Jack Layton knows the purr points

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 12:05 AM - 6 Comments

NDP leader Jack Layton and his MP wife Olivia Chow adopted a black cat named George, who was previously owned by Chow’s former aide Nathan Rotman. Rotman was allergic to felines and finally had to give up the cat after consuming many antihistamines and still coming to work stuffed up.

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Olivia Chow’s pre-budget town hall

By Mitchel Raphael - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 11:43 PM - 0 Comments

Last week, Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow held a town hall meeting to inform her constituents about what was going on with the budget and to brainstorm.

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What a recession feels like

By Philippe Gohier - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 11:41 PM - 1 Comment

For many, life during the recession of the early ’90s is a distant, rapidly fading memory. And for anyone under 40, it’s the equivalent of a natural disaster in a far away place: You know it happened, and you know that it made many people’s lives miserable, but there’s no visceral connection to it, all of which makes it hard to truly grasp what life was like in the midst of it—and, by consequence, what might await Canadians this time around.

To describe the Bank of Canada’s economic forecast for 2009 as grim would be an understatement. The Bank expects the recession to peak sometime in the next six months, with no tangible rebound until 2010. “Our exports are down sharply,” Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney told reporters last week, “and domestic demand is shrinking as a result of declines in real incomes, household wealth and confidence.” In all, Canada’s GDP will shrink by 1.2 per cent in the coming year, he predicts. And yet, there was a sprinkle of good news amidst the bad: 2010 could turn out to be a banner year, with growth projected to settle at an “above potential” 3.8 per cent. In the meantime, 2009 will bring both the best and the worst of the recession. The wave will crest but it will also break—just like it did in 1992.

So what was Canada like in 1992? In a word: unemployed.

After steady increases in 1990 and 1991, the unemployment rate hit an eight-year high in 1992: a whopping 11.2 per cent for the year and a peak of 11.8 per cent that November. (An economic think tank suggested the rate would have topped out at 13.7 per cent had 345,000 people not given up altogether on their search for work.) Making matters worse, those who lost their jobs had few prospects for a quick turnaround: the average unemployment spell across the country was 22.6 weeks, a hefty 23 per cent increase from 1989. Ontario—and especially its crucial manufacturing sector—was among the hardest hit, accounting for more than 70 per cent of the country’s job losses. In all, 123 manufacturing plants shut their doors in 1992, leaving 250,000 highly-paid workers out of a job. One restaurant owner in Kitchener was overwhelmed with job applications after posting an want ad for a full-time cashier—at $6.50 an hour. “When you have 290 people apply for one position,” he said, “it makes you wonder what’s happening.” By the time the recession was officially over, 1.6 million Canadians were out of work and another 2 million were on welfare.

At the time, many blamed free trade for those staggering unemployment numbers. A Gallup poll taken in the summer of 1992 found that only four per cent of Canadians supported Canada’s free trade agreement with the U.S. and an overwhelming majority opposed its expansion into NAFTA. On both sides of the border, politicians opposed to the agreement gained significant traction. Jean Chrétien’s Liberals were handed a crushing parliamentary majority in 1993 partly on a promise to re-negotiate NAFTA. (The federal government would later consecrate the deal without pressing for any notable changes.) But no political figure benefited from the debate more than Ross Perot, whose quixotic campaign for the White House was epitomized by a plea to voters to listen to the “giant sucking sound” symbolizing flight of U.S. jobs toward Mexico.

Most of all, though, the wave of unemployment prompted a massive loss of confidence in the Canadian economy. An Angus-Reid poll of residents in 16 countries found Canadians were among the most pessimistic in the world: only 68 per cent expected the economy to improve in the next decade, while 27 per cent figured things would get worse; 60 per cent said they were struggling to get by and 65 per cent were afraid they wouldn’t be able to support themselves in their old age. Even those whose businesses were making money during the recession were aware of just how grim the prospects were for the majority of people. An industrial auctioneer interviewed by Canadian Press in late 1992 said he was making record profits selling off the remnants of failed businesses, but conceded that it was coming at a heavy price: “The last recession cut out the fat. This is cutting out the heart.”

