How silly is our politics when the big story of yesterday was the release of the new Canadian passport? The amount of ink and bandwidth wasted talking about it was amazing. And yes I know I am adding to that with this comment but is was so preposterous that I just could not ignore it.
By the way I have passports going back 20 years. Each one is different from the previous one. So the fact they changed it this time is neither remarkable or significant.
Canada has a new King. He was coronated this past weekend. I am not overly excited about it but I am not overly unexcited about it either. For me, like many Canadians, the monarchy is just there. It does not impact my life one way or another. Which is why I am always wondering why the anti-monarchy crowd gets so worked up. Of course, they are even more worked up because they believe that the change from the Queen to the King will convince Canadians to come to their side. Maybe, but do they truly believe that it will convince them to actually go through the long and arduous process of turning Canada into a republic? I think not. I am certain most Canadians have better things to worry about than who is our Head of State. Note that most would not even correctly tell you who holds that title. Most are going to say the Prime Minister, who is our Head of Government but not Head of State.
The political interference in our politics issue has resurfaced again this week. It happened because a Conservative MP said something in the House and said something different outside of the House, about something that allegedly happened in 2021, for which he gave a pretty good explanation back then. Why he decided to bring it up a second time is pretty clear. By the way since the events he described reportedly happened to his family how are they still alleged events? Did they happen or not?
If I were PM I would finally just say "Fuck it" and establish a Royal Commission on all foreign influence on our politics. Choose three former justices and have them look into all sources of foreign influence. Include direct foreign interference by other governments but also look at how foreign actors are influencing our politics by following the money. Look at the media, charities, think-tanks, political parties and social media. In two years, publish a report that provides a comprehensive picture of foreign influence on our politics and leave it up to Canadians to decide which kinds of influence they are OK with them and which they are not, maybe during an election campaign.
It took a few days but the government did throw out a Chinese diplomat after it was revealed he might have been involved in activities diplomats are not supposed to be involved in. The media and the Opposition are criticizing the government for the delay but taking such action is not done on a whim. The government had to do its due diligence before taking the decision, particularly since the diplomat in question works for the second largest country on the world. Of course the media and the Opposition know this but that will not stop them from blaming the government when China retaliates in the coming days because that is just how dishonest they are.
The Liberal Convention happened on the weekend and like all recent Liberal Conventions it was uneventful. (Contrast that to Conservative ones which are always shit shows.) The only really controversial thing to come out of it was Liberal members passed a policy resolution that if implemented would force newspapers to have to back up stories they publish with traceable information sources.
Of course, some in the media are screaming this would be an attack on freedom of the press but they fail to mention that such a requirement is actually what is taught in journalism school and it is supposed to be something of an industry standard. If a newspaper were to publish a story stating that a certain brand of toothpaste prevented all forms of cancer, without backing it up with evidence, it would be roundly condemned. So why is it OK for journalists to quote anonymous sources when publishing stories on politics? By the way, such a requirement would help all politicians. It was anonymous sources that derailed the political career of Patrick Brown in 2018. It was anonymous sources that gave the Senate Expense Scandal the legs to bring down Stephen Harper.
In short, making certain that journalist are only publishing verifiable facts from traceable sources is not a bad thing, regardless of the topic of a story. And maybe it would bring some honesty back into journalism again.
Incidentally, I would love to see a "truth in advertizing" laws passed for political ads as well. Just like it is illegal for a toothpaste company to untruthfully claim its product prevents cancer it should be illegal for a political entity to lie or misrepresent facts for political purposes. Being unable to tell bald face lies in political advertizements might actually force political entities to talk about the relative advantages and disadvantages of policy again.
As well, it might also prevent some of the negative outcomes we have been seeing recently. It was lying in advertizing that lead to the election of Donald Trump, Brexit, the January 6 insurrection in Washington and the "Freedom Convoy" in Canada. In other words, if you want to reduce the effectiveness of populists in our politics make it illegal for them to lie.
And no, lying is not free speech or free expression.
