31/10/06, Colin Brown & Rupert Cornwell, The day that changed the climate

Climate change has been made the world's biggest priority, with the publication of a stark report showing that the planet faces catastrophe unless urgent measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Future generations may come to regard the apocalyptic report by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, as the turning point in combating global warming, or as the missed opportunity.

As well as producing a catastrophic vision of hundreds of millions fleeing flooding and drought, Sir Nicholas suggests that the cost of inaction could be a permanent loss of 20 per cent of global output.

That equates to a figure of £3.68 trillion - while to act quickly would cost the equivalent of £184bn annually, 1 per cent of world GDP.

Across the world, environmental groups hailed the report as the beginning of a new era on climate change, but the White House maintained an ominous silence. However, the report laid down a challenge to the US, and other major emerging economies including China and India, that British ministers said cannot be ignored.

Its recommendations are based on stabilising carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere at between 450 and 550 parts per million - which would still require a cut of at least 25 per cent in global emissions, rising to 60 per cent for the wealthy nations.

It accepts that even with a very strong expansion of renewable energy sources, fossil fuels could still account for more than half of global energy supplies by 2050.

Presenting the findings in London, Tony Blair said the 700-page document was the "most important report on the future" published by his Government. Green campaigners said that at last the world had woken up to the dangers they had been warning about for years.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, and likely next Prime Minister, assumed the task of leading the world in persuading the sceptics in the US, China and India to accept the need for global co-operation to avert the threat of a global catastrophe. He has enlisted Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned green evangelist, to sell the message in the United States, with Sir Nicholas.

While the Bush administration refused to be drawn on the report, US environmental groups seized on it to demand a major change in policy. "The President needs to stop hiding behind his opposition to the Kyoto protocol and lay a new position on the table," said the National Environmental Trust, in Washington. The Washington Post said in an editorial that it was "hard to imagine" that the "intransigence" of the administration would long survive its tenure. "Will [Mr Bush] take a hand in developing America's response to this global problem," it asked, "Or will he go down as the President who fiddled while Greenland melted?"

Sir Nicholas's report contained little that was scientifically new. But British ministers are hoping his hard-headed economic analysis will be enough to persuade the doubters in the White House to curb America's profligate use of carbon energy.

In the Commons, Environment Secretary, David Miliband, confirmed that ministers were drawing up a Climate Change Bill, which would enshrine in law the Government's long-term target of reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. But he declined to go into any detail.

Mr Blair said the consequences for the planet of inaction were "literally disastrous".

"This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime," he said. "We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto - we simply don't have the time. We accept we have to go further [than Kyoto]."

Sir Nicholas told BBC radio: "Unless it's international, we will not make the reductions on the scale which will be required."

Pia Hansen, of the European Commission, said the report "clearly makes a case for action".

"Climate change is not a problem Europe can afford to put into the 'too difficult' pile," she said. "It is not an option to wait and see, and we must act now."

Charlie Kronick, of Greenpeace, said the report was "the final piece in the jigsaw" in the case for action to reduce emissions. "There are no more excuses left, no more smokescreens to hide behind, now everybody has to back action to slash emissions, regardless of party or ideology," he said.

The CBI director general Richard Lambert said a global system of emissions trading was now urgently needed as a "nucleus" for effective action. "Provided we act with sufficient speed, we will not have to make a choice between averting climate change and promoting growth and investment."

30/10/06, Jens Glüsing, Working Class Hero, Wall Street Darling

LULA'S BRAZILIAN VICTORY

Despite accusations of corruption, the poor love him. On Sunday, that support translated into a landslide election victory for Brazilian President Lula da Silva. He now has reform on his mind.

[photo AFP, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was re-elected on Sunday.]

The old-fashioned Jobi Bar, located in the affluent Leblon district in Rio de Janeiro, is normally a quiet enough place. Aging Bohemians sip their "chopp" in the small beer garden and check out the behinds of pretty girls who pass by. Most of the regulars have only ever seen political violence in television reports about foreign countries.

That changed, though, one evening shortly before Sunday's second round of the Brazilian presidential elections. Outside the Jobi, a group of flag-waving supporters of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva bumped into a few ladies who were campaigning for the opposition candidate Geraldo Alckmin. The opposing groups began to shout furiously at one another -- no insult was spared.

In the heat of combat one of Alckmin's supporters forgot her good manners and bit off a piece of the finger of one of Lula's supporters. The victim was rushed to hospital and the police are now investigating the incident.

A divided land

The "Battle of Jobi," as it was mockingly described in some newspapers, seems at first to be nothing more than a bizarre campaign anecdote. But it also illustrates a dangerous tendency in the political conflict within Brazil: The biggest country in Latin America is divided as never before.

"The victory belongs to all of Brazil," was the slogan on the T-shirt worn by Lula, when he appeared before the press on Sunday evening following his resounding victory with 61 percent of the votes. Lula wants to heal the rift that has been left behind by the election campaign.

For four weeks, the two opposing candidates had goaded their supporters into a messy mud-slinging contest. Alckmin repeatedly bombarded the head of state with dossiers and accusations of corruption, who in his turn countered with polemical attacks on the "elite" who wanted to use all the means at their disposal to prise the "working class president" out of office.

Lula courted the voters on the left, who, in the first round of the election, had vented their disappointment by drifting to other candidates. Alckmin wooed the poor in the North and North East, who still identified with Lula despite the corruption accusations.

The former governor of São Paulo, a stiff technocrat and an Opus Dei follower, had surprised many by forcing the incumbent into a run-off. However, in the second round he seemed to run out of arguments: No one wins an election in Brazil with corruption claims alone, especially not against the charismatic Lula. The poor worship the president almost as a saint. They see the former shoe cleaner and street vendor as one of their own.

Social mobility for many poor

He hasn't disappointed them. Millions of poor Brazilians have been able to move up into the lower middle class under Lula and the unfair income disparity -- only some countries in Africa have a wider gap between rich and poor than does Brazil -- has improved during his term in office.

Lula is now reaping the rewards of his orthodox economic policy. Inflation is under control and Brazil's currency, the Real, has never been stronger. Alckmin seemed to offer no convincing alternatives when it came to economic and social policy. And that became all too apparent at the ballot box. Even Wall Street had hoped for a Lula victory. The banks have never earned as much as during his government and the São Paulo stock exchange broke record after record.

Before he took office in 2002 the banks viewed the former trade unionist as a communist Beelzebub, now they praise him as a role model. His promotion to the darling of the financial markets is an irony of history: It was Lula of all people, the one-time bogey man of the International Monetary Fund, who paid back Brazil's debts.

With its rigid budgetary policies his government was able to create the conditions for a reduction in interest rates. The reduction was particularly beneficial for the poor; they pay for most of their purchases in installments. At the same time Lula freed up money to invest in vast social programs. In the north and northeast, entire villages now live on "Bolsa Familia," a welfare aid program.

"More on their plates and in their pockets"

"For the first time the poor have more on their plates and in their pockets," said Lula in his victory speech in São Paulo. The tension of the past weeks has dissipated, the president hadn't seemed so relaxed in a long time. He even answered a few questions from journalists: During his second term Lula also wants improve what has been a difficult relationship with the press.

Above all the president pledged clean relations with congress. In the future he wants to take over negotiations on alliances with other political parties. During his first term he delegated coordination with opposition politicians to a trusted friend, who then used a number of backhanded tricks to secure majority votes for the government.

Politicians were bribed, entire political parties were living off illegal donations from the government. When the scandal broke, many of the president's closest colleagues were forced to resign. Lula maintained that he knew nothing of his colleagues' intrigues, although even his supporters didn't really accept that.

For his new term Lula has announced a long overdue reform of the political system. "Our party system has failed" says his former press secretary Ricardo Kotscho, who has just published a book about his experiences in Lula's government. The fact that there is no party whip means that for every parliamentary vote, the president has to look for a new majority. "The president is a hostage of the system," says Kotscho.

[photo AFP, Hundreds of supporters gathered in Sao Paulo to celebrate Lula's landslide re-election victory.]

Now Lula is looking for a broad alliance with the other parties in congress. In particular, he would like to have the centrist party PMDB more closely involved with the government -- the influence of the Worker's Party (PT) would in turn be reduced. "Lula is heading for a government of the middle," says Kotscho.

Good news for Washington

Lula's re-election is good news for Washington: US President George W. Bush -- hated in Latin America more than any other world leader -- values Lula as a reliable negotiating partner. Relations between Brasilia and Washington are better than ever.

Brazil is seen as a bulwark against the regional allure of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Although Lula has avoided an open confrontation with the Venezuelan, Chávez's tactics of embracing Brazil has not worked. What were initially good relations between the two heads of state have cooled off quite a bit. Lula is said to be "irritated" by Chávez, according to those close to the Brazilian president.

