It’s difficult not to respond to these negative developments and try to inform people about them. But informed individuals can only do so much in the immediate political sense. If there are not organizations that fully grasp the catastrophes we are facing in the next few years, then individuals truly are ineffective in spite of their analysis and commitment to change.

Right now I have to say that there are few organizations in Canada – social, political, environmental, cultural – that demonstrate an awareness of the incredible urgency for action on all these fronts.  I may be suffering from some sort of apocalypse syndrome but  I find it distressing that the day to day world of social justice politics has not changed even though the situation has altered fundamentally.

I think there are good things happening at the micro level – in communities, neighbourhoods, smaller towns and cities. The turn-out for the G20 was impressive. And there is a growing understanding of the need for what I think is really a cultural revolution: a determined commitment to challenge capitalism at the individual level by refusing to engage in the consumer madness on which it is based.  The idea of prosperity without growth is attracting more and more adherents.

But this kind of cultural change takes place slowly while the threats to the planet and to our social democratic way of life are enormous and immediate. Those threats are almost certain develop quickly and to sweep over us even as we attempt to prepare for them.

Without organizations committed to challenging these enormously powerful forces we are certain to suffer huge setbacks before cultural change begins to reflect itself in the political and economic world.

Does that mean completely new organizations?  A huge change in the ones that already exist? Is the answer coalitions of groups that can together come to grips with the fight that is ahead of us? A concerted effort to transform the NDP into a real party of change?

That’s what I will be thinking about over the summer  – between long visits to my hammock looking out at the lake in Northern Saskatchewan where I will be spending a month regenerating.

Which reminds me that it is a good time to remember that life, despite all its challenges, is a miracle. I’ll be thinking about that, too.

See you in August.

Is the world, including Canada, headed for the third great depression, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argues? Watching the results of the G8/G20 meetings was like hearing news that a giant comet is heading for earth and we are just waiting for impact. Those meetings of the world’s largest and/or growing economies committed governments to massive deficit reduction in spite of the real concern that we are facing a the possibility of a so-called “double-dip” recession. That possibility is now a certainty.

Leading the charge on this ideological lunacy was none other than free-market Ayatollah Stephen Harper whose passion for diminishing the role of government is unmatched by any of the other leaders who showed up in Toronto. Of course, Harper does not really care about deficits per se — he actually needs them because the provide him with the crisis he needs to rationalize what he wants to do, which is to slash the social democratic state. People forget that this man once headed up the National Citizens Coalition (motto: “More freedom through less government”) which was founded by an insurance agent to fight the implementation of Medicare.

There seems to be no prospect in the current configuration of national politics of a party campaigning for increasing taxes to deal with the deficit so Harper, Stockwell Day and Jim Flaherty will have a free hand to make massive cuts to social and other spending. That should actually concern business given how much government money is actually spent in the private sector. Government is far and away the single largest consumer of private goods and services in the country. But ideology can trump even self-interest.

It is instructive that the increase in government spending to counter the recession was framed as “stimulus” spending as if such spending has not always been a stimulus and a normal part of the economy. We have arrived at a point where new government spending and investment is seen as an aberration. Our municipal infrastructure deficit is still counted in the tens of billions. But there will be no more money for these critical services because the only way the Harper government can justify such spending is to deal with a temporary crisis.

Planning a recession?

The plan to turn government’s full attention to deficit reduction is nothing less than a plan to create a recession. While the Canadian economy is doing better than its U.S. counterpart, most of the recent job growth has been in the services industries and half are part-time. The crisis in Europe and the dismal prospects for the U.S. economy still hold serious threats to the private sector in Canada and slashing government spending just adds to the risk.

We have been through this planned recession scenario before, in the 1990s under then finance minister Paul Martin. For most of that decade Martin deliberately kept unemployment at an unconscionable nine per cent in his effort to implement his “labour flexibility” policy — driving down the cost and power of labour. He used an artificially low inflation target of under 2 per cent to keep interest rates high and it cost the economy tens of billions of dollars in lost production. He also slashed social spending, lopping some $25 billion — 40 per cent off federal contributions — over three years.

What saved us from this draconian set of policies was a booming U.S. economy and an extremely low Canadian dollar. As it turned out, the deficit would have been eliminated by these factors without any cuts.

But we won’t be saved this time around by a strong U.S. economy or a 65 cent dollar — those days are over. And once the massive stimulus spending in the U.S. dries up, it will get even worse. In addition, Canadians are now drowning in personal debt, which even the bankers agree is unsustainable. A consumer-led recovery can’t be done on credit cards at 22 per cent interest.

Make the poor pay

In the past 20 years, Canada has witnessed the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the rich in our history. It’s a process that will continue unabated with the current policies.