Many of the same trends are re-emerging this time around. Last month, Canada’s consumer confidence level continued its three-month slide, dropping even lower than it did during the early ’90s. “I think what we have on our hands right now,” says Pedro Antunes, the director of national economic forecasting at the Conference Board of Canada, “is very much confidence-led decline.” According to the Conference Board’s report, Canadians have not only seen their financial situation worsen over the past six months, they expect things to become worse still in the near future. Another poll taken earlier this month found 23 per cent of Canadians are worried for their jobs and 33 per cent believe they wouldn’t be able to find work should they be laid off.

Meanwhile, the debate over NAFTA has made a brief reappearance and there are fears—unfounded, so far—that Barack Obama’s presidency could mean a return to protectionist trade policy south of the border. On the employment front, Canada’s job numbers have gotten tangibly worse over the past year. The unemployment rate, currently at 6.6 per cent, hit a three-year high in December—and there are worrying signs it will soon climb much higher, led by a steady decline in Canada’s, and especially Ontario’s, manufacturing sector. (TD Economics predicts Canada could shed as many as 251,000 jobs before the year is over.)

Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf expects 2009 to be the year the underlying institutions that make up the global economy undergo a seismic shift. “Some entertain hopes that we can restore the globally unbalanced economic growth of the middle years of this decade,” Wolf wrote in a recent column. “They are wrong. Our choice is only over what will replace it. It is between a better balanced world economy and disintegration.” Should Wolf’s predictions prove true, it could very well signal an end to the boom-bust cycles that have characterized the economy for the better part of the last century and a half. But if the final year of the last severe recession is a reliable indicator, twelve months of massive unemployment, knee-jerk protectionism, and widespread panic may, in the end, not change much at all.

Turns out they elected Demi and Ashton

By Paul Wells - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 10:51 PM - 35 Comments

I pledge to keep my last meal down, although this video doesn’t make that job easy:

We spent the weekend in Washington DC, playing tourist, and I can report that the Obama presidency’s first week was exciting even to some people who aren’t insufferably twee. But they didn’t make it into the video.

Populist genius (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 10:35 PM - 0 Comments

The Star explains how, and why, Liberal Dan “Gas Man” McTeague devotes so much of his time to figuring out how much gas is going to cost tomorrow.

Oddly effective thesis statement: “Dan McTeague is a member of Parliament who doubles as a human coupon.”

Populist genius

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 5:04 PM - 14 Comments

Though perhaps not the most consequential of issues, a rookie MP looking to make a name for oneself could obviously do worse than to take on the scourge of modern air travel—see CTV, CBC, the Globe and Mail, Regina Leader-Post , Montreal Gazette, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province.

Next up for human rights revolutionary Jim Maloway, a bill to outlaw that impossible-to-open plastic packaging.

'Not all 15-year-olds are ruddy-cheeked cherubs'

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 2:43 PM - 8 Comments

Despite a joint scolding from Bob Rae and Paul Dewar, that was the closest Peter Kent came to addressing the child soldier issue on Question Period today.

Throne Speeches through the ages: Pinch us, we must be dreaming!

By kadyomalley - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 11:27 AM - 30 Comments

Attention fellow political junkies!

Did you know that the full text of each and every Speech from the Throne – from 1867 to last November – is now perusable online, thanks to the Library of Parliament? ITQ certainly didn’t – not until just this minute, when she was casting about the parliamentary website trying to figure out whether the subsequent debate is, in fact, optional – another story for another post – when she stumbled upon it by purest providential googlechance. Could be the start of the long hoped-for digitalization of a century and a half of parliamentary debate? Let a thousand – or however many volumes there are – e-ified back issues of Hansard bloom!

Anyway, as the countdown begins to tomorrow’s festivities, feel free to dig into the entrails of past parliamentary kickoffs to see just how many times the federal government has pledged to do away with the scourge of interprovincial trade barriers – and feel free to post any particularly delicious excerpts in the comments.

(Yes, the fact that ITQ is this excited by her discovery is almost certainly cause for concern.)

Obama and Afghanistan: a Canadian conundrum

By John Geddes - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 11:08 AM - 15 Comments

A narrow focus on the upcoming budget over the past few days has temporarily drawn media attention away from other political stories. Maybe that’s why Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s comments this past week on Afghanistan got so little attention.

