The boy, the man and the Last Spike February 17, 2010
Posted by Ray Argyle in Uncategorized.Tags: Barbara Kyle, Canadian Pacific Railway, Craigellachie, Edward Mallandaine, Last Spike, The Boy in the Picture, Young Adult book
1 comment so far
The novelist and creative writing teacher Barbara Kyle has reminded me of the theory of six degrees of separation. It holds that everyone on earth is linked to each of us by no more than six steps, through people we know, who know someone else, and so on. This is perhaps the basis for the old saying, “It’s a small world.”
The subject came up when I passed along the news that my new book The Boy in the Picture will come out in August 2010 from the Natural Heritage imprint of the leading Canadian book publisher, Dundurn Press.
It tells the story of young Edward Mallandaine, the “boy in the picture” of the driving of the Last Spike that marked completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway on November 7, 1885.
In this case, I’m only one degree of separation from that great historic event. When Edward was a very old man and I was a young boy, I knew him. He was the Reeve (Mayor) of my hometown of Creston, B.C.
It’s a little humbling when I think that the entire history of Canada since Confederation is wrapped up in the lives of just the two of us!
Edward was a lad in Victoria when the Northwest Rebellion broke out and he decided he wanted to “fight the Indians.” He headed to the prairies but the rebellion was put down before he got there.
Fate had a different destiny for him. He was hired to ride dispatches by horseback over the incomplete section of the railway in the Monashee mountain range. That put him in Craigellachie for the Last Spike ceremony. You can see him peering out from this picture.
I’ve written The Boy in the Picture as a Young Adult book. It includes about fifty historic pictures.
I see Edward as a great role model for today’s young people who live in a vastly different Canada, where we’re joined by the web and other technologies, instead of the railway. But Edward’s lust for adventure and his unflinching courage in tackling unknown dangers fit well with the challenges young people face today.
The Boy is based on historic records and stories I remember from Edward. It’s told through creative non-fiction and combines plot, setting and dialogue in a story-telling narrative of historic adventure. Maybe it’ll help to make Canadian history a little more exciting!
Edward went on to become a pioneer of British Columbia. He helped found the town of Creston where he was “the man” for many, many years.
I’ve been researching Edward’s life for the past three years, first for an article in The Beaver magazine, and now for this book. I’ve dug through files on Edward’s family in the B.C. Archives in Victoria, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, and Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa.
I’ve also had great help from two museums in Revelstoke, B.C., the Revelstoke Railway Museum and the Revelstoke Museum. I’m excited that the book launch will be at the Railway Museum in August as part of their annual Railway Days Festival.
2010 will be a big year for the Railway Museum because it marks the 125th anniversary of the driving of the Last Spike. Maybe we’ll see you there!
The Road and the Reader – life with ebooks January 4, 2010
Posted by Ray Argyle in Uncategorized.Tags: Cormac McCarthy, ebooks, Kindle, Sony Reader, The Road
2 comments
I’m back, and anxious to tell you about my introduction to the Sony Reader, the ebook device that along with Amazon’s Kindle is said to herald the next era in reading.
This little machine came to me as a Christmas present (my thanks to the giver) and as with all new technology toys, it takes a while to figure out how the gizmo works.
I can’t say the instructions in the little folder that came with my PRS-600 model are as explicit as I’d like. It doesn’t tell you right off, for instance, that you need to go to the Sony web site and download software. When I finally realized this is what I had to do, it took me three days to get into Sony’s Canadian site. There must have been a lot of Sony Readers in Christmas stockings this year!
So what has been my reading experience? My Reader came with a dozen books pre-loaded, none of which appealed to me. So after finally getting into the Sony e-store, I deleted these files and set out to find something I wanted to read.
I should explain at this point that I have about a dozen hard covers sitting on my book shelf that I’m keen to get into. I thought I’d use the Sony as my bedtime reader, reserving the others for easy chair consumption.
Because I’d noticed the best-seller by Cormac McCarthy, The Road, on several “books of the decade” list, I decided to go with it. I hit the shortcut button on my desktop, signed in, and there I was. Sony was plugging The Road as
A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.