The Brazilian is seeking good contacts with all governments in the region. In the conflict over the nationalization of the gas industry in Bolivia, which particularly affects Brazil, the level-headed Lula avoided an escalation. "Some reactionaries would prefer to go to war against Bolivia," he said. Now the two governments have agreed to negotiations.

Yet in front of the Jobi Bar in Leblon there are still signs of coming storms. On Election Day some pensioners gathered near the bar wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Lula No!" The bar's owner had to place a guard at the entrance to protect his left-wing regulars from being attacked.

The competition is happy to take advantage of the dispute over the bitten finger. The Escondidinho bar, just a hundred meters away from Jobi, is offering "little fingers à la vinaigrette." According to the owner, the dish of sausages in vinegar is "selling like hot cakes."

24/10/06, Tenille Bonoguore, Humans are ‘bankrupting' the environment

The world's natural ecosystems are being degraded at a rate unprecedented in human history, and it's the first-world behemoths doing most of the damage.

An international report compiled by the World Wildlife Fund has studied the impact of each nation on the environment as well as changes in the world's biodiversity. Both parts of the report deliver bad news.

Despite having enough natural resources to be an “ecological debtor,” Canada came fourth on the list of nations putting the heaviest burden on the environment.

The only countries with a worse ecological footprint — the per capita measurement of a nation's ecological impact — were the United Arab Emirates, thanks almost entirely to its carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, the United States and Finland.

“Canadians are probably eight times more profligate than the planet can actually sustain. We'd be in trouble if the rest of the world acted like us,” said botanist and zoologist Steven Price, who is senior director of conservation policy for WWF Canada.

Not only do industry and households waste energy, but the nation also wastes natural resources, says Mr. Price, and that is adding up to disaster.

In a bid to make more people understand the situation, the WWF is shying away from the traditional terms of environmental reporting and instead has tied the report to one bottom line: humans are withdrawing too much from the world's reserves, and the resource bank is running out.

“We're creating an ecological debt and over time we have to pay. Nature's capital is falling,” Mr. Price said.

The report states that impact on the planet has more than tripled since 1961, and society's footprint now exceeds the world's ability to regenerate by about 25 per cent. Reliance on fossil fuels continues to grow, and climate-changing emissions now make up 48 per cent of that global footprint.

The carbon dioxide footprint from the use of fossil fuels was the fastest growing component of world change, increasing more than ninefold from 1961 to 2003.

The other index in the report, the Living Planet Index, shows a rapid and continuing loss of biodiversity, with populations of vertebrate species declining by about one third since 1970.

“Effectively, the Earth's regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand – people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources,” the report states.

Even with moderate projections of population, food and carbon dioxide impacts, the WWF says that humanity's resource demand will be double the Earth's capacity by 2050.

The change had to come from both industry and individuals, Mr. Price said.

“We are bad performers. We overheat our homes in winter, and over-cool them in summer,” he said.

“There are greener choices out there. There are ways to buy green energy. You can buy wind power and solar power right now. If we make these greener choices and if we use less, we can drastically reduce that footprint. Ultimately, if we don't show the financial benefit of these, we'll miss one of the greatest drivers of change.”

The average per-capita environmental footprint is 2.2 global hectares per person (a hectare with world-average ability to produce resources and absorb wastes). Canada averages 7.6 gha, while the United States uses 9.6 gha.

One saving grace, however, is Canada's vast wealth of resources. Thanks to its massive bio-capacity, the WWF says Canada does have plenty up its sleeve and, unlike most nations, has a positive ecological deficit and puts very little stress on its freshwater systems.

The footprint of a country includes all the cropland, grazing land, forest, and fishing grounds required to produce the food, fibre, and timber it consumes, to absorb the wastes emitted in generating the energy it uses, and to provide space for its infrastructure.

18/05/06, Gary Dimmock, RCMP officers in a union?

The suit was settled in 2004.

In the sworn affidavit filed Wednesday, the constable said the women, including herself, met with RCMP Commissioner Guilliano Zaccardelli.

The commissioner was told in writing the women continued to suffer harassment even after they came forward.

Still, according to the constable's affidavit, "nothing satisfactory came out of that meeting" with Zaccardelli.

Laura Young, the lawyer representing the RCMP officers, said Wednesday: "It is time to shine the light of public scrutiny on the RCMP's labour relations practices."

"The members of the RCMP deserve the same protections as other police forces across the country," the lawyer told the Ottawa Citizen on Wednesday.

Every major police force in the country has a union.

In another case revealed in Wednesday's legal filing, one of the country's top anti-terrorism officers, Const. Pete Merrifield, was demoted after he expressed his political ambition -- namely that he wanted to run as a candidate in the last federal election.

In another case revealed by the affidavits, Nina Iwanowich, a commercial crime corporal in Toronto, detailed the times that Chief Supt. Benedetto Soave would touch women, including the day he allegedly grabbed her "ass".

Ottawa Citizen

Margaret Somerville Bits & Pieces

21/10/06, Arthur Schafer, The nature of ethics, the ethics of nature, (Source).
29/04/03, Margaret Somerville, The case against "Same-sex marriage", (Source).


21/10/06, Arthur Schafer, The nature of ethics, the ethics of nature, (Back).

The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit
Margaret Somerville
Anansi, 270 pages, $18.95

Margaret Somerville doesn't do wishy-washy. It's no surprise, therefore, that this book -- the CBC-Radio Massey Lectures for 2006 -- is chock-a-block with sharp-edged opinions.

A sampler: Somerville is opposed to gay marriage. She wants abortion back in the Criminal Code. Neither single people nor homosexual couples should be permitted to adopt children. Embryonic stem-cell research and therapy should be banned. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are inherently wrong. She opposes technologies that would dramatically extend the length of time we live and she's against the use of modern genetics to enhance the intelligence of our children.

This package of views is fairly standard for someone who is, like Somerville, anchored in Catholic natural-law tradition. It also corresponds closely to the prescriptions favoured by Bible Belt Protestantism.

To persuade us of the correctness of her views, Somerville adopts what she calls a "secular-sacred" moral framework. Nature and the natural are "sacred," she claims, and will yield a harvest of "innate fundamental principles." These, in turn, will serve us as absolute guides toward the moral truths she is propounding. Her declared goal is to define a way of doing ethics that will appeal to almost everyone, thereby producing "a shared ethics."

The methodology she champions works something like this: Begin with the assumption that we live in a harmonious universe, one which has been designed according to a benevolent plan. God or Nature has things under control and we will only create chaos if we disturb the natural order. Our job as human beings is to understand our place in the grand scheme and then keep to it. Once we understand "where we fit in the cosmos," we will understand the "meaning of life."

Evolutionary biologists, of course, tell a somewhat different story: The universe consists of atoms bouncing around in the void, and it is only through a process of natural selection and genetic mutation, not divine planning or "intelligent design," that order makes its appearance. Accordingly, if we accept the findings of biological science, then knowing what the world is like does not tell us automatically how the world ought to be. Indeed, one doesn't need to be a Darwinian to recognize that malarial mosquitoes and devastating earthquakes, though part of nature, are scarcely carriers of inherent goodness.

To see what's wrong with Somerville's "secular-sacred" ethics, a bit of historical perspective will assist. Throughout the medieval period, most Europeans were confident that the divine right of kings was an absolute principle of nature. Slavery was seen as the natural condition of black people, and subordination of women to men was recognized as exactly what nature intended. That is, appeals to the sanctity of nature, like appeals to the will of God, can be made to yield any conclusion that dominant groups wish to defend.

Somerville's argument that same-sex couples should be denied the right to marry -- because they do not represent "a naturally, inherently procreative relationship" -- would lead us, by parity of reasoning, to deny marriage to opposite-sex couples who are infertile, or to couples who intend to remain childless. These absurd implications of a "secular-sacred" ethics suggest that there is something wrong with the moral compass it provides.

Somerville's anti-gay-marriage argument is also dangerous because it puts us on a slippery slope. Somerville herself favours civil union for gays, but religious fundamentalists, in both Canada and the United States, having labelled homosexuality as "unnatural," then use this label to justify the criminalization of all homosexual conduct. Small "l" liberals might agree with conservatives that the vagina is, sexually speaking, the "natural" place for penis-insertion; but if consenting adults wish to explore other orifices then where's the harm? Pierre Trudeau -- himself a believing Catholic -- made precisely this point when, as justice minister (in 1967), he eliminated Canada's sodomy law, arguing that "[t]he state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation."

