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Election analysis: What Harper hath wrought
By Alan Hustak on June 10, 2011
The True North is undeniably stronger for Conservative supporters following the recent election but is perhaps a little less free for those who believe that liberalism and social justice still matter.
The Harper government’s 15-seat majority puts an end to political uncertainty for the next four years. But the untimely collapse of the Liberal party leaves the country without a voice for non-dogmatic policies, a less invasive government and a fidelity to executive federalism.
Election analysis: Pourquoi le libéralisme est important
By Beryl Wajsman on June 10, 2011
Il semble que l’élément le plus important à retenir de la dernière élection fédérale soit le supposé renouveau de la gauche. En fait, cet élément est un non-événement. Il n'y a pas eu de renouveau de la gauche. On tente ainsi de démontrer que le succès du NPD est d’abord un phénomène québécois enveloppé dans une «énigme» du Québec. On tente aussi de nous faire croire que ces élections signifient un pays divisé et désespérément polarisé entre une droite récalcitrante et une gauche autocrate. Et pourtant, les raisons sont toutes autres : la fatigue des Québécois pour la séparation et l’incapacité pour les libéraux de rallier les Canadiens à travers un message authentique.
Election analysis: Post election blues: Splitting hairs on vote splits
By Johannes Wheeldon on June 10, 2011
One of the outcomes of the 2011 Federal election has been interest in how Liberal and NDP voters split the progressive vote, and thus paved the way for a conservative majority. Shouldn't it be easy to understand what role vote splitting played in the 2011 election? Well, yes. And no.
Election Analysis: Les dépendantistes
By Éric Duhaime on June 10, 2011
La déconfiture du Bloc québécois après l'election pose la question de la survie du parti. Le Bloc est-il mort? Avec seulement quatre députés ayant survécu au naufrage, la reconstruction s’annonce périlleuse, voire impossible.
Election analysis: Better voter representation system needed
By Duff Conacher on June 10, 2011
The $2 per-vote annual subsidy for parties is the most democratic part of the federal political finance system, because it is based on the fundamental democratic principle of one-person, one-vote. While it should be changed to make it more democratic it will be very undemocratic to cut it to zero as the Conservatives propose.
Election analysis: No more room in between right and left?
By David-Éric Simard on June 10, 2011
We have just witnessed several surprising political upheavals that have changed the Canadian political landscape. Is this ephemeral, or the path we are set on for the next generation? Despite the passage of a few weeks to take it all in, it is still hard to believe that we now live under a majority Conservative government. For many people, it’s difficult to clearly see what has changed and where our country is headed. In our immediate environment, Quebec’s political map has been painted NDP orange while most of Canada’s other regions are now Conservative blue. This clear distinction leaves many of us wondering whether there’s still a place for Liberal red and the Bloc’s light blue on the political horizon beyond the next four years.
Theodore Bikel and the soundtrack of our lives
By Beryl Wajsman on June 10, 2011
Some things stay with you. More importantly, some people do. They become part of the fabric of who you are. The memory of their piercing glare, their defiant words, their resonant voice and their courageous acts rally your resolve whenever it weakens. It is not even the stirring of memory, for their images never really leave you. Theodore Bikel is all that and more. For in his case there is music, and what music. It is the soundtrack of our lives.
De Tunisie jusqu’en Syrie La révolte de la peur et… le moment de vérité!
By Alain de Perlycroix on June 10, 2011
À priori, lorsqu’on voit les peuples arabes se soulever contre leurs dictateurs, on ne peut que s’en réjouir. Toutefois, à bien y penser, l’on se demande si cela permettra pour autant la mise en place d’une démocratie à l’occidentale ou tout simplement l’implantation d’une autre sorte de dictature masquée, quelle soit religieuse ou laïque pro-occidentale.
Effet domino? Pas vraiment!
Chaos theory for political order in the Arab world
By Rouba al-Fattal on June 10, 2011
As a Board Member of the EuroArab Forum in Brussels and a “specialist” on the Arab world, I am asked daily of what I think is going to happen in the Middle East. Let me be frank, as much as I wish I could predict the future to my own satisfaction, nobody knows what the final outcomes will be. Political analysts and pundits may quench the public thirst for information by providing their sophisticated forecasts, but their chances of getting it right at this early stage are as good as playing the roulette.
