical event, situation or decision. That way you can learn the reasons or conditions that lead to them and then learn to recognize those reasons or conditions if you encounter them in the future. Only by doing that do you have any chance of not making the same historical mistakes more than once.

I will give you an example. Many Americans have acknowledged that putting Japanese Americans into internment camps during the Second World War was wrong. However, many of these same Americans saw no problem with the Trump Administration's policy of putting the children of southern migrants into internment camps. If you look at the context for the establishment of the Japanese camps and compare it to the context for the Trump camps there are a great number of parallels. Certainly, not a perfect match but enough to see that many Americans did not learn the right historical lessons from the Japanese camps experience.

My biggest fear in all of this is Canadians will not learn the real lessons that the Residential School System should be teaching us. They will never go beyond the superficial, demanding the removal of some statues and reparations for the victims and/or their descendants, before moving on and failing to recognize the conditions for a similar tragedy sometime in the future.