The price was right – $9.95. I assume an author of the import of McCarthy got a fair cut of this. This is where the biggest battle of the ebook world will rage — the division of income between a publisher freed of printing costs, and a writer faced with the usual long odds that make literary life a doubtful economic proposition,
The Road may well be McCarthy’s masterpiece, but it didn’t do it for me. I found the story largely without plot and its protagonists, The Man and The Boy, cardboard cut-outs of real people. It put me in a time warp, back to the 50s and 60s when we all thought atomic annihilation would be our fate. But it fails to deliver the believability of On the Beach, an epic work of this genre.
By great coincidence, Lysine Gagnon has a piece in today’s Globe and Mail that makes pretty much this point. As she writes:
“”The two main characters, the Man and the Boy, have no identity. We know almost nothing about them. And apart from expressing fear or hunger, they have nothing to say. Most of their dialogue, while walking south in a country destroyed by some huge cataclysm, goes like this: “What did you dream about? Nothing. Are you okay? No. We’ll be okay. Okay.”
I finished The Road in a few nights of bedtime reading. I found the Sony Reader, well, okay (sorry, gift giver!) but not an overwhelming experience. It’s easier to hold in bed than a hard cover, but the screen is a little dicey, despite the ability to enlarge the font. And when I tried it out in natural daylight abed one morning, reflections from a window made the screen difficult to read.
But it proved to me that, once again, the medium is NOT always the message.
The story’s the thing — whether consumed in the tactile experience of turning the page or the more remote (for now) scrolling of the electronic screen.
With Sony, you download your ebook first to your computer and then transfer it to your Reader. Not as clunky as it sounds — and you can also read your buy on your computer, if you wish. And the Reader also can store pictures and audio, neither of which I’ve yet tried.
I suspect I’ll make the biggest use of my Sony Reader to acquire of print Google books. I’ve started with Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, an 1838 classic by Anna Jameson. And it’s free!
Witnesses don’t always get it right September 4, 2009
Posted by Ray Argyle in Automobile industry, Culture, Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: bike-car collisions, Darcey Allen Sheppard, Ex-Attorney General Michael Bryant, restoring damaged reputations
add a comment
I can’t recall an event in the recent past that has aroused such public interest and emotion right across Canada.
I’m referring to the tragic street accident involving the former Attorney General of Ontario, Michael Bryant, and the bicycle courier, Darcey Allan Sheppard.
As I write, this, The Globe and Mail web site has no less than four stories about this case highlighted on its home page.
Anyone within sight of Canadian media knows the basic facts: Bryant, 43, is driving his pricy Saab convertible along Bloor Street about 10 o’clock at night. He’s on his way home after a night out with his wife — a modest snack and a walk on the beach marking their wedding anniversary.
There’s a minor collision with Sheppard’s bicycle. Seems that the 33-year-old Sheppard passes Bryant and perhaps cuts him off. Then things get ugly.
In an instant, Sheppard is clinging to the side of Bryant’s car as it speeds off. The car veers onto the wrong side of the road, Sheppard is smashed against some poles and a mail box. He falls off, unconscious.
Bryant drives around the corner, pulls in beside the Park Hyatt Hotel, and calls police. Other 911 calls go in. Responders take Sheppard to Mt. Sinai hospital, where he is pronounced dead.
Bryant is arrested at the scene. He is photographed in the back seat of a police cruiser. Later, he is charged with criminal negligence causing death, and dangerous driving.
Here you have the irresistible combination of fame and folly. In an instant, the career of a high profile over-achiever is on the rocks. Bryant has resigned as CEO of Invest Toronto. His hope of someday being Premier of Ontario may have vanished. Worse, a man is dead.
The media are quick to the scene. Initial interviews with witnesses paint a deplorable chain of events. One says the driver (Bryant) deliberately smashed his car into poles so as to injure the bike courier. Here’s a clip of the early TV coverage:
You can see a sympathetic picture being created of the victim. All very understandable.
Later, it comes out that Sheppard has been drinking that evening, has left his girlfriend’s house despite her wish that he not try to bike his way home. A neighbor says he was so drunk he fell off his bike. Sheppard’s girl friend calls the police, asking them to take him to his place. They refuse. One officer comments later “We are the Toronto Police, not the Toronto Taxi Service.”
