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		January 2006 Blog Archive https://www.maharaj.org/blog/jan06.shtml My archived blog articles for January 2006 are below. You can also click the respective links for my current blog articles, my featured blog articles, and my complete blog archives.
		The Great and the Good 30 January 2006, 02h23 We live in an undeniably post-heroic age, when it is considered the height of naivety to look admiringly towards figures from the past, much less towards those in the present. With the maturing of society, our models of leadership have rightfully moved beyond the ideal of the one great figure urging the many forward. Indeed, few of us harbour any desire to huddle in the shadow of one towering person, and we instead tend to look for leaders who understand and support our desire to exercise personal autonomy, even while we pursue the public good. Moreover, the ability and willingness of the mass-media to intrude into the personal lives of public figures means that we are all keenly aware that every hero has feet of clay. In this context, it takes a measure of courage to invite the scorn of sophisticates and admit to retaining personal heroes. As well, in the ambitious world of politics, it is deeply unfashionable to expose the humility implicit in admitting that there are those we admire, whom we neither expect nor desire to surpass. Having said all this, I confess to having my own heroes, whose ethics and examples have inspired me in my work and in my life. Three in particular stand out: Martin Luther King Jr; Lester Pearson; and Mahatma Gandhi. Though subject to all the frailties to which flesh is heir, all three were also men of integrity and ideals; all three led more by example than by command; and all three held public service to be the noblest pursuit. Today, the fifty-eighth anniversary of the assassination of Gandhi, gives me some pause for thought. King had a dream of justice, and led change in the streets. Pearson had a vision of Canada's national destiny, and led change in Parliament. Gandhi had a mission to undo imperialism, and led change as a member of the Congress Party. It is cheap and easy to deride politics. Certainly, almost no one in politics today is a King, a Pearson, or a Gandhi. But just as certainly, every King, Pearson, and Gandhi was a political actor, and that is a high tribute indeed to a much-maligned calling.
		Emerging from the Dark Night of the Soul 25 January 2006, 16h05 Political activism is the price we must all stand prepared to pay if we are to escape being tyrranised over by fools. In this vein, if we are to renew the Liberal Party, we as ordinary members must lead change from below, rather than abdicate our responsibility to any one person above. I hope that my letter today to the 35'000 Liberals on my subscritpion list may modestly further the cause of making this ideal a reality. I should be grateful for the benefit of your views and your ideas of how together we might reclaim the Party of Laurier, Pearson, and Trudeau.
		CBC Radio One Squared 25 January 2006, 04h57 Later today, I will participate in two live CBC Radio One broadcasts on the aftermath of the federal election and the future of the Liberal Party. If you have a chance to listen, do take a moment to drop me a note with your thoughts. At 08h30 (staggered nationally across time zones), I will join The Current to discuss how the Party's Big Red Machine arrived at this juncture in our history. At 12h30 EST, Ontario Today host Alan Neal and I will take calls from across the province about the coming leadership race. I will post a podcast of both programmes at my web site shortly.
		The Best of Times, The Worst of Times 24 January 2006, 14h09 Well, that was mildly disturbing. My initial thoughts before I surrender to sleep are as follows: Positive Outcomes • Although Elections Canada will not publish the figures for some time, early reports suggest that voter turnout increased substantially, for the first time in a generation. Irrespective of the parties for whom those votes were cast, they collectively represent a reassuring vote of confidence in Canadian democracy. • The Liberal Party exceeded all (admittedly much diminished from happier times) expectations of the number of seats we would garner. The Maritimes and urban Canada especially kept faith with the Party, and are becoming our new core. The margin between the Liberal and Conservative caucuses is large enough to require the Tories to take responsibility for government action and inaction, but small enough to frustrate worst excesses of the triumphant right. • The steady erosion of the separatist vote in Quebec is cause for jubilation amongst all Canadians, irrespective of political persuasion. While I should have preferred to see the Liberal Party rather than the Conservative Party as the electoral beneficiary, ultimately, Canada was the greatest winner. The fact that the Bloquistes lost seats to a federalist party in their traditional redoubt of rural francophone Québec made this result still sweeter and more meaningful. Élection référendaire indeed. Negative Outcomes • Despite a healthy percentage of seats, this election returned to the Liberal Party its second smallest proportion of the popular vote in Canadian history. • This parliament will be one of the least stable of the modern era. With the thinnest of pluralities and no natural allies in the Commons, the Conservative Party will have exceptional difficulty passing anything more than wind in the House. Another election is doubtlessly less than a year away. • In the context of a looming election, the Liberal Party's dire financial disarray may prove cataclysmic. The Party office is not releasing the figures, but it is likely to be tens of millions of dollars in debt. Moreover, with 60% to 70% of its revenues traditionally flowing from now prohibited sources (i.e. corporate contributions and major gifts), it is difficult to imagine how we will afford both a leadership convention and another national campaign within a single financial cycle. At the 2003 convention, many members of Paul Martin's inner circle proclaimed that the Party executive needed to be led by people "who are more Bay Street than Main Street" to keep the coffers full. It seems that they may have led the Party towards financial, as well as intellectual and electoral, bankruptcy. Key Issue • Paul Martin's resignation will spare the Party the bloodshed of another civil war. It may also, however, cause the leadership race to monopolise the Party's political oxygen. If the Party is to be worth leading, it needs more than a new leader; it needs root and branch reform. But I will have more on this after I have first taken some badly needed sleep.
