Hummingbird

I've put up two hummingbird feeders, which are visited regularly by two Anna's hummingbirds, one female and one male. This is the female.

Giving Up Politics (for a while)

I have been so dismayed and dispirited by the Governor-General's decision to allow the Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament, and I become so enraged when I hear Harper or his minions spouting their vicious, divisive lies, that I've decided to forego politics for the next few months. This means not listening to political talk shows, or news about politics in Canada, not writing letters-to-the-editor, and not writing anymore political blogs. Instead, I shall be posting poetry and pictures expressing a more positive outlook on life.

But I need to vent just a bit longer, to express it all, get it out, and let it go--or at least let it out on a long, long leash.

Since I was prepared to tell Stephen Harper that he must accept the Governor-General's decision, if it had gone against him, I must accept it myself. I do--at least, I accept it philosophically, in that I accept that the democratic process does not always produce what I consider is the best result; nor do I call for any change in our Parliamentary system because of it. But I accept it with a heavy, heavy heart. By her decision, the Governor-General has delivered the country into the hands of a man who borders on megalomania in his obsession with destroying all opposition; a man who is a liar, a coward, and a bully; a man who doesn't hesitate to write off Quebec and stir up the West because he thinks he will benefit thereby; a man who is very likely complicit, directly or indirectly, in criminal acts in the taping and publishing of an NDP caucus conference call.

This is a man who, after mouthing platitudes about working with the opposition, deliberately went out of his way to provoke them, and when it backfired, took the coward's way out by asking for prorogation. Some Tory supporters have referred to prorogation bringing about a 'cooling off' period. Nonsense; the Tories will go on spewing their attack ads, telling their lies, and stirring up hatred against Quebec, throughout Christmas and beyond because they think it will be to their advantage. Harper and the Tories don't care that they've introduced months of uncertainty into people's lives; uncertainty which will hang like a black cloud over the holiday season; Harper and the Tories care for nothing but themselves, and attaining greater power.

If Harper ever gets a majority, watch out. He will balkanize the country by downloading all federal spending on social and other programs to the provinces, leaving a gravely weakened federal government responsible mainly for defence and foreign affairs. The concept that Canadians have a right to the same level of health, education, and other public services wherever we live in the country, and that federal tax dollars should be invested to ensure that right is realized in practice from coast to coast to coast, is utterly foreign to 'firewall' Harper who, driven by his Alberta-bred, corporate-supporting ideology, and spurred on by his partisan zeal to avenge Trudeau's National Energy Program, would reduce the country to ten provincial fiefdoms.

It amazes, as well as appalls, me that anyone can believe Stephen Harper will provide stable government. Over and over again he's shown that his lust for power, his hair-trigger temper, his vanity, and his hubris, will always lead him to go one, or more, steps too far, and create havoc where none need exist, as he has so recently demonstrated. Encouraged by the Governor-General, he will become even more insufferable; he will lecture us in that dead, condescending voice of his, spinning truth and facts into a tangle to obscure his real intentions. And I predict that in the new year, he will find some way to stick it to the opposition again in order to either trigger an election (he must feel he has the Governor-General where he wants her; how can she refuse a request for dissolution when she wouldn't for prorogation?), or to achieve the complete domination of Parliament that he craves. The man can't help himself; he is addicted to power.

I loathe Stephen Harper from the bottom of my heart; I devoutly hope to eventually see him hoist by his own petard; and I wish him a long and miserable life in which to repent of his sins.

There, I feel better--lighter, more cheerful--already. The next blogs will be poetry or photos or perhaps both.

Boomerang: Harper's Lust for Power Hits Home

It is impossible not to ask: What was Harper thinking? For a man with an allegedly high IQ he has been behaving remarkably unintelligently of late, picking totally unnecessary fights. My supposition is that he thought the fear of precipitating another election would keep at least one opposition party, and probably the Liberals, on-side and the Tories in power. Which likely would have happened, if Harper, in a fit of hubris, had not only failed to offer an adequate financial plan (proposed spending cuts would have sucked $6 billion out of the economy at exactly the wrong time), but also attacked civil servants' right to strike, and proposed cutting off all public funding for federal parties.

The latter must have seemed a fiendishly clever ploy at the time--a measure which many Canadians might support (initially, at least) because they don't like money going to the Bloc. [However, that money keeps the Bloc in Parliament, and as long as the Bloc is in Parliament, Quebec has no need to separate. True, the Bloc looks out for Quebec's interests first; however, since they are a progressive party, what they consider good for Quebec is very often good for Canadians in other provinces as well; I'd certainly rather have them in Parliament than more Conservatives. And the irony of a separatist party helping to keep the country together delights me. But I digress.]

What Canadians don't need is a Prime Minister who plays political war games instead of (as Obama has been doing), consulting with the brightest and best from all sides, and bringing people together to address Canadians' concerns.

If the Tories had had the country's best interests at heart, they could have won the opposition parties' co-operation by bringing forward a package which showed real concern for laid-off and low income workers by including measures such as relaxing EI eligibility rules and expediting pay equity. Had they done so, (and had they omitted suspending civil servants' right to strike) the opposition would very likely have accepted it, and been willing to wait until next year for a major stimulus budget. And if the Tories had been sweetly reasonable about the economy, they might even have gotten away with cutting the subsidy to political parties, without eliminating it entirely.

But the Tories are incapable of being reasonable, sweetly, or otherwise. Instead, they had nothing positive to offer; attacked pay equity, and the right to strike, and then, in a blatant attempt to stifle all opposition, proposed to eliminate public funding for political parties. More recently, by taping and releasing an NDP caucus meeting (acts which are possibly criminal, and entirely unethical), Harper again demonstrated his fatal propensity to always go too far in his zeal to intensify his grip on power.

I'm amazed by how many people continue to support Harper and his colleagues. They should take a long, hard look at this man who never fails to take the meanest, most divisive course of action; a man who will say whatever he thinks will work at the moment, and blandly contradict positions he held not so long ago. For example, he found nothing wrong with being part of a coalition to topple Paul Martin; the process only becomes 'undemocratic' when Harper is the target.

Harper puts this pernicious spin on the actions of the opposition parties, when he knows perfectly well (if he doesn't, he's too ignorant to hold office) that they are operating in the finest of British and Canadian Parliamentary tradition--which is that the government is the party, or parties, which has the confidence of the House. Period. The Tories have squandered the confidence of the House with their crass partisanship, and now must pay the price.

Harper is a man who always puts personal expediency before his word, as when he decided to defy the spirit, if not the letter, of his own legislation fixing election dates (legislation which was expressly intended to prevent prime ministers from calling elections for their own political advantage) by calling a totally unnecessary election this fall because he thought he could get a majority.

Harper is a man who condones unethical, if not criminal acts, by allowing the release of an unauthorized taping of an NDP caucus meeting.

How can any self-respecting citizen want this man for Prime Minister?

Another viciously divisive ploy of the Tories is to foster the notion that the coalition is an eastern 'take-over'. As one who lives in British Columbia, I know it's nothing of the sort; there are members of the opposition parties in every part of the country, including Newfoundland and Labrador, and even Alberta.

The Conservatives are not competent to govern the country because they create trouble where none need exist; they divide Canadians instead of bringing us together; they are incapable of working with the other parties in a constructive and co-operative manner; they have no honour or ethics and they consistently put their lust for power ahead of the public good.

Trees

If I ever create a religion
it will be the worship of trees
those most benign and
indiscriminate of beings,
pouring their oxygen over us.