Somerville cudgels her opponents with the accusation of "relativism" but, ironically, the method of ethics she defends is capable of leading to the worst kind of bigotry and, yes, relativism. An ethical system that appeals to stories, myths, deep intuitions and mystical emotions can be generous and enlightened, but it can just as easily be a cloak for ignorance and prejudice. The total subordination of women seems utterly natural to the Taliban today, as it seemed utterly natural to most of the world's great religions over thousands of years. That does not make it ethical. Conscience is not always a reliable guide, especially when it is the conscience of a religious fanatic.

Science and technology have given to humankind hitherto undreamed-of powers: to cure disease, feed and clothe the world, ease the burden of human toil. Wisely used, technology could help to reduce suffering for the majority of the world's population, who currently live in abject poverty.

That's on the one hand. But, as everyone is aware, this same science and technology can be employed by powerful elites to exploit, dominate and oppress their fellow humans at home and abroad.

In the modern world, neither technophilia nor technophobia makes much sense. Instead, what we need is careful regulation of powerful technologies. The key question to ask is not what is inherently natural, but rather how we can use our technologies so as to maximize happiness and minimize suffering. For instance, the virtual ban on condoms in large parts of Africa -- resulting from the religious conviction that sex is only permissible for procreation -- has led to millions of unnecessary AIDS deaths. This illustration proves, if proof were needed, that how we do ethics matters. It matters a great deal.

Although Somerville's book defends many highly illiberal positions and offers a creaky and confused ethics to guide our thinking, it also offers a number of points on which liberal and conservative moralists should be able to agree. For example, she understands that marketplace forces and the greedy materialism they promote can easily lead to empty lives for the winners and terrible oppression for the losers. She also understands that if we are to flourish as a species, we must develop a much stronger sense of community and social justice.

What Margaret Somerville doesn't seem to understand is that ethics is about making the world a less terrible place for humans and other sentient creatures. It's not about keeping everything in its ordained place.

Arthur Schafer is director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics and a professor of philosophy at the University of Manitoba.


29/04/03, Margaret Somerville, The case against "Same-sex marriage", (Back).

A Brief Submitted to The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, April 29, 2003.

Table of contents
    Establishing context
    Marriage as culture
    Reproductive decision-making
    Intense individualism…
    Adult-centred reproductive decision-making…
    Reprogenetic technologies…
    Mutual respect
    Attributing Homophobia
    Use of law
    Social experimentation
    Discrimination
    Conclusion

Establishing context
I want, first, to outline briefly the context in which my comments on same-sex marriage are grounded, because in this debate context is definitely not neutral and is not the same for everyone. As this committee has heard, many people who oppose extending the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples do so on religious grounds or because of moral objections to homosexuality. They are not the bases of my arguments. Rather, my arguments against same-sex marriage are secularly based and, to the extent that they involve morals and values, these are grounded in ethics not religion. To summarize:

I oppose discrimination on basis of sexual orientation, whether against homosexuals or heterosexuals.

I believe that civil partnerships open to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples should be legally recognized and that the partners, whether opposite-sex or same-sex, are entitled to the same benefits and protection of the law.

But I do not believe that we should change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. My reasons go to the nature of marriage as the societal institution that represents, symbolizes and protects the inherently reproductive human relationship. I believe that society needs such an institution.
2. Marriage as culture

Marriage is, and has been for millennia, the institution that forms and upholds for society, the cultural and social values and symbols related to procreation. That is, it establishes the values that govern the transmission of human life to the next generation and the nurturing of that life in the basic societal unit, the family. Through marriage our society marks out the relationship of two people who will together transmit human life to the next generation and nurture and protect that life. By institutionalizing the relationship that has the inherent capacity to transmit life — that between a man and a woman — marriage symbolizes and engenders respect for the transmission of human life. (What such respect now requires has become an unprecedented issue in light of recent advances in reprogenetic technology. I discuss that shortly.)

To change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples would destroy its capacity to function in the ways outlined above, because it could no longer represent the inherently procreative relationship of opposite-sex pair-bonding. It would be to change the essence and nature of marriage as the principal societal institution establishing the norms that govern procreation. Marriage involves public recognition of the spouses' relationship and commitment to each other. But that recognition is for the purpose of institutionalizing the procreative relationship in order to govern the transmission of human life and to protect and promote the well-being of the family that results. It is not a recognition of the relationship just for its own sake or for the sake of the partners to the marriage, as it would necessarily become were marriage to be extended to include same-sex couples.

Reproduction is the fundamental occurrence on which, ultimately, the future of human life depends. That is the primary reason why marriage is important to society. In our highly individualistic societies, we tend to look only at its importance to individuals. That is necessary, but not sufficient in deciding on the future of marriage.

People advocating same-sex marriage argue that we should accept that the primary purpose of marriage is to give social and public recognition to an intimate relationship between two people, and, therefore, to exclude same-sex couples is discrimination. They are correct if the primary purpose of marriage is to protect an intimate pair-bond. But they are not correct if its primary purpose is to protect the inherently procreative relationship of opposite-sex pair-bonding or to protect an intimate relationship for the purposes of its procreative potential. When marriage is limited to opposite-sex couples, there is no need to choose between these purposes, because they are compatible with each other and promote the same goal. The same is not true if marriage is extended to include same-sex couples. That would necessarily eliminate marriage's role in symbolizing and protecting the procreative relationship. We now need the procreative symbolism of marriage more than in past, because of new technoscience possibilities for transmitting life, if we believe that, ethically, there should be limits on the use of these technologies.

Culture is what marks us as human; it is what distinguishes us and allows us to distinguish ourselves from other animals and, in the future, from intelligent machines. In the past, we used religion as an important forum and force in the foundation of culture — we did so by finding shared values through religion. That is not possible in a secular society; one result is that it makes it more difficult to find consensus on values.

To form a society, we must create a societal-cultural paradigm — the collection of values, principles, attitudes, beliefs, and myths, the "shared story" through which we find values and meaning in life, as both individuals and society. In establishing a societal-cultural paradigm all human societies have focused on the two great events of every human life: birth and death. Marriage is a central part of the culture — values, attitudes, beliefs — that surrounds birth. We require a culture related to birth in a secular society, at least as much as in a religious one, and must establish it through secular means. That is one reason why the legal recognition of marriage is important.

One argument in favour of same-sex marriage is that the culture of marriage has changed over the years and that recognizing same-sex marriage is just another change. A common example given is the change in the status of the woman partner, in that marriage is now seen as a union of equals. But that change goes to a collateral feature of marriage, not its essential nature or essence as recognizing same-sex marriage would. In short, these two changes are not analogous; rather, they are fundamentally different in kind.

Advocates of same-sex marriage also argue that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples based on society's need for an institution that symbolizes the inherently procreative relationship between a man and a woman, means that opposite-sex couples who cannot or do not want to have children should be excluded from marriage, or, more extremely, that only a man and a woman who produce a child should be allowed to marry.

Marriage between opposite-sex partners symbolizes, however, the reproductive potential that exists, at a general level, between a man and a woman. Even if a particular man and woman cannot or do not want to have a child, their getting married does not damage this general symbolism. The reproductive potential of opposite-sex couples is assumed at a general level and is not investigated in individual cases. To do otherwise would be a serious and unjustifiable breach of privacy. It is also sometimes argued that the absence of a reproductive potential is obvious "on the face of the record" when a woman well past the age of child-bearing enters a marriage and yet we recognize such marriages. But again these marriages do not damage the reproductive symbolism of marriage in the way that same-sex marriages would. Indeed, they continue this symbolism at the grandparent level and, therefore, across the generations.

Marriage's role in upholding respect for the transmission of human life — which is the first event in procreation — is of unusual importance at present. We are facing unprecedented challenges to that respect because of new technoscience that opens up unprecedented modes of transmission of life. That is another reason why marriage should remain limited to opposite-sex couples. Without it, we would have no institution that establishes a social-sexual ecology of human reproduction and symbolizes respect for the transmission of human life through sexual reproduction, as compared, for example, through asexual replication (cloning).

Recognizing that a fundamental purpose of marriage is to engender respect for the transmission of human life provides a corollary insight: Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is not related to those people's homosexual orientation, or to them as individuals, or to the worth of their relationships. Rather, the exclusion of their relationship is related to the fact that it is not inherently procreative, and, therefore, if it is encompassed within marriage, marriage cannot institutionalize and symbolize respect for the transmission of life. To recognize same-sex marriage (which is to be distinguished from same-sex partnerships that do not raise this problem) would unavoidably change and eliminate this function of marriage.

The alternative view is that new reproductive technoscience means that same-sex couples will be able to reproduce as a couple, so they should be included in marriage as the institution that institutionalizes, recognizes and protects procreative relationships. I discuss this argument in the next section.

The inherently procreative relationship institutionalized in marriage is fundamental to society and requires recognition as such. Marriage carries important norms and values, "memes" (long standing units of deep cultural information passed on from generation to generation) related to reproduction. Marriage makes present in the present, the deep collective human memory concerning the norms and values surrounding reproduction. Extending marriage to include same-sex couples (or de-legislating marriage, which I discuss shortly) would seriously harm all of these societal level functions of the institution of marriage.