		Saving our Skin by First Saving our Soul 22 January 2006, 20h55 In 1996, several of my university friends who had fallen-in with that most disreputable of crowds, the British Labour Party, undertook the well-worn pilgrimage of the trans-Atlantic left to work on the Democratic presidential campaign. As a result, I frequently received calls providing awed updates of the vast sums being spilled in the effort to convince the American electorate that Bob Dole was in fact the reincarnation of Richard III. During one such conversation, I enquired idly after their strategy to increase overall voter turnout. "Oh," came the cheerful reply, "we don't have one. We don't want one, either." I expected her justification to be based on efficient use of scarce resources. The cost of inducing a non-voter to register and then cast a ballot for a specific candidate is doubtlessly greater than the cost of convincing a registered Democrat to simply vote, or to convince a registered Republican to vote Democrat. To my astonishment, however, she provided a policy-based argument against expanding voter turnout. "Look," she opined, "every adult who wants to can vote, and it's not hard to do it. If you can't be bothered to vote without being pushed into it, then you must be lazy, or unintelligent, or unpatriotic. In any case, you aren't the sort of person we should be encouraging to influence affairs of state." With Canada going to the polls tomorrow, and our own voter turnout falling steadily throughout my lifetime, I can not help but reflect on her argument, and why it is such a stunning indictment of short-sighted electioneering. In my view, to be a Liberal is to believe that the wisdom of society lies in the many and not the few. Unlike the conservative parties that came before us and the socialist parties that came after us, liberal parties were the first parties of genuine mass-membership. We were the first to uphold the creed that the best judges of a nation's interest are the people themselves, and not small privileged groups, be they in the manor house or in the politburo. We were the first to strike a blow for the ideal of government by the governed. Howsoever my Party fares in tomorrow's election, in the long term, our interests and the cause of Liberalism can only be augmented by a strong voter turnout. There are certainly successful organisers in every party who argue that suppression of turnout amongst dissident voters is a legitimate political tool. They are wrong. All of us in the political process must be patriots before we are partisans, and recognise that it is better that Canadians vote against our parties than not vote at all. Irrespective of the outcome at the ballot box, the Liberal Party will have much to do on Tuesday and thereafter to rebuild, to rejuvenate, and to cast off the tyranny of low expectations. We must begin this process by remembering that we can not save our Party's skin without first saving its soul, and that the best way of retaining or returning to power is to be worthy of power.