The money that the working and middle classes used to earn and spend now goes into the pockets of the wealthy, who can only spend so much. So more and more of the wealth of the nation ends up in the bank accounts and stock holdings of the rich where it is fodder for the casino economy. Everyone else borrows endlessly to maintain the lifestyle the advertisers say they must have to be happy. The banks get ever richer from outrageous interest rates — but they sit on the money because businesses aren’t borrowing: people have quit spending as much, and there is little new investment. So that means that the corporations’ retained earnings get larger and larger with nowhere to go. (In the U.S., non-financial companies have accumulated a record $1.84-trillion in cash — the biggest horde in 40 years.)

In short, we have bales of cash backing up in the bank accounts of the rich and the coffers of the banks and other large corporations — while the people these same corporations need to be spending have less and less money.

Shrinking horizon

One might ask what on earth the capitalist economic planners are thinking, but of course there are no economic planners any more, especially in Ottawa. Despite the recent global economic disaster, nothing has really changed. The prevailing ideology and government policy still preaches self-regulation and laissez-faire — and when the next disaster occurs, we will bail the scoundrels out again with short term “stimulus.”

It would be comforting to think that many more middle-class people would begin to examine their compulsive consumer lifestyles when facing long-term economic hardship. That would start to form the basis of an economy based on prosperity without growth. But the figures on personal debt are not encouraging. It will take more than personal financial crises to change a culture and an economy headed for the cliff edge. In the meantime we can sit on our porches and watch the nation shrink.

The corporate security state is not static – it will keep filling more and more space to the extent that they are allowed to by civil society. It is not a process that will suddenly arrest itself. There is no “enough” in this plan.

But in that incremental process there are seminal moments – sort of qualitative leaps in the continuum of anti-democratic moves that momentarily reveal to everyone willing to look at what is actually happening. The police actions in Toronto are one of those key moments, one that we will look back on as a time when the authoritarian governments we now endure tested our resolve.

They know exactly what they are doing. There was no spontaneous “over-reaction.” There were no cops “out of control” – the obvious fact is they were always in control. This was a very strategic operation from beginning to end.  The decision to allow the Black Bloc to do its destructive work without any intervention at all was strategic as the police and their political masters knew the media would play their pre-assigned reactionary role and focus on the destruction of property.  The mass arrest of 900 people was a message to those willing to take a stand: you could be next, and a criminal record is no laughing matter. There is no question that amongst the mob of window-breakers and car-burners were a significant number of agents provocateurs. How many we will likely never know as this time around none were exposed as they were in Montebello at the SPP Summit.

The black clad activists have a lot to answer for – they provide the cover for the provocateurs and they are totally responsible for the media frenzy about the damage to a few shops. Perhaps next time the real social activists should swarm these people and stop them if the police refuse. They are the enemies of social change – we should treat all of them as agents provocateurs and plan to deal with them accordingly.   In the process we might catch a few more cops in the act.

But in the bigger picture they are a side show. The crisis in democracy itself is developing quickly as the security state apparatus and its political committee – Harper and his handful of operatives obviously, but provincial governments as well – plan for the future.  It is a future that promises to be increasingly grim.

There is a clear connection here between the obscene amount of money spent on security, the completely unnecessary shut-down of Toronto, the nine foot fences, what the police did – and what the “leaders” talked about.  We could call them the austerity summits: an agreement to make working people and the poor pay for the crisis. In the next year – unless Harper can actually be forced from office – Canada will witness the second wave of huge cutbacks to the social democratic state.

The set up is in place: the enormous tax cuts implemented by Flaherty in 2007 (and still being implemented) and the resulting huge deficits (party due to the “stimulus”) is the perfect useful crisis to justify massive cuts to social spending and the radical downsizing of the federal state (with the military intact and growing). In effect, Harper wants to download everything onto the provinces and distribute the political responsibility for downsizing to all senior governments.

These cuts will have a severe impact on hundreds of thousands of Canadians – individuals and families already facing an economic crisis of unsustainable personal debt, and over-work at mostly low wages. High unemployment is the other useful crisis – a key part of the strategy of “labour flexibility” aimed at lowering the share of the economy achieved by workers, and thus decreasing their political power at the same time.

Will this increasing pressure on Canadians’ quality of life and economic security be the trigger that creates the conditions for social unrest?  There is no way of knowing that ahead of time but it will certainly present the conditions for a rejuvenation of social movement efforts to mobilize against the corporate state. Labour will be forced from its self-imposed slumber and have to take a real stand – and not just show up a single  demonstration.

When resistance does increase that corporate state hopes to have created a new a normal where demonstrating is seen as vaguely threatening, the demand for civil liberties is the recourse of scoundrels, and criticism of governments naïve at best and dangerous at worst.