3. Reproductive decision-making

Intense individualism…
Our societies manifest "intense individualism" — including "intense moral individualism" (Frances Fukyama), "…my preferences are my moral values". As a result, decision making about "life" (reproduction) and "death" is seen as purely private. Pursuant to this view, those decisions are regarded as no one else's business and certainly not the state's, especially to interfere with through law. This view would favour the state getting out of the "marriage business", one of the options on your committee's agenda.

But, as Samuel Johnson said, marriage involves a third party beyond the man and the woman — "Society [and] if it be considered as a vow — God". In short, marriage is not just a matter of private decision-making, it is also of concern to society. That becomes most apparent when a marriage breaks down and ends up in the divorce courts.

If society has a valid interest in marriage, as I believe it does, it must remain involved in marriage through the law.

Adult-centred reproductive decision-making…
Our societies have also adopted adult-centred as compared with child-centred reproductive decision-making. Child-centred means, among other requirements, that we should work from a presumption that, if at all possible, children have a valid claim to be raised by their own biological parents. We must consider the ethics of intentionally creating a situation that is otherwise: It requires justification.

There is an ethical difference between individuals choosing to create such a situation and society authorizing or facilitating it. While society would have ethical obligations not to interfere with the freedom of individuals in relation to reproduction (subject to restrictions on the use of reproductive technologies, discussed below), it also has obligations not to facilitate the creation of situations that are not in the "best interests" of children. In short, the compliance of society in helping to create non-traditional families in which children will be raised is not an ethically neutral act.

One common response to the position I outline above, by those advocating same-sex marriage and families, is to point out the deficiencies of marriage. The issue is not, however, whether all or most opposite-sex couples attain the ideals of marriage in relation to fulfilling the needs of the children they produce. Neither is the issue whether marriage is a perfect institution — it is not. It is, rather, whether we should work from a basic presumption that children need a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents. I believe they do. The issue is, also, whether society would be worse off without the aspirational ideals established by traditional marriage. I believe it would be.

Reprogenetic technologies…
The combination of adult-centred decision-making and intense individualism, together with reproductive technology can result in a claim of rights to "absolute reproductive freedom" (eg. See John Robertson, University of Texas).

In this respect the judgement of Blair, RSJ, in Halpern et al v. Canada (Ontario Divisional Court) merits consideration. He addresses the argument that the same-sex partners could not reproduce with each other and, therefore, that extending the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples was not justified. He rejected that argument on the grounds that same-sex couples could use reproductive technology to have children (pp33-34).

It is relevant to note, first, that in doing so, the judge recognizes that a fundamental feature of marriage is related to procreation. And, second, to the extent that the judge's ruling implies that people have a right to "absolute reproductive freedom", it would mean that there would be duties not to interfere with access to reproductive technologies to make reproduction possible or, for instance, with two men married to each other, having access to a surrogate mother. There would, also, probably be a duty to provide access to the means for "collaborative non-coital reproduction" (procreation through the use of reproductive technologies). After all, if exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is found to be discrimination by way of comparison with opposite-sex couples, not providing same-sex couples with the means for procreation — that is, excluding them from procreating with each other — when procreation is possible between opposite-sex couples, is a related discrimination. Indeed, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal has held that failing to provide an infertile couple with access to reproductive technology was discrimination under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, although justified, in that particular case, under Section 1 of the Charter (Cameron v Nova Scotia Attorney General).

These technologies open up a wide range of possibilities for having children. Does a duty of non-interference with their use mean, for example, that creating a child by cloning, or from two ova, two sperm, or multiple genetic parents is ethically acceptable? Could homosexual couples argue that it is discrimination to prohibit them from creating children between them by using reprogenetic technologies in whatever way they saw fit? It merits noting that Bill C-13, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, as recently amended, would support this argument:

Principles sec. 2…
(e) persons who seek to undergo assisted reproduction procedures must not be discriminated against, including on the basis of their sexual orientation or marital status;

New reprogenetic technoscience confronts us with questions no other humans have had to address, because in the past the only mode of transmission of human life was sexual reproduction in vivo: What is required for respect for mode of transmission of human life to the next generation? And what is required for respect for the children who would result from the use of reprogenetic technologies?

4. Mutual respect

The reason for excluding same-sex couples from marriage matters: If the reason for denying same-sex marriage is that we have no respect for homosexuals and their relationships, or want to give the message that homosexuality is wrong, then, the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is not ethically acceptable from the perspective of respect for homosexuals and their relationships. It is also discrimination.

On the other hand, if the reason is to keep the very nature, essence and substance of marriage intact, and that essence is to protect the inherently procreative relationship, then excluding same-sex couples from marriage is ethically acceptable from the perspective of respect for them and their relationships. And such a refusal is not discrimination.

Respect for others' religious beliefs in a multi-cultural society can raise complex issues. Some people object to same-sex marriage on the basis of their religious beliefs. These beliefs are often profound and the people who hold them see a complex interplay in marriage between its voluntary formation, religious sanction, social legitimation and natural origin. Even if we do not agree with these beliefs, indeed even more so if we do not, we need to understand what they are in order to understand the impact on the people who hold them of legally recognizing same-sex marriage.

We must also likewise, take into account the impact on same-sex couples of refusing to recognize their relationships as marriage. We are in a situation of competing sorrows or harms.

We must ask which approach to marriage best accommodates mutual respect. Both sides in this debate must recognize that they can only demand respect from their opponents if they give it; that is, if respect is to be present at all, it will only be so in a context of mutual respect. To the extent that we can avoid transgressing people's religious beliefs, even though we do not agree with them, we should not transgress them out of respect for the people who hold them, not out of respect for those beliefs. The same is true for people who oppose homosexuality on moral grounds, in relation to their having respect for homosexuals, if not for their beliefs. Ethics requires us to take the least invasive, least restrictive alternative, reasonably available and likely to be effective in achieving a justified goal. Maintaining traditional marriage and legally recognizing same-sex partnerships fulfils that ethical requirement.

Note, this same accommodation of respect for beliefs in the formation of public policy, would not apply to beliefs, based on religion, about the wrongfulness of homosexuality. While such beliefs may be privately held, they are not acceptable as the basis for public policy decision-making in a secular society, if only because the harm of recognizing such beliefs far outweighs the harm of not doing so. That is the reason why opposing same-sex marriage on the basis that it involves recognizing a homosexual relationship, is not valid, but opposition based on such recognition necessarily destroying the essence of marriage is a valid reason. There is a major difference between not destroying the essence of marriage for people who will enter into that institution and whose religious beliefs mean that recognizing same-sex marriage would destroy it, and recognizing, at any public policy level, the same people's anti-homosexual beliefs. The latter is unacceptable, because it directly denigrates homosexuals, rather than seeking a justified goal (maintaining marriage); and because others' sexual orientation, unlike the recognition of same-sex marriage, in no way directly affects the people who regard homosexuality as morally wrong.

5. Attributing Homophobia

Being against same-sex marriage is frequently alleged by proponents of same-sex marriage to be proof of homophobia (See "Same-sex hearings rife with 'gay- bashing,' critic says", Globe and Mail, 11 March, 2003, A6). A useful comparison can be made with people who take the view that being against infant male circumcision (IMC) is proof of anti-Semitism. (I, personally, have been subject to both sets of allegations in the public square.)

The strategy adopted in both cases is to shame those who are against same-sex marriage or IMC into silence. The choice of language and framing of the issues is carefully crafted to achieve this result. (See William Eskridge, who has articulated important insights in this respect, through his analysis of the techniques used by identity-based social movements to place courts in the position that they see their only alternatives in reaching a decision as being either to find discrimination or to believe that in not doing so they would be approving of discrimination and themselves engaging in it. In the same vein, see Halpern et al v. Canada and arguments considered by the judges.)

This strategy also involves using "ad hominem" arguments, that is, derogatorily labelling those who oppose same-sex marriage as homophobic or as religious (which is seen by some as a derogatory label), and claiming, therefore, their arguments against same-sex marriage should not be given any weight. The substance of these arguments, however, is not addressed.

6. Use of law

The use of law can never be neutral, whether we are enacting, changing or repealing it. We use law in post-modern, secular societies, such as Canada, to challenge or uphold our most important societal values. (Whereas, in the past, our moral and values discussions used to take place in religion, now they take place in our legislatures and courts. One way to regard our Parliament, legislatures and highest courts is as the "secular cathedrals" of our society.)

Same-sex marriage cases are already in the Canadian courts and the issue is before this committee. We cannot avoid the decisions of judges and Parliament regarding same-sex marriage affecting the values related to marriage — either to uphold or change them.