In the Beginning
there was only Tree:
Its branches divided
earth and sky;
Its roots united
earth and water

Trees, I'll pray,
let me climb
trees

catch the heart,
their branches striding
wide and high, their leaves
slipping against the sky
like the coins of light
sun strikes through water

Trees, I'll pray,
let me climb
trees

never harmed anyone
--except accidentally, crushing
the logger cutting it down
--not from malice
--not by choice
--not even in self-defence
--by chance alone compelled,
unwitting instrument
of the laws of physics--
and of karma in the shape of an axe

Trees, I'll pray,
let me climb
trees

cast long shadows
around themselves, trees
cast spells, spilling darkness,
scattering light, confusing
secrecy with mystery, confusing
second sight with love at first, confusing
happiness with almost everything
--a soft touch on a slow impulse
--the cry of a young wind
tearing the clouds apart
--the mutterings of an old mind
left to itself and now
more seer than sinister--

I plunder the grass for them
my throat quickens and gleams
in the cold light of trees leaning,
enlacing their boughs in a web,
ensnaring wild dreams

--of a tree absorbing me
into its cellulose; squeezing me
through ever-finer filaments,
the busy chlorophyll extrudes me
into the air in the form of a flower,
where a bee sucks, shedding pollen,
satisfied the craving blossom swells--

an apple hangs, waiting for the next
blundering idiot to come along, again--
and again, and again, it is necessary
to climb trees; to struggle from one odd
and wonderful angle to the next,
to the dizzying tip, where,
silhouetted against the moon,
a hairy angel croons a guttural hymn

Trees, I'll pray,
let me climb
trees

singing
--in the Beginning
there was only Tree--
the Idea of a tree

Thoughts on the Role of Government

It seems to me there are essentially two views of government. One is that government is 'it', or 'them', that 'they' are in general not to be trusted to do the best for 'us' (however perceived) and should therefore be kept to a minimum. I think it's fair to say this is the view of most successful business people and of the bureaucracies--corporate, government and intellectual which surround them; that is, those who believe (or used to believe before the present financial crisis) that an unfettered free market can deliver the good life to everyone, despite the mounds of evidence to the contrary. (How anyone can claim that an economic system in which most people cannot afford to own their own home, or which pays hockey players in the millions of dollars and doctors in the thousands, is allocating scarce resources efficiently, is beyond me.)

At the same time, businesses tend to take for granted the many services they receive from government, from an orderly and peaceful society, to legislation regulating commerce and trade, to lower corporate health care costs, to education, and on and on, while incessantly demanding more and more tax cuts. Tax cuts for which there is no evidence that they in fact stimulate the national economy, not least because, in a progressive tax system, the biggest cuts go to the wealthiest taxpayers who are as likely, or even more likely, to invest in a foreign country than in Canada.

Many investors and business owners complain about 'double taxation', the fact that corporations pay income tax on their earnings, and their shareholders pay income tax on the dividends they receive from those corporations. This is indeed double taxation, but it is perfectly justified because, as mentioned above, corporations make heavy use of government services and should pay their fair share to fund them, and shareholders, whether other organizations, or individuals, also makes heavy use of government services, and should pay their fair share for them.

The other view of government is that it is 'us', an instrument of the citizens' collective will, as variously, and sometimes painfully (through elections, for example, or demonstrations) determined, and that therefore it should be as large as necessary to deliver the services its citizenry require. This is the view of democratic socialists; that is, those who believe that a mixed economy of public services and regulated private enterprise will deliver the good life (with evidence from the Scandinavian countries that this is so). I'm sure no one who's read my earlier blogs will be surprised to read that I am of the second point of view.

However, this does not mean that the government should run each and every business, or even most of them. It means that the government must ensure that the essentials for a high quality of life--starting with clean air, water, and soil, and including affordable housing, education, useful, decently-paid work, health care, waste management, and public transit--are accessible to all. The private sector may have a role in providing these goods and services--building a public transit line, for example--but the utilities themselves should remain firmly in government control, responsibility, and accountability. (One of the often over-looked disadvantages of privatized services is the loss of accountability to 'corporate confidentiality'.)

A pro-government principle also does not mean that we should blindly trust government to provide for us as if it were our parent. It is not our parent; it is our servant, the way we organize ourselves to provide the goods and services we want, and it requires on-going direction and supervision. To work properly, a democracy requires more than voting, fundamental though that is. It requires citizens to become involved in the on-going political process between elections, including becoming active in a political party. This applies particularly to those who are unhappy with the way the present system in Canada operates. For politics to change, it is necessary for them to become involved with the political party of their choice, and encourage others to do the same. Young people, especially, could take over any constituency organization of any party in the country, simply by a few of them consistently showing up at meetings, and running for membership on the constituency's executive. They would be welcomed with open arms and great sighs of relief from the current, mostly grey-haired participants.

I have no patience for anyone who says they're not going to vote until a system they approve of (some form of proportional representation (PR)) system in place, so their vote won’t be 'wasted'. The only wasted vote is one that isn't cast; it is the votes against the winning candidate, the narrowness of their margin, which keep elected representatives attentive to their constituents, not landslides. (Even though I recognize the draw backs of first-past-the-post (FPTP), I remain relatively cool to PR; that is, I'm adamantly opposed to STV (the single transferable vote) for reasons I may address in a later blog, but am open to being persuaded by some form of multiple-member PR.)

Regarding government as the instrument of our collective will, also does not mean that government can spend any amount of money it pleases, or increase the civil service beyond useful numbers; we must demand both effectiveness and efficiency in the way it operates. ('Effectiveness' means getting results that matter; 'efficiency' means doing so at a reasonable cost.) We must ensure that such public servants as the Auditor-General have enough resources, and the correct legislation, to provide thorough oversight of government operations. The Auditor-General's mandate should cover both accounting practices and accuracy, and the concept of the public obtaining value for each tax expenditure. The more visible government operations are, the more we can trust those who are doing the governing at the moment.

Those who believe in small governments are often quick to condemn what they consider excessive spending--raising the alarm over the costs of health care, for example, as if that money, or any other government expenditure, simply vanishes into thin air. Of course, it does not; government spending and investment play significant roles in a healthy economy from the wages and salaries paid (much of which immediately flows back to governments at all levels through various taxes) and the goods purchased. Of course, anything can be carried to an extreme, but the fact that it may be possible for a foolish government to buy shoddy local, instead of higher-quality foreign-made, goods, is a problem to be addressed, not a reason to jettison favouring local procurement. The goal should be to improve the shoddy local goods, whenever possible (which trade deals like NAFTA make much more difficult).

For the most efficient and effective spending, I believe in starting with the people who actually put the money to work--in the area of health care, for example, this would include everyone from the cleaners and morgue attendants to the LPNs, doctors, nurses, and administrators--and get them to design how the hospital functions from the ground up. Again, without expecting perfection, we are more likely to get a sensible, workable, and lowest-effective-cost from this approach than by hiring consultants to design something from the top down. (I admit I write from total ignorance on how hospital operations are actually designed in B.C.; I'm just using it as a convenient example. If this kind of approach is already being incorporated in the process, so much the better, but I suspect it's not, and that much of the design of operations is indeed from the top down and involves a heavy reliance on consultants.)

However we view government, for it to work properly--that is, for it to respond effectively to citizens’ requirements--means that more citizens than now must join in the process more actively than just voting every few years. Such involvement can include letters-to-the-editor, demonstrations, attending panel discussions and so forth, but the most promising of all involvements is to join a political party and start to change things at the grassroots.

Pastiche

A little nostalgic fun while I work on a blog on the role of government.

Let it be
just you
and me
this time
having tea
with the tillerman
in Cosmo's factory;

deja vu for the two of us
alone together, again,
holed up in the Morrison hotel, surviving
on one burnt weeny sandwich
and cracklin' rose wine.

So close to you,
everything is beautiful,
but give me just a little more time
on this long and winding road,
for though we've only just begun,
all things must pass, even as

American beauty roses wither,
whether in drought, or fire and rain,
their bruised petals scent the air
around our sex machine,

shooting at the moon, we cross
a bridge over troubled waters, hear
the madcap laughs of the star sailor
who claims the moondance as his own
at the end of the game.

Harried Electors?

I wonder how many voters, being chased by the candidates during the election campaign, felt a bit like the parent crow in this picture, being chased by its youngster begging to be fed? Taken at Esquimalt Lagoon near Victoria a few days ago.

After Breakfast

The Red Queen boasted to Alice that
she could believe six impossible things
before breakfast, and I believe her,
hunger being a great stimulant
of the imagination.

Surely, nothing could be easier
than believing almost anything
before one's eaten.

But after breakfast
--that's a different story.
Once we're fed, scepticism
rears its snake-like head, sneering;
the wildest inventions seem boring
and trite; and the knights of the page
are now very bad riders.

I'd rather believe in
the lie of the land,
the turn of the seasons,
paths raked, dahlias staked,
apple trees dropping their ripe
fruit fermenting on the ground,
the wasps swarm, drunkenly
crawling through pools of raw cider,
they drown, happily, I suppose,
while the crows, having feasted,
sway gently on their toes.

Do the Harper Tories Mean Business?

Do the Harper Tories mean business? Indeed, they do, both in the sense of being determined to carry out their policies, regardless of their counter-productive consequences, and also in the sense of the mean, nasty, petty, never-let-up-partisan attitude that, like a bad smell, permeates everything they do.

When the Harper Tories distribute a 200-page guidebook to their MPs on the workings of Parliamentary committees, they do not intend to make such committees more effective; they mean to prevent them from doing their jobs, especially when they're investigating allegations of Tory wrong-doing, such as the Chuck Cadman affair.