		"If you attack the Tories with negative ads, you will destroy a mighty empire." 19 January 2006, 03h19 Pollsters are to modern democracies what the Oracle at Delphi was to the ancient Greeks. The ruling and aspirant classes consult them religiously to guide their actions in the present, in the hopes of attaining their ambitions in the future. But just as Croesus destroyed his empire by interpreting the Oracle's equivocal pronouncements according to his heart's desires, so too are political parties hostage to the hidden meaning behind pollsters' numbers. Yesterday, an SES survey commissioned by CPAC showed the Conservative lead over the Liberal Party contracting to 5%, at 37% to 32%. Given regional distributions of support, such a divide could deliver a near equivalent number of seats to both parties, with the NDP and BQ holding the role of king-makers. Simultaneously, a Strategic Counsel poll commissioned by the Globe and Mail yielded a colossal 18% lead for the Conservatives, at 42% to 24%. This would suggest not only a crushing majority for the Conservatives, but the potential annihilation of the Liberal Party as a viable parliamentary party. Both polls were conducted over the weekend, both involved sample sizes of 1'200 to 1'500, and both profess to have margins of error of less than 3% (19 times out of 20). Certainly, public opinion is volatile, but no level of volatility can reconcile these figures. My own theory is that the ease with which pollsters can gauge public opinion is tumbling faster than the public's regard for politicians. The flaw with traditional polls is that they are based entirely upon the responses of people who are willing and able to receive and respond to a pollster's questions. Given the pace of modern life, most Canadians spend precious little time at home, and are therefore largely inaccessible to pollsters contacting us by telephone. When pollsters do reach us, few of us wish to fritter away our time mumbling "strongly", "somewhat", or "not at all". Moreover, Canada's entire net population growth is now driven by immigration, placing an expanding percentage of the population beyond the linguistic reach of most pollsters. Thus, polls are frequently accurate measurements of the views of people who are utterly unlike the majority of Canadians. Whichever poll proves correct on Monday (I believe they will both shy of the mark), the pollsters will likely find a way to stretch the 1 time out of 20 to cover the results.
		The Poisoned Chalice 17 January 2006, 13h32 While it may have been inevitable, and even late in coming, the event itself was no less momentous for me. This morning, I received my first "Leadership Telephone Call" (TM). With less than a week left in the election campaign, potential leadership candidates and their surrogates are organising in earnest. At the risk of sounding uncharitable, the call I received came from an MP whose main contribution to a leadership contest would be to increase the number of candidates in, rather than the quality of, the field. Nevertheless, this is part of a trend that bodes ill for the Liberal Party. One of Paul Martin's lasting contributions to the Party's culture is the legitimisation of regicide. The Party had previously ousted ailing leaders, but had never shown the door to a sitting Prime Minister, a leader who still carried the democratic imprimatur of the national population. In the short term, Paul's strategy was successful in crowning him, but in the long term, "we but teach / Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return / To plague the inventor; this even-handed justice / Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice / To our own lips". My greatest fear for the Liberal Party is, however, not the perpetuation of internecine warfare. It is the instinct of organisers that the answer to one fallen messiah is the installation of a new one. If there is no fundamental reform to and rejuvenation of the Liberal Party itself, then no matter how talented or well-intentioned the next leader may be, that person will suffer the same fate as Paul Martin. In a democracy, we never receive the government or the Party we deserve. We only receive the government and the Party we demand and that we help to create. The next Liberal leader will only succeed if we renew our Party, and rebuild it upon liberal-democratic ideals rather than a hollow cult of personality or the empty pursuit of power for its own sake. The Liberal Party must change itself, not just exchange its leader.
		Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On 16 January 2006, 16h24 If you are feeling brave enough to spit in the eye of narcolepsy, then I have a proposal for you. Since childhood, I have nursed a fascination with Astrophysics: it has the ideal mixture of scholarship, monumental grandeur, and a physical inaccessibility that shelters hope for even the most absurd theories. At university, with the febrile passions of youth, my interests veered from the laboratory to the library, and I ultimately took my degree in the humanities. Nevertheless, I have maintained an amateur interest in the universe beyond the horizon, and I have remained in touch with my friends in white coats (no, not of the ilk that have one committed). This past weekend, some of those friends who now call Berkeley home asked if I would pass on a broad request for help with NASA's Stardust Comet Chaser programme. I could describe this as an opportunity for each of us as ordinary people to advance human understanding of the physical essence of life, the universe, and everything. I could also describe it as staring at a screen, looking for dust. Two years ago, the Stardust Spacecraft intercepted Comet Wild 2, flew through the comet's tail and coma, and collected samples of comet dust. Yesterday, a capsule containing that dust made a successful hard landing in Utah. If scientists are able to analyse the dust, we will gain a better understanding of comets, the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud (the area at the outer boundary of our solar system), and perhaps even the seeding of the conditions for life across space. However, before we can analyse the dust, we must find it. There are likely only 45 grains of dust in the 1000 square centimetre collector. Isolating the dust is akin to finding 45 ants in a football field. To do so, NASA will need an army of volunteers, using Berkeley's virtual microscope programme over the internet, to examine images from their home computers. Volunteers who succeed in isolating dust particles will be listed as co-authors in the scientific papers announcing the discovery. It may not amount to having our names graven in history, but it is nice. If you are interested in participating, please visit the volunteers' web site at Berkeley.
