2007-09-06

My Referendum Quandary

What to do about the referendum. While i believe we need electoral reform I would prefer a preferential ballot system to a proportional representation system, as stated in a previous Fifth Column. My quandary is that if I vote yes in the referendum question and it is approved will it shut the door forever on a preferential ballot system and if I vote no and it fails will the likelihood of electoral reform of any kind be nil.

The answer of course is obvious. Looking at these questions rather than the ballot question itself is the same as strategic voting, which is what I believe to be the biggest problem with the current system. The simple question is whether I prefer the status quo or the proposed alternative. No other questions are on the ballot.

2007-09-05

Much Ado About U of Nothing

Well this election campaign sure is taking the high road and tackling the big issues.

I was somewhat perplexed by Mister Tory's latest remarks. Having lived in Ottawa for thirty years I have never heard that expression in reference to the University of Ottawa, nor for that matter had I heard it during the four years I was involved in student politics and journalism at Laurentian University before moving to Ottawa. So, as I was wondering just who the "we" was that Mister Tory was referring to, I decided to search the net for the infamous phrase and other than news articles on Mister Tory's remarks all that Google and Alta Vista found was the same single reference on a listserv in 1992, referring to Carleton University students using the phrase.

So I guess Mister Tory can take heart in the fact the be belongs to a select group.

2007-09-04

Does Your Family Need A Day in February

There is a long time between New Years and Easter, most of it cold, without a holiday break. It has been the subject of debate and proposals for years.

At both the federal and provincial level there have been numerous proposals and Private Members Bills to create a new February holiday from Heritage Day to Flag Day to Prime Ministers Day and even Family Day. Indeed a recent poll by SES Research that found that 70% of Ontarians support a new holiday in February.

It is probably a good idea. It is the sort of thing that calls out for an all party agreement, not the sort of thing that should be used to buy votes in a provincial election.

2007-07-19

Is Kayaking Better Than Canoeing

As a long time canoeist who has just got into kayaking I have had to reluctantly face this question. To me kayaking was a second choice but I am finding that it has many advantages over canoeing.

When we had our kayaking lessons I learned how to lift my kayak up and dump the water out while in the water, after rolling the kayak and filling the sitting compartment with water. This is something I would never be able to do with a canoe, nor could I re-enter the canoe while in the water which I was able to do with a kayak.

Out on a very stormy day on the Ottawa River, I was thinking that I would be very nervous (scared silly) if I was out in a canoe, but the kayak just bounced around on the heavy waves and I was actually able to paddle into the waves and make much better progress than I would struggling against them in the canoe, all the time worrying about being swamped.

The kayak seems to move faster and easier and even require less water than a canoe. The paddle stroke is very intuitive and even seems more efficient than paddling a canoe. The kayak seems to be sinkproof, and so far I have not managed to dump mine unintentionally, except once when getting in. I even feel a lot more comfortable taking the camera out in the kayak, in a suitable waterproof container, knowing it will not end up on the bottom of the lake or river.

The only disadvantage seems to be the inability to just turn around and sit the other way to paddle out of a narrow stream.

So I guess I will have to admit to being converted, but I can still take solace in the fact that a kayak is considered to be a type of canoe.



Postscript: You will notice that it has become a challenge to keep up the blog posts during the summer with visitors, travel and outdoor activities, but I will try to do better.

2007-06-21

A Trip to the Chocolate Factory

You may have noticed I missed a couple of weeks posting to my blog. We have had visitors for the last two weeks and I have neglected the blog.

My daughter was up from Toronto York University visiting and we went to visit the Hershey Chocolate Shoppe in Smiths Falls. The factory shoppe is a chocolate lovers dream come true and the prices are better than retail and they throw in a free chocolate bar or two with every purchase.

However, the Hershey Chocolate Factory is closing while Hershey is opening a new plant in Mexico.

This is just another example of how the capitalist market works. But sometimes we forget that it works that way because we let it and we let it because we have lost our sense of community. We would rather buy cheaper chocolates than provide jobs for our neighbours. Not all of our money goes to low wages, of course. Besides high profits, much of it is paid to high paid advertising gurus to convince us to buy products in the first place.

Communities across North America complain about the impact Wal-Mart will have on their local businesses . If local people care about their local businesses all they have to do is continue to shop at them. So why do we not do that. Why do we all flock to the huge Wal-Mart instead. Why do we watch local clothing and shoe factories close while we buy cheap goods from abroad. Are we that greedy. Do we just not care.

