Words of Wisdom

Now that the Harper government has announced its intentions to have a probe into the Mulroney affair, hopefully this will spell the end of the opposition parties' calls for a full inquiry. As I've already said, the amount of money required to put on a full inquiry far outweigh the amount of money involved. There is a possibility that the integrity of the Office of the Prime Minister is at stake, and that is something to be taken very seriously; however, I do not believe even that important principle can justify the costs of the inevitable witchhunt that an inquiry into Mulroney's dealings with no doubt devolve into. And I am not the only one. Jean Chretien, the most successful Liberal in the past twenty-five years, has this to say in his book:

For the opposition parties, calling for a public inquiry is usually an easy way to dig up dirt or keep a hot issue on the front burner after they've exhausted their own supply of facts and questions...Very few of these inquiries in my experience have every been of much use, and those few were valuable only because they didn't turn into television soap operas. If there's a problem, you should face up to it and make a decision. If you need more information, you can always ask the department to give you a full report. If you need an independent point of view [RGM - as Harper is seeking] you can ask someone to carry out an investigation without a lot of fanfare...But it is the nature of public inquiries to get turned into show trials, kangaroo courts, and political entertainment. The rules of evidence don't have to be respected as they are in a court. There's not the same right of due process or even the same process to protect the innocent during the investigation into a possible wrongdoing. Scores of reputations are shattered for no good cause, people lose their jobs merely because their names happened to be mentioned in passing.

So there you have it. The Liberals have got Harper to compromise somewhat from his earlier stance. They should let this be the end of it.

Meeting Mister Mulroney

On Monday night Tasha and I had the opportunity to listen to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney speak about his life and career in politics. It is the type of meeting that I always try to attend, as there are only 7 living Prime Ministers of Canada, and each of them has a wealth of knowledge and insight that they can impart. The experiences they have are unique and incredibly interesting to hear, such as Mulroney's ability to speak of his work with Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, and Margaret Thatcher during the height of the Cold War and the Canadian role in ending the vile apartheid regime in South Africa. He has a canny sense of humour that all good politicians are able to wield, usually the self-deprecating kind. I know that there are many Canadians who still revile Mulroney for the imposition of the GST and a myriad of other policies, just as there are those who despise Trudeau for the policies that he initiated. Such is the life in Canadian politics.

There was much that I found myself nodding in agreement with throughout Mulroney's hour-long speech. When he spoke of the undoing of the bizarre moral equivalence that was held up between the United States and the Soviet Union, I harkened to Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy, and how removing that false equivalence brought forth a tidal wave that ultimately caused the implosion of that decrepit regime under its own weight. Listening to him recall speaking with Helmut Kohl about the future possibilities of reuniting the two Germanies was equally fascinating. Kohl's belief--proven correct--was that television would be the impetus in awakening the democratic spirit of the people of the German Democratic Republic, as East Germany was called. Seeing the colour and choice that the outside world offered to West Germans would create an untenable pressure against the oppressive East German regime that caused the Berlin Wall to come down. It is but one of many examples of the power of democracy and political openness to transform societies.

There was one major area in the field of foreign policy that I could not find myself agreeing with Mister Mulroney's position, however. He discussed the lead-up to the Persian Gulf War, and spoke of his pressure on Bush 41 to get a UN Security Council resolution or else Canada would not participate. This obviously implies that, in the absence of such a resolution, the American-led ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 is less just or legitimate than the original Gulf War. The senior Bush did have a point when it came to the problems in occupying Iraq post-Saddam (as current events readily demonstrate) but that is not the thrust of what Mulroney was discussing. His willingness to give individual countries a veto over Canadian foreign policy is an abdication that I cannot support. Recall also that the United States at least believed that it could get the 9 votes required to pass a resolution in the UNSC in early 2003, but the threat of the French veto scuttled all of that. I respect Mulroney's position that the cover of UN legitimacy is important, but it is not all-important and I question the legitimacy of the idea that a 14-1 vote can prevent authorization and passage of a resolution if that 1 vote is from France or Russia or China (or even the US and UK). This is the great paradox created by the structure of the Security Council, and I believe that Mulroney, like so many Canadian Prime Ministers both before and after him, is on the wrong side of the fence in his view that the absence of a UN Security Council resolution in all circumstances is justification for the continuance of an intolerable status quo.

After the speech, there was a book signing and now my copy of Mulroney's Memoirs features his autograph. There were a lot of people, so there was no opportunity to get a photo or have any real discussion. I did manage to have enough time to thank him for playing a key role for Canada in ending the Cold War and apartheid, and not much else other than a handshake. It was, all told, a very nice experience and so now I'm hoping that Jean Chretien will have recovered sufficiently in order to do a similar appearance.

Sunday Night Quick Hits

• The press around Brian Mulroney's upcoming memoirs, including the CTV special tonight, has given me a new sense of respect for the former PM. Unfortunately, despite all my studies in Canadian political science and political history, I've never gotten a real lesson on his era, and I'm too young to remember what Canadian life was like under his leadership. Obviously I live with the GST and NAFTA, but I've never fully known why he is so hated by so many people. He is to liberals what Pierre Trudeau is to conservatives: a man to be loathed for all eternity for undermining their vision of Canada. Also, my respect for Trudeau has been consistently diminishing for some time now, and this past week hasn't helped my perception of him much.
• In two weeks I'll be seeing the Montreal Canadiens in action for the first time since 2003. Really looking forward to it, even if it's just pre-season hockey. At least I'll get a look at Carey Price before he (hopefully) makes the team.
• Roger Federer is simply too good.
• The number of rapes on Canadian university campuses during the first week of school is deeply disturbing and highlights the prevalence of male violence against women. So prevalent is it that first-year students aren't even surprised by it anymore. From the TorStar today: Jenevieve Narbay, 18, and Victoria Goutsouliak, 18, both in their first year at York, said they're not surprised by the attacks. "It's such a big university and it's happened here before," Goutsouliak said. "We've become desensitized to it."
• As always I encourage people from the Maritime region to get involved with the White Ribbon Campaign - Halifax. I've got some promotional materials and would appreciate some help with distributing them and setting up a larger-scale organization. All email inquiries can be sent to: whiteribbonhfx@eastlink.ca
• Make sure to pay attention to the Petraeus Report tomorrow. Its impact on the American direction in Iraq will be huge, and likely to shape policy for the next few months, possibly resulting in drawdown of American forces there.