		Please Kick Me 13 January 2006, 11h52 I must confess to being taken aback by the extraordinarily positive reaction to my article in the National Post yesterday, on the democratic imperative to retain the notwithstanding clause. In addition to the avalanche of e-mails I received from anglophones after the article's initial publication yesterday, there has been a proportionately still larger response from francophones, as Le Devoir today published an interview with several Québecois and Ontarian MPs and with me. Most surprisingly, I have yet to receive a single adverse response, but this may be because in Canada a mari usque ad mare we tend to be pathologically reluctant to offer criticism. I strongly encourage anyone who disagrees with my position to drop me a few lines, as I have always held that it is only through an honourable and thoughtful clash of ideas that we as individuals expand our outlooks, and that we as Canadians forge a genuine national consensus.
		Notwithstanding Should Stand 12 January 2006, 14h38 Earlier today, I published an article in the National Post, pleading the case for retention of the notwithstanding clause. I will add little here to the argument I offer in the article, other than to emphasise that I believe passionately in the clause's role as the guarantor of the supremacy of popular sovereignty in Canada. I realise that Paul Martin, as my Party's leader, has staked out a contrary position. I also realise that there will be those who will argue that loyalty to our Party sometimes demands that we stifle our principles. However, I believe that we serve our Party best by serving our country first. If Paul were surrounded by people willing to tell him what he needs to know, rather than simply what they think he wants to hear, the central campaign would undoubtedly agree.
		We Rise and Fall Based on Where We Stand 11 January 2006, 03h22 As one might imagine, I had been planning to scribble a bit about the results of the English and French language leaders' debates. I should, however, pre-empt myself (as it were) to congratulate the Western Standard for becoming the first publication to take cognisance of the fact that, for some time, the Liberal Party platform has been inadvertently available at the Party web site. The platform was (and is) not visible on any Party web page, but the central campaign prematurely loaded the platform document file into a server that is freely accessible to anyone with internet access, a web browser, and a modicum of ingenuity. Now that it is in general circulation, I have placed a copy of the platform here. In a democracy, parties rise and fall based on where they stand. It is, therefore, all the more regrettable that the PMO has still not released the Party platform, even as the shadow of their blitzkrieg advertisements creeps longer over the campaign. Update: It seems that the Western Standard had sources other than the Liberal Party web site, and obtained the platform from elsewhere. They deserve full marks for upholding the all but lost art of investigative journalism, though it does raise the question, is the legendary "mole" of the central Liberal Party campaign more than just idle chatter?