When the Harper Tories bring in fixed election dates, they do not intend to follow the law themselves; they mean to ignore it as soon as it's expedient to do so.

When the Harper Tories cancel a national daycare program, and substitute a paltry, taxable $100-a-month sop to parents, they do not intend to make the lives of working families easier; they mean to abandon them to the indifferent mercies of large corporations as daycare providers. (Tories prate about choice, while in fact limiting it by not funding the spaces needed.)

When the Harper Tories pick and choose which Canadians facing a death penalty they will assist, and which they will not, they do not intend to fulfill their responsibility to all Canadians abroad; they mean to impose their own narrow, punitive views.

When the Harper Tories attack the political motives of the father of a slain soldier, they do not intend to face up to the realties of war; they mean to nullify a perceived enemy.

When the Harper Tories run ads attacking Stephane Dion, they do not intend to raise the level of political debate; they mean to lower it deep into the gutter. (I'm not a Liberal supporter; it's the ads' sour, cynical, misleading mindlessness that raises my hackles.)

When the Harper Tories fire Linda Keen, head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, they do not intend to ensure the safety of a nuclear plant; they mean to intimidate anyone else who might dare think of opposing them.

When the Harper Tories off-load health inspections from government to self-regulation by industry, they do not intend to protect Canadians; they mean to save money.

Just as, when the Harper Tories cut taxes for corporations and services for Canadians, they do not intend to make things better for those who hurt the most; they mean to protect the balance sheets of big business, regardless of who else suffers.

To digress for a moment--it amazes me how blind so many businesses, especially small businesses, are when it comes to where their real interest lies regarding the relationship between taxes and government investment in social programs. Instead of a cut in their tax rate--which does nothing to increase their sales--businesses in general, and local merchants, in particular, would benefit more from measures such as raising welfare rates to a realistic level (double what they are now, with generous exemptions for earned income); loosening EI regulations so that far more of those who pay into the fund get to benefit from it; and bringing in a negative income tax and other measures.

Those on low incomes (who benefit the least from a tax cut--even a GST cut--because they don't make enough money, and their purchases are too limited, for them to save much through lower taxes), by and large, spend their money where they live, and increasing their purchasing power will directly benefit local economies. Cutting income taxes, in contrast, benefits mostly those with the highest incomes, who are just as likely, if not more so, to send their money off-shore by investing in foreign corporations, thus minimizing any positive effect of the tax cut on the Canadian economy. A social democratic government dedicated to supporting the purchasing power of low income earners would be a much more useful government for small businesses, especially during a recession, than the stingy, services-cutting Tories.

The Tories are bad at recessions because they think the Federal Government's budget should operate like a household budget. While for a household, with its limited sources of revenue, it makes sense to cut back on spending during a recession, the Federal Government's role, with its much wider revenue base, should be (following classic Keynesian practice) to counter-balance contractions in household spending by increasing its own spending and investment in the ways described above, along with rebuilding and expanding infrastructure (clean water, trains, public transit), encouraging alternative industries, and the like. (Let's not forget that close to half the money spent on such projects flows back to governments at all levels in various kinds of taxes.)

But the most significant business the Tories mean to pursue is the dismantling of the Federal Government as an effective force in our lives. Adhering to the British North America Act of 1867's division of powers between federal and provincial levels of government, the Harper Tories operate on the theory that the Federal Government should be as small as possible, and not 'interfere' (as they see it) in those areas which they regard as exclusive provincial jurisdictions, such as health care, daycare, education, and welfare (although they are willing to hand over millions of federal tax dollars to the provinces without any assurances on how they will be spent).

Stuck in their 19th Century conceptual rut, the Tories have failed, or refused, to grasp the fact that the Federal Government, as the representative power for all Canadians, is responsible for setting and maintaining standards across the country. Our health, and other social needs, are not the exclusive concern of the government of the province in which we reside. Canadians may live anywhere in the country we please, and we have an equal right to high-quality social programs in Victoria and St. John's, Iqualuit and Windsor. It is the Federal Government's duty to ensure that these services are properly funded and accessible to everyone from coast to coast to coast.

Furthermore, as a federal taxpayer, I want my federal tax dollars made available to the provinces with stout strings attached. For example, the Federal Government should raise welfare rates across the country, and impose on the provinces the proviso that every cent of federal money is to supplement, not replace, provincial payments. That is, provinces would be forbidden to 'claw back' or reduce their own contribution to welfare rates because of federal increases. As a Canadian, I have a right to the benefits of federal funding in my province, and the province has no right to take away or limit the services which that money funds by cutting back on its own spending in that area.

This position will be fiercely rejected by some provincial minds, especially in Quebec (and Alberta), but Quebeckers, francophone and anglophone alike, and Albertans, as well as other Canadians, can appreciate the usefulness to all citizens of having both levels of government involved in social spending, complementing and counter-balancing each other. I think very few Canadians would wish to have only their provincial government to turn to for social programs.

But the Tories, if they ever get a majority, mean to reduce Canada to a collection of provincial fiefdoms (it was Harper who proposed a 'firewall' around Alberta) with Canada itself becoming an empty shell of a nation, filled mostly with American content.

Do the Tories mean business? Unfortunately, they do. If they become government again, minority or majority, they will push their narrow-minded, sin-ridden agenda with all their might, and all their usual disdain for other points of view. Harper is a partisan animal through and through, and he and his Tories have exhibited nothing but contempt for Parliament, and anyone who dares oppose them. The more power they have, the greater their contempt will grow. They're mean that way.

Do Tories Hate Kids?

Do Harper and his Tories hate kids? Perhaps not, but there is evidence they don't hold young people in any high regard. Take just two examples: What to do about young offenders, and addressing the nation's daycare needs.

Fuzzy blue sweater notwithstanding, Harper seems to regard young offenders with particular loathing, judging by the penalties he and his party wish to inflict upon them, and the mean, vindictive tone of voice in which he delivers his pronouncements on youth crime.

It is true that there is a small number of violent offenders (of all ages) who must be locked up to protect the public, but in dealing with this small number to the exclusion of almost everything else, the Tories focus on the wrong end of the criminal justice process--on those relatively few young people whose violent behaviour is most often the consequence of any of a number of reasons--violence and abuse inflicted upon them, broken social bonds, poverty, mental and developmental factors, and the lack of practical, consistent, adequate assistance for children and families at risk--or a combination thereof. (The Tories do give a nod to prevention with a paltry $10 million for youth gang prevention, whatever that might be.)

By refusing to address the above conditions which encourage criminal behaviour, and proposing only punishment to deal with young offenders, Harper and his Tories offer the judicial equivalent of snake oil--a slick, misleading presentation of policies which would, if anything, make matters worse, while deteriorating social programs fail to provide the necessary alternatives.

As for the deterrent effect of harsh penalties, Harper is either ignorant of, or willfully neglects, the evidence that most criminals, especially young ones, do not think in a logical manner when committing crimes; they primarily calculate, if they pause to consider the possible unpleasant consequences of their actions at all, their chances of being caught (an exercise which may consist more of discounting the possibility than being deterred by it). The severity of the penalties may make offenders more desperate to avoid capture while not inhibiting their criminal activity in the first place.

The goal of society should be to have as few people as possible pass through the criminal justice system, with incarceration being our last choice, not, as with the Tories, the first. A more fruitful approach would start with ending the war on drugs; a war which skews the criminal justice system in the wrong direction by providing persuasive incentives for everything from minor property theft all the way up to gang warfare. The Tories, however, refuse to even consider this sensible course, wrapped as they are in their self-righteous insistence on inflicting their personal views—and their expensive and dangerous consequences—on the rest of us.

A second, complementary approach to minimizing crime, is to take steps early in people's lives to address the conditions which encourage crime by combining measures to alleviate poverty (a negative income tax and/or other supports of purchasing power); assist parents in improving their parenting skills; and provide early support and treatment for those who suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, dyslexia, or other difficulties, mental or physical (which so often underlie criminal behaviour); and second, to implement a wide-spread restorative justice system in which young offenders (and older ones) learn how to take responsibility for their actions and make restitution to their victims and communities.

It is instructive to note that, when the Young Offenders Act, with its emphasis on 'justice' instead of the welfare of the young person, came into effect in 1984, Quebec did not follow the other provinces into treating young offenders more harshly, but persisted with a child welfare/rehabilitation model. The result is that Quebec has the lowest rate of youth violence in North America. Ignoring this fact, Harper is determined to put an inferior process in place, regardless of its proven limitations, not only because he believes it will win him votes, but because he is a punitive-minded man who sincerely believes that inflicting pain and hardship on others, somehow makes them easier to get along with.