Economic insecurity does not necessarily lead to greater resistance. It can also lead to passivity out of fear that things could get even worse.  That passive part of the population is the classic ground for fascist politics and the desire for a “strong” leader, in the mode of a father figure. Harper, of course, has always played that role. For the moment at least it has had limited appeal as his party’s 30% in the polls shows. But he always polls higher than his party and leads the leadership stakes in part because of this strong leader image.

We have a decidedly different political culture in Canada than they do in the US but what is happening there can also happen here – not in exactly the same way and not as quickly. But in the absence of a vigorous mass movement, based on hope for the future, there is only one other possibility: things will inevitably get worse as the capitalist crisis deepens.

Now what?  What will the 25,000 people who participated in the demonstrations do in the face the assault on their fellow-citizens? Will they become active in organizations fighting for a better world? Will they donate $100 each to those organizations critical to defending democracy? ($2.5 million would make a difference.) Will the labour movement – still the sector of civil society best equipped to put resources into the struggle – finally take the situation seriously?  Will they come together, call for a coalition to rid the country of the most dangerous prime minister in its history? Will enough people demand of the NDP that it actually defend democracy – instead of denouncing the violence as its only statement on the events did?  Is the NDP even capable under its current leadership of understanding where we are and how to address the crisis?

I can’t think of a better wake-up call for all of us than the wanton violation of civil liberties and democracy that happened on the weekend. Calling for an independent investigation, demanding civil liberties be respected, denouncing the governments involved, raising money to defend those falsely charged – all of this is necessary.

But it is not nearly enough.

It is too often the case that history highlights important developments that current affairs seem to miss. That unfortunately seems to be the case with what will certainly be recorded as one of the most shameful moral failures of the Quebec labour movement in its history. I am speaking of its blind support for the asbestos industry in that province, support that contradicts almost every important tenet of trade unionism. Asbestos kills more people worldwide by far, than any other industrial material. And that includes Quebec, where 55 per cent of all worker fatalities in 2009 were caused by asbestos.

Yet the entire Quebec labour movement aggressively supports this killer industry, callously ignoring repeated pleas from their brothers and sisters in India (where most of Canadian asbestos is sold) and dismissing the overwhelming scientific evidence that condemns this substance as unremittingly deadly.

It also publicly claims that asbestos can be used safely, ignoring all the evidence to the contrary. That inexcusable position will ensure that thousands more third-world workers (and civilians) will die painful, lingering deaths. Tens of thousands will be disabled and thus unable to earn a living in developing countries with no social safety net.

It is hard to imagine a more shameful position on the part of a whole union movement.

The labour movement in Quebec and the Steelworkers representing the 400 or so miners left in the industry are also in direct conflict with all their national and international labour federations. The Steelworkers’ international body, the International Metalworkers Federation, the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Labour Organization, and the Canadian Labour Congress have all unequivocally called for the banning of asbestos production. Yet even they are virtually silent in Canada for fear of offending their rogue Quebec members.

Progress thwarted

Last year it looked very much like this poisonous substance would finally be banned and the mines closed down. (All calls for shutting down the mines have been accompanied by plans to compensate the workers involved.) The NDP and the Liberal Party of Canada — previously reluctant to call for a ban — changed their positions. An effective movement of health groups and public agencies put enormous pressure on the industry.

One of the reasons it seemed the industry was finished was the release last year of two key reports. One by Health Canada (suppressed for a year by the Harper government until a Canwest FOI ferreted it out) and an even more prestigious study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the most respected cancer agency in the world. Both confirmed chrysotile asbestos (the only kind still mined) as a “Class 1 carcinogen.” With these two definitive reports reinforcing existing studies, there was, it seemed, nowhere for promoters to hide.

As for the safe use argument, even in Quebec, where small amounts are still sold, there is no such thing as safe use. A two-year study by Quebec government health institutions found a 100 per cent failure rate in the safe use of chrysotile asbestos in the province. Safe use in developing countries is virtually impossible. A CBC documentary last year showed Indian workers in clouds of asbestos dust with nothing but cotton surgical masks for protection.

In Quebec, 15 doctors, toxicologists, occupational hygienists and epidemiologists, several of them professors at the universities of Montreal, Laval and Sherbrooke, issued an extraordinarily powerful public statement calling for an end to Quebec’s asbestos exports. The La Presse headline said it all: “It’s time to stop the asbestos lies.”

Dr. Pierre Gosselin of Laval University’s medical faculty said that Canada’s conduct (the Harper government has blocked the international listing of asbestos as a dangerous substance) resembles “criminal negligence.”