One of the options that has been proposed, of Parliament repealing the laws on marriage and abandoning the area of marriage, would not be a neutral act. It would necessarily change the values and symbolism associated with marriage. We legislate about matters associated with our most important societal values, therefore, de-legislating marriage would be to detract from its importance and the values associated with it. Whether or not we agree with all of the provisions in the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill (Bill C-13), mentioned previously, its enactment recognizes that there is a need — both practical and symbolic — to legislate in relation to reproduction. It would be paradoxical, if, at the same time, we were to de-legislate marriage.

At the individual level, many young people who see no problems with sexual relationships outside marriage or living together before marriage, get married either before having children or if pregnancy or birth occurs. That fact shows the current importance of the role of marriage with respect to the values governing procreation. We can argue that this reality makes maintaining the institution of marriage and the values and symbolism associated with it, more necessary and more important than in the past, and that requires maintaining marriage as a legal construct.

If marriage were not available as a societal institution, but only as a religious (quasi-private) one, to mark out and mark off the intrinsically procreative relationship from other types of relationship, there would be no societally sanctioned way these people could symbolize for themselves, others close to them, and society that their relationship had changed because they were becoming or had become parents. That would be particularly true for people who were not religious.

But what about homosexuals who bring children into their relationship, shouldn't those adults have access to marriage? This is the most powerful argument, in my view, for recognizing same-sex marriage, but I do not believe it justifies extending marriage to same-sex couples.

First, marriage institutionalizes and symbolizes for society the inherently procreative relationship. It cannot do that if it is changed to include same-sex couples.

Second, the joint reproductive incapacity of a same-sex couple must not be addressed through reproductive technologies. I believe that a child has a right not to be created from the genetic patrimony of two men or two women, or by cloning, or from multiple genetic parents. Therefore, same-sex relationships should not be included within an institution that symbolizes an inherently procreative relationship.

Third, bringing children into a same-sex relationship should not be seen as within the norm, but rather, as an exception to it. Although it is considered a radical view by some people, and often seen as politically incorrect, I believe that a child needs a mother and a father and, if possible and unless there are good reasons to the contrary, preferably its own biological mother and father as its raising parents. (Adopted children's search for their birth parents and current moves to give children born through reproductive technologies, using donated gametes, access to the gamete donors' identity, show a deep human need to know our biological family origins.) Recognizing same-sex marriage would make bringing children into a same-sex relationship part of the norm, rather than the exception.

We should recognize same-sex relationships and legally protect them and any children involved, but not by recognizing the same-sex couples' relationship as marriage.

Finally, within the context of the legal issues related to recognizing same-sex marriage, we must ask what the private international law impact of changing the law would be on all Canadian marriages, not just same-sex ones.

7. Social experimentation

It is relevant to consider the rules governing experimentation, in deciding whether to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. The rules governing any experimentation are especially stringent when vulnerable populations — that is, children — and those unable to consent for themselves — that is, children — are involved. The burden of proof is on those wanting to conduct the experiment, to show that it is reasonably safe to do so. In comparison, if we structure the claim to same-sex marriage as a right not to be discriminated against, then the person allegedly discriminating has the burden of proof to show that their actions are justified.

Burdens of proof are not neutral in terms of the outcome of decision-making. In cases of equal doubt as to which decision should be taken, the burden of proof will favour the person who does not carry it, that is, the person with the burden of proof will lose his or her claim. Consequently, how the question of whether to include same-sex couples in marriage is structured, is not neutral with respect to the decision outcome.

8. Discrimination

Homosexuals are not excluded from marriage, but their intimate pair-bonding relationships are. It is argued that is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. If that is correct, we must consider whether the discrimination is justified. I believe it is.

One way the justification can be articulated, is in terms of the doctrine of "double effect": The primary intent in restricting marriage to opposite sex couples is to maintain marriage as the institution that fulfils society's need to protect the inherently procreative relationship and its functions for society, and is not to exclude homosexual relationships because they are homosexual. The discrimination involved in the exclusion is a secondary effect which is not desired but unavoidable, and it is justified or excused by the primary purpose which otherwise cannot be realized.

A useful comparison can be made with the discrimination involved in affirmative action. That shows that sometimes discrimination and the harm it involves, can be justified when it is to achieve a greater good that cannot otherwise be achieved.

It is also argued by those advocating same-sex marriage, that excluding same-sex couples from marriage is the same act of discrimination as prohibiting interracial marriage, which has rightly been recognized as a serious breach of human rights. That argument is not correct. Because an interracial marriage between a man and a woman does symbolize the procreative relationship, its prohibition is based on racial discrimination which is wrong. In contrast, not extending the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, is not based on the sexual orientation of the partners, but the absence of a feature of their relationship which is an essential feature of marriage.

Conclusion

In conclusion, society needs marriage to establish cultural meaning, symbolism and moral values around the inherently procreative relationship between a man and a woman, and thereby protect that relationship and the children who result from it. That is more necessary than in the past, when alternatives to sexual reproduction were not available. Redefining marriage to include same-sex couples would affect its cultural meaning and function and, in doing so, damage its ability and, thereby, society's capacity, to protect the inherently procreative relationship and the children who result from it, whether those children's' future sexual orientation proves to be homosexual or heterosexual.

See also: Margaret Somerville's notes for her Oral Presentation to The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Margaret Somerville, "The case against "Same-sex marriage". A Brief Submitted to The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, April 29, 2003.


(Back)

21/10/06, Sarah Hampson, Love and genocide

Alanis Obomsawin

After decades of telling other people's stories, the aboriginal filmmaker focuses on the tragedies of her own people. The power is still there, but the anger is gone.

In her 36-year career of making award-winning documentaries, she has indicted the federal government countless times for its treatment of Canada's aboriginal people. But Alanis Obomsawin acted for only one reason. Love.

"I don't feel anger," the soft-spoken activist-filmmaker says. "During my lifetime, I did feel a lot of anger. But I realized that it was not what I should be concentrating on. I should concentrate on love. It's the reason I've done everything that I have done. Love for the [aboriginal] people. Love for the children. I want them to have a better place than I had."

Her latest film, Waban-Aki: People From Where the Sun Rises, marks the first time she has told the story of her own people, their history and current challenges in Odanak, the village in Quebec where she grew up. It makes its debut at the closing night gala for the annual imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival tomorrow in Toronto.

"I always wanted to do something with my own people," she says. "But I was busy with other stories that urgently needed to be done. I am 74. I am still healthy, and I felt that now is the time to do it."

There is a regal quality to Obomsawin, a calmness in her speech and demeanour and in the expressions that pass across her beautiful face. Over the years, she has been decorated with many honorary degrees and awards, and her way of being suggests a deeply felt understanding of her role. Her manner of dress has a ceremonial quality to it, as if she has learned from her ancestors the power of costume. A small woman, she wears a floor-length skirt and vest, custom-made, and an elegant black shawl by Montreal designer Marie Saint Pierre that has silky ruffled edges and a large collar. Flamboyant in attire but serene in manner, Obomsawin looks like a chic, modern-day Indian chief who wishes to tell stories to anyone who will listen about how we should treat one another.

"I never feel I want to speak on their behalf," she says of the aboriginal people who have been featured in works such as Rocks at Whiskey Trench, one in a series about the 1990 Oka crisis; Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child, her 1986 examination of an adolescent suicide; and Is the Crown at War With Us?, her 2002 documentary about the conflict over fishing rights, to name a few. "I want them to be heard."

A member of the Abenaki Nation, Obomsawin was born in New Hampshire and at six months of age, came with her mother to the Odanak reserve northeast of Montreal, where she lived until she was nine. The nine years she spent as an only child of her parents on the reserve were the happiest of her life, she says. "I never knew I was poor. You could go to any house, and you belonged. There was the scent of sweet grass everywhere, or of ash, when people were working with it. Men were making canoes and women were making baskets," she recalls in a hushed voice.

Waban-Aki may be about her people, but it is not autobiographical. The story of the Abenaki is more like a parable that traces the fate of so many aboriginal nations, from pride to disenfranchisement. The overriding message is about their fight for identity and, on a universal level, of the human need to belong to a community. "It makes an individual or a family sick not to know what their roots are," she says.

Her film attacks the government for the sexual discrimination of the Indian Act, which saw native women who married white men lose their status as aboriginals. Native men, meanwhile, who married white women, were allowed to keep theirs. "It created generations of people who were excluded, who suffered hardships, who were reminded in so many ways that they did not belong," she explains. In 1985, Bill C-31, an amendment to the Indian act, addressed some of the issues (it allowed for the reinstatement of women who had lost their status through marriage, for example) but still prevents some part-native children from fully claiming their aboriginal identity and securing their right to inheritance on a reserve.