More information comes out about the courier. It’s learned there are outstanding criminal charges against him in his hometown of Edmonton. Not necessarily relevant to this horrific accident. But part of the story nonetheless.
Canadians love to see a successful person get their come-uppance. “Who does he think he is?” is a favorite Canadian putdown.
There’s an outcry that Bryant will get favored treatment. Hardly seems likely to me. He’s charged within a day. An outside special prosecutor, a prominent Vancouver lawyer, is brought in. There’s talk that an out-of-province judge may be needed when the case comes to trial in October. Bryant, as Attorney General, appointed many of the judges serving on the Ontario bench.
The story’s a big one partly because it raises the compelling question of whether Bryant will ever be able to restore his reputation. One of the pieces in The Globe today discusses the question, citing the ordeals suffered by other famous names who have struggled to rehabilitate their public image.
The cases raises all kinds of issues. One of the big ones is the co-existence of bikes and cars on the same busy streets. Toronto’s been pushing to restrict car lanes in favor of bicycle routes. Is this the best way to “calm” the street? There’s a lot of animosity out there right now. Are the changes being made to our streets contributing to the increased level of road rage that’s being reported?
I think there’s one lesson we should learn from this. Initial witness reports can’t always be relied on to give a balanced picture of an occurrence. These reports painted a dreadful portrait of Bryant’s actions. But now, it seems there’s at least a possibility that Sheppard may have had a hand in the car’s erratic path.
Mistakes by witnesses, according to a legal analysis I’ve read, are one of the big causes of wrongful convictions. The witnesses we’ve heard are honestly reporting what they think they’ve seen. It may turn out that what they thought they saw is not necessarily what actually transpired.
It will be up to the lawyers to argue this out, and to the courts to render a final verdict.
The Beasts of Afghanistan August 23, 2009
Posted by Ray Argyle in Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: Afghan election, mujhadeen, The Beast
1 comment so far
The slow and difficult process of counting votes is underway in Afghanistan following an election that is said to be a test of the West’s determination to build a viable regime that will be able to fend off future Taliban attacks.
The expected charges of vote-rigging are flying, as reported here. And out in the deserts, thousands more American troops are moving into action. But according to this New York Times dispatch, “something is missing”– help from the Afghan government:
It all raises serious questions about what the American mission is in southern Afghanistan — to secure the area, or to administer it — and about how long Afghans will tolerate foreign troops if they do not begin to see real benefits from their own government soon. American commanders say there is a narrow window to win over local people from the guerrillas.
It’s interesting how different sides in a conflict make different use of the same words. We used to call mujahideen “freedom fighters” when the U.S. was financing them to fight the Russians. Now we call them “rebels” or “insurgents.” We say we’re there as “liberators.”
I was reminded of this watching TV Ontario’s Saturday Night at the Movies: a stark reminder of the bitterness of Afghanistan in a movie called The Beast.
A 1988 film, The Beast tells the story of a Russian tank crew stranded with their machine in the bleak wilderness of Kandahar during the Soviet-Afghan war.
It is decidely anti-Russian, depicting the terror-crazed tank commander as a sadistic monster willing to kill his own men as well as the enemy. It was filmed in southern California and the actors portraying the mujahideen were all Iraqis. They deliver a stunning performance in a thoroughly believable plot.
Who are the “beasts” in today’s Afghanistan? Obviously, the Taliban would nominate a different casts of players than would we. Canada has lost over 125 people there, but that is miniscule compared to the numbers of deaths the people of Afghanistan have had to endure.
If you haven’t seen The Beast, I suggest visit your video store today to see if you can rent a copy. Watching it won’t change the fact that the Taliban represent an oppressive, primitive force that will do no good for their homeland. But it may remind you that they’re human, too, and grieve for their losses.
How the government makes war on Canadians August 16, 2009
Posted by Ray Argyle in Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: Canadian High Commission Kenya, Liliane Khadour, Passport pictures, Raoul Boulakia
2 comments
Update: (Aug 21) Ms. Mohamud and her lawyers have launched a lawsuit against the Canadian government seeking $2.5 million in damages.