Much more than money and jobs is at stake here. If we rebuilt our sense of community I have no doubt that the results would astound us, mental health problems would decline, crime rates and vandalism would decline, quality of life would improve and everyone would be happier and feel more secure.

We can start by saying “hi” to our neighbours next time we walk down the street. If indeed we do walk down the street and not drive to the corner store, if we have one. But that is another whole column.

2007-06-02

Is The War on Drugs a War on the Poor

Canada’s ideological Harper government has decided that the best way to fight crime and the drug problem is to emulate the policies of the country with the biggest crime and drug problem rather than follow the lead of countries with lower crime rates and less of a drug problem.

Despite the romanticism of the sixties left with marijuana and psychedelic drugs the dependence on drugs for escape, recreation or creativity is never a good thing. We can debate whether marijuana is no worse than alcohol or whether tobacco is worse than marijuana or whether the new marijuana is worse than the old marijuana till the cows come home.

The bottom line is that natural highs are always better than artificial ones. Getting high on life is better than getting high on drugs (or money or status, etc.).

That all being said, the criminal justice approach to the drug problem, and in particular the zero tolerance approach of the United States that the Harper government wants to emulate, is clearly a failure.

It is very clear that how we treat drug users depends very much on social class.

Although caffeine is clearly a drug, we do not treat it as one because it is the drug most widely used by all classes. People who use coffee do feel dependant on it and do report withdrawal symptoms when unable to feed their habit. Coffee drinkers and other caffeine users use it as a drug, as a stimulant, whether to study or to work long hours. But it is not classed as a drug by society because of it’s wide use, particularly among decision makers.

Alcohol and tobacco are two more example of drugs used by masses, including the middle and upper classes that are treated differently than drugs primarily used by the poor.

Alcohol is the major social drug of our society, Alcohol is a social drink, but it is also used as a drug to alter ones state of consciousness, whether to reduce inhibitions in a social setting or to just get “drunk” That altered state of consciousness can lead to a reduced ability to reason and to impaired physical functions. The biggest impact of this has been the carnage on our roads due to impaired driving.

There have been attempts to ban alcohol consumption such as during the Prohibition period in the United States, which proved to be an unsuccessful as the current War on Drugs.

Smoking was the other dominant socially acceptable drug habit in our society. It is becoming less so as fewer people smoke, and particularly as fewer people in the decision-making higher and more educated classes smoke. The decrease in smoking came as a result of learning of the health risks. However we can clearly see that legislative restrictions against smoking only came about after there was a trend to stop smoking among the decision-making wealthier classes. Once smoking became a habit of the poor, rather than everyone, it became acceptable to legislate against it.

Criminal sanctions are reserved for the drugs of the poor, the so-called hard drugs. These are drugs that victimize their users. These are drugs that destroy users lives and eventually kill them. Yet our government’s approach to the drug problem is to further victimize and criminalize those addicted to drugs. While the aim of the approach is supposedly to target those making money from the drug trade the zero tolerance approach makes no distinction between victimized and victimizer. The American approach is a massive failure yet our government still wants to emulate it.
Have we not learned that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".

It is not that we do not have lessons to learn from. The history of our approach to alcohol and smoking has shown us that criminalization does not work and that education does.

Our approach to impaired driving did involve increased criminal sanctions as a necessity because, unlike hard drugs where the main victims are the users themselves, impaired driving kills innocent third parties. However the transformation of impaired driving from a socially acceptable practice to an unacceptable one was mainly the result of education and the changing of social attitudes.

The massive reduction in the percentage of people smoking is clearly the result of massive public health education campaigns. We see that reflected in the fact that smoking rates decline as education levels increase.

So how do we apply these lesson to the drug problem of the poor.

First we need to examine our motives. It is clear that our motives for the War on Drugs are to address the problems drug use causes for the wealthier classes and not it’s impact on the socially marginalized poor. We are not concerned because these drugs are destroying lives and killing people. We are concerned because the addicted victims of these drug problems turn to crime to feed their habit. We see the crime as the problem because it’s victims are middle and upper class.

It is this motivation that causes society not to care that the War on Drugs only revictimizes the worst victims of the drug problem, the addicts. It seems that only the secondary victims, the middle class victims of the crimes count. Of course tackling the real problem and helping the real victims is much more difficult than fighting a war against them. More importantly these victims acre marginalized in society, have very little economic and social influence and have virtually no political power and very low voting rates.