"It is genocide," she states in a clear, soft manner, folding her long thin hands with their manicured nails on the table. "The main thing was so the government could terminate their responsibilities to the [aboriginal] nations. The more you eliminate a race, the more you try to assimilate them, you don't have to worry about their claim to the resources on their land."

Obomsawin's political awakening came at a early age. When she was nine, the family moved off the reserve to live in Trois Rivieres, where her father had found work as a guide for wealthy hunters and fishermen. The only aboriginal in the local school, she suffered racial taunts and beatings. After high school, she learned stenographer skills, but it was in recounting native history and teaching white children aboriginal games and songs that she found a sense of purpose. She successfully tried her hand at a variety of other occupations, from singing to modelling, and in 1967, after being profiled in a CBC TV feature, she was invited by the National Film Board to make educational kits about aboriginal culture. Soon, she was making full-length documentaries.

An interview with her is filled with stories, many long and lovingly told, about her mother, her activist efforts, why she never married ("It was never what I dreamed about, perhaps because of the work I felt I had to do"), and the progress she has witnessed. "The changes we have seen in the last 30 years are enormous. We have our own TV network [APTN], our own university in Regina, most reserves have radio stations."

Her films have helped heighten awareness of the problems, she says, giving the example of the Alberta government's decision to make changes to their child-welfare laws in the wake of her film about Richard Cardinal.

She tells me one of her dreams, which she often depicts in her etchings, engravings and paintings. It came over 50 years ago, when she was a young woman, after she had fought to raise money for a swimming pool on the Odanak reserve when she heard that children had been banned from the one in the neighbouring village for being "savages." Her initiative angered many people, even some on her reserve who felt she was being too aggressive and seeking attention for herself. One night, she had a dream that she was walking down a street on the reserve. People whose faces were white came to the doors of the houses and slammed them shut. She arrived at the church and heard voices saying, "She is going to make trouble for us." They buried her alive, and in her dream, she died. The next thing she knew, she was alive again. But she was part-woman, part-animal. She had huge antlers on her head. And she thought, "Ah, no one can see me. But I can see them all."

Just like the filmmaker she later became, I think silently to myself as I look at her across the table, at her small, playful smile, the steady gaze of her doe-like brown eyes, and the tail of her dark braid that runs over one shoulder.

20/10/06, Sandra Martin: Lindalee Tracey, Filmmaker and Writer 1957-2006

Director with an uncanny ability to document her own life grew up poor. After becoming the central subject of Not a Love Story: a Film about Pornography, she began making her own films.

A child of poverty, Lindalee Tracey ran away from home as a young teenager, made a living as a stripper and exotic dancer in Montreal and forged an award-winning international career as a writer and documentary filmmaker. Multitalented and driven, almost as though she had a presentiment her time would be short, she had an uncanny ability to document her own life in print and in film. As a journalist, she had an innate talent to connect with people on a visceral level, a quality that made her work controversial and unforgettable.

When her young son, Liam, started asking questions about his dead grandfather, Ms. Tracey decided to make a documentary about the father who had abandoned her as a baby. Abby, I hardly Knew Ya (1995) was a cinematic journey that took her through flop houses and long-term-care facilities, as she sought out her father's drinking buddies, and ended up in the cemetery beside his grave. Although she had intended to mouth conventional bromides about absent fathers while the cameras rolled, she found invective pouring out of her mouth in torrents of rage. Another filmmaker would have yelled cut, composed herself and started again. That might have been professional, but it wouldn't have been authentic -- and authentic was what Lindalee Tracey was all about as a filmmaker, a writer and a person.

"She wanted people to read her work and to react to it. She had an incredible sense of adventure and a very clear idea in her own mind of right and wrong and what she should do to change things," says Lynn Cunningham, the magazine and book editor whom Ms. Tracey credited with having "demanded the truth, however much I winced" as a writer.

"She had a great, raunchy, Rabelaisian sense of humour," says broadcaster Shelagh Rogers, host of Sounds Like Canada on CBC Radio. "And her laugh went on about two minutes longer than mine. And she was a vault. I told her things I told no one else. And those things went nowhere. She was everything you could want in a girlfriend. And her eyes were so beautiful. You just knew you were loved by looking into her eyes."

Those eyes were variously described as sparkling, alive and a mirror into her personality -- mischievous, determined, difficult and passionate. She was theatrical, a trait she used to advantage as a burlesque dancer, and irrepressibly interested in other people, especially the poor and disadvantaged. She would walk down the street and see a panhandler. Instead of passing by with her eyes averted or dropping a loonie from on high into a plastic cup, she would sit down on the curb and have a conversation and then, as likely as not, she would invite her new friend to join her for a meal at the nearest eatery.

Of Irish and Québécois ancestry, Lindalee Tracey was the elder of two children of Abby Tracey, an alcoholic who was in and out of jail, and Yolande Tremblay, a government clerk. Her father took off when she was a few months old, reappeared briefly and left again before her brother Paul was born a year later.

She grew up above a diner in the west end of Ottawa. "There were no trees, no parks, just the incessant rattle and dark belching of warehouses, factories and rag plants," she wrote in her first book, On the Edge: A Journey into the Heart of Canada (1993), which was nominated for the Gordon Montador Award. "I remember a sweet-unknowing before awareness and shame. The cheesy clumps of Kraft dinner and ketchup in the roof of my mouth. The gummy front-yard tar melting to my shoes in summer. The slow creaking of springs as my mother unfolded her hide-a-bed in the living room each safe night." Her father was "a deadbeat, a man I didn't know," while her mother "lived for years without her own room, without new clothes, with constant worry that lined her face early. She was poor so her children wouldn't be."

Ms. Tracey went to D. Roy Kennedy Public School and Woodruff High School in Ottawa. She was a sickly child, and suffered from rheumatic fever in the days before universal health care. Although she was always proud of her mother's frugality and strength, Ms. Tracey was a rebellious teenager who ran away from home when she was 15. She rode the rails until she was picked up in Kamloops, B.C., and sent home. In 1973, she quit school and moved to Montreal, where she began appearing in clubs as a stripper and an exotic dancer. She was 16.

"I just loved stripping; those were grown-up girls with real boobs, and I wanted to do that, too! It was the express lane into adulthood," she explained to Marc Glassman in an interview in the fall, 2006, issue of POV magazine. "We paraded our imperfections. We enjoyed them. . . . The people who came to the clubs were often sorrowful folk; and we talked to them."

She wrote a book, Growing up Naked: My Years in Bump and Grind (1997), about her life as a peeler, working at a club called Eden under the stage name Fonda Peters. She was a runner-up in the Miss Nude Canada contest and was billed as Canada's Top Young Show Exotic on a tour of the United States, before going back to Montreal in 1967 to work in an upscale club called SexOHrama, and eventually organizing an annual fundraising striporama for the Montreal Children's Hospital called Tits for Tots. "Certainly the mid-seventies was the last good time to be a stripper," she wrote in her memoir, "just before television swallowed our imagination, before the corporate agenda made us homogeneous and hard-core pornography spread its numbing venom."

At first, she was a willing participant in a film titled Not a Love Story: a Film about Pornography made in 1981 by Bonnie Sherr Klein and Dorothy Henaut for Studio D, the women's unit of the National Film Board. When she saw the finished film, she felt betrayed and exploited. "I'm reduced to porn queen, me, the softest thing in the film, the stripper who doesn't spread, immortalized as a cheap cliché and the 'articulate' voice of all the live sex girls," she wrote in Growing up Naked.

The publicity from Not A Love Story, which was variously banned and lauded, helped her to find on-air work on a Montreal television show. "I wasn't supposed to do anything but wear tight clothes, but I brought on people like [Henry] Morgentaler," she said in POV magazine. She began writing stories and columns for print, including articles about street people, notably a piece about homeless women -- largely unexplored territory in the early 1980s -- and worked in radio, hosting and co-producing Montreal Tonight on CJAD.

Ms. Tracey "went down the road" to Toronto to work for As It Happens and Sunday Morning in the mid 1980s. "She was very street wise, incredibly brash and an amazing thinker -- very curious and very smart -- and she could connect with almost anybody. I could send her into the most improbable places and she would find a way to get them to open up and bring back great tape," said Norm Bolen, then the executive producer of Sunday Morning and now an executive vice-president at Alliance Atlantis. "She genuinely cared about what made other people tick and she had no respect for conventional definitions." Ms. Tracey was also a "fabulous writer," who could fix other producer's script problems. "She was a real word master." At the same time, she had no deference for authority or experience, which could irritate her colleagues even as they were "dazzled" by her talent.