I’ve been trying to concoct in my head a scenario that would explain the outrageous treatment of the Canadian citizen, Suaad Hagi Mohamud, who our government threw in jail when she showed up at the airport in Nairobi, Kenya, expecting to fly home after visiting her sick mother in Kenya.
Ms. Mohamud returned to Toronto Saturday night after enduring months of mistreatment, including a week in a dank prison cell despite the fact she’d committed no crime. Her story is well known in Canada, and her return home is reported here.
I have a lot of trouble trying to understand what went on. I can imagine Ms. Mohamud arriving at the airport that evening in May, having bid her ill mother a tearful goodbye. Her sorrow at leaving her mother is relieved by her joyful anticipation of soon seeing her 12-year-old son back in Toronto.
She presents her passport. Somebody at KLM, mindful of an airline’s responsibility to see that passengers carry proper documentation, becomes suspicious. Ms. Mohamud doesn’t look quite like the picture in the passport. Her lips don’t seem the same. KLM denies her a boarding pass, and calls the Canadian High Commission.
Consular officials apparently interview Ms. Mohamud. According to a news release from the Canadian Muslim Congress, Canada’s vice-consul, Liliane Khadour (described as a Canadian of Egyptian origin) writes to Kenyan authorities:
“…We have carried out conclusive investigations including an interview and have confirmed that the person brought to the Canadian High Commission on suspicion of being an impostor is not the rightful holder of the aforementioned passport.” She then went on to encourage the Kenyan authorities to prosecute Suaad Mohamud “regarding the improper use of the passport by a person other than the rightful holder.
This is where the story loses all credulity. Ms. Mohamud backed up her passport with a driver’s license and other documents. She identified her employer in Toronto and offered to be finger-printed.
What effort did the High Commission make to confirm/deny her story? Did they check to see if the passport in question had been reported stolen? Or to see if the real Ms. Mohamud was back in Toronto?
If they thought the Ms. Mohamud before them was some African imposter, wouldn’t a few questions about Toronto have set aside (or confirmed) their doubts? Where do you shop for groceries? What school does your son attend? A phone number for someone who can vouch for you?
Instead, Canadian officials have a Canadian citizen clapped in jail. Only when desperate family and friends appeal to the media, does the case come to light. Then in comes a legal aid lawyer back in Toronto, Raoul Boulakia. He valiantly takes up her cause. He runs into nothing but government stonewalling. Finally, he arranges a DNA testing which shows Ms. Mohamud is the mother of her Toronto son.
The fiasco unwinds to its ultimate denoeument. Canada asks Kenya to drop the charges. The prosecutor can’t find the letter. At the last minute, it mysteriously shows up. Ms. Mohamud is free to go. She is whisked away in a Canadian government SUV. (It’s okay for Canada to drive gas guzzlers in Africa, apparently.)
As a final insult, Prime Minister Harper uses the case to lecture Canadians on their behavior abroad. Obey foreign laws. The government can’t always rescue you if you get into difficulty. Which conveniently overlooks the fact that it’s Canada, not Ms. Mohamud, who is the author of her difficulty.
On CBC Sunday morning, Mr. Boulakia revels that Ms. Mohamud is seriously ill. Not just tired. Suffering from either pneumonia, tuberculosis, or some tropical disease. All attested to (how deliciously ironic) by a doctor who is an expert in the effects of torture. Any or all of these illnesses she probably contracted in that Kenyan jail. How would you feel if you’d been a passenger on her homebound flight?
Speaking with admirable restraint, Mr. Boulakia refused to be drawn into discussion of possible legal action. Her health comes first, he said. You can be sure there will be a lawsuit, that it will drag on for months if not years, and that in the end Canada will end up paying heavy damages, possibly in the millions.
What a shame Ottawa can’t just own up to the error of its ways, and pay up promptly, without this charade of heavy duty legal maneuvering, all of which will enrich any lawyers retained to defend the indefensible.
Haroon Siddiqui, the Toronto Star columnist, writes today that the case is suspiciously similar to those of a number of Canadians left stranded abroad recently by the Harper government.
Siddiqui agrees that bureaucratic misdeeds lie at the root of Ms. Mohamud’s problems. But, he says, we must not let those wrongs ”obscure the systematic damage being inflicted by the Harper government” on our fundamental rights as Canadian citizens.