Majority economics in a polarized house
By Robert Presser on June 10, 2011
Stephen Harper already led the longest-serving minority government in Canadian history before his majority win on May 2nd. After five years of centrist economic management as a necessity for passing budgets as a minority government, Harper now has an opportunity to put his and the Conservative Party’s stamp on the Canadian economy for the coming decade. The question now becomes whether the government will continue to pursue centrist, incremental policies or if it will embrace several big, bold, transformational ideas to leave a lasting effect on the Canadian economy.
A meaner Canada: junk politics and the omnibus crime bill
By Alex Himelfarb on June 10, 2011
Canada’s new Parliament is poised to reshape Canada’s criminal justice system and, in significant ways, Canada itself. Within 100 sitting days of its resumption Parliament will pass an omnibus “tough on criminals” bill that represents the biggest change to our justice system in recent memory. But these changes are coming with disturbingly little controversy or opposition. They are not part of some so-called hidden agenda. This is what most or at least many Canadians voted for and, among those who did not, few seem much worried. Political opposition has been muted. Who wants to be seen as soft on crime, soft on criminals, concerned about inmates?
Constitutional challenges that are fair to all Canadians
By Chris Schafer on June 10, 2011
In 2007, on behalf of the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF), I testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages, in support of the federal government decision to eliminate the Court Challenges Program. The Program provided taxpayer financed assistance for constitutional cases involving language and equality rights. All Canadians, through their tax dollars, paid to advance through the courts the public policy agendas of various special interest groups who received Court Challenges Program funding, whether taxpayers agreed with those agendas or not. This was unfair.
Rights Commission to police: "Change policy on incivilities."
By Anja Karadeglija on June 10, 2011
The Quebec Human Rights Commission has released a report tackling racial profiling in Quebec, but whether it’ll make a difference depends on the political will to implement the recommendations, says Fo Niemi,executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations.
The report notes that racial profiling is often viewed as aproblem exclusive to Montreal, and Niemi says that’s because of the city’s racial diversity.
JEAN-PIERRE GOYER: Born in Ville St. Laurent, long-time MP for Dollard was architect of prison reform
By Alan Hustak on June 10, 2011
As Solicitor General in Pierre Trudeau’s government, Jean-Pierre Goyer was the architect of prison reform in Canada. Concerned about both the cost of keeping a prisoner in jail and the rate of recidivism, Goyer promoted a more humane approach to incarceration. During the 1970’s heintroduced better haircuts and better clothing for inmates, inaugurated new housing arrangements that permitted conjugal visits, and made it easier for prisoners to work and go to school. If society really was to be protected, prison he argued, should offer inmates a “more rehabilitative atmosphere.”
A temple of art and music
By Alan Hustak on June 10, 2011
From the natural light that floods the fourth floor Inuit sculpture gallery to the luminous glow of the Tiffany stained glass windows in its concert hall, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts newest pavilion is as calm and as uplifting as ….. well, a church. Which it once was. The old Erskine American Church, a brownstone Sherbrooke St. landmark since 1894, has been converted into a $40-million temple of art and music known as the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavillion.
When the medium is part of the message
By P.A. Sévigny on June 10, 2011
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Montreal artist Keira Parnell. As the curator of the new Mail-Art exhibition hanging in NDG’s popular Connexions Language School, Parnell said she had a great time putting together the eclectic mix of original postcards that makes up the show. “Once you get involved in the mail-art community, using the mail to send your work is just as important as getting one back.”
“Via Rail/A More Human Way to Travel?”
By Robert K. Stephen on June 10, 2011
VIA’s slogan currently reads, “A More Human Way to Travel”. Is this true? I decided to test this a bit further on a recent Toronto to Montreal VIA 1 round trip. A human way to travel means to be treated like a human as opposed to, well let’s say to be innovative, cattle…..you know serve those human needs with comfort, a smile, amenities, food and drink which by the way is the glue that keeps humans talking and interacting with each other wherever they may be!
Why liberalism matters
By Beryl Wajsman on May 4, 2011
The biggest story about the supposed resurgent left in this election is that there is no story. Nor is there a resurgent left.
What most current discussion misses in covering the NDP is that the party's success was an overwhelmingly Quebec phenomenon wrapped in a Quebec enigma. It had nothing to do with a nation divided against itself hopelessly polarized between a recalcitrant right and a statocratic left. It had everything to do with Quebecers fatigue with separation and Liberals failure to connect with Canadians through an authentic message.
Maynard Gertler: Editor, publisher, pacifist, farmer and activist (1916-2011)
By Alan Hustak on April 27, 2011
Maynard Gertler was an innovative farmer, civil libertarian, and the headstrong Montreal publisher who was the first to market books by French-Canadian authors in English Canada during the Quiet Revolution so the rest of the country could appreciate what was happening in Quebec in the 60s and 70s.
