Afghanistan, Environment, and Hockey
In the past week a number of events have occurred. I'll start with the minor ones and then later on come to the big ones. Danny Williams is continuing his rant against the Conservatives, arguing Canadians need to defeat them. While I can understand fully why he strongly dislikes Stephen Harper, my worry is his combative stance will ensure Newfoundland & Labrador doesn't get anything, whereas if he was willing to negotiate he might at least get something. Gordon Campbell in BC has generally stayed away from fed bashing and it has paid off for BC. He has been successful at getting things for BC from Chretien, Martin, and Harper so I think if there is any stance to use in federal-provincial relations, it is this one. It appears the BC Liberals will support a 29% pay raise. While I agree that BC politicians are underpaid, such a raise all at once seems a little much in my view. A more modest one and have annual increases tied to inflation would make sense. Today here in Toronto I saw a massive march for legalizing marijuana on Yonge Street. Although I have never smoked marijuana, and never plan to, I do support its legalization since much like alcohol and tobacco, you have fewer problems, when you make something legal, but heavily regulated as opposed to illegal, which only allows the black market to thrive.
Now on to the big issues of the week which were the environment, Afghanistan, and the Shane Doan controversy. In the case of the environment, I've made my views known, but the fact Suzuki, Gore, and the UN are criticizing the plan may be partially why the Tories have taken a fall in the polls. People may not understand the intracacies of climate change, but the above people tend to have more credibility with the average Canadian than Baird or Harper do. My advice for the Tories would be to accept the revised Clean Air Act, the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois crafted. On Kyoto Protocol, I would emphasize it is a long-term plan and 2012 is only the first phase. Mention that we will try to get as close as possible, but will likely not meet our targets, however in order to meet our international obligations we will agree to even greater targets in the second round by however much we missed our targets in the first round. If we miss them by 10%, then we have to agree to a reduction that is 10% more than what others agree to in the second round to compensate for failing to meet our targets in the first round.
On Afghanistan, my position remains we should pull out at the earliest date. The reality is things like this happen in war zones, which is why we should avoid military action unless absolutely necessary. In addition the Tories totally botched the handling of this. Rather than realizing the seriousness and agreeing to launch an immediate inquiry and in the interim have all prisoners return to Canada until they can be assured that the Afghan officials will fully comply with the Geneva Convention, they treat this as a non-issue and give contradictory statements. In addition I take great offense to calling those who oppose the mission as being sympathizers of the Taliban. This is a classical Republican tactic that has no place in this country. I fully support our men and women in uniform and don't support the Taliban, but I don't believe military action is the proper solution. We all agree on what we want as a final goal, which is a free and democratic Afghanistan, but we differ on the methods of achieving this. The Tories should learn to respect that reasonable people can disagree on what is the best approach here. In addition Canadians are far less militaristic than the United States for the simple fact we are a small country who relies on goodwill from the rest of the world. The United States is large enough that they can alienate everyone without reprecussions, whereas in Canada we don't have that option. In addition it seems the Tories want to adopt a pre-Pearsonian foreign policy and for good or for ill, I don't think most Canadians are really interested in doing this. In fact the Pearsonian foreign policy may be only 50 years old, but it is the foreign policy that the vast majority of us have only known and come to identify with and more importantly it has been working fine, so there is little need to change it.
On the Shane Doan controversy, I think this is an example of politicians being totally out to lunch. Everyone I've talked to and almost every comment on the forums is criticizing this decision and this includes many who are left of centre. I believe parliamentarians should focus on more important issues than some insult Shane Doan may have said. I totally abhore insults towards Francophones, but this is only an allegation, not something that is proven and I am one who believes in the idea of innocent until proven guilty. In addition people say nasty things they normally wouldn't in the heat of the moment. What is important is if he did make those remarks, he apologize. Considering he has team players and friends who are Francophones, I highly doubt he is anti-Francophone.
Anyways I will be blogging less over the next few months as this is probably the nicest time to be outside here in Toronto. It is no longer cold, but it is not hot and humid either so I want to enjoy it while it lasts.
Now on to the big issues of the week which were the environment, Afghanistan, and the Shane Doan controversy. In the case of the environment, I've made my views known, but the fact Suzuki, Gore, and the UN are criticizing the plan may be partially why the Tories have taken a fall in the polls. People may not understand the intracacies of climate change, but the above people tend to have more credibility with the average Canadian than Baird or Harper do. My advice for the Tories would be to accept the revised Clean Air Act, the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois crafted. On Kyoto Protocol, I would emphasize it is a long-term plan and 2012 is only the first phase. Mention that we will try to get as close as possible, but will likely not meet our targets, however in order to meet our international obligations we will agree to even greater targets in the second round by however much we missed our targets in the first round. If we miss them by 10%, then we have to agree to a reduction that is 10% more than what others agree to in the second round to compensate for failing to meet our targets in the first round.
On Afghanistan, my position remains we should pull out at the earliest date. The reality is things like this happen in war zones, which is why we should avoid military action unless absolutely necessary. In addition the Tories totally botched the handling of this. Rather than realizing the seriousness and agreeing to launch an immediate inquiry and in the interim have all prisoners return to Canada until they can be assured that the Afghan officials will fully comply with the Geneva Convention, they treat this as a non-issue and give contradictory statements. In addition I take great offense to calling those who oppose the mission as being sympathizers of the Taliban. This is a classical Republican tactic that has no place in this country. I fully support our men and women in uniform and don't support the Taliban, but I don't believe military action is the proper solution. We all agree on what we want as a final goal, which is a free and democratic Afghanistan, but we differ on the methods of achieving this. The Tories should learn to respect that reasonable people can disagree on what is the best approach here. In addition Canadians are far less militaristic than the United States for the simple fact we are a small country who relies on goodwill from the rest of the world. The United States is large enough that they can alienate everyone without reprecussions, whereas in Canada we don't have that option. In addition it seems the Tories want to adopt a pre-Pearsonian foreign policy and for good or for ill, I don't think most Canadians are really interested in doing this. In fact the Pearsonian foreign policy may be only 50 years old, but it is the foreign policy that the vast majority of us have only known and come to identify with and more importantly it has been working fine, so there is little need to change it.
On the Shane Doan controversy, I think this is an example of politicians being totally out to lunch. Everyone I've talked to and almost every comment on the forums is criticizing this decision and this includes many who are left of centre. I believe parliamentarians should focus on more important issues than some insult Shane Doan may have said. I totally abhore insults towards Francophones, but this is only an allegation, not something that is proven and I am one who believes in the idea of innocent until proven guilty. In addition people say nasty things they normally wouldn't in the heat of the moment. What is important is if he did make those remarks, he apologize. Considering he has team players and friends who are Francophones, I highly doubt he is anti-Francophone.
Anyways I will be blogging less over the next few months as this is probably the nicest time to be outside here in Toronto. It is no longer cold, but it is not hot and humid either so I want to enjoy it while it lasts.
posted by Monkey Loves to Fight at 6:56 PM
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