		They Know What We Are Thinking 09 January 2006, 17h02 The leaders' debates are nigh, and the blogosphere is awash with comments, predictions, and halting analysis. However, as I traditionally seek to be untraditional, I thought I might swim somewhat against the currents today. Clearly, the strategic needs of all three national party leaders are obvious, and merit little new comment. Paul Martin, whose campaign is losing ground not just nationally but also, most seriously of all, in the Liberal heartlands of Ontario and anglophone Québec, must step out of his bubble to avail himself of this final national audience. He will need to articulate a coherent vision of the public good that would justify re-election, while resisting his advisors' unworthy impulse to simply vilify or marginalise his adversaries. Canadians are not the fools that some political organisers take us for, and we will always choose hope over fear if the better option is offered to us. Stephen Harper, who currently enjoys the fickle favour of poll momentum, will find himself the object of much fear and loathing (again). He will need to retain a positive posture and project the airs of a statesman, if he is to continue to shed his persona as the creature who hides under small children's beds at night. He will also need to win support amongst the legions who abhor the prospect of an untrammelled Conservative majority, by convincing us that such an outcome is too absurd to be contemplated (at least before 23 January). Jack Layton will stand in the shadow of the 2004 election, when progressive voters, recoiling from the mere thought of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, fled the NDP en masse to support the Liberal Party. Layton will need to persuade Canadians that a vote for the NDP is a vote to restrain whomever forms government, rather then a vote for a Conservative majority. He will also need to practice self-restraint over his own appetite to play to the cameras with intellectually vacuous hucksterism. Canadians want leaders who are more interested in making a difference than in making a scene. Will any of the three succeed in these objectives? According to the "talking points" that have long been written and are already circulating across the country from the three national campaigns (hours before anyone has even entered the debating hall), their respective leaders exceeded their wildest hopes, while the other leaders were pale shadows of men by comparison. Talking points are meant to give campaign volunteers their opinions, and to help them effectively simulate spontaneous reaction and original comment consistent with those opinions. Telling people what they saw and heard, and therefore what they think, is a critical instrument in the dark arts of spin. In the leaders' debates, the operative assumption is that fewer people will actually hear the debates than will hear and read about them. Thus, he who controls post-debate chatter has the power to re-write history. I have but one plea to anyone who has read this far: whatever your political persuasions, keep an open mind, watch the debates, draw your own conclusions, and never let anyone tell you what you think. If whoever becomes Prime Minister after the debates is remotely worthy of Canada, he could not possibly want anything less of Canadians.
		Death, Diction, and the Desert 08 January 2006, 20h39 The Paris Dakar Rally is perhaps best known in Canada for commentator Toby Moody's eccentric lilt, as he grapples with the pronunciation of non-anglophone names. However, this year's Rally is well worth viewing even with the sound turned off. At the midway mark of the eight-thousand kilometre race, the returning champion, France's Stephane Peterhansel, finds himself spending the rest day a trifling thrity-two seconds ahead of his Mitsubishi team-mate, Luc Alphand. Crossing ergs, dunes, mudflats, and some of the most punishing terrain on the planet, the Paris Dakar Rally is not for the faint of heart, or indeed the sane of head. What I find to be its most attractive feature is that the majority of its participants are amateurs: the race democratises the opportunity to die a glorious if meaningless death in a land beyond the back of beyond. Really, why would anyone do anything else?
		Curse of the Kennedys (UK Edition) 07 January 2006, 18h52 Alas, Charles Kennedy, Leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in the United Kingdom, has had the calamitous lapse in judgment to admit to suffering from human frailties. After telling the nation that he was dealing with a drinking problem, an addiction that plagues vast numbers of MPs in the UK, Canada, and around the globe, Liberals and the broad citizenry of Britain lined up to support him. Moreover, not a single member of his caucus had the courage to oppose him in the leadership convention he called to allow anoyone to democratically test his support. However, a raft of the same MPs who would not face him in public nevertheless assailed him in private, and made it impossible for him to carry on as leader. Although I did not know him well, on the modest number of occasions that Charles and I met, most recently when he invited me to address his party’s policy committee at one of their Blackpool conferences, I found him to be a decent man. Even though I am a near teetotaller, nothing about Charles' admission lowers my opinion of him. Would that I could say the same for some of his political assasins.
		Lies, Damned Lies, and Polls 06 January 2006, 19h00 The media consensus appears to be that the end is nigh for the Liberal Party, and all that remains is for the cadavers to be properly dressed for internment. It will surprise no one that I think this is all a little premature. The Liberal Party faced a far more serious deficit in the polls in 2004, at roughly the same juncture in the campaign, and the election results did little to cheer either the Conservative Party or its morticians. However, if history does indeed repeat itself first as tragedy and second as farce, the question that the Liberal Party’s war room will now face is whether to “go negative” against Stephen Harper and the Tories. I know that the overwhelming consensus in the central campaign is to do precisely this: “it worked last time, so why wouldn’t it work this time?” goes the argument. From a practical perspective, though it may seem counter-intuitive, the fact that this tactic succeeded in 2004 is precisely why it is less likely to succeed in 2006. The more Canadians hear about how terrifying Harper is, the more they become inured to this message. From an ethical perspective, a negative campaign is an affront to the public good and to all the better traditions of Liberalism. I wrote an article for the National Post during the 2004 campaign, calling on Paul Martin to resist the siren song of those who would put short-term gain ahead of the national interest. I believe the article remains relevant today.