One of the drawbacks of retributive justice is how often victims feel their needs have not been recognized or met, nor that they have had meaningful participation in the process, victim impact statements notwithstanding. But it is the harm done to the victim, and victim’s needs that is at the centre of restorative justice.

Restorative justice works on a number of principles, of which the following is one of the most central, "Restorative Justice is a process to 'make things as right as possible' which includes: attending to needs created by the offense such as safety and repair of injuries to relationships and physical damage resulting from the offense; and attending to needs related to the cause of the offense (addictions, lack of social or employment skills or resources, lack of moral or ethical base, etc.)." [Restorative Justice - Fundamental Principles by Ron Claassen, Director Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, Fresno Pacific University http://peace.fresno.edu/rjprinc.html ]

To work at its best, restorative justice is labour intensive, and therefore does not come cheap. However, prisons don't come cheap, either, and offer even less chance of success in rehabilitation.

Harper's claim that it is necessary to "...drive home the seriousness of very violent crimes," before rehabilitation can take place, ignores the fact that punishment, instead of helping to focus the miscreant's attention on the pain they've caused others, and how to bring about atonement for it, encourages them to focus on their own pain, and to feel that they are the victim, thereby hindering rehabilitation.

The Tories claim to be tough on crime, but their approach is completely ineffectual in combatting it because they insist on perpetuating the biggest source of criminal activity (and the most expensive failure of public policy ever devised)--the war on drugs. As long as drug use remains a criminal offence, the black market and the gangs who run it, will flourish. But the Harper Tories' implacable denial of this fact endangers us all.

The second example of the Tories disdain for young people is their pathetic excuse for a daycare program--a taxable grant of a measly $100 a month, accompanied by the wishful thinking that businesses would fill the gap in daycare spaces, which (as any business person could have told them) companies will never do in a general way, even with government incentives, because daycare is not their 'core' business. Some firms have daycare for their own employees; the vast majority do not, and never will.

(For all their kowtowing to special business interests, Harper's Tories don't understand that the best conditions for doing business are not low taxes, but reasonable taxes that help fund the government services--from commercial and other legislation, to education, to transportation and communication infrastructure, to police and the courts, to health care and daycare--that business interests cannot function without, and profit from daily. More likely, the Tories and businesspeople know this, but they don’t let on to the Canadian public because they want us to go on paying for these essential services while corporations and their managements enjoy the lion’s share of the benefits, along with generous corporate tax cuts.

Harper's Tories are fond of appearing to give people choices (except for abortion, of course, which they surely will attack again, if they ever gain a majority), but in refusing to provide more daycare spaces, the Tories actually restrict choice. The $100 a month per child that is being frittered away, (not by the recipients, by the government), costs $2 billion a year; money which would be much better spent on funding daycare spaces than on under-funding parents who still cannot find high quality care.

In conclusion, Harper and his Tories may not hate kids, but they believe in a mean, narrow, punishment-driven philosophy that ends up wasting resources, human and financial, and making matters worse. They would rather waste hundreds of millions of tax dollars on the most expensive and least effective means of social control--police, courts, and prisons--than invest in less expensive, more effective programs for early education, treatment for mental and developmental difficulties, daycare, restorative justice, and other methods that work to prevent youth violence before it begins.

Principles of a New, Sustainable Economy

Faced by 'peak oil', global warming, decreasing fish stocks, and other consequences of modern economies, corporate power, and sophisticated technologies, it is clear we must make fundamental changes in the way we go about our business, if we and succeeding generations are to live even moderately well; the most fundamental change of all being to move from a growth-at-all-(externalized)-costs philosophy to an organic, cyclical view (see my previous blog "Economic Heresy"). The following, is based on my book, If Only Things Were Different: A Model for a Sustainable Society.

What is a 'sustainable economy'? There are many definitions; mine is: "One which provides present and future generations with a reasonably comfortable living while operating in harmony with the natural world." A 'reasonably comfortable living' includes clean air, water, and soil, good health, meaningful work, the beauty of the natural world, the provocation and solace of the arts, and the leisure to appreciate and enjoy it all--along with a moderate number of material goodies, many of which are locally made.

Some might consider my present lifestyle a model for a sustainable economy. My capital assets are limited--omputer, printer, radio, telephone, toaster-oven, and microwave--and my purchases few. At present, I can live comfortably on relatively little money because I live in a rich society. My landlord is financially secure (and generous) enough to charge a low rent for a furnished cottage; beautiful clothing is recycled through various charities, food is plentiful and cheap--but if many people lived the way I do, we would all be a good deal poorer, and I likely would have been forced to have had a job much more often, and for much longer period of time than has been the case, in order to enjoy the same standard of living I enjoy now.

The point is not my virtue in living thus, but my vice in not making a greater monetary contribution to the economy--a point I make in order to illustrate a further point, that simply cutting back on consumption, necessary as that is, is not sufficient to establish a sustainable economy. Poverty is not a means of conservation. On the contrary, poverty exacts a great toll on the environment, from the depletion of forests for firewood, to the pollution of drinking water, to erosion-causing farming methods (although, out of necessity, poor people are often consummate recyclers).

We need enough economic activity that almost everyone can make a living, whether through a job, or self-employment, while those who are unable to, or cannot find, work (whether temporarily or permanently) are decently supported. Questions abound: How can we have enough economic activity to provide this comfortable living, without getting caught in the current mad rush again? What shall we consume, and how much, and in what manner shall we consume it, and how shall we take care of our wastes?

The answers to these questions depend upon our values and principles. For a sustainable economy a fundamental principle is that the purpose of the economy is to serve human needs, short and long term, and not, as now, that people should serve the needs of the economy. Other principles are: That work has intrinsic value, whether paid or not; that beauty is an essential component of a sustainable society; that the economy is organic and cyclical in nature; and that everything connects.

Purpose of a Sustainable Economy

The first principle of a sustainable economy is that its purpose is to serve people’s needs, both individual and collective, short- and long-term. This may seem self-evident until one remembers how often the safety and livelihoods of workers, and the health, financial and otherwise, of consumers or communities have been sacrificed on the altar of 'maximizing profits' and 'increasing shareholder value'. In a civilized, sustainable society, these would no longer be moral goals. Profit would still have a role to play, but not maximizing it at the expense of all else, and the success of the economy, instead of being measured solely by criteria such as the Gross Domestic Product, or the strength of the dollar, would be assessed primarily in terms of the well-being of all within society, with the criteria including a slower pace of life, and the health of our environment (as measured by the Genuine Progress Index, for example).

Instead of guiding our economic activities by such limited values as profits, costs, and market share, we should give preference to those human values which underlie all civilized behaviour--personal values of honesty, patience, compassion, and good humour; aesthetic values of perspective, proportion and harmony; social values of health, education, and community; and political values of equality and democracy. The standard of economic success should be, not how much money we make, but how well we make it.

Work

A second principle is that work is an essential element not only of a sustainable economy, but of a fulfilled life. Not work in the abstract sense of labour, regarded as an unfortunate necessity and a cost of production, but work as an activity with intrinsic value for the worker. The distinction is between a job--any activity undertaken solely for money--and work, which is done as much for its own sake as for the money it earns. In a sustainable economy there would be much more work, and many fewer jobs, than now.

Assembly lines and sweatshops provide a lavish supply of products--weapons, washing machines, TVs, designer jeans--a supply so lavish we are in danger of asphyxiating, or poisoning, or blowing ourselves up in our excessive technological exuberance. We are a greedy society because too many of us have jobs which numb the mind and sour the spirit, and too few have work which challenges and fulfills us. We try to ease our craving for creative endeavour by buying more food, clothing, gadgets, travel, and entertainment than we really need, pleasures as fleet as candy on the tongue, leaving us perpetually dissatisfied, and perpetually consuming. Advertising, of course, is aimed precisely at this sore point, continually irritating it. To free ourselves, we need to become more like artists and scientists in how we make our living, not necessarily by becoming poets or biologists (although that, too), but by earning our living doing something that calls forth the best we have to offer, and brings us joy.

Beauty

The third principle is that beauty, of both the natural and the built world, is an integral part of a sustainable society and a healthy environment. Of course, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and the ideal is not that there should be a single standard of 'artistic excellence' as determined by academic or other arbitrary criteria; the ideal is that we care about beauty; that we ensure it is incorporated into public spaces and public life as well as into our own lives; that we respect the work of artists because we know something about it; and that we can create beauty ourselves. Achieving these goals entails taking the arts seriously, educating ourselves about them from an early age, both as participants and audience, and respecting artisanship of all kinds as valid career choices. All too often, artists, especially the avant garde, are appreciated more at a distance than in the bosom of the family.