Gertler was the founding editor of Harvest House Ltd , once described as “a one man university press,” Harvest House was the first to translate the works of Quebec writers such as Jacques Ferron, Victor-Levy Beaulieu, Anne Hébert, Yves Thériault and the poet Emile Nelligan.
Décision 2011: Des élections inutiles ?
By Pierre K. Malouf on April 21, 2011
Il paraît que la majorité des Canadiens ne voulaient pas de nouvelles élections fédérales. Les voilà mis devant le fait accompli. MM. Ignatieff, Layton et Duceppe en voulaient, eux, de nouvelles élections, et Stephen Harper aussi, d’ailleurs, ne soyons pas naïfs. M. Harper a volontairement poussé ses adversaires dans leurs derniers retranchements, il a atteint son but. Les Conservateurs ne demandaient rien d’autre que d’être renversés, ils l’ont été. M. Harper a bien manoeuvré et compte bien faire élire le 2 mai prochain un gouvernement conservateur majoritaire. Aussi ne pouvons-nous le prendre au sérieux quand il affirme que ces élections sont «inutiles».
Décision 2011: Canadian Politics X
By Akil Alleyne on April 21, 2011
The bell has been rung, and the Tories, Grits, Dippers and Blocquistes are going another round in their bout for parliamentary supremacy. The ruling Conservatives, of course, are hoping that in their five-year quest for a majority government, the third time will prove to be the charm. Yet from the campaign’s outset, there has been one factor the Tories have lustily exploited, one having little to do with their actual fitness to govern. I refer to the specter of another coalition of Opposition parties snatching the reins of power from Tory hands.
Décision 2011: Key races to watch in central Montreal
By Dan Delmar on April 21, 2011
Outremont - Jeanne-Le Ber - Westmount-Ville Marie - Mont Royal - Notre-Dame-de-Grâce – Lachine
Décision 2011: Are they all statists?
By George Jonas on April 21, 2011
During the chummy pre-election weeks, politicians and their handlers are flirtatious but gun-shy. Journalists, viewed with grave misgivings, are being handled gingerly. The ambiance is ostentatiously egalitarian. The leaders’ aides refer to their bosses as Hollywood studio execs do to all-powerful movie moguls: First names, uttered in deferentially hushed tones.
Once Again-Burning Qu'rans
By David T. Jones on April 21, 2011
Washington, DC - So Florida-based pastor Terry Jones is back for another bite at the 15-minutes-of-fame apple.
This time, however, the consequences of his campaign against the Qur'an has had fatal effects. His largely unremarked "trial" and "execution" by burning of a Qur'an occurred almost completely without notice in North America. One assumes that this lack of media attention in the United States/Canada was deliberate (one 15 minutes of fame per eccentric claimant) with the appreciation that publicity could have invidious effect.
Montreal’s ‘Socratic’ dialogues City conference cites ‘Canadian Model’ as a working plan for a ‘post-crisis world’
By P.A. Sévigny on April 21, 2011
Ninety nine years to the day after the R.M.S. Titanic hit an iceberg and sank while trying to break a trans-Atlantic speed record on its way to New York, Professor Kimon Valaskakis and his New School of Athens are determined to devise the means by which the world’s assorted economies can avoid similar disasters.
“We must face the facts,” said Valaskakis. “The recent financial earthquake caused a socio-political tsunami which has spread all the way from the Persian Gulf to Madison, Wisconsin.”
Creative Destruction in Japan
By Robert Presser on April 21, 2011
Some may recall the teachings of Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian economist (1883-1950) who advocated the concept of creative destruction. Schumpeter argued that old economic models or investments had to be destroyed in order to liberate the financial and human capital to undertake new, innovative and more profitable ventures. For the first time since the end of WWII, a major developed economy has suffered an economic calamity of the scale deserving an analysis under Schumpeter’s model. The question is whether Japan, as an economic and social society, is prepared to seize this moment to radically change its economic model, or if it will miss the moment and re-create what has not served it well over the past 20 years.
...THIS YEAR IN JERUSALEM
By Alan Hustak on April 21, 2011
A trip to Jerusalem is an act of faith no matter what your convictions.
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel but it is not by any stretch of the imagination, an exclusively Jewish city. It throbs with a brash energy, pulsates with Semitic and Slavic rhythms and resonates with a sense of shared history unequalled in any other place on earth.