Is it more than coincidence that this cases follows a number of others where Canada has been less than aggressive in defending the interests of Canadians abroad? Omar Khadr. Marar Arar. Bashir Makhtal. Abousfian Abdelrazik. Or Maziar Bahari, the Canadian journalist detained in Iran.
It’s disturbing to notice that all these cases involve immigrants of color who have become Canadian citizens. Is there a mind-set in government that suggests these people are not really “Canadians”?
This is alarmingly reminiscent of Prime Minister Mulroney’s expression of condolences to India at the time of the Air India crash. He hadn’t seemed to notice that most of the victims were Canadian citizens.
Clearly, Ms. Mohamud’s ordeal is a prima facie case of bureaucratic bungling. Will anyone be held accountable? Will the government – its ministers right up to Mr. Harper — look themselves in the mirror and remind themselves, “a Canadian is a Canadian”?
D Day and remembrance of Nazi oppression June 6, 2009
Posted by Ray Argyle in Uncategorized.Tags: D Day 65tth anniversary, Germans and the Nazi Party, Nazi oppression
add a comment
The 65th anniversarycommemoration of D Day this weekend is a reminder that for all the unity and common purpose that Europe exhibits today, the wounds and trauma of history’s greatest war run deep and permanent.
The moving ceremonies on the beach at Normandy on June 6, 2009, brought together the leaders of France, Britain, the United States and Canada, in a recreation (sans the Soviet Union) of the great wartime alliance.
Prime Minister Harper spoke of the sacrifices of the soldiers who went ashore in face of withering German fire. He reminded us of the principles for which Allied troops gave their lives — freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Today, a galaxy of independent European states is working together in the great experiment that is the European Union. Voters across that continent elect members to the European Parliament, creating a federal structure not unlike that of Canada. All EU members except Britain share the Euro. The UK will probably take up the Euro after the next election there.
While every European country has distinct problems and challenges, most Europeans share a desire that their continent pursue policies that will contribute to international peace and economic progress. They want no part of a renewed Cold War, or a “clash of civilizations” with the Islamic world.
Europeans have been able to accomplish the remarkable transformation from a clutch of warring states to a peaceable, collective bloc of equal states without forgetting the evils of the Nazi regime that held much of Europe in its grip from 1933 to 1945.
The leaders who spoke at the D Day ceremonies were blunt in their remembrance of the colossal tyranny of Nazism and Fascism.
While no one said as much, it is worth remembering that Hitler and his gang did not carry out their nefarious schemes, including the Holocaust, without the willing cooperation of large numbers of the German population of that time.
Dramatic evidence of the complicity of hundreds of thousands of Germans is to be found in Daniel Goildhagen’s 1996 book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (Reed).
Goldhagen’s book, now considered a classic, abolished the myth that only the Nazi party elite, or SS members, were involved in planning and executing Hitler’s “final solution.”
Goldhagen shows that vast numbers of Germans made themselves willing partners in the Holocaust. Hundreds of thousands participated in rounbding up, imprisoning and finally, executing millions of Jews and other victims. And millions of Germans knew — and supported — what was going on.
I bring this up not to castigate a generation that has long since gone to its reward. There is a more important point to make. It is that we can remember the evils of that time without visting the sins of the fathers on their Germans of today. The vigor of the European Union is testament to this noble fact.
And if reconciliation and remembrance can occur simultaneously, it should be possible for men and women of goodwill to settle other, newer problems that confront the world in the 21st century.
The lesson of Europe is the lesson of history — that people and nations can and do change, and that because of this, optimism for the future need never give way to pessimism.
Scandal at the checkout February 4, 2009
Posted by Ray Argyle in Culture, Uncategorized.Tags: Flash, Frank, Hush, scandal sheets, Supermarket tabloids
add a comment
This being my 100th post since starting this blog, I was thinking of what to write as I stood in line at the drugstore checkout. Then my eyes lighted on the array of weekly celebrity tabloids that are standard fare at most checkouts. And one stood out: Kennedy: HIS FINAL DAYS, screamed the headline in The Globe.