Before his interview with Sun Media’s Kathleen Harris seems too stale to warrant close attention, take this last pre-Throne Speech, pre-budget moment to consider it in context. To my eye, his answers look like the beginning of bid by Harper to put in the play the supposedly inviolable 2011 date for withdrawing Canadians troops from Afghanistan.
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What if the Governor General gave a Speech from the Throne and nobody came?

By kadyomalley - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 17 Comments

Not because they didn’t want to be there, mind you, but because at press time, the crack communications team over at PMO still hasn’t gotten around to cranking out a media advisory or itinerary for the ritual that is about to unfold.

Luckily, the official proclamation has to be published in the Canada Gazette, so we know that the Speech itself will be delivered some time around 1:30 p.m, and should wrap up by 2:00 p.m or so at the latest. Since Throne Speech Days, thank goodness, don’t tend to run on Harper Standard Time – anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour behind schedule – that should be enough to figure out the basic timeline for the pre- and post-Speech events, from the official arrivals to the ensuing scrums.

There. Was that so difficult, PMO? I know y’all have been working overtime to systematically remove every element of surprise from the upcoming budget, but still. (And no, it doesn’t count if you’ve already had Kory Teneycke give the networks a heads up on the schedule for logistical purposes — for heaven’s sake, this is the Speech from the Throne. It’s hardly classified or confidential information, and we all need to know when to show up.)

CEOs gone wild: John Thain's $1.2-million office reno

By Scott Feschuk - Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 6:53 AM - 8 Comments

New York magazine reports that “former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, the man once credited with ‘revolutionizing’ the New York Stock Exchange and Goldman Sachs, is the new most-hated man on Wall Street. Across the board this week, coverage of his $1.2 million office redecoration and his subsequent forced resignation was infused with disgust.”

How exactly do you spend $1.2-million on an office reno?

• Sent assistant to Staples and she just sort of went crazy.

• Might have something to do with the Olympic-sized swimming pool.

• Trap door in front of desk was fine as is, but pit needed new snakes.

• Show me one CEO on Wall Street whose office doesn’t have a Starbucks.

• Instead of buying boom box for couple hundred bucks, insisted on Continue…

What's the difference between Ishmael Beah and Omar Khadr?

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 9:48 PM - 30 Comments

That’s Chapter One in a new book I’m working on called “Questions Dan Gardner Asked Two Years Ago.”

Shine brighter

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 8:21 PM - 6 Comments

Further to the text of Michael Ignatieff’s speech in Toronto on Friday, no longer must you use your imagination.

Video, courtesy of CanuckPolitics.com, after the jump. Continue…

World o Declinism

By Andrew Potter - Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 12:42 PM - 15 Comments

This story was briefed on page A14 of the WSJ yesterday. I didn’t see it anywhere else. 

LOS ANGELES — Cleaner air over the past two decades has added nearly five months to average life expectancy in the U.S., according to a study.

Researchers said it is the first study to show that reducing air pollution translates into longer lives.

Between 1978 and 2001, Americans’ average life span increased almost three years to 77, and as much as 4.8 months of that can be attributed to cleaner air, researchers from Brigham Young University and the Harvard School of Public Health reported in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

Some experts not connected with the study called the gain dramatic.

“It shows that our efforts as a country to control air pollution have been well worth the expense,” said Joel Kaufman, a University of Washington expert on environmental health.

A little more light reading

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 11:26 AM - 3 Comments

A few links passed on by someone far better schooled in these matters.

Peter MacKay, then-minister of foreign affairs, Aug. 28, 2006. Speech entitled “Child Soldiers: Changing the Reality on the Ground.” A couple excerpts.

The situation in Sri Lanka is another example of children bearing the brunt in conflict and of the destabilizing consequences of not protecting children’s rights. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been recruiting children as soldiers for over 20 years, of which 40% are young girls. Canada’s new government moved quickly to list the LTTE as a terrorist organization to help choke off funds they had been extorting from Canadians to fund their activities. There is much blame on both side of this conflict with (as is so often the case) children sadly caught cruelly in the cross fire.