In the words of one writer, it remains “a golden object of desire,” a site for pleasure, prayer and pilgrimage.
Dr. Patrick Moore “How Greenpeace turned its back on science”
By P.A. Sévigny on April 21, 2011
Following a recent lunch and lecture in Montreal’s well-appointed Omni Hotel, city business people were lining up to meet Patrick Moore who was one of the founding members of the Greenpeace organization and is now one of its more notable critics.
“We did a lot of good things over the early years,” said Moore, “…but after 15 years, there came a point where we had to part ways over obvious scientific issues.”
Paying for Democracy
By Robert Presser on April 21, 2011
The revolutions taking place across Arabian North Africa are astounding for the rapidity with which they overthrew longstanding dictatorships and the confusion they provoked in Western governments. The US, UK, France and Germany had to decide when and how they would abandon the leaders they had backed for decades, and in the case of Libya the first coalition of the willing since the 1991 Gulf war was created to pound Gaddafi’s forces into retreat to allow the rebels to retain Benghazi.
L’apartheid culturel de Pauline Marois
By Beryl Wajsman on April 21, 2011
En octobre de 2007, j'ai écrit dans « Une question de préjudice » au sujet du projet de loi sur l’identité québécoise de Pauline Marois et du PQ que « Pauline Marois ne semble pas comprendre la fureur provoquée par la proposition du projet de loi sur l’identité québécoise du Parti québécois de limiter l'accès à la citoyenneté, l'ascension à la fonction politique et même le droit de grief devan tl'Assemblée nationale à moins que les nouveaux arrivants au Québec aient une connaissance « adéquate» du français. Essayons d’apporter une clarté à sa compréhension. Mme Marois, la fureur surgit parce que c'est une question de préjudice! C’est outrageux dans une société démocratique. »
New palliative care unit facility
By Alan Hustak on April 21, 2011
Plans to convert the church of St. Raphael the Archangel in Outremont into a 12-bed palliative care unit and day centre have moved into high gear. The church on Lajoie Ave. opposite the Sanctuaire apartment complex, served an English-speaking congregation for almost eight decades until it closed in June 2008.
A nice way to say ‘Thank You’!
By P.A. Sévigny on April 21, 2011
While some may think it was nothing more than an evening full of music, a bit of wine and a plate full of spaghetti Bolognese, others would recognize the supper party as the kind of event which pulls a community together.
“Without all of your efforts,” said Michelle Bourget, “…none of this would be possible.”
After spending almost 30 years with friends and colleagues fighting the endemic poverty in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest, Bourget’s efforts are beginning to pay handsome dividends because hundreds of people who used to come to their doorlooking for something to eat are now honorably employed, working professionals or even own their own business.
Don Cherry and hockey pornography
By Dan Delmar on April 21, 2011
Montreal Canadiens fans were horrified on March 8 when the seemingly lifeless body of a young star, Max Pacioretty, laid on the Bell Centre ice for minutes before being carried away on a stretcher by paramedics. Pacioretty wasn’t just a victim of an overzealous defenceman looking to intimidate his opponents, but a sport culture that tolerates brutal violence and even promotes it.
Brassy Brisket and Ham: Schwartz’s The Musical
By Alidor Aucoin on April 21, 2011
No matter how thin you slice it, Schwartz’s the Musical at the Centaur Theatre until April 24 is as appetizing and as satisfying as a smoked meat sandwich. It is as effervescent as a Cott’s black cherry coke chaser. (Burp). It’s a ludicrous treat, even though bits of it might be hard to digest. The daffy burlesque of a show was inspired by Bill Brownstein’s history of the landmark Montreal deli on The Main published five years ago by Véhicule Press, but the script which went through dozens of rewrites, alters some of the detail in the book, and takes on a life of Its own.
Ringuet, cet illustre inconnu
By Louise V. Labrecque on April 21, 2011
Philippe Panneton, dit Ringuet (nom de sa mère), trifluvien d’origine et ensuite montréalais, écrivain et auteur du roman Trente arpents amène une réflexion sur nos origines. Tel un monde oublié, le Dr Panneton illustre avec force et justesse, dans le livre Un Monde était leur Empire, notre préhistoire américaine. Dans les manuels, nous nous intéressons en effet beaucoup plus à l’Europe qu’à l’Amérique. Ce fait s’explique aisément et il n’y rien là de quoi s’élever. Nous sommes bien un peu européens malgré notre transplantation il y a quelques siècles en sol québécois.
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