As a result of this literally universal condemnation of asbestos mining, last October there were strong indications that the Quebec government was considering revising its stand on supporting asbestos. But the relentless lobbying by the Chrysotile Institute (the asbestos lobby group renamed to remove the word asbestos), the Steelworkers union, the Quebec Federation of Labour and the CSN (representing most Quebec public sector workers) forced them to back off.

Now the Liberal government is planning to breathe new life into a dying industry with a $58 million loan guarantee.

Propping up a dying industry

Just what kind of jobs are they protecting? The current and only mine is in bankruptcy protection and its employees have had their wages cut virtually in half. Not a single private investor would put a dime into the new mine and workers were forced to sign a deal putting aside 10 per cent of their already slashed wages into a fund to repay the government $10 million if the mine fails. The National Asbestos Union president, Rodrigue Chartier, said mine president, Bernard Coulombe, used fear tactics to get the workers to sign a deal with a “starvation wage” of $15.93 an hour for young workers.

This is the humiliating agreement Quebec labour thinks is worth defending — against the lives of thousands of Indian and other developing country workers. The new mine will last 25 years, which means another generation of workers in the developing world will suffer because of government and union collusion in lying about the “safety” of asbestos.

The overwhelming science and the long list of health organizations globally, in Canada and in Quebec calling for a ban prompted the Chrysotile Institute to engage in an aggressive and crude attack on the science, critics and health organizations declaring asbestos a deadly threat. The CI (which receives $250,000 a year from Ottawa) has been headed up for years by former presidents of the Quebec Federation of Labour — a transparent but successful effort to give asbestos labour’s seal of approval.

Attacking the critics

The fact that there is no real debate is revealed by the thuggish comments from the defenders of asbestos, including Clement Godbout, the former QFL president and head of the CI. Godbout put out a press release on behalf of the CI calling the position of those who want an end to asbestos use (such as the CMA, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Public Health Association, the WHO) “loufoque.” This is Quebecois slang for “wacko.”

Jeffrey mine president, Bernard Coulombe, who is a director of the Chrysotile Institute, called Quebec’s top health institution, the National Public Health Institute of Quebec, “a little gang of Talibans” because they have repeatedly published scientific reports documenting that chrysotile asbestos is harmful.

In a statement dripping with macabre irony, Michel Arsenault, president of the QFL, pleaded in favour of export of asbestos to developing countries — on April 28, labour’s Day of Mourning in recognition of workers who have died on the job: “As for us, we are for the safe use of chrysotile asbestos. From what I know of asbestos producers in Quebec, they take care to verify where their asbestos is going and that it is used correctly.”

Roger Valois, vice-président de la CSN, for his part deplored that “no-one explains to people in developing countries how to use asbestos.” Valois has failed repeatedly to get the Quebec government to enforce asbestos safety standards, so it is curious that he thinks they could ever be enforced in the developing world.

A number of Indian labour groups recently wrote to Premier Jean Charest criticizing his government for denying that asbestos is a dangerous substance. The Occupational, Environmental and Health Network of India wrote: “We believe continued trade and use of asbestos is a crime against humanity. You seem to have sold your mind, your heart and your soul to the asbestos industry.”

The same should be said of the whole Quebec labour movement.

You might recall seeing him on the CBC which shamefully hired him as a “commentator” less than a year after he left Harper’s employ (in violation of CBC rules). Like most of the communications types in Harper’s stable he specializes in bullying and attack-dog tactics, the very same approach honed over years on Fox news in the US.

Don Newman, CBC columnist and former host of Newsworld’s ‘Politics’attacked the idea characterizing Fox news in the US as “hugely polarizing.” Fox “mainly spews out propaganda that is dangerously misleading and often factually wrong….It specializes in drive-by attacks and misrepresentations, and is positively Orwellian at times, claiming to be ‘fair and balanced’ while implying that its competitors aren’t.”

One of the people who is keen on having the new channel is Paul Tuns the editor of Canada’s pro-life newspaper, The Interim: “Having something to add balance to the overwhelmingly anti-life, anti-family left-wing broadcasters in Canada would be a very welcome development.”

It’s not hard to tell why. Fox News is a key component in what many people feel is the move toward an explicitly fascist politics in the US.  A constant stream of name calling, invective and lies about Barack Obama (he wasn’t born in the US, he’s a communist, etc.) have fed the rabidly right-wing and extremist Tea Party movement some of whose members come armed to rallies against the US President.

The same kind of vicious and divisive right wing populism is in store for Canada unless Peladeau’s and Teneycke’s plans can be stopped.

One of the most unnerving aspects of this story is that it was Harper himself who seems to have got the ball rolling for a news network devoted to his political project. According to reporter Bruce Cheadle, of the Canadian Press “on March 30, 2009,

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down for lunch in New York with Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes.