Organic Nature of the Economy

A fourth principle is that the economy is an organic, not a mechanical, system. The relevant economic model is not the present one of foisting unwanted by-products onto society at large by dumping them into our air, water, or land, but instead, in addition to creating less waste from less consumption, to incorporate our wastes into further useful roles in the economy, just as forests, fields, oceans and rivers recycle their components--atoms of nitrogen, carbon, potassium, potash, oxygen, and other elements combining into plants and animals, breaking down through digestion, death, and decay, re-combining in new plants and animals, or becoming part of the cycles of water and air.

A sustainable economy requires both holistic and linear thinking, simultaneously. Thinking holistically means to see one action or set of actions in relation to and with other actions and reactions; thinking linearly means to follow the trail of consequences, external and internal, intended and unintended, wanted and unwanted, from production through use, and re-use, to breakdown and re-production. Taken together, we will be better able to minimize the downside of any policy or action (there always is one, however minor; it's part of the balance of the universe, as the yin/yang symbol illustrates), and to improve the up-side (without trying to maximize it). Good intentions (a worthy goal) are not enough; bad means (and good means carried too far), corrupt good intentions and worthy goals.

In a sustainable, recycling economy, manufacturers of products would be responsible for their entire life cycle--production, breakdown, and recombination. That is, products would be designed to be deconstructed when their original useful life is over, and their components either rebuilt into new copies of the same item, incorporated into the manufacture of some other item, or further broken down, or composted. Naturally, costs would be incurred, but, rather than being deterrents to establishing a recycling economy these costs indicate the amount of useful work/jobs being generated.

All costs are someone else's prices. Business people want their prices to go up, and their costs to go down, but since, in the aggregate, they are opposite sides of the same coin, prices and costs necessarily rise and fall together, although their impact differs, as different people are involved on each side of the exchange. From a sustainable society's point of view, both costs and prices should be respected, but should not be the dominant consideration in the political decisions required to establish a sustainable, recycling economy. A fully recyclable computer might cost more than a current model (or not) but in either case, we would be buying a greener way of living as well, making it a better bargain over the long run.

Everything Connects

The final principle is that everything connects, everything influences everything else, for good or ill, and benign as well as vicious circles can be established. For example, part of lowering health care costs lies in cleaning up the air, thereby reducing the incidence and severity of asthma and other respiratory diseases. Cleaning up the air requires cutting back on our use of private vehicles, which also lowers the incidence of expensive accidents and injuries. Changing our driving habits in turn depends on providing an attractive public transit system, and support for other alternatives, such as walking and biking. The use of these alternatives would increase if we evolved a more leisurely way of living and working. A more leisurely life-style would in turn reduce stress, and the illnesses which it causes or exacerbates, bringing us back once more to lower health care costs.

Conclusion

In order to deal effectively with global warming and other environmental ills, we must evolve a new economy, one that is not dependent on the cancerous spread of transnational corporations. It's time to start breaking up international conglomerates into smaller businesses so that a true free market (which, as originally described by Adam Smith, consisted of many small firms, none of which could control their prices) can exist. At present, too few companies dominate too many economic sectors. They may trumpet the virtues of the free market, while doing everything they can to maintain and extend their oligopolistic control.

Any market, when driven by the cancerous, greedy philosophy of never-ending growth, and without proper government oversight and regulation, inevitably becomes an oligopoly (if not a monopoly), in which the few large companies left don't have to engage in overt collusion to set prices.

Take gas prices, for example. The managements of the few big oil companies all observe the same markets, think the same way, have the same goals, and adjust their prices accordingly. Gas prices at different stations go up and down more or less together because (in addition to simply checking each other’s posted prices), oil industry executives all have the same mind-set; they don’t have to risk expressly agreeing to set prices at the same level; they act alike because they think alike.

There are some who say that there can be no compromise with capitalism, without saying what they would put in its place. But we only have two real choices--violent revolution (which is immoral, and usually futile ( 'revolution' generally means nothing more than replacing one political gang with another); or a slower, evolutionary process which begins with where we are now, and learns as it goes along how to apply the values needed to guide us in a more planet-friendly direction--a sustainable, recycling economy focused on the well-being of all of us (human and non-human, including plants) in all our communities.

Addendum

While researching for this opinion piece, I came across a most educational article at http://www.pcdf.org/corprule/assault.htm, called “The Betrayal of Adam Smith”, which is an excerpt from When Corporations Rule the World, 2nd Edition, by David C. Korten.

Statements such as:

"It is ironic that corporate libertarians regularly pay homage to Adam Smith as their intellectual patron saint, since it is obvious to even the most casual reader of his epic work The Wealth of Nations that Smith would have vigorously opposed most of their claims and policy positions";

"The theory of market economics, in contrast to free-market ideology, specifies a number of basic conditions needed for a market to set prices efficiently in the public interest. The greater the deviation from these conditions, the less socially efficient the market system becomes"; and

"Market theory also specifies that for a market to allocate efficiently, the full costs of each product must be born by the producer and be included in the selling price. Economists call it cost internalization. Externalizing some part of a product's cost to others not a party to
the transaction is a form of subsidy that encourages excessive production and use of the product at the expense of others."

indicate why I think this article, and others on the site are well worth reading.

Most important is the distinction Korten makes between 'market theory', which calls for, ". . . an end to corporate welfare, the breakup of corporate monopolies, the equitable distribution of property ownership, the internalization of social and environmental costs, local ownership, a living wage for working people, rooted capital, and a progressive tax system", and 'free market ideology', which abuses the concepts of Adam Smith to support positions that would be anathema to Smith himself.

Is Harper Organized Crime's Best Friend?

Yes, because he believes in perpetuating the 'war on drugs', even though it supports a lucrative black market, and increases the likelihood of young people being tempted to experiment with drugs.

Harper portrays himself as being tough on crime. But the brand of toughness he advocates is not the answer; it is a major part of the problem. For over 70 years, the "Get Tough on Crime" mantra has been rolled out again and again as the way to address drug use, with the sorry results we see today: Organized crime flourishes as never before, and new and more dangerous recreational drugs like crystal meth have been invented and marketed. These are only two of the undesirable consequences resulting from the combination of bad laws with bad habits. Without the bad laws, the bad habits would be fewer and much easier to treat because black markets do not flourish where there are legal alternatives.

Our MPs are not elected to be our mommies and daddies, they are not empowered to act in loco parentis, but are sent to Parliament to be our servants. It is none of their business which recreational drugs adult Canadians use as long as we do so in a peaceful and orderly fashion. And that peace and order are to be obtained, not through the disastrous policy of criminalization, but through legalization, licensing, and regulation. The Harper Government has made an exceedingly bad choice in continuing to use the Criminal Code to deal with a minor health problem.

Minor? Yes, minor. The worst effects of addiction--disease, homelessness, theft, gang profits and gang wars--arise directly out of the illegality of drug use. Addiction is not desirable; it can have ill effects upon the body, but it only becomes a wide-scale social menace when it is made a crime. (And why is addiction the only medical condition for which jail is the first choice of treatment? The Government should be charged with practising medicine without a licence for usurping the physician's role.)

The single cheapest and most effective move against organized crime is to eliminate its black market, by legalizing all drug use, and using licensing provisions and other regulations to control their production and sale, as we do with tobacco and alcohol. This does not mean that all drugs would be easily available; for some, prescriptions would be required--what it does mean is that anyone who manages to become an addict (more about this in a moment), could go to their family doctor and be treated, including maintenance doses, if required, for both the addiction and the underlying causes which promoted their use of drugs. The police and the courts are not only not required to deal with drug use, their involvement creates the unacceptable conditions we must cope with today--people with addiction and mental health problems languishing in jail or on the streets, a dearth of funds for treatment, and hundreds of millions of dollars wasted annually trying to enforce the unenforceable, while criminal gangs rake in enormous profits.

But don't we have to draw the line somewhere? Shouldn't we discourage drug use by any means we can?

Yes, we should draw a line--between those acts which intentionally (or by willful negligence) cause direct harm to others, and those which do not. Impaired driving, whether due to drugs, alcohol, or fatigue, is properly deemed a crime, because it directly endangers others; the responsible use of, and trade in, marijuana cannot properly be deemed a crime because it directly endangers no one. (This is not to claim that there are never any negative effects from drug use; of course there are; any substance can be abused, some more easily than others. But such negative effects not only lack the direct, intentional damage of true crimes such as theft and murder, but are also much more difficult to deal with, if they are criminalized.)

