Archive for: September 2006

There can be little doubt that, in the hours leading up to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s historic appearance before a Senate committe today, a lot of Grits were wondering, “when’s the other shoe going to drop?” Well, what fell wasn’t a shoe at all, it was an axe. For the unelected layabouts in the Senate with a cushy job-for-life, it was the axe.

When word first got out that the PM was going to make history by directly addressing the Senate to see to it that the Upper House, so infested with Grit cronies, didn’t bugger about with the Federal Accountability Act, musings began to fly fast and furious that ol’ Steve was gearing up to hit the unelected ne’er do wells right where it hurts. The musings were bang-on for once.

Saying that “Years of delay on Senate reform must come to an end,” Harper swung the hammer and uttered the news that must have turned the blood of most Senators to icewater: not only is he looking to limit Senate terms to 8 years (currently, the lifers can lollygag about in the Red Chamber for up to 45 years), he will also bring in legislation this fall to create a process to elect senators! And he’s not willing to piss around about it either:

The government, hopefully this fall, will introduce a bill in the House to create a process to choose elected Senators… The government isn’t looking for another report. We are seeking action… The Senate must change and we intend to make it happen.

In other words: STFU and either get with the program or get the hell out of the way:

…[Grit] Senator Jim Munson said critics have said Harper would “like nothing better than to fight an election on the backs of the Senate.”

“Well, don’t give me the opportunity,” Harper replied.

The prime minister suggested the government might go it alone on reform if the Senate balks.

“What there would be political consequences on, senator . . . is if the population were to become thoroughly convinced that any kind of Senate reform were impossible,” he said.

“You know, given that the government is committed to Senate reform, I think we would obviously be looking at how to proceed.”

Let the hysterics from the left begin. The howls will go up across the land that Harper is Americanizing the Senate. That’s utter bullshit, and Harper was ready for it:

“I wondered when that particular line would come up,” Mr. Harper said. “I don’t think the Americans have any particular monopoly on democracy. I think it’s as Canadian an idea. In fact, it’s an idea now shared by a growing number of countries in the world, and virtually all now elect their legislatures.”

The Senate is, without a doubt, one of the most undemocratic and anachronistic institutions remaining in this country. The sooner the Tories take a chainsaw to this rotted oak, the better it will be for us all.

Gee whiz, I’ll bet nobody saw this one coming. Nope, nobody at all. Right outta the clear blue sky, it came. Absolutely shocking. Never woulda guessed this one in a million years. Utterly inconceiveable. Okay, so the sarcasm’s getting a little thick here, even by my standards. But with “news” like this, which is really news to no one, can you blame me?

I suppose I should get to something resembling a point right about now. Okay, here it is: the Tories’ Federal Accountability Act, one of the Harper government’s cornerstone promises during the last election, is on it’s way to the Senate. That’s right, the Grit-dominated Red Chamber. And all the Librano$ senators are promising to give it a long, rough ride, pick it to death and defang it as much as possible rather than let it pass in it’s current form:

The Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee resumes hearings tomorrow on the Conservatives’ sweeping Federal Accountability Act, a 250-page behemoth aimed at cleaning up government in the wake of the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

Harper, who has declared the act the top priority of his fledgling minority government, wants it through the upper house and enacted by Thanksgiving.

But Senator Joseph Day, the Liberals’ lead critic on the act, predicts there’s no way it will be passed quickly or in its current form.

“I’m fully expecting there will be a significant number of amendments,” Day said.

Golly, what are the odds? Just what, exactly, are the odds that the Senate flunkies of the very Grit party whose malfeasance made the act necessary in the first place would ever want to see this pass? Answer: NONE. They will stall and obstruct to the bitter end ANYTHING that might put a leash on them on that day that they dream of, the day they get their hands on the public till again.

They aren’t fooling anyone, least of all the PM:

“We got this through the House of Commons in the spring because people want to put an end to the old way that the last government did business in Ottawa and they want to do it forever . . . And that’s why the Liberal Senate should stop dragging its feet and should pass the Federal Accountability Act.

But they won’t. They’ll stall, and drag it out as long as they can in the hope that J. Q. Canadian will get distracted by some other issue and forget all about. And keep forgetting. After all, look at how many times has that worked so well for the Grits before.

If this doesn’t kill off arguments against an elected Senate, I don’t know what will.

“When the RAF flew over, the Germans ducked. When the Luftwaffe flew over, the Allies ducked. When the Yanks flew over, everybody ducked.” – often-repeated quip by soldiers in WWII

It’s an old, sick joke; probably better left forgotten. Nonetheless, it’s been clattering around in Canadian skulls like some malignant revenant, taunting us, for the past few days now.

In case you’re one of the four people that haven’t heard yet, our boys in Afghanistan were struck early Monday morning by yet another “friendly fire” airstrike by the Americans. The tally: 1 dead, over 30 wounded. And while it is tempting (damn tempting) to rail against the Gang Who Can’t Shoot Straight, there are a few things that we should keep in mind before getting our national panties in a bunch.

Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, the Canadian in charge of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, made one good point:

“We do have procedures. We do have communications. We do have training and tactics and techniques and procedures to mitigate the risk, but we can’t reduce those risks to zero.”

No, you can’t. Combat is Murphy’s Law run amok. A day in the field is ten hours of trying to find the enemy and ten minutes wishing you hadn’t. Pick a cliche. They all have the same grain of truth to them: in battle, sometimes shit just happens.

But just how much coincidence are we prepared to accept? This latest incident brings the proportion of Canadian fatalities in Afghanistan due to American air to ground fire to nearly twenty percent. Of all Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, nearly one in five were killed by American FW aircraft. These are supposedly the most advanced combat aircraft the world has ever seen, with sophisticated friend-or-foe identification systems.

So what the hell keeps screwing up? Even our men in the field, who normally maintain a professionalism and discipline respected worldwide, are beginning to chafe at the American Air Farce’s apparent myopia:

“We should spray-paint a big circle around us, with an arrow that says ‘Not here, asshole,’ ” one soldier said, packing up his sleeping gear.

Soldiers go into combat expecting that some of them are going to die; it’s just part of the job. But when nearly a fifth of your fatalities are being inflicted by those who are supposed to be on your side, it begins to erode morale. You start feeling like George Patton… with a French division behind you.

You would think that, even at altitude, a pilot could be expected to tell the difference between Taliban and Canadians travelling with a bunch of armoured vehicles that the Taliban just don’t use. But perhaps there is a more disturbing question here. It’s this:

Those A10s didn’t just come from nowhere. Ground troops weren’t set to move in and begin the assault for over another 30 minutes. Who the hell called in the airstrike?