She met her husband, filmmaker Peter Raymont, in a documentary workshop at the old CBC Radio building on Jarvis Street in 1986. "She was very bright and a quick study and she came from a different world," Mr. Raymont said. They connected romantically at a staff party at Mr. Bolen's house. Like Ms. Tracey, he was born in Ottawa but on the "other side of the tracks." His father, a colonel in the Canadian army who was awarded the MBE for his war service, was a senior staff officer and historian for the Department of National Defence. Together, they shared a deep commitment to social justice, human rights and making the world a better place, but her approach, at least initially, was much more hands-on.

When Mr. Raymont travelled to Nicaragua to make The World is Watching in 1987, Ms. Tracey went with him. They were married in Ottawa in 1989 and their son, Liam Tracey-Raymont, was born the following year. "We had a very good relationship," said Mr. Raymont. "It was often tempestuous and sparky, but you don't want to marry yourself. It is really good to get together with people from different worlds and you complement and help each other."

She joined him as a partner in White Pine Pictures, an independent film, video and television production company in 1993. Its credits include Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire andA Scattering of Seeds: The Creation of Canada, for which Ms. Tracey also wrote the book.

An unregenerate multitasker, Ms. Tracey, who had been writing poetry since her days as a stripper in Montreal, was also penning magazine articles, mainly for Lynn Cunningham, then a senior editor at Toronto Life, while she was working on films with Mr. Raymont. "She was cold-calling editors and I picked up the phone," Ms. Cunningham remembers. "She was an amazing bundle of energy and charm and outrageous wit." Her story proposals were "the Lindalee trademark" of a writer who scorned celebrity and felt passionately about the forgotten and marginalized people in society.

One of her pieces for Toronto Life was "The Uncounted Canadians" about the thousands of illegal migrants who work in our fields and kitchens, hotels and restaurants. It won a couple of journalism awards and went into production this week as a pilot for a television series. Her approach, working at a story from the inside -- from the perspective of a participant, rather than from the viewpoint of a detached "objective" observer -- is the signature of Ms. Tracey's work as a journalist in print and on film. "Being moral, being decent, being honourable" whether "you are in front or behind the camera," were lessons, Ms. Tracey said, that she had derived from her experience with Not a Love Story. Shelagh Rogers recognized Ms. Tracey as "a force" when she interviewed her in 1993 and was immediately attracted to her energy and fearlessness as a storyteller. She was never afraid of being a do-gooder or too-small "l" liberal in her views, or of venting her outrage about the many people "who didn't have a voice and who weren't reflected in the national media." Ms. Rogers says she loved Ms. Tracey's compassion, her "personal power" and her ability to take charge and to inspire change in people.

Although she was a very active partner in White Pine Pictures, Ms. Tracey formed Magnolia Movies as a "boutique production company" in 2003. She did it partly because she wanted her own identity, partly because she wanted to make films that either didn't fit the profile of White Pine, or came at similar subjects from a different slant. Her first film for Magnolia was An Anatomy of Burlesque, which Globe television critic John Doyle deemed "smart and entertaining" and a "cheerfully informative jaunt through the history of burlesque funny business." Bhopal: The Search for Justice, a scathing indictment of what happened after the disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, on Dec. 2, 1984, aired on CBC the following year.

About five years ago, Ms. Tracey was diagnosed with HER-2 Neu positive breast cancer, a very aggressive form of the disease. She was 44. After a mastectomy and chemotherapy, "it looked as though it had disappeared" for about two years, Mr. Raymont said. "Then it came back in the same part of her body and it was in her bones, her lungs and her liver." She sought out an alternative cure in Tijuana, Mexico, in the late fall of 2004 and returned looking devastated. Desperately ill with metastatic cancer, she was eligible to receive Herceptin as a last-hope treatment. "It gave her another nine months, or a year, of life," her husband said of what seemed a remarkable recovery. During that time, she continued her frenetic work schedule, and found time to lobby Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman to make Herceptin available as well to non-metastatic Her-2 breast-cancer patients.

In January of 2006, the cancer invaded her brain. Late in September, her family took her to the palliative care unit at Princess Margaret Hospital, expecting she would last two or three days. In the end, she defied death for almost a month, as she had always confounded authority -- grabbing as much life as she could and asking, on one occasion, for her loved ones to sing Gordon Lightfoot songs around her bed.

Lindalee Tracey was born in Ottawa on May 14, 1957. She died of metastasized breast cancer in Toronto yesterday. She was 49. She is survived by her husband, Peter Raymont, their son, Liam, her mother, Yolande, her brother, Paul, and her extended family.

Muhammad Yunus / Grameen Bank of Bangladesh - Bits & Pieces

18/10/06, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Enterprise is better than aid, (Source).
16/10/06, Preston Manning, Mandela's dream has been unfulfilled, (Source).
17/10/06, Padma Rau, Interview with Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus, (Source).
18/10/06, CP, CTV reveals senators' costly week in Dubai, (Source).
19/10/06, Editorial, Why Bouchard is right, (Source).
20/10/06, The Facts: The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, not On-Line.


18/10/06, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Enterprise is better than aid, (Back).

Nobel Peace Prizes are not supposed to go to those who believe the poor can fend for themselves.

Yet, this year's worthy winner, the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, is essentially a commercial operation and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, has clearly spelled out politically incorrect views regarding poverty: "Grameen believes that charity is not an answer to poverty. . . . It creates dependency. . . . Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty." The bank lends tiny amounts to village dwellers so they can start small businesses. The scale can be so modest as to involve the purchase of a cow in order to sell milk. No collateral or credit history is required, the system works on trust and peer pressure: Lenders are placed in groups of five, with part of the group guaranteeing the loans of the rest. If a loan is not repaid, the community shuns the borrower.

More than six million people have borrowed money from Grameen; the bank makes millions in profit. It charges higher interest rates than most banks, but since the principal is repaid before the interest -- and interest is calculated on the basis of diminishing principal -- borrowers end up paying less than they would pay other banks. Thanks to these loans, which very poor and uneducated Bangladeshis have put to entrepreneurial use, many people have been able to pull themselves out of extreme poverty.

At its inception, Grameen Bank was partly owned by the government because the founders figured that was the only way to channel foreign loans from outside sources. Today, it is a totally private and profit-oriented operation in which borrowers themselves own shares.

For half a century, wealthy nations -- and rock stars -- have focused on foreign aid as the way to spur development. Foreign aid started with U.S. president Harry Truman's Point Four Program at the end of the 1940s, partly to pre-empt the spread of communism. To judge by ever-increasing budgets and last year's call at the UN for a doubling of aid by 2015, it continues to be the fundamental focus of efforts to bring about prosperity in poor countries. No attention is paid to the fact that in sub-Saharan Africa, the region to which most of the foreign aid has gone in the past quarter of a century, per capita income has dropped by 11 per cent.

Numerous government programs involving handouts and training also have failed to do the trick in many countries. What the poor really want is an environment in which undertaking a profitable venture is not a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. The world is full of examples of poor and uneducated communities that have been able to create wealth, thanks to entrepreneurship. After looking at cases of entrepreneurial success around the world for the past year, the conclusion is overwhelming: The best way to fight poverty is to eliminate barriers that currently hold back private enterprise among the poor.

Half a century ago, William Mangin, an American anthropologist, went to live in one of the shantytowns that had sprung up around Lima. He found the poor were entrepreneurial and that through voluntary co-operation, they were able to provide many of the services the government was not delivering, including the adjudication of disputes. He wrote a number of scholarly papers concluding that these urban, poor Peruvians were "not the problem but the solution." A few years later, anthropologist Keith Hart reached the same conclusion in Kenya. If the world had listened to them, half a century of misguided ideas about development, of useless fund transfers that often ended up in Swiss bank accounts of dictators and their cronies, and of schemes that entrenched dependency might have been avoided.

Nobel prizes tend to go to those who think wealth is a zero-sum game whereby rich nations are rich because poor nations are poor.

The Nobel award to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank is a good occasion to reflect on the colossal error of judgment the rich have made about the poor and a reminder that enterprise, not aid, is the real answer to poverty.

Alvaro Vargas Llosa, author of Liberty for Latin America, is the director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute in Washington.


16/10/06, Preston Manning, Mandela's dream has been unfulfilled, (Back).

There must be a better way to promote development in South Africa.

Last month, my wife Sandra and I spent three weeks travelling in southern Africa with a group of Canadian friends. Most of our time was spent in South Africa with a visit on Sept. 24 to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

Sept. 24 is Heritage Day in South Africa, an important national holiday dedicated to the celebration of the rich diversity of its people. It also has special significance for me as it was on that day eight years ago that I met Nelson Mandela following his farewell address to the Canadian House of Commons.

Immediately after his speech, a small reception was held in the Speaker's Chambers at which the federal party leaders had a chance to meet and talk with him.

I took the opportunity to ask a question: If there was one single thing that Canada and Canadians could do in future to fulfill his dream for South Africa, what would that thing be?