Ailes is the longtime Republican communications guru who is the president of Fox News Channel, which is owned by Murdoch’s News Corp. Harper’s [then] communications director Kory Teneycke was also present.”

It must surely be unprecedented that a Canadian Prime Minister would be having a secret personal luncheon with one of the world’s most powerful right-wing media barons and the head of his most virulent broadcaster.  (The meeting was only discovered by CP when it examined media consultant Ari Fleischer’s mandatory disclosures with the U.S. Justice Department. The former Bush media flak was doing consulting work for Harper at the time.)

We can’t know exactly what was discussed but we do know that Harper holds virtually all of the Canadian media in contempt and has gone to extraordinary lengths to control his “message.” – sending out his own photos, refusing interviews with the national press gallery, sneaking into the house of Commons through a side entrance so the media can’t engage him. Now he hopes to have a channel all to himself.

There can be little doubt that Harper is behind the Fox news North idea. Just four months after that meeting, according to Cheadle, immediately after Teneycke left the PMO, he got a contract with Quebecor to explore the Fox news north project.

Peladeau met at least twice with Harper in the first part of 2009 and also met with cabinet heavyweights Jim Flaherty, Tony Clement and James Moore. The project is moving ahead at breakneck speed with it proponents clearly hoping to make it a fait accomplis before anyone can do anything about it.

According to Cheadle:

“Since January he has had three registered sit-downs with Konrad von Finkenstein, the CRTC president, along with meetings with other CRTC officials and a Jan. 20 session with Moore, the Heritage minister who oversees the broadcast regulator.”

Teneycke is already recruiting people, long before the station has even come up for consideration. If you want to get an idea of what it will be like, one of the people allegedly recruited is the hyper-odious Ezra Levant, perhaps the only Canadian who could make Fox personalities look palatable.

So far there ha been very little commentary on this frightening development from those who might be able to do something to stop it.

Peladeau has applied for a Category 1 broadcasting license from the CRTC that would include “mandatory distribution,” meaning that his channel would come as part of the basic cable package. People would get it whether they want it or not.

It is by no means a certainty – unless, of course, no one complains. This category 1 license is a highly coveted designation (they might have to settle for ordinary license which would mean they’d have to negotiate with cable and satellite companies to get carried).  By being a part of the basic cable they automatically get a big share of the revenue generated – the CBC for example gets $65 million a year from the cable companies for its Newsworld channel.

In short, Category 1 is a license to print money. In the hands of people like Teneyke that is a very dangerous amount of money.

But to get that prized designation, the promoters have to show that there is a “public need” for the channel.   Just how the CRTC would judge such a question is hard to know but they are also aware that if they hand over this lucrative license to Peladeau and Co. there will be a flood of applications from companies – like Global – for similar treatment.

The CRTC needs some ammunition to justify saying no to a group with the power and influence of Peladeau behind it – especially with the knowledge that Harper is in the background.  Any decision by the CRTC can be overturned by the cabinet and a decision to refuse a Category 1 license will have to be bullet-proof – assuming von Finkenstein and the CRTC board even want to say no.

Two things need to happen: as many Canadians as possible have to know that Harper is setting up his own 24 hour “news” channel; and the CRTC has to hear from them that we don’t “need” it.

As reported yesterday in the Vancouver Sun and other Canwest papers the party is in a state of near hysteria over what should have been a minor flap. But when the question of Israel and the Palestinians is involved, nothing is simple. The pro-Israel lobby and its friends are masters of taking advantage of any situation to promote their cause and vilify Israel’s critics. And it doesn’t matter if the victim is an icon of progressive politics.

In this case Vancouver East MP Libby Davies got bushwacked by a pro-Israel activist posing as a neutral – if not pro-Palestinian – blogger. After a rally for the Palestinians criticizing Israel’s deadly assault on the aid flotilla, a man approached Libby asking for an interview. As she always does, because she never hides her views, she complied. He immediately set her up with what he called a “background question.”  He asked when the occupation began, 1948 or 1967.

Libby hesitated then said 1948. She made the point that the date was not important – that whatever the date the occupation was the longest in the world – and far too long.

The next day the interview appeared on YouTube. But in 24 hours it had gone nowhere – just 28 views. Then the most vociferous supporter of Israel in the NDP caucus, Thomas Mulcair, got wind of it and it escalated out of control. He went on a relentless campaign to punish Libby. The spin he helped create was that if Libby believed the occupation began in 1948 then she, ipso facto, believes that Israel has no right to exist. Libby has always gone to great lengths to make it clear that she supports Israel’s right to exist and the two-state solution endorsed by the NDP. But suddenly Jack Layton was in full-panic mode.  He apologized to the Israeli ambassador. He hung Libby out to dry. He forced her to issue a public apology.