What a ghoulish headline! It reminded me of the tabloids of my youth that used to be so popular in Canada. We called them “scandal sheets” but thousands of Canadians devoured the likes of Hush and Flash every week, thirsty for gossip they couldn’t find in the mainstream press.
The rags presented themselves as fearless crusaders for the public good. Mostly, they were filled with juvenile, unsophisticated diatribes on cases before the police courts, or run-ins that customers had with the management of Eaton’s department stores. The Eatons were always a favorite target.
Papers like these, including the notorious Justice Weekly, bit the dust in the 1960s and 70s as Canadians’ reading habits became more sophisticated, and mainstream papers started covering scandalous stories they’d previously ignored.
But they did do some good. Flash, put out by the former pulp publisher Lou Ruby, was the only paper willing to expose the corrupt Vancouver Police Department. Crusading reporter Ray Munro had been let go by the Vancouver Province after it refused to touch his copy. Flash carried Munro’s stories, with the result that Police Chief Walter Mulligan was forced to resign and two detectives shot themselves. One of them died.
These papers made much of the trials of men charged with homosexual crimes. Justice Weekly reported how the Toronto police department had two officers prowling the bushes of High Park, on the lookout for men making out. It referred to the old “knot hole” technique said to have been used by some men to otbain relief.
In revealing the police repression of gay men, the papers probably contributed to the public toleration that allowed then Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau to remove homosexual activity from the Criminal Code.
The granddaddy of the papers was Hush. It was started in the 1920s by Strathearn Boyd Thomson as a stock market tip sheet. In a replay of the old “horsewhip the editor” plot, Thomson was beaten up by three men, including a couple of prominent Forest Hill individuals, while enjoying an afternoon at the races. They didn’t like something he’d written. They beat the assault charges laid by Thomson, but later had to pay him off in a civil settlement.
The scandal sheets were often in trouble with the authorities. The Attorney General of Ontario once got an injunction shutting Flash down.The paper escaped oblivion only by promising to be more sedate in the future.
Today’s only equivalent of the scandal sheets is the satirical magazine Frank. It struggles from issue to issue, but still manages to insult more politicians, pr types and corporate moguls than ever felt the darts of the likes of Hush.
Ironically, one of the most successful of the scandal sheets, the Montreal-based Midnight, lives on today in the Globe mentioned above. Joe Azaria started this paper with $14 and a $1000 bank loan when the Gazette turned him down for a job. Many of his stories were simply made up, such as the one headlined, Hitler’s Daughter Found Wed to Rabbi’s Son.
Azaria went after the American market and eventually sold the paper to a U.S. publisher.
Lou Ruby shut down Flash when he realized it could no longer match the daily diet of scandal that mainstream newspapers came forth with in the 1970s. His son, Clayton Ruby, is today a prominent Toronto lawyer.
By the way, for anyone interested in the future of media, here’s a tip. The biggest selling magazines are the celebrity weeklies like the Globe that adorn supermarket and drug store checkouts. Depressing, no?
Happy holidays December 23, 2008
Posted by Ray Argyle in Uncategorized.add a comment
Wishing all my readers
and friends
the Best of the Season
What next for the Liberals? October 15, 2008
Posted by Ray Argyle in Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: Conservatives, Dion, Election, Harper, Liberals, May
1 comment so far
Stephane Dion gave his best speech of the election on election night. His English was very good, he spoke forcefully and with clarity, and he addressed the most important issue facing Canadians: the problems of the economy.
It’s an irony of politics that his remarks came in a concession speech. Had he been able to carry his message as effectively during the campaign, the results might have been less disastrous for the Liberal party.
“We will work with the government to ensure that Canadians are protected from the economic storm. My top priority will be the economy,” Dion said.
As it is, Dion has led his party to its worst defeat since Confederation — 76 seats of 308 and just 26.2 per cent of the popular vote. His future as leader seems limited to months, if not weeks.
How Dion Got There
Dion was chosen by Liberal delegates who were tired of being dictated to by the the top brass of the party. They couldn’t stomach the other choices they were given: a man who’d been the NDP premier of Ontario (Bob Rae), or a guy who’d been out of the country for 30 years and had supported the Iraq war (Michael Ignatieff).