He took my hand, looked me in the eye, and softly spoke two words: "Economic development." If significant economic progress for the South African people did not follow hard on the heels of the efforts to achieve reconciliation and establish democracy, all his dreams for South Africa would be in mortal danger.

This Sept. 24, I read excerpts from Mandela's House of Commons speech to my friends and recalled this conversation with him. Naturally the question arises: Has the standard of living of South Africans significantly improved since the ending of apartheid, and are their future economic prospects bleak or promising?

The answer is not simple. According to the World Bank's World Development Indicators, South Africa's gross domestic product was $112-billion (U.S.) in 1994; today it is more than $150-billion, representing an average annual growth rate of more than 3 per cent.

But GDP per capita, which is a better measure of the economic wellbeing of individual South Africans, has grown by only about 1 per cent a year, from approximately $3,000 per capita in 1994 to around $3,300 per capita at present -- hardly a significant enough increase to fulfill Mr. Mandela's dream. Unemployment remains unbelievably high in South Africa (officially at 25 per cent and unofficially around 40 per cent) and more than five million South Africans still live on less than $1 a day.

Then there is the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS, so powerfully described by Canada's Stephen Lewis in Race Against Time. According to the UN, there are now more than 5.5 million South Africans infected with HIV and 1.2 million AIDS orphans. Life expectancy in South Africa has dropped from 62 years in the early 1990s to 45 today, and is still declining.

Imagine the prospects for the Canadian economy if 20 per cent of our citizens were infected with a deadly disease, more than a million Canadian children were without parents, unemployment was six times higher than it is now, and life expectancy was cut in half?

In Mr. Mandela's address to the House, he offered both an insightful observation and a challenge: "In the interdependent world in which we now live, rich and poor, strong and weak are bound by a common destiny that decrees that none shall enjoy lasting prosperity and stability unless others do too . . . We urge you to join with us in seeking to redirect the [global trade] system and its [financial] institutions so as to cater to the needs of development and the interests of the poor."

The previous Liberal government in Ottawa responded to this invitation in a largely ceremonial manner. For example, the 2003 Canada-South Africa Declaration signed by Jean Chrétien and President Thabo Mbeki promised, among other things, to "upgrade diplomatic representation in Toronto and Cape Town" and "develop a framework for cultural co-operation and promote cultural diversity." While commendable, these actions were probably not too encouraging to the millions of South Africans affected by poverty and disease. The government also responded to Mr. Mandela's challenge in a more conventional manner -- mainly by increasing traditional foreign aid to South Africa, promoting expanded trade and providing technical assistance.

However, one wonders if there isn't an alternative approach, one that will be more effective and more compatible with the values and philosophy of the new Conservative government.

Free enterprise and free trade (both of which conservatives support) have generated unprecedented levels of wealth but they have not significantly reduced the glaring inequities between rich and poor on a global scale. While critics of capitalism and free trade look to the redistribution of wealth itself as the answer, an alternative solution is to broaden the distribution of the tools that create wealth -- property rights, access to capital and other financial instruments, human capital development, access to information and technology, and access to markets.

A growing body of evidence exists to support this alternative. Hernando de Soto in The Mystery of Capital presents the expansion of property rights as the key to broader inclusion of the poor in the market system. Marguerite Robinson explores the benefits of microcredit in providing sustainable finance for the poor in The Microfinance Revolution. C. K. Prahalad in The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid addresses the challenge of poverty alleviation through entrepreneurship and profitable market-based enterprise. Thomas Friedman, in his well-known book The World is Flat, highlights the benefits of bridging the digital divide via cost-effective, market-driven technological distribution. And measures for increasing the access of poor people and nations to trade and investment markets are well presented by William Cline's Trade Policy and Global Poverty and Jagdish Bhagwati's In Defense of Globalization.

These books, many of them the work of policymakers rooted in the underdeveloped economies they seek to help, provide a solid foundation for conservative governments such as the Harper administration to reorient their foreign-aid and developmental-assistance policies along such lines. What better place to start than in our trade and development relations with South Africa, accepting Nelson Mandela's Heritage Day challenge to "redirect the system" in new ways to meet the development needs and interests of the poor?

Preston Manning is a former leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Commons, a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute, and president of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. His daughter, Mary Manning, a former investment banker and hedge-fund analyst covering South Africa, contributed to this article.


17/10/06, Padma Rau, Interview with Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus, (Back).

"This Will Advance our Cause Tremendously."

This year's Nobel Peace Prize went to Muhammad Yunus in recognition for the micro-credit system he set up in his home country of Bangladesh. SPIEGEL spoke with Yunus about what the award means to him and to the fight against world poverty.

[photo AFP, Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh won this year's Nobel Peace Prize. His micro-credit system provides mini-loans to the poorest of the poor in Bangladesh.]

SPIEGEL: You already have received 60 international prizes for your micro-credit system. Now you've won the Nobel Peace Prize. Were you surprised?

Yunus: It is fantastic; the Nobel Prize will make all political leaders and governments around the world take notice. We have been fighting poverty for more than 30 years, and I hope that this will advance our cause tremendously. Perhaps it will even convince the world to confront the issue of poverty on this planet.

SPIEGEL: You developed this system of micro-credit to help the poorest of the poor in your country, Bangladesh. How do you try to get other developing countries to pick up on this idea?

Yunus: Bangladesh is poor, I grew up here; but several other countries have already put our idea into practice. Of course there are still plenty of countries that do not care about the misery of the poor. I can only hope that there, too, political leaders will slowly change their attitudes.

SPIEGEL: Your work has been made more difficult by international terrorism. How do you handle this additional challenge?

Yunus: Peace is the precondition for everything else. Unless violence comes to a stop, one cannot attack the roots of poverty. Families can only focus on improving their lives in times of peace.

SPIEGEL: What message would you like to deliver to terrorists?

Yunus: I would tell them that we have to occupy ourselves with the roots of evil, across the board. The United Nations' millennium goal is to reduce poverty by half, by the year 2015. Now that I have won a Nobel Prize, our efforts to turn the UN project into reality will surely be advanced. If we manage to accomplish our own goals by 2015, then the struggle against the remaining poverty would be just a small additional step.

SPIEGEL: When did you actually hear that you had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?

Yunus: Oh, I have been nominated several times. Which is why I didn't really pay attention this time. My delight is all the greater.


18/10/06, CP, CTV reveals senators' costly week in Dubai, (Back).

TORONTO -- Canadian senators waited in an expensive Dubai hotel for seven days after a failed attempt to reach Afghanistan when the military had warned them not to attempt the trip in the first place, CTV News reported yesterday.

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny had hoped to take his National Security Committee to Kandahar province for a fact-finding trip, as well as a visit to Dubai, a city in the United Arab Emirates that is trying to become a global business hub.

CTV said in a story posted on its website that four senators and three staffers ended up spending seven days in Dubai, where they stayed in a posh hotel at $500 (U.S.) per night.

The total hotel costs were more than $30,000. Plane fare, meals and other expenses added more.

CTV said that during their time in Dubai, the Canadians had only one official meeting with security officials and a briefing from Canadian officials.

Conservative Senator Arthur Meighen defended the trip.

"We shouldn't have cancelled Dubai as long as there was a chance we'd get into Afghanistan," Mr. Meighen told CTV. "It's important for parliamentarians to show our men and women over there that we support the mission."

However, John Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the trip was simply a "junket dressed up as parliamentary business, pure and simple."


19/10/06, Editorial, Why Bouchard is right, (Back).

Lucien Bouchard has drawn heat by stating the obvious: Actions have consequences. If Quebec prefers its current rules to rules that would let it compete more productively in the world, it will stagnate.

In an interview Monday with the French-language TVA network, the former Quebec premier said: "We don't work enough. We work less than Ontarians and infinitely less than Americans. We have to work harder." Immediately the news cameras found workers who bake pizzas for 10 hours a day and couldn't work harder if they were chained as galley slaves, but at last report those people weren't among the many employees in a province with a bloated public service and militant unions whose contracts allow their members unaffordable leisure within their working hours.

Quebec as a whole is living beyond its means. It taxes its people more heavily than other provinces and has a much higher debt per capita than other provinces -- 44 per cent as of March, 2005, far ahead of the second highest, Nova Scotia, at 34.1. (The national percentage is 25.3.) Something has to give.

To offer the excuse of a so-called fiscal imbalance with Ottawa -- a charge the province regularly makes -- is to live in denial of a deeper set of problems. Quebec's population is aging more rapidly than others. It isn't having children, and its intake of immigrants isn't about to balance the aging. That means more health costs on the way and fewer workers to support those no longer on the job. The "Quebec model" of industrial subsidies and generous social-welfare programs (inexpensive child care, frozen university tuition fees, electricity sold below market value) is costly, while the income-tax load is