Apology? For what?

Some have criticized Libby’s statement as evidence that she does not know the history of the occupation which most mainstream commentators date from 1967 – when Israel militarily occupied the West bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. But Libby’s problem was not that she didn’t know enough. She knew too much.

It is part of the unquestioned history of Israel that during the time leading up to its formal establishment by UN resolution 181 there was a massive, forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian Arabs from the land designated for the Jewish state. The resolution explicitly banned any such expulsion. The Arab population of that land had equal rights to it.

So when did the occupation begin?  Certainly the Arab families who were forced from their homes, farms and villages by Israeli terrorist groups like the Irgun believe their land was occupied. They still do. That is the basis for their demand of the Right of Return.

In any case Libby’s point in the interview was the correct one: whenever you date the occupation one thing is clear. It is a grotesque violation of international law, human rights and numerous UN resolutions which Israel, with the carte blanche support of the US and Canada, contemptuously ignores.

Here’s where the question of leadership comes in. Jack Layton has said virtually nothing about the hideous blockade of Gaza – what commentators call an outdoor prison. Why? Because he is does not, apparently, have the political courage to take an independent stand on Canadian foreign policy. He said virtually nothing when eleven aid activists were murdered (some of them executed at close range or shot in the back) by Israeli commandos.

But suddenly he is fully engaged in the issue because one of his most trusted and ethical MPs got suckered into making a controversial statement.

Mr Layton needs to rethink which is more important – the vicious blockade of Gaza, and the collective punishment of 1.5 million people. Or a careless remark by an MP admired across the country for her courage and openness.

The irony is that Libby is being punished for doing exactly what Jack Layton should be doing: defending the human rights of a people suffering under the oppression of an Apartheid regime.

No one said leadership is easy. Jack Layton should back off, tell Thomas Mulcair to quit exposing the party to public ridicule, and maybe consider taking a stand, with Libby, on behalf of the Palestinians of Gaza. He might be pleasantly surprised at the response of Canadians.

But the SCC sits at the opposite end of the rights spectrum and voted unanimously, 9-0,  to increase the reach of the Charter. The court ruled that administrative tribunals – literally hundreds of quasi-judicial bodies which adjudicate cases involving a huge range of issues affecting ordinary Canadians: labour relations; the operations of school boards; human rights tribunals within other institutions – are fully capable of applying the terms of the Charter to the cases they hear.

Madam Justice Rosalie Abella, the architect of the transformation, stated for the court: “We do not have one Charter for the courts and another for administrative tribunals.”

It’s hard to over-estimate the impact of the ruling both in terms of the enhanced place of the Charter in Canadian political culture or in terms of the number of ordinary Canadian who will have much easier access to the protection of the Charter. A blow to the access was delivered by Harper early in his administration when he eliminated funding for the Court Challenges Program. The CCP provided funded for individuals challenging federal laws that were discriminatory. Without that financial assistance such challenges were virtually impossible: taking a case to the SCC can cost $250,000.

But extending the reach of the Charter means it can be effective without such an onerous burden.  According to the Globe and Mail:  “Examples of the sort of litigation that could be forthcoming include: psychiatric patients asking to attend religious services outside their hospital; demands by prisoners or psychiatric patients for more humane living conditions, reading materials, free contact with the news media, or special programming that is sensitive to cultural background; and applications to be released from solitary confinement.

Human rights activists and lawyers are ecstatic. Joe Arvay, a prominent lawyer in Vancouver stated:  “The possibilities now are kind of endless. Whether in human rights, employment standards or a whole myriad of other areas, hundreds – or thousands – of these boards have been given a real boost.”

Abella pointed out that the courts have been moving incrementally towards this position for years and the SCC decided to consolidate those decisions: “Over two decades of jurisprudence has confirmed the practical advantages and constitutional basis for allowing Canadians to assert their Charter rights in the most accessible forum available…”

Whether or not the Justices had Harper’s attacks on the Charter in mind when deciding to consolidate and broaden its application isn’t known.

But its effect in countering the conservative government’s ruthless efforts to neutralize the Charter will be significant. The Christian right will be as displeased as human rights activists are happy. The Charter is anathema to the issues that make up the core of their beliefs and their politics. Their determination to turn back women’s equality, gay and lesbian rights, same-sex marriage and aboriginal rights now faces a formidable challenge.

Before Friday’s decision the evangelicals had a limited number of targets for their campaign. Now there are hundreds, even thousands of Charter-protecting agencies to which Harper and his Christian soldiers have no access.