A robust legal regime is in place, a series of Security Council resolutions has established a framework for implementation, and a broad array of international and non-governmental organizations are working ever more closely to provide protection for children caught up in armed conflicts. Yet the nature of the abuses faced by children in dozens of conflict zones remains unthinkable. Concerted action is required by actors at all levels to prevent and respond to violations of the rights of children. An investment early in conflicts will pay huge dividends in future abuses. Continue…

From the Words We Don't Often Find Ourselves Typing In That Order department: Hurray for Jason Kenney!

By kadyomalley - Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 8:39 AM - 75 Comments

… as well as his ministerial staff, bureaucratic advisors, departmental officials both at home and abroad — really, pretty much everyone who played a part in making sure that this made-for-Canadian-TV story had a happy ending.

From today’s Globe and Mail:

Afghan woman given refuge in Canada

Masoda Younasy’s first mistake was her unwillingness to conform to the strict rules of conduct governing women in Afghanistan.

Her second was being fearlessly – some might say recklessly – willing to talk about her disdain for customs that render many Afghan women the chattel of their fathers or husbands.

For her perceived insolence, Ms. Younasy was forced to flee the country where her grandfather ruled as king for four decades. She arrived in Toronto Friday from Islamabad after obtaining an exceptional three-year permit to live and work in Canada.

Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney signed the papers during a recent trip to Pakistan and India. It is the first time since the Conservatives took office in 2006 that this kind of protection has been extended to someone outside the country. [...]

“My relations are calling me [to say] that they will kill me because they saw the newspaper and they saw my picture,” Ms. Younasy said in December. She had called the Globe from the home of a friend in Kabul, where she was in hiding.

“I got a message from my uncle,” she said. “He told me that this time we are not going to leave you alive.”

Then her family in Kandahar got a call from the Taliban, who were also looking for her. And one of her best friends, who had occasionally worked with her at the construction company, was gunned down.

Afghan experts said there was no way to help her. Too many supporters of the regime of President Hamid Karzai are trying to get out of the country as the Taliban regaincontrol over vast swaths of land.

Mr. Kenney’s staff office was asked for advice. Three hours later, a spokesman for the minister called to say Mr. Kenney was moved by the story and was trying to figure out what he could do to secure Ms. Younasy’s safety.

Bureaucrats suggested issuing the permit that is sometimes given to foreigners who are already in Canada on a temporary basis and must remain for humanitarian reasons.

But Ms. Younasy had to get to Pakistan to get the documents, and she was not answering her phone or her e-mail. It took four days for her to resume contact with Canadian officials and to learn the good news.

During that time, her uncle had called the home in Kabul where she was staying to ask whether she was there. “My mom told me change your location and don’t tell anyone where you are. So I changed my location and now I am in a hotel,” she explained when she resurfaced.

It took a few days and some wrangling to get her a visa for Pakistan. Finally, on Monday, she flew to Islamabad to obtain the documents that allowed her to get on the plane to Canada Friday. [...]

As divided as Canadians may be over Afghanistan, our foreign policy and what our role in the world should be, I have a feeling that, if asked for an example of the kind of thing that the government should be doing in our name, most would point to the above and say, “More like this, please.”

UPDATE: For more background on the remarkable Ms. Younasy, check out the original Globe interview in which she mused about someday running for the presidency.

A little light reading

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 2:30 AM - 1 Comment

As a general rule, English majors probably shouldn’t be wading through international law and war crimes legislation without adult supervision.

Nonetheless, here is Article 4 of the United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, signed and ratified by Canada in 2000.

Armed groups that are distinct from the armed forces of a State should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the age of 18 years.

States Parties shall take all feasible measures to prevent such recruitment and use, including the adoption of legal measures necessary to prohibit and criminalize such practices.

In our more immediate realm there is our own Parliament’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which includes the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which includes among its definitions of war crimes the “conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities.”

Authenticity Watch: East and West

By Andrew Potter - Friday, January 23, 2009 at 11:16 PM - 4 Comments

“a cross between a North Korean mass rally and Cirque du Soleil” — Charles Krauthammer on the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics. 