Whenever the Liberals gather to choose a new leader, these two figures will likely be there again. Ignatieff has earned grudging respect for having twice won Etobicoke Lakeshore, and having been an effective party spokesman. Same for Rae, in Toronto Centre.
While they’ll be the leading contenders, don’t overlook other possibilities: John Manley, Frank McKenna, Gerard Kennedy, and of course Martha Hall Findlay who distinguished herself in the last leadership race.
The main features of the election are fairly clear: the Liberal stumble with Dion’s failure to sell his Green Shift; Conservative blundering on culture and youth punishment that cost them Quebec support and in the end, Harper his majority; failure of the NDP to bulk up outside of Ontario and B.C., despite winning one seat in each of Alberta, Quebec, and Newfoundland; and the disappointing finish for Elizabeth May and the Green party.
The saddest part of the election was the poor turn-out: just 59 percent, the lowest on record. It means Mr. Harper is Prime Minister on the votes of not many more than one in five adult Canadians. His 143 seats give him a stronger minority, but not his much sought after majority.
The results present another good reason to dump the first-past-the-post electoral system, in favor of some form of proportional representation. It’s not acceptable that one party gets 50 seats with 10 percent of the vote (the Bloc) and the Greens get none with 7 per cent.
Maybe that low vote was due to two things: First, there was no real reason for Harper to call the election. In doing so, he violated the principle of his own law for fixed election dates. Second, none of the party leaders effectively addressed the very real global economic crisis that Canada now finds itself a part of. If our leaders don’t offer up solutions, how can people vote for them?
Less importantly, whoever dreamt up that bizarre studio set the CBC used last night? It made Peter Mansbridge look like the condemned man seeking mercy from his Lord High Executioners, all ensconced in their elevated thrones. And over on CTV, all I could see whenever I checked in there was Lloyd Robertson’s tired face. Did Canadians really have to suffer all that and Harper too?
Fragile polls – fragile economy September 15, 2008
Posted by Ray Argyle in Politics, Uncategorized.Tags: Canadian oll results, Duon, fragile economy, Harper, May, stock meldown
add a comment
We’re beginning to see more signs that the polls in this election, as well as the economy, are pretty fragile. I’ve already pointed out some of the inconsistencies in the polling figures we’re being given. Now, Harris/Decima is beginning to backtrack on the big lead they gave the Tories last week.
After a week of rolling polls by H/D that gave the Conservatives a growing lead, they now say the Tory edge has been cut by three points, down from 41 to 38 per cent. Liberals are up from 24 to 27 per cent, and the NDP is up one point, to 16. The Greens and the Bloc are flat at nine and eight, respectively.
This is more in line with what Nik Nanos (the most accurate pollster, for my money) had been saying. He’s got the Tories up by six points, 37 to 31 per cent.
It’ll be interesting to see if a series of tough Liberal attack ads like this one, will help Dion cut further into the reported Conservative lead.
Elizabeth May got a lot of media exposure over the weekend, so we should look for an uptick in Green figures in coming days.
Her “green shift” would put a $50 a ton carbon tax on pollution, compared to the $10 proposed by Stephane Dion. But she’s impressively articulate in pointing out that the Green scheme would mean $50 billion in tax reductions for ordinary Canadians, with the loss made up by increased taxes on greenhouse gas-emitting companies.
Today, all the party leaders were roiled a bit by the alarming financial news out of the States. More evidence that the laissez faire open market approach favored by the Republicans (and the Conservatives) inevitably brings on excess and collapse. Lehman Brothers and Merill Lynch are the latest casualties of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, and the Toronto market dropped another 488 points today.
Prime Minister Harper tried to put a brave face on it. But he didn’t sound all that optimistic: ““I don’t think the atmosphere should turn to one of complete doom and gloom. I wouldn’t throw in the towel on any of this quite yet.”
If the election turns into a battle of the economy, who’ll come off looking the best able to handle tough times?
There’s an old Liberal war cry — “Tory times are tough times.” I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Liberals and the Dippers play some variation of this theme in the days ahead.
Question of the Week: No serious damages from Hurricane Ike to the Gulf refineries. Oil is down another $5 a barrel. When can we expect gasoline prices to drop?