As for discouraging drug use, take, for example, the control of a legal, although dangerous drug, tobacco. Smoking tobacco (an addiction which, by all accounts is at least as hard to break as heroin use) has successfully and increasingly been reduced among all age groups, through public pressure, and civil laws regulating where smokers can smoke, how cigarettes can be displayed and advertised, and so forth, along with a wide array of methods and products to aid in quitting smoking. Criminal sanctions have not only been unnecessary, but making tobacco use illegal (as a few have suggested) would create a money-spinning new commodity for the black market, and a potent incentive to encourage young people to start smoking (being illegal would make it seem glamorous and 'cool'). Criminalizing drugs does not decrease the danger of young people using them; it increases it.

If drugs were legalized and regulated, it would be much more difficult for young people to get hold of them because no one is going to bother bootlegging drugs when their prospective customers can more easily obtain their products from licensed outlets. Of course, minors can obtain alcohol and tobacco now, and it's also true, especially as taxes on them climb, that some black market activity in cigarettes takes place, but neither occur on the scale they would if the possession and use of alcohol and tobacco were criminal offences. The difference between drug use being a minor medical problem, and being a major social one, lies in the application of appropriate laws; the Criminal Code is not an appropriate law for dealing with either a medical or a social problem.

Because the Harper Tories would rather impose their private morality on the rest of us than recognize the right of adult Canadians to make up our own minds about which recreational drugs to use (why do the Tories only believe in less government when it comes to private businesses; why not less in our private lives?), criminal gangs are assured of a continuing flood of cash with which to finance their moves into legitimate businesses, and their wars amongst themselves. The police and the Government want to continue the hopeless battle, even though, like the Hydra of Greek myth, the more gang leaders are cut down, the more spring up to take their place--the illicit drug trade is simply too profitable for criminals to ignore.

Harper and his Tories believe harsh penalties deter criminals. However, the evidence shows that real deterrence is based more on the perception of the likelihood of being caught, than on the penalty for the crime. Penalties can come into play when criminals are trying to avoid capture, and directly face the prospect of long prison sentences; but this will tend to make them more dangerous, not more law-abiding.

Unfortunately, Harper's Government, wraps itself in the tattered flag of moral self-righteousness, continuing the war, not because it is effective (it is not; even police admit they catch only about 10% of the drug dealing going on), and regardless of the great harm it causes (go to http://www.elizabethrhettwoods.ca/beyond_the_pale.cfm, "Why criminal sanctions against recreation drug use are unconstitutional" and "A Citizen's Response" for discussions of some of the many and various harms arising from the war on drugs), but because they don't want to appear to condone drug use. To maintain a pretence of morality, a Tory Government would rather continue an immoral policy (one which creates the very ills it purports to address), than admit that criminalizing drug use has always been a losing proposition.

The fact is that adult Canadians wish to engage in various activities which others refer to as 'vices'. Making any such activity illegal drives it underground, to the great profit of criminal gangs. The Government is not competent to decide which 'vice' it will approve, and which it will not; that is not its proper function. The Government's proper function is to provide the legal framework within which adult Canadians can enjoy the 'vices' of our choice in a peaceful, orderly, and responsible manner. The Government should, for example, ensure that recreational drugs are pure, accurately measured, correctly labelled (including appropriate warnings, if any), and sold through licensed outlets, including, in some cases, by prescription; that games of chance are honest, and gaming houses do not encourage problem gamblers; that brothels are small, quiet, medically responsible, and co-operatively owned and operated by adults; and that all who profit from 'vice' pay their fair share of taxes.

Under this regimen, the hundreds of millions of dollars saved from no longer trying to enforce bad, counter-productive laws, would be available for education and treatment, and young people would face far less temptation to experiment with drugs.

Is Harper organized crime's best friend? Yes, because the other leaders, while somewhat cowardly on this issue, are potentially persuadable to at least begin to establish a reasonable drug policy by legalizing marijuana. But Harper is a man of convictions, and will never abandon his 'get tough on crime' stance, no matter how ineffective it is, because he believes in it. He believes that using drugs is wrong, and that wrong-doers should be punished. If punishment doesn't 'cure' them, then that's their fault, not Harper's. Therefore, as long as the Tories form Government, they will continue to befriend criminal gangs by continuing, through the 'war on drugs', to support the source of the gangs' wealth, to the detriment of the rest of us. Armoured in self-righteousness, Harper prefers to act as Big Daddy to citizens, and sugar daddy to criminals.

The toughness needed now is the courage to admit the failure of 'the war on drugs', to stand up to the United States, and the inevitable outcry from those who wish to tell everyone else what to do, and to bring in a civil regime of licensing and regulating recreational drug use.

Economic heresy

Many of us know that over-consumption is one of the most significant factors driving current North American economic behaviour, and that we must learn to consume less, in order to begin restoring some balance in relations between humans and the non-human world we inhabit and dominate, destroy and nurture. Below is an adaptation of one of the chapters in my book If Only Things Were Different: A Model for a Sustainable Society. I expect that, for different reasons, it will be rejected by those on both the left and the right.

Economic Heresy: An Alternative to a Constantly-Growing Economy

To deal effectively with global warming and other planetary ills, we must evolve more sustainable ways of doing business, which in turn, requires a fundamental shift in our concept of what constitutes a healthy economy. Despite all the concern expressed about the many and varied perils besieging our environment, nothing has fundamentally changed where business is concerned. The ideal economy (and the goal of businesses and governments everywhere), remains that of a constantly growing Gross National Product (GNP) driven by the need of corporate managements to increase shareholder wealth every year. Like cancer (the symbolic disease of our time), this model is one which will eventually devour the body politic, and economic, altogether.

However, it is possible to envision a healthy economy that is not based on constant growth, but on adapting to the natural ebb and flow of the business cycle (instead of perpetually trying to straighten it out, as is now the case).

Extrapolating from conventional business wisdom, the ideal economy is one in which the GNP keeps rising in a straight line to infinity. Governments and central banks are enjoined to achieve and maintain this state of constant expansion by means of fiscal and monetary measures. However, since the standing pattern of the universe is not a straight line, but a sine wave (the cyclical rise and fall of energy and form arising from the complementary interplay of opposites), attempts to control the business cycle, whatever good they may do the GNP, inflict a great deal of damage on those who must contend with the personal economic crises which so often accompany such actions, unemployment being the most grievous.

The proponents of laissez-faire are partly right--let the economy look after itself. But it is only when we, through our governments, have enabled ourselves to take advantage of each and every phase of the business cycle, that we will, in fact, be in a position to choose as freely as free market theory assumes, and only then, that we will all benefit from laissez-faire.

Therefore, it is not the economy per se which should be governments' concern, but those who suffer because of events beyond their control, and who need assistance in maintaining, or regaining, their economic equilibrium. With government programs such as a form of guaranteed annual income, investments in co-op and other affordable housing, daycare, and homecare; better access to education and training; cheap and accessible public transit, and investments in the arts and sciences--we would be able to generate far more, and far more useful, economic activity than by monkeying about with the business cycle using interest rates and taxes.

Following the classic scenario, this is how we might adapt during one complete turn of a business cycle, beginning arbitrarily in the early phase of an inflation. Most people would be working hard, making money and buying everything from housing to pre-cooked and restaurant meals and cleaning services, to cabs, cars, and transit, to computers, and cell phones, to recreational pursuits and works of art. We take pleasure in spending money on high-quality goods, understanding that we are doing our part in keeping the money-making going. The more we all spend, the more we all make, and the heady sensation of fresh cash affects us like oxygen in the economic bloodstream, spurring us to even greater effort.

As long as there is unused capacity from the preceding deflation, prices will remain relatively low and stable, despite this increase in spending, but once the slack has been taken up, prices rise to cover the costs of new production to meet renewed demand. At first, rising prices stimulate even more buying, but as the inflation matures, we begin to change our mix of products from immediate needs and desires to long-term necessities, laying up stocks of food, clothing, electronics, raw materials, seeds, tools, and other supplies with which to enjoy the expected deflation. We may not yet know exactly when it will occur, but we now assume it will be sooner rather than later.

As preparations for the deflation are completed, and as interest rates steepen, we gradually cut back on all but the most essential spending. The mortgage is reduced, other debts are paid off, and cash reserves are invested to take advantage of high interest rates. These actions are taken by a populace that understands two interacting factors: 1) the most direct and effective cure for inflation is to stop buying; and 2) taking such action is part of a self-fulfilling prophecy; that is, by behaving as if a deflation is imminent, we will help to bring it on.