Meanwhile, back at the inauguration:

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill made the decision a day before Tuesday’s inauguration to use a previously recorded audio tape for the broadcast of the ceremonies

Here’s my take, back in the summer:

Hard to believe it needs saying, but it is spectacularly hypocritical of Americans to be accusing another country of being mean by privileging beauty over talent — even as China’s manipulations are reported by news anchors who are themselves pumped so full of Botox they look lobotomized..

The End of Yoo (and other microposts)

By Andrew Potter - Friday, January 23, 2009 at 11:00 PM - 6 Comments

Apologies for the very light blogging this week. In principle, I agree with Tyler Cowen that that a blog should be updated every day. I try to stick to that during the workweek (but don’t always succeed)  but I was under the gun more than usual this week.  So what’s been happening?

Well, last weekend I saw Gran Torino, which I loved.  The reviews have been somewhat mixed, and I can see why not every digs it. But this part from the WaPo review nails it, I think:

But “Gran Torino” isn’t the work of just any filmmaker. It’s a Clint Eastwood production, and as such it overcomes its only-in-the-movies conventions to exude its own undeniable, and uniquely potent, brand of authenticity. There’s a gentle, elegiac grandeur to “Gran Torino,” even at its most self-conscious and highly pitched, that befits Eastwood’s transcendent place in American culture.

Later in the week, once the Obamania had calmed down a touch, I checked in with Ian Verner Macdonald’s defamation suit against Warren Kinsella. It wrapped yesterday — The Citizen was the only paper that covered it every day; Katie Daubs did an outstanding job for us, though I think even she would admit that the sparring between Doug Christie and Warren Kinsella gave her some dynamite material to work with.  

I also went to the Public Policy Forum breakfast yesterday that featured Professors Van Loon, Russell, and Juillet debating the coalition and the constitution over coffee and croissants. Kady live-blogged it; my take on things (as well as the open letter released today by the 35 academics) will appear in tomorrow’s edition of the Citizen, in the Weekend Observer pages.  

Finally, this is the most interesting thing I read today — thanks to noted constitutional Democrat Norman Spector for the link:

And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration’s lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.

House is back next week. Should be fun.

Why M.B.A.s don’t mind York’s strike

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 23, 2009 at 8:03 PM - 8 Comments

When contract faculty and teaching assistants went on strike at York University in November, most students had their classes abruptly cancelled. Most—but not all. It turns out that while the Toronto university was willing to disrupt the programs of graduate and undergraduate students pursuing everything from arts to engineering, when it came to the more lucrative business and law schools, the students come first.

About 50,000 York students have been growing increasingly upset at the possibility of losing a year of studies due to the strike. But M.B.A. students in York’s Schulich School of Business and law students at Osgoode Hall Law School—who pay at least three times the average undergraduate tuition fees—have been attending classes, strike or no strike. The university has also deemed that graduating nursing students and international undergraduate exchange business students—who pay three times more than Canadian undergrads—are too important to be inconvenienced. “Students are frustrated that they’re seeing their friends at Schulich and Osgoode going back to class,” says Hamid Osman, president of the York Federation of Students. “They’re wondering, ‘Why isn’t that me?’ ”

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The four faces of Nortel’s descent

By Steve Maich - Friday, January 23, 2009 at 8:01 PM - 2 Comments

It’s over. Yes, there are court hearings, and restructuring negotiations and yet more layoffs ahead, but all of that is epilogue. Nortel Networks is in bankruptcy, and for the millions of Canadians who went along for the nauseating ride, it’s over.

When the news landed last week, it didn’t exactly qualify as a shock. Recessions cull the weakest from the herd first, and it’s been clear for some time that Nortel was sickly and lame. For the past five years, the company has made news for only three reasons: management turmoil (four CEOs in eight years); firing workers (approximately 65,000 jobs cut since 2001); and accounting scandals (five plus nine equals . . . what again?). But for the thousands who’ve already lost their jobs, the many more who surely will, the shareholders whose savings were vaporized bit-by-bit, and the universities that rely on research funding from the company, the anticipation did little to cushion the blow.