Given its importance, the lack of major media coverage of the decision is puzzling.

But it doesn’t matter who did what. Something had to push Ignatieff off his delusional perch and whatever combination of factors did the trick we have now entered the next phase of saving the country from Stephen Harper.  Ignatieff has only moved one step towards a coalition but it was the biggest step: acknowledging that such an arrangement is legitimate and (possibly) necessary.

While he claims that he won’t consider it till the dust settles after the next election, the fact that he has allowed even that, effectively places the coalition into the election mix. Even if he doesn’t take the next step – making a coalition part of his platform – Canadians now expect such an arrangement. This will clearly make a difference in terms of how people vote. It could actually help the NDP more as voters inclined to support them but worried about “wasting” their vote may feel liberated to vote for whom they wish. This could especially help the party in Quebec where a recent poll suggested the NDP would garner 44 per cent of the vote in that province if Jack Layton led the coalition.

Getting the coalition idea out on the table still leaves the use of strategic voting in play as a coalition still depends on keeping the Conservatives in minority territory.  Strategic voting did have an impact last time but not enough. It requires a degree of sophistication on the part of voters that is hard to come by (NDP supporters voted Liberal to stop Harper in ridings where the Conservatives didn’t stand a chance.)

One way around that is what some see as the stage three of a coalition strategy – the Libs and the NDP standing down in a non-compete pact in a limited number of ridings to ensure that more of each parties candidates are assured of winning. These are ridings where the Conservative won by small margins and the combined Liberal and NDP votes (and maybe Green as well) would defeat the Conservative incumbent.  It depends on the assumption that there are now fewer Liberals whose second choice is Conservative than there would have been under the old PC party. A recent Harris Decima poll saw 28 per cent support such an agreement.

In any case, such a formal agreement would be a very big leap at this point in the story: NDPers and Liberals may well dislike each other more than they love their country.  Grass roots members of both parties – the people who put in hundreds of hours for local candidates – react badly to such suggestions. One possible solution to that barrier would be to have adjacent ridings to stand-downs and party activists work the riding next door.

One of the reasons that the Liberals may have been avoiding the coalition option is proportional representation. Despite having been rejected in several provinces in recent years, it is definitely on the agenda at the federal level. A February poll by the Council of Canadians put support at 61 per cent (71 per cent amongst young people). The Liberals still cling to their fantasy about regaining their natural governing party status to which p.r. is anathema. They want any coalition deal to be as loose as possible.

A formal coalition deal, with cabinet ministers from both parties, would look very much like the results of a system of proportional representation. That would make it tougher for the Liberals to reject. But that is what the NDP says its supports -as it should.  If the NDP is serious, it needs to make p.r. a key element of any eventual negotiations with the Liberals. Even though Ignatieff has just come on board with the coalition idea, it is still the NDP which holds the upper hand.  The Liberals need the coalition more than Layton does – as the leadership figures prove. The very least the NDP should accept on this front is the promise of a national referendum with a simple question: “Do you support the current first-past-the-post system?” If the answer is “no”, the coalition parties negotiate to come up with the best system to be used in the subsequent election.

The permutations of possibilities in coalition politics and the role of p.r. are myriad. Let the games begin

But call it what you will  - the Canadian government borrowed and spent billions to backstop the banks lending during the recession and continues to do so. That borrowing is a cost to the taxpayer and many of the mortgages they bought up (starting with $75 billion in the fall of 2008 and then adding another $50 billion a few months later) could still go into default. If they do the taxpayer is still on the hook – not through the government but through the CMHC, a government backstopped crown corporation that had to be rescued by the taxpayer before.

Over 375,000 Canadian mortgage holders are already “challenged” by their monthly payments.  When interest rates hit 5.25 per cent, an additional 500,000 will be.

The big banks themselves know there is a problem. How do we know this? Because they approached the government and asked that borrowing be made more difficult. According to the Globe and Mail:

“The heads of the country’s six largest banks have privately told policy makers that they fear the wide-ranging economic fallout of a U.S. style binge-and-collapse in housing. To head off any chance of that happening, they are willing to accept tighter rules on mortgages that would slow the real estate market…

The country’s top commercial bankers … said then that they wanted the government to look at far-reaching options, such as raising the minimum down payment to as much as 10 per cent [now 5 percent] and shortening the maximum amortization period to 30 years.[now 35 years].”

Hughes Anthony declares that “…the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions closely monitors their lending portfolios to ensure that they are lending prudently and managing risk properly.”  Obviously not, or the banks wouldn’t have begged the government to intervene – essentially asking that it save them from their own reckless behaviour.