The timing of the decision to spend less is made individually, and by only a few people at first, but it spreads wider and faster the higher prices rise. At the same time, high interest rates discourage borrowing by businesses and consumers alike, which causes retail sales to drop, orders to warehouses, factories, and suppliers of raw materials to be curtailed, and staff and overhead to be reduced; a deflation has begun.

However, instead of being a period of privation and suffering, deflations are welcomed as times of recreation and renewal, the form of which can be as varied as travelling, going back to school, having or adopting a baby, writing a book, changing careers, or just plain loafing, assured of security of income from a variety of sources, including (but not limited to) a guaranteed annual income or other supports of purchasing power, to scholarships, awards, grants, and loans, to part-time and freelance work, to co-op dividends, and savings.

For a while we enjoy less work and more leisure, spending time rather than money; even those who are still fully employed, work at a slower pace. Eventually, as prices bottom out and our reserves diminish, we take advantage of bargains and easing credit to start spending again, recognizing that in doing so, we are helping to start the economy expanding again. Once more, the timing of this increase is an individual/family one, depending on people's particular circumstances.

Business life quickens, sales pick up, and factories and offices re-open or expand; more and more people return to working full time, rested, refreshed, and looking forward to the coming boom; another inflation has begun.

Of course, nothing in real life operates quite as smoothly as depicted here, and fortunately, it doesn't have to. Instead of requiring uniform behaviour, adapting to the business cycle works best when many options are available. At any one time, most people would still be employed (even in the depths of the Depression, 75% had jobs), while certain sectors--the arts, education, recreation, tourism, etc.--would tend to be counter-cyclical, increasing during a contraction and decreasing during an expansion.

The advantage of adapting to the business cycle rather than trying to flatten it into submission is that it meets two human, and environmental, needs: The need to grow, and the need to rest from growing, without succumbing to either, while also providing a way to evolve a new economy, one which is not dependent on the over-consumption of material goods to survive.

Adapting to the business cycle is only one part of establishing a sustainable society; other parts include consuming fewer, but higher-quality, goods that have been made to last, by workers paid fair wages using environment-friendly processes; and in developing technologies which enable us to recycle the materials we use in ways which mimic or adopt nature's own cycles of growth, death, and restoration, along with legislation which requires producers to take responsibility for finally disposing of their product in environmentally-appropriate ways.

But the most significant aspect of adapting to the business cycle, or any other proffered solution to global warming and other environmental ills, lies in recognizing that humans, especially those of us in North America, can no longer continue to try to consume ourselves into happiness, but must make a basic change in attitude, from that of the spendthrift to that of the steward, from measuring success in monetary and material terms, to measuring it in terms of satisfying human relationships, leisure, participation in the arts, sciences, and sports, and the well-being of the natural world, and the preservation of wilderness.

At the moment, our planet and its life forms are suffering from a cancerous economic ideaology; adapting to the business cycle can be part of the cure.

Is Harper Crazy?

I've been prompted to write this blog by the latest of the Harper Government's lousy policy moves--cutting $45 million from arts funding and diverting most of it to the 2010 Olympic Games. This kind of ignorant action (Canadians spend more than twice the amount on culture as on live sports events) is typical of Harper, but I go beyond his arts policy to consider the failures of Harper and his Conservatives as a whole. They do not make a pretty picture.


Is Harper crazy? Not in a medical sense, but he is a megalomaniac who will say and do anything he thinks he can get away with, if he believes it will bring him closer to winning a majority. He is a man who operates on a single principle: To win, at all costs.

It will be Canadians who are crazy if they vote for him. Harper cannot be trusted with even minority power because he is dishonest, a coward, and a bully.

His latest dishonesty is to pretend that Parliament has been--or will be--obstructionist, in order to give himself an ostensibly valid reason to call an election. But this is the man who brought in fixed election dates because he believed in curbing the power of a Prime Minister to call an election purely for political purposes. But now that Harper wants an election purely for political purposes, fixed election dates no longer matter.

Harper claims the law doesn't pertain to a minority government--which is true, but (like so many of Harper's claims) only partially true. The law allows for the possibility of opposition parties bringing down a minority government--but that doesn't mean it allows the Prime Minister of a minority government to bring it down himself, when he finds it convenient to do so, and if he calls an election, it will be in contemptuous contravention of the spirit and intent of his own law.

This is only one example. Remember income trusts? Remember his campaign promise not to tax them? Remember how, once Harper decided this was a bad idea, without a word of warning or consultation, he betrayed his own followers? He's a man who will break his word the second he thinks it's expedient for him to do so.

And Harper encourages the same dishonesty in others. David Emerson, for example, the former Liberal candidate (and cabinet minister) who, the minute it benefitted him to do so, crossed the floor to obtain a Tory cabinet post. He was in such a hurry to scurry over to join the opponents he had been so roundly lambasting a few short days before, that he didn't even wait for Parliament to sit. And let us not forget Peter MacKay, the wimpish Minister of Defence who broke his promise to David Orchard not to merge the Reform and Conservative Parties, by doing so at the first opportunity.

Then there's that paragon of tyrannical virtue, Tony Clement, the ignorant Minister of Health with his ideologically-based denial of the scientific studies which show that harm reduction in general, and Insite, the safe injection site in Vancouver, in particular, not only save lives, but also serve as doorways to further treatment. But holier-than-thou Clement would rather waste hundreds of millions of tax dollars on the punitive and futile enforcement of bad laws than allow addicts access to the services they need. For Tony and the Tories, prison is their choice of treatment for addicts; they should be charged with practicing medicine without a licence, with its sickening results for society as a whole.

And how about that upstanding Christian, Stockwell Day, the pious Minister of Public Safety, who likes to play God, picking and choosing which Canadians on various death rows around the world he'll seek clemency for, and which he will not, ignoring the responsibility of the Canadian Government to all its citizens (including Omar Khadr). And Rob Nicholson, the incompetent Minister of Justice, who claims to be getting tough on crime while upholding the very laws which maintain and enrich criminal gangs; and John Baird, the embarrassing Minister of the Environment with his intensity-based emission targets, which do nothing to curb the destruction being wreaked on the environment by the tar sands oil industry.

These are the men (the very few women in cabinet make no difference) who, for the sake of their narrow-minded, big-business-orientated ideology, seek a majority government in order to impose their mean, sterile, pitiful vision of government on the country. These are men who believe in less government, except when it comes to our private lives, when they are only too eager to impose their own questionable morality on adult Canadians--promulgating the war on drugs, and (if they could get away with it), restricting women's choices re birth control and abortion, and abolishing same sex marriage. With respect to abortion and same sex marriage, regardless of Harper's current claims that these issues are closed, if he gets a majority, his followers will be empowered to cut Canadians' rights to fit the scanty cloth of their private religious views.

Harper is a coward. When the Tory Party is accused of wrong-doing--the 'in-and-out' election advertising financing allegation, for example, or the curious case of Chuck Cadman--instead of co-operating with the Commons Ethics Committee to bring everything into the open as quickly as possible, as an innocent person would do, Harper has sued, Harper has denied, Harper has obstructed the work of the Committee at every turn. These are not the actions of a man with nothing to hide.

Harper is a bully, witness the firing of Linda Keen, president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission because she put the safety of Canadians ahead of the wishes of the Tory Government.

Tory times are hard times, because Tories believe in a hard, mean, selfish, and greedy ideology in which making money, maximizing profits at the expense of all else, and growing the business ever larger are the only accepted goals. With an impending recession, the Harperites are itching to cut taxes, and consequently, spending (especially on social programs, which they have abandoned to the provinces). But it's the well-off who benefit most from tax cuts, and the less well-off who suffer most from the resulting lack of government services.

While it makes sense for a household to cut back on its spending during a recession; it makes no sense at all for the Federal Government to do so. Its job is to stabilize the economy by supporting the purchasing power of those who are the least able to weather a downturn. They should, for example, increase accessibility to Employment Insurance benefits (which so many pay for and so few receive), and offer refundable tax credits (a negative income tax) for those too poor to have a taxable income. (For a complete version of a progressive tax system, please refer to my book If Only Things Were Different (I): A Model for a Sustainable Society)

But the Tories don't believe in citizens looking after each other and ourselves through our taxes (the most effective way of keeping costs of essential services as low as possible for each of us); the Tories believe in a dog-eat-dog world in which each person or family fends for itself alone, in competition against every other person and family, isolated, and at the mercy of the organized power of transnational corporations.

The publication of a Tory handbook on how to cripple the workings of Parliamentary committees, and its application by Tory MPs--filibustering, throwing tantrums, and otherwise delaying the work of Commons committees investigating allegations of Tory misdeeds--shows Harper's contempt for Parliament. He is now showing his contempt for citizens by expecting us to swallow his codswallop that Parliament is obstructionist. Since his minority government has survived for over two years, this claim is obviously false. (Many would argue that Parliament hasn't been obstructionist enough; that it should have long since put Canadians out of the Harper Government's misery.)