Their very social marginalization and poverty is what makes them easily susceptible to the lure of drugs as an escape from their lives of desperation. Although the War on Drugs supposedly targets those that victimize them, the zero tolerance approach of its implementation fails to distinguish between the victims and the victimizers. More importantly the criminal justice approach of the War on Drugs fails to address the underlying social conditions that make them vulnerable to victimization.

We need a multi-pronged approach to the problem. I do not pretend to have all the answers but I do know what some of the things that need to be done are.

First we need to recognize that drug addiction is primarily a social and medical problem.

We need to find innovative ways to reach the youth in poor communities to educate them about the risks of drug use without preaching to them about how much better middle class society is than the world they live in.

We have to reach those that are addicted and provide them with the resources to overcome their addictions. Reaching them is the most difficult step. These are people that see the social establishment as the enemy, because it treats them as the enemy.

That is why harm reduction programs, such as needle exchange and safe injection sites, that reach out to these victims are so important. Not only do they save lives by reducing HIV and Hepatitis but they bring the addicted into contact with those that truly want to help them overcome their addictions.

More importantly we have to provide these desperate people with the help they need when they ask for it. All too often the window of opportunity when someone is ready to seek help is very short. Telling them they have to wait weeks or months to get into treatment is no better than refusing them treatment. We must be willing to provide the treatment resources necessary to allow people into treatment immediately. The long term costs of not doing that are much greater than the short term costs of doing it.

However, the most important thing we can do to reduce the number of addicted persons is to address their desperate social conditions. A true War on Poverty would be the most effective War on Crime and War on Drugs that ever could be.

We need to shift our emphasis from going to war against the victims of drug addiction to providing help to them.

2007-05-25

Do We Need Electoral Reform

Is our system of representative government broken. Does it require fixing.

Some will argue that, because the representation of parties in our legislatures does not represent their percentage of support overall within the country or the province, all people and ideas are not being represented. They may have a point, but if we accept that how do we fix it and retain a representative system. Do we want to retain a representative system.

The value of representative government is that our representatives are more than just legislators, they are representatives of communities. We do not just vote for party leaders or parties but for someone to represent our community. Our elected representatives act as our link to government, not just as legislators but as information conduits in both directions, from and to government. Much of a representative’s time is spent in an ombudsman role in what is referred to as “constituency work” and this work involves dealing with the elected government, Cabinet Ministers, as well as with the Public Service.

Most of the proposals for proportional representation involve party lists and two classes of representatives, some representing local communities (constituencies), and some selected overall from the party lists.

Do we want to have two classes of representatives. Do we want to have a system that puts even more emphasis on voting for the party and party leader than the local representative.

Or should we expect someone wanting to get elected to have to convince a majority in their local community to vote for them.

We do have a problem. The problem is what most call “strategic voting”, but what is really “negative voting” - choosing who to vote for based on who you do not want to get elected rather than who you want to get elected. It involves people not voting for their first choice but for the least worse of those they think have the best chance to win. Fear that the “wrong” person will be elected appears to be stronger than the desire that the “right” person be elected.

This practice does more to prevent independents or representatives of newer or “minor” parties from getting elected than the structure of the system itself.

There is a solution. It involves allowing people to vote for their first choice without “losing” their vote and it means all representatives will be elected by over fifty percent of voters in their community.

Voters will vote preferentially for as many candidates as they like. If they only want to vote for one candidate they only indicate a first choice, otherwise they will indicate their choices in order of preference for as many candidates as they choose. Votes will be transferred from candidates receiving the least number of votes to the voters next preference until one candidate receives over fifty percent of the votes.

I predict that such a system would result in a reduction in the imbalance between parties overall popular vote and percentage of elected representatives and will also see an increase in the number of independents elected, something that proportional representation proposals do not address.

In this age of electronic voting it is an idea whose time has come.

As for proportional representation, if we are not prepared to abolish the Senate, it might be an interesting experiment to try with the Senate.

2007-05-17

Should The Peace Movement Align Itself With Forces Involved in Armed Struggle

An article by Don Butler, CanWest News Service in the National Post on May 8, 2007 reports that:

“Canadian activists were out in force at a recent conference in Cairo that sought to forge closer links between the international anti-war movement and Islamic resistance groups, including several on Canada's terrorism list.