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‘All About Eve’ and ‘American Idol’

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, January 23, 2009 at 8:00 PM - 1 Comment

American Idol is back, but does anybody really care about the contestants? The most controversial and consequential thing about the new season is going on at the judges’ table, where the show has introduced its first new permanent judge: Kara DioGuardi, a 38-year-old songwriter who has written hits for Britney Spears and Pink, has a habit of calling people “honey” or “sweetie,” and has already been dubbed by the Village Voice as “the hottest anybody’s ever looked on Idol.” It’s the equivalent of adding a younger, cuter character to a long-running television hit, and as TV fans of all genres know, it’s a gambit that can either revitalize a show or ruin it. The biggest question of this season’s American Idol is not who’s going to win; it’s whether Kara will be a brilliant new addition or the character who finally makes the show jump the shark.

Though contestants on American Idol can sometimes become popular characters (Scott Macintyre, the blind contestant, is already on his way to becoming a cult figure), no characters are more important to the show than the judges, who are like the regular cast members of a scripted show. Each judge has a clearly defined personality: Simon Cowell is the vicious, sarcastic one, Paula Abdul is the clueless ditz, and Randy Jackson keeps the more eccentric characters grounded. The fun of most episodes is not the middlebrow song choices, but watching the judges react to them, and experiencing the famed tension between Simon and Paula. American Idol is really the story of three people with nothing in common who are forced to sit together and take orders from a dork like Ryan Seacrest; it’s not a music show, but the most popular sitcom around. When Idol tried adding new characters in its prime, it just seemed to be ruining a winning formula; an early attempt to add a second female judge, radio host Angie Martinez, lasted just five weeks.

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Ignatieff tells Harper to stop playing games

By Philippe Gohier - Friday, January 23, 2009 at 7:20 PM - 14 Comments

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff’s “listening tour” made a stop in Toronto on Friday so Ignatieff could, er, stop listening and spend a minute (or 30) getting a few things off his chest. Ignatieff’s speech—burdened as it was with the title of “Moving Forward from Hardship to Hope”—contained few clues as to the Liberals’ intentions with regard to Tuesday’s budget. And the hints it did contain had been dropped many, many times before: “we accept the temporary necessity of deficits”; “I will ask some tough questions”; “if the government fails, I am ready to lead”; “broad-based tax cuts [will] dig us deeper into deficit.” But what it lacked in evidence of a clear alternative to the Conservatives’ budget, it more than made up for in attacks against the Harper government.

Speaking at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel, Ignatieff repeatedly characterized the Harper government’s handling of the economic crisis as petty politicking. The intentional leaking of budget details, another of which occured while Ignatieff was speaking, was “irresponsible and costly to the economy,” he said. And the tax cuts the budget is widely expected to include are little more than “gimmicks.” In all, Ignatieff used the word “games” four times to describe Harper’s governing style. “I’m in politics to stop that kind of politics.”

Of course, swearing off “games” when you’re in politics is like swearing off alcohol when you’re a bartender. It’s entirely possible—perhaps even laudable—but it requires a level of discipline few Liberal politicians have shown so far. To be successful, Ignatieff will have to convince Canadians the blame for Parliament’s dysfunctional turn lies squarely on Harper and the Conservatives while at the same time ensuring the Liberals elevate their own discourse. Polls show the first task might be underway; according to a recent Nanos survey, 30 per cent of Canadians could not name a single attribute they like about Harper. The second task, however, will undoubtedly require more work, no matter how low he insists the bar has been set.

A child, but apparently not a child soldier

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 23, 2009 at 6:59 PM - 45 Comments

Stephen Harper explains his stance.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday he rejects the premise that Omar Khadr was a “child soldier” because the young Canadian was not a member of an army when he was accused a lobbing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier…

Harper’s assertion that the government’s “legal position” is that Khadr was not a child soldier is bound to anger supporters of Guantanamo’s youngest and only Western detainee.

“My understanding of international law is, to be a child soldier, you have to be in an army,” he said in the pre-taped interview.

This, interestingly enough, would seem to finesse the position of this government’s own lawyers.

Indeed, Mr. Harper’s position would also seem to finesse that of his own government. Consider this from Laurie Hawn, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Defence, during debate on June 9 of last year. Continue…