But Harper doesn't care; he'll keep repeating the lie because it suits his purpose to do so; and because he thinks Canadians are so stupid, and that we care so little about honesty and honour in politics, that we will troop like sheep to the polls and give him a new mandate to wreak more harm.

If we do, we will truly be the crazy ones.

Next blog: Economic Heresy: An alternative to a constant-growth economy

I've been taking a lot of photographs instead of writing. This one is from a bird-watching excursion this morning down to Clover Point in Beacon Hill Park. The otters (there were two of them) were more fun than the birds.

Riding the Elephant

Victoria has some double-decker buses which I'm fond of riding. Here's a poem about it.

On the top deck of the double-decker bus
I sway in my seat, as if in a howdah,
as the driver navigates his beast
through the road construction, boasting
to the flagwoman, "She'll tilt, but
she won't tip over."

Woman Walking

This is a slightly revised version of a poem from my first book-length collection, Men, published by Fiddlehead Poetry Books in 1979.


Woman walking

through the city's secret
of the streets is pacing
with the flow of the crowd
you are its loosest part
stepping out--to pass this couple dawdling by windows;
slowing down--to let these schoolgirls scamper for a streetcar;
side-stepping--this fat man arguing with his son

into the clear

alert and balanced as an Arab mare;
beautiful and admired one moment;
invisible and forgotten one moment later.

But now you look ahead, and there
is a cluster of young men on the corner,
the scouts of their eyes' artillery
already measuring you, threatening
to confine you to the level of their reckoning.

They must be faced
one by one
seen
and known to be seen

--meet each one's eyes
and he is alone--

and looks away--reduced
to single adversaries
singularly vanquished,

and you are walking
through a silence of ultra-violet understanding
steady as a metronome

walking down the miles
on the trail of time
you are
striding through the city.

Excerpt from Beyond the Pale

Here is an excerpt from a recently-published novel of mine, Beyond the Pale, in which Emily Quinn, a divorced, middle-aged, would-be painter living in Vancouver, British Columbia, needs a job. Her long-time friend, Caitlin, suggests working for Caitlin's boss, Adam Kincaid, a wealthy cannabis dealer, who uses a wheelchair. After thinking about it overnight, Emily agrees to meet with Kincaid.

"Sure, I'll talk to your friend, as long as it's understood I can still say no."

"Of course. However, just in case you decide to go for it, he wants it set up properly from the start. So he's going to put an ad in both of the Vancouver dailies--I'll give you the wording in a moment--and you send in your resume."

"Just as if it were a real job."

"It is a real job, and this way, if anyone ever asks you how you met him, you can tell the truth, you answered an ad in the paper."

The ad duly appeared, and my application was duly sent in. I'd assumed Caitlin's friend would respond within a few days, but it was over two weeks before he called, long enough that I'd stopped anticipating him whenever the phone rang. This time, thinking it would be Caitlin, I clowned, "For whom doth the bell toll?"

There was a split second of silence before a deep and cultured voice replied, "It tolls for thee--if thou'rt Emily Quinn, that is."

"That's me. Who're you?" Although I could guess.

"My name is Adam Kincaid. I'm calling about the job you applied for to manage an art gallery. Are you still interested in it?"

"For sure." Now that the action had begun, I felt a little strange in my stomach. Should I have been quite so positive?

"Good. Perhaps we could meet for lunch to discuss it?"

"Today?" I was grimy and sweaty from scraping down a canvas, my hair could use a wash, and I had no idea what time it was beyond being mid-morning.

"If you like." Which wasn't really what I'd meant.

I twisted around to look at the clock on the stove: 10:17. "Could we make it a late lunch, around one?"

"Of course."

We arranged to meet at the Hotel Burrard, where I was to wait near the elevators. "My assistant will find you."

When I walked into the hotel two and a half hours later, showered, shampooed, and dressed in my classiest outfit, the lobby was under siege by the International Police Association which was holding its annual convention here. Cops milled in every open area, covertly reading name tags as they greeted each other. It was both funny and chilling to imagine what their reaction would be if they'd known why I was here.

"Emily Quinn?" a sharp male voice inquired behind me.

I jumped and turned. A young man in a gray suit, a white shirt, and a blue paisley tie, was holding out his hand to me.

"Hi, I'm David. Mr. Kincaid asked me to escort you to his room." His teeth showed in a faux smile, a social grimace in keeping with his stiffly formal manner. I doubted he'd ever enjoyed a real belly laugh in his life. Which was too bad, for in the vernacular, he was a 'hunk', over six feet tall, with a trim body, and good teeth. His hair, short by today's standards, was blond and thick, and his eyes were a deep hard blue.

Neither of us spoke as we rode up to the tenth floor. David was lost in his own thoughts, and I was preoccupied with the meeting ahead, suddenly apprehensive about Adam Kincaid's wheelchair and his crippled legs. Looking, or not looking, at them seemed equally gauche.

It was a needless worry. When we entered the room Kincaid was sitting in an armchair, half turned away from a scroll-legged desk, and his eyes, dark, hooded, and intense, grabbed my attention.

David introduced us: "Emily Quinn. Adam Kincaid."

"Hi," I said, meeting Kincaid's assessing stare with my own frank appraisal. One thing Caitlin hadn't mentioned was that he was partly black. His skin was a light shade of coffee, his nose slightly hooked, and his black hair crisply curled.

"How do you do." He offered a well-tended, well-muscled hand.

As his warm brown fingers closed around mine in a brief, firm handshake, and as his warm brown voice bade me sit in the facing armchair, I took refuge in details--the bulk of his arms and shoulders clothed in an expensively-tailored black suit; the legs that didn't quite fill out his pant legs; the polished shoes placed firmly on the floor; the wheelchair parked near--but over-lying everything, my first and most enduring impression of Adam Kincaid was of some great cat--a jaguar, say. He had a jaguar's implicit menace, and a jaguar's gaze, from far behind his eyes, detached, and unpredictable, except in the constancy of appetite. Always, I felt this intriguing dissonance, a simultaneous and confusing trust in, and suspicion of, him. However much he appeared the sleek civilian, there was always the whiff of the wild about him, alternately drawing and repelling me.
* * *
For those who are interested in my views on ‘the war on drugs’, please visit this page on my website, Why criminal sanctions against recreational drug use are unconstitutional and for a detailed argument against the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2003 decision upholding the government's right to criminalize drug use see, "A Citizen's Response".

This is one of the few political poems I've written.

Capitalists and Carcinomas

'Grow, grow, grow your profits', 'maximize', and 'super-size',
capitalists talking business together, like cancer cells, conspire
to propagate a greedy creed: Multiply, proliferate, metastasize.

Capitalists and carcinomas alike on the one-track, half-witted drive
to increase productivity; expand market share; merge, and acquire;
to grow, grow, grow your profits, maximize, and super-size,
.

Capitalists and carcinomas strive for the same goal—the whole pie,
though their victories will be the death of them, they continue to aspire
to propagate a greedy creed: Multiply, proliferate, metastasize.

Cheering as stock market indices soar into the bluest of blue skies,
ignoring the harm inflicted world-wide by their consuming desire
to grow, grow, grow your profits, maximize, and super-size,


Capitalists, and carcinomas both, conquer without compromise;
taking over everything in reach, swallowing smaller entities entire;
to propagate a greedy creed: Multiply, proliferate, metastasize.

As the belly of the beast bloats, as the vampire markets suck us dry,
our skeletons re-organize around what’s left, no longer required
to propagate a greedy creed: Multiply, proliferate, metastasize;
to grow, grow, grow your profits, maximize, and super-size,

Excerpt from "A Recycling Life"

Here is an excerpt from a long poem "A Recycling Life" which will be published in Descant, in the Summer, 2008 issue.

He loved water, and he loved to swim
in icy streams, while she strode along
the bank beside him, shivering, terrified
of what she might have to do if he died;
gulping
cups of hot chocolate laced with brandy,
sucking in
tobacco smoke spiked with cocaine,
her brain cells glittering;
white-hot thoughts, like killer bees
buzzing in her ears, all her little fears for herself
stinging the inside of her skull, swelling
indecision as she paced, waiting
for him to finally clamber up the bank into
the warm embrace of the towel she held for him,
enclosing his thin icicle limbs and frosty testicles,
squeezing him until he gasped, and escaped,
laughing (a little too late), his brittle breath
fogging the cold brutal clarity
of the morning light.