Are the banks “…lending prudently and managing risk properly.”?  Hardly. At a time when housing prices in the US were dropping by over 20 per cent in the global recession, Canadian housing prices were skyrocketing because of Canadian banks’ reckless lending policies. As of December, 2009, the average resale price of a home in Canada was $337,410.  That was 19 per cent higher than a year earlier. This cannot possibly be called “lending prudently” and the banks know it – or they wouldn’t have asked the government to tighten lending rules.

Not only are Canadian banks’ practices putting ordinary Canadian home-owners and tax-payers at great risk their reckless behaviour is even threatening their own viability. According to Moody’s Weekly Credit Outlook, of January 25, 2010:

“We are concerned about the unintended, long-term consequences of a prolonged period of low interest rates on the credit profiles of Canada’s banks. More specifically, our concern centers on the possibility of an unsustainable expansion of consumer credit, fueled by the housing sector.”

Moody’s goes on to say:

“We have the uneasy sense that we have seen this movie before: the one where inexpensive and available household credit leads to rising house prices which, in turn, leads to intensified demand for household credit. As witnessed in the United States, this movie does not end well.”

How might the Canadian movie end?  Quite possibly with another recession. Moody’s points out that when the bubble collapses there will be a massive de-leveraging. Much of the Canadians’ net worth is tied up in their houses. When the inevitable tighter rules and higher interest rates kick in home prices will fall and consumers will rein in their spending.

As Moody’s argues, this isn’t just bad for the Canadian economy, it is bad for the banks themselves:

“The domestic franchises of Canada’s banks would suffer in this scenario, mainly due to a deterioration in the broader Canadian economy that would accompany household deleveraging.”

Ms Hughes Anthony is very casual about the government’s agreement to take billions of dollars off the banks books. She stated: “When the global credit markets seized up, the government of Canada bought insured mortgages from the banks to ensure that credit continued to flow to consumers and businesses.”

No doubt. The Harper government desperately wanted Canada to avoid a recession and goosing the economy through fostering massive housing sales did the trick.  It was this highly political decision that led to the situation of Canadian families being burdened by unsustainable credit.

In its 2008 Review of Canada’s private banks the Bank of Canada stated: “The more traditional business model pursued by Canadian banks, where a greater proportion of loans remain on the balance sheet of the originator, has encouraged higher quality underwriting practices.”[italics added] So what’s the implication here?  It would seem that  when they were able to get those mortgages off their balance sheets through the $125 billion government purchase program (plus another $12 billion purchase of other loans, like car loans) the opposite was the case: the quality of their underwriting practices was lowered.

That is precisely what is demonstrated by the absurd increases in housing prices in Canada.

The answer is as simple as it is disturbing.  Israeli soldiers are so accustomed to killing Palestinians for the slightest provocation that pulling the trigger is not the last resort – it is often the first resort. A child throwing a stone, a car-driver not slowing quickly enough, a grandmother and her grandchildren because they turned the wrong way coming out of their house during the invasion of Gaza.

It’s not even shoot first ask questions later. It’s just shoot first. They rarely have to answer any questions and the killings are investigated, if at all, by the army.  This is, after all, a colonial occupying army.  It is accustomed to killing unarmed civilians because that is the task it has been assigned by the Israeli political elite.

It is worth noting – though few commentators ever do – that the occupied territories are not policed – they are militarized.  An occupying power, even when doing so illegally, is required by international law to provide government to those it occupies. Such a government should include police – who are not just trained to kill but who are also deployed to work with and for the community, to have an understanding of the needs of the people they are policing and to protect people. Police are part of the community.

But Israel decided early on that the Palestinians would not be policed as a normal community – they would continue to be dealt with by soldiers. Soldiers are not trained in community relations; they are trained to kill and to do so, to dehumanize their enemy. Here are no nuances for a soldier who is facing an enemy: keeping the relationship simple makes it more efficient.

There is a terrible and disturbing logic to this for Zionism because to do otherwise would allow for sympathy on the part of Israeli Jews for the Palestinians in their midst. Police at their best do become part of the community. The army and its soldiers are denied such a perspective. For them Palestinians, civilian and otherwise, are the enemy forever (two generations and counting).

The activists on the ships were proxy Palestinians – trying to break the blockade, defying the Israeli colonial regime, standing up for the soldiers’ enemies. Shooting them was the first response just as it is on occupied Palestinian land. Most of them were Turkish Muslims.

Now what?  In all the news coverage there seems to be little mention – certainly not enough – about the illegal imprisonment of those taken from the ships. They were seized in international waters in an act of piracy and their incarceration is also illegal. The only legal response of the Israeli government is to allow the people back on their ships – also illegally in the hands of Israel – and allow them to sail.

As for canadian political party leaders – they are all too cowardly to stand up to the Israeli government for its crimes.