About 20 Canadians attended the March 29 to April 1 Cairo Conference, the largest delegation from Canada in the event's five-year history. According to one report, it was also one of the largest delegations from outside the Middle East.

In total, as many as 1,500 delegates from the Middle East, Europe, South Korea and the Americas attended. Many of the Canadian delegates were from the Canadian Peace Alliance, the country's largest umbrella peace organization, and some of its 150 affiliated groups, said peace alliance coordinator Sid Lacombe, who attended the conference.”

We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. In many ways terrorists are like war criminals, they are never on the winning side.

Indeed, by the current definition of terrorist put forth by the United States and adopted by most “western countries” I have financially supported a terrorist organization in the past. It was the National African Congress whose leader Nelson Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize. Indeed the American revolutionaries, whom the United States celebrates as national heroes, would be considered terrorists by the current definition.

So we are not going to try and judge who is or is not a terrorist but simply look at whether the peace movement should be allied with any groups that believe armed struggle is necessary or appropriate.

There are a couple of simple answers.

● The peace movement believes in peace, not war. It should not be supporting violence of any kind.

● There will not be peace as long as there is oppression and the peace movement must support all struggles against oppression.

While the second option may be true, it may be impractical. How do you decide which struggle to support without allying yourself with actual terrorists. Do you support anyone who declares themselves anti-imperialist or do you have a bunch of hard core left wingers around the table arguing the fine points of ideology to decide who is a freedom fighter. Either approach is going to limit considerably the ability to build a mass public anti-war and peace movement.

That is not to say that there is not a place for solidarity movements with oppressed peoples. The question is whether it is appropriate to consider them part of the peace movement and whether doing so limits the broad public support of the peace movement,.

The first option my seem naive, in that it may seem to assume that armed struggle is never necessary or appropriate. But actually it does not. It just says that it is not appropriate for the peace movement to support armed struggle.

The first option is the only option capable of building a mass publicly supported peace movement. As that movement grows the ability to find alternatives to armed struggle increase exponentially. It is the role of the peace movement to build that momentum and find new ways to bring people together.

While the idea of Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and Muslims, building a peaceful Middle East together may seem hopelessly naive, at one time the idea of blacks and whites building a new South Africa together seemed equally as naive. And yes the armed struggle played a role, but inevitably peaceful reconciliation became the only alternative. We are seeing the start of that same process now in Northern Ireland.

The peace movement must be devoted to peace, not war.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968), "Strength to Love".

2007-05-08

Should Bicycle Helmets be Mandatory

This column was inspired by a discussion on MTB Kanata

Whenever I see someone on a bike without a helmet, whether on the trails or the road, no matter how expensive or fancy the bike might be, I always assume the rider is not a serious cyclist, because a serious cyclist would be wearing a helmet.

So should we be legislating common sense and requiring everyone to wear a helmet by law. I think we can all agree that legislation on it’s own is not the answer. We simply do not have the enforcement resources. Public education and changing attitudes is always the best answer. That is ultimately what reduced impaired driving, though increased sentences, as a sign that society’s attitudes had changed, was a big part of that.

However legislation can be an important part of a public education campaign. The example of seat belts is an excellent example of how that works. We have mandatory seat belt laws. The police do not devote extensive resources to enforcement but occasionally do blitzes as part of the public education campaign. We see these less and less as public attitudes have changed and we now have extremely high seat belt usage in Canada as a result of this combination of legislation and public education. This is how mandatory bicycle helmet legislation would work.

One of the biggest ant-helmet law argument is the individualist argument, or the right to be stupid it does not affect you argument. We live in a country with a social contract. This is not the capitalistic individualist United States. We have Canadian values that include caring about each other. But we also have a much more practical stake. We all contribute to a publicly funded universal health care system - and opting out is not an option. So we all have a practical stake in preventing needless deaths and injuries. As cyclists we also have a stake in keeping injuries down to avoid excuses to put restrictions on cycling. Mountain bikers, in particular, know the impact concerns about injuries and liability have on trail access.

Some have suggested we only have legislation for children, which is what we have now and it is not enforced and completely ineffective. The main reason it is not effective is because it is hypocritical. Children and young people do not respond well to hypocrisy. It is like the parents you see on the trails or paths everyday telling their children “don’t worry you only have to wear your helmet now when I’m watching, when you get older like me you won’t have to wear a stupid helmet”, which is what they are telling their children when they go out riding with their children and do not wear a helmet themselves. We teach best by example, and worst by hypocrisy. That is why we see so many young people, for some reason mostly girls, riding their bikes with their helmets dangling from their handlebars.