		Casting the Runes 05 January 2006, 03h10 I imagine this is a milestone of sorts: my first posting at an altogether ungodly hour of the morning. I understand from my colleagues in the Liberal Party's national campaign that La Presse will release polling figures from Ekos later today, showing the Conservatives pulling ahead of the Liberal Party nationally, with standings of 36.2% to 30.4%. I will be looking over the numbers as they arrive, but I suspect that the campaign is about to change radically.
		Damned with Much Praise 04 January 2006, 15h00 Tomorrow morning, CBC Radio One’s The Current will host a debate on how we can restore vision to Canadian politics. Anna Maria Tremonti will moderate, with Adam Daifallah speaking for the Conservatives, Judy Rebick for the NDP, and me from a Liberal perspective. The programme was taped earlier today, as the broadcast is staggered nationally across time zones. I found the discussion generally constructive, with only stray wisps of partisan cant leaking out of each of us. Unfortunately, it provided me with a rather unwanted education in ways to damn an adversary. I had already been exposed to the usual rhetorical lexicon wielded in political debates: mock pity (e.g. "I am distressed that someone as apparently intelligent as you has been reduced to making such transparently false arguments."); high dudgeon (e.g. "Never in all my years of being shocked and horrified have I been as shocked and horrified as I am now, putting aside the last time I was shocked an horrified."); abject misrepresentation of another’s views (e.g. "So what you are saying is that we should all eat babies, just like you do."). In the midst of our debate, however, Judy pulled out a rather exotic weapon: tactical praise. As a partisan, one can survive almost any jab from an opponent, but wily praise can inflict a wound that will not heal. I will post a podcast of the programme at my web site soon after the broadcast. Update: Online streams of the debate are now available at the CBC Radio One website. The gods of the editing room smiled on me, and Judy's velvet jabs ended up on the cutting room floor!
		Differentials 03 January 2006, 14h45 I trust no one will begrudge me a minor posting to vent frustration I have been trying for some time to obtain a differential for my 1979 MGB roadster, to replace the spider gears that I appear to have ground into metal fragments from driving around hairpin turns with perhaps excessive effervescence. After waiting three months for a prospective differential to arrive, I have learned today that I will have to begin looking anew. I have always adhered to the MG owner's maxim, that it is better to push an MG than drive a modern car. It is a good thing I do: I suspect I may end up spending next summer behind and under my car more than in it.
		Blogosphere Bites Blogger 02 January 2006, 12h35 I must confess that the extent to which blogs have stormed the barricades of Canada’s political discourse took me unawares. With the unpremeditated immediacy of a casual conversation, they have encouraged their authors to write with an unguarded pen. With the untrammelled nature of the internet, they have exposed the resultant literary indiscretions to the world. With the permanence of online archiving, they have made embarrassing words impossible to withdraw. Mike Klander, arguably now the most famous Executive Vice-President in the history of the Liberal Party of Canada in Ontario (and whom, I should mention in the interests of disclosure, I have known well for a decade), has of course recently lived through this in the most glaring manner. However, his case also displays a still more interesting effect of the blogosphere, the community of bloggers, on media dynamics. The mainstream media had been aware for some time of Mike's speculations about Oliva Chow's, ahem, paternity; there had been a few minor paragraphs scattered hither and yon in the Toronto press. However, it was not until a persistent crescendo of online scribbling rose up in the blogosphere that the media proceeded with its avalanche of coverage, transforming the matter from a local issue of sophomoric humour to a national preoccupation affecting the party leaders' agendas. It seems that the blogosphere has discovered an ability not only to place items on the public agenda, but also to drive those items from the back page to the front page.
		A New Year's Blogging Resolution 01 January 2006, 16h30 New Year's resolutions, like second marriages, very much symbolise the triumph of hope over experience. Nevertheless, I have thrown caution to the wind, and resolved that I will put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) more regularly, and begin a weblog. Will my blog be inspiring, profound, and fundamentally life altering? Alas, only if you lead a relatively sheltered life. But at least it will be reasonably regular. In particular, I hope you will feel free to contact me if my writings over the coming months elicit a reaction from you other than narcoleptic shock. Although have not yet attached a message board to my blog, I sincerely welcome your thoughts.