Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The prime minister of Calgary

Riding two horses with one behind is a classic event in the tawdry rodeo of politics.

It is done by all politicians, it is a sign of political middle-age, and it is not without its perils.

Remember the Harper government’s old China policy, the one that political changeling and former Harper trade minister David Emerson once quipped was made in Tibet?

There was a time when Parson Harper presided over a morality-based view of “Communist China”, that iniquitous, one-party dictatorship that murdered its own students, threatened Taiwan, and trampled the rights of its citizens. The place that needed nothing so much as an improving lecture from you-know-who. The Bad China.

Under that policy, the Dalai Lama fared well with Stephen Harper. He got an honorary Canadian citizenship back in 2006. He got twice as many private meetings with the PM as Canada’s premiers have so far managed. And Parson Steve blew off official protests from Beijing as if they came from Papua New Guinea instead of the world’s most populous nation.

The usual mockingbirds in cabinet were quick to imitate the PM’s Sino nose-thumbing. John Baird attacked China like a Chihuahua with rabies. Pierre Poilievre’s rebukes, righteous and judgmental, could have come from a funeral director burying a mobster. And who can forget the tongue-lashing administered to Beijing by that well-known champion of human rights, Peter MacKay, captain of the balsa wood F-35 and patron saint of fishermen stranded in salmon camps?

Next to the daily 45 minutes of hate known as Question Period, about the only public event that you could count on Harper cabinet ministers attending en masse was the celebration on Taiwan Day.

And then there was that little back-hander delivered by the PM in 2008 when he boycotted the Beijing Olympics. The Chinese have had a couple of thousand years to learn how to detect a slight from a glance or a tilt of the head. By their standards, Harper’s absence at their Games was a kick in the meat-pies delivered by a guy with straw sticking out of his hair and a toothpick between his teeth.

The prime minister himself boiled down his government’s old China policy in no uncertain terms. Promoting trade with the Chinese would never mean selling out important Canadian values. He backed up that sentiment in 2008 by bringing in new foreign investment rules that placed greater restrictions on state-owned enterprises looking to place money in Canada. China, to the consternation of everyone from London to Washington, is full of such enterprises.

Then somewhere between skipping the Beijing Olympics and arriving at the Great Wall of China slack-jawed with awe and admiration, Stephen Harper underwent a sea-change. Parson Steve evolved into Sales Manager Steve, Cheerleader-in-Chief of Big Biz. The Bad China now became China the Rich Uncle. Commerce not morality is the lynchpin of the Harper government’s new China policy.

There is a certain mad logic to the metamorphosis. With boat-loads of oil to sell, what better place to sell it than a country with no pollution regulations, no free elections, and a brutal leadership that doesn’t have to worry about environmental assessments. (Come to think of it, neither does Steve.) And unlike the Americans, the Chinese don’t have to borrow the money to buy our goo. Why, if things work out really well, the Harper government could probably offload mountains of uranium in China – strictly for peaceful purposes of course. The Americans are sure to be thrilled.

It all began when the PM decided to build up his travel points by making two trips to China after snubbing Beijing for five years – a policy that earned him a public spanking by Premier Wen Jiabo when he finally showed up.

On Harper’s most recent trip, he led a delegation of 40 executives, including Patrick Daniel of Enbridge Inc., and Tom Gitzel of Cameco Corp., the world’s largest uranium producer. The goal was to make a pitch for greater access for Canadian companies to Chinese markets. It would be hard to get less access with only 3 percent of our exports going to China and a whopping trade deficit that doesn’t speak well of Steve’s business acumen. The inevitable banking and insurance conquistadors went along for the ride. They all love the new China policy. They should. They are its true authors and its principle, and possibly only, beneficiaries.

And this is where riding two horses with one behind becomes a political problem for someone who used to be in the morality-based political business. Harper’s new policy is really the Liberals’ former policy. Steve has become Jean, leading Team Canada trade missions boldly where they have already gone. Now Paul Martin’s idea to open 20 new trade offices in China, initially ignored by the Tories, doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

Yes, Big Biz might like the new China policy, John Manley might be panting, Alison Redford might be hyperventilating, but the PM’s political base may not be so bullish. If there is one thing Conservatives hate, it is watching their leaders morph into Liberals and abandon morality-based politics and true fiscal conservatism.

That is precisely what destroyed the federal Progressive Conservative party despite remarkable political success – the suspicion in the West that they had abandoned true Conservatism (and all of the moral judgments that are dear to it), in favor of running amok in the whorehouse of political expediency that is Ottawa. Pandering to Quebec, Bay Street, and Upper Canada just like the other guys. The People of the Corn arrived in Ottawa under Preston Manning’s Reform banner not only to fight decadent Liberals but to fill the void left by lapsed Conservatives.

So Cheerleader Steve is asking a lot from those who make up his base. Not only do they have to forfeit their sense of moral superiority to a godless country where no one is free and death or imprisonment is the price of dissent, but now the bounders are over the wall. The totalitarian band of atheists from the East is buying up the tar sands itself. If the Harper government approves the $15-billion takeover of Nexen, it will not just have given access to Canadian oil, it will have helped China take a giant step toward owning the play – and calling a lot of important shots. As for the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the PM will be wedded to it like Prince Philip to the Queen.

Give me your full attention. It is one thing to hawk all your apples, quite another to sell the orchard. That is a Rubicon to be crossed with fear and trembling by any Canadian politician, but most especially a Conservative who once made hay out of riding the Bad China horse to the delight of his supporters.

Now that his behind is firmly ensconced on a new steed, China The Rich Uncle, the prime minister may score points by letting this takeover proceed, but only with the likes of energy companies, money managers, and those who clip their bond coupons while their wives are giving birth. The ones, like Steve, who have chosen Mammon.

So if this deal stands, Conservatives may be asking themselves a dangerous question. Why did Stephen Harper do a deal with the devil? Their query will be hard to dismiss given what Harper said about China in previous mandates. And then there is the little matter of what he did this spring at the summit of the Organization of American States (OAS).

In refusing to let another communist country, Cuba, attend future meetings of the OAS, the PM justified his decision by saying that Canada had adopted the principled position that Cuba did not meet the organization’s standards of democracy. That was over attending a meeting. And China does meet the standards of democracy and Canadian values over buying into our national treasure? The folks over at Sun TV will have to put Charles Adler into restraints before letting him on the air. China does meet such standards? Dinosaurs could choke on such sanctimonious baloney.

So in the coming weeks, there will be no more attacks from the PM’s cabinet mouthpieces on China’s pitiful human rights record, its brass-knuckles approach to Tibet, its intimidation of neighbors in Taiwan and Vietnam. John Baird will drool on any Chinese hand extended to him and Peter MacKay will insist his very favorite food is fried rice – chicken, of course. Not even Jason Kenney will show up at Taiwan Day.

As for the PM, this dubious deal might finally be the lens through which the country sees who Stephen Harper really is: the prime minister of Calgary.

Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Michael Harris

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