A huge part of public education in today’s society is the influence of role models. This is what started the discussion on MTB Kanata. Stunt riders performing at the Tour Nortel, ironically a fund raiser for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), were doing dangerous stunts without wearing helmets, setting the worst example you could find (unless the idea was to create future business for the hospitals head and brain injury wards). Yes, I’m shaking my head too. There was actually controversy about whether this was a bad idea with the suggestion if children follow the example of their heroes and get injured it is their own fault for being stupid and having parents that raised them to be “morons”.

Children, and adults too, are highly influenced by role models, their heroes, particularly in today’s mass media society. I remember seeing a photo of Lance Armstrong riding without a helmet in the Tour de France. It was explained to me that, while helmet use is mandatory during most of “The Tour” at certain stages it is not (apparently because the risk is less at those stages). This just sends mixed messages, particularly when you have photos of the world’s number one cycling hero riding without a helmet. If everyone always wears a helmet you would have a level playing field and you would be sending a message that hard core riders always wear their helmets, rather than the message that they do not, leaving children wanting to imitate their heroes, such as the helmetless riders at the children’s hospital fundraiser.

So if public education is the answer who should be doing the education. Public authorities such as schools certainly have a role to play, and the probably are not doing enough. You would also expect an organization that calls itself Citizens for Safe Cycling (CFSC) to perform that role. While CFSC does do rider safety training, their main emphasis, when it comes to helmet use, is to mount an extensive campaign against mandatory helmet laws while paying lip service to the benefits of wearing a helmet. Their position on bike lanes, that I and many other cyclists agree provide a safer and much less scary riding experience, is also really perplexing.

CFSC, and others, argue that requiring people to wear helmets will deter people from riding because of the helmet costs. Helmets meeting safety standards can be purchased for $20. They also argue that it will scare people away from cycling because they will think it is dangerous. Would anyone argue that young (or old) hockey players should not be required to wear safety equipment because it might scare them away from the sport. The fact is cycling does have risks, but learning how to cycle safely and wearing a helmet will make it a relatively safe activity. That is what should be promoted, not underplaying the risks to encourage people to cycle.

Read more about CFSC policies.

Then there is the “I only wear my helmet when it is dangerous” argument. I can remember an experience riding on a relatively tame trail (Old Quarry) with a much more experience hard core rider than me and he crashed on this easy trail. Of course he was wearing a helmet. We tend to concentrate more on the dangerous stuff and less on the easy stuff, which actually balances out the risk. You cannot predict when you are going to need your helmet to protect you.

One of the best reasons to always wear your helmet because if you do you will always have it on when you need it. Developing a habit is the best way to avoid forgetting to wear it when you need it. Let me tell you a story about a rider who always wears his helmet, except that he decided he did not need it riding his trainer in the basement over the winter. On the way back from his first ride of the season on his mountain this helmet use proselytizer discovered he was not wearing his helmet. Luckily I did not need it on that ride.

2007-05-01

Workers of the World Unite

Today is May Day, also known as International Workers' Day.

The first day of May is a day of celebration and solidarity for working people around the world. International Workers’ Day celebrates the unity of workers and their unions in the cause of equality, justice and the daily struggle to improve the quality of life of our families and communities. (Canadian Labourt Congress)

On May 1, 1886, Chicago unionists, reformers, socialists, anarchists, and ordinary workers combined to make the city the center of the national movement for an eight-hour day. Between April 25 and May 4, workers attended scores of meetings and paraded through the streets at least 19 times. On Saturday, May 1, 35,000 workers walked off their jobs. Tens of thousands more, both skilled and unskilled, joined them on May 3 and 4. Crowds traveled from workplace to workplace urging fellow workers to strike. Many now adopted the radical demand of eight hours' work for ten hours' pay. Police clashed with strikers at least a dozen times, three with shootings.... Inspired by the American movement for a shorter workday, socialists and unionists around the world began celebrating May 1, or May Day, as an international workers' holiday. In the twentieth century, the Soviet Union and other Communist countries officially adopted it. The Haymarket tragedy is remembered throughout the world in speeches, murals, and monuments. American observance was strongest in the decade before World War I. (Encyclopedia of Chicago)

For more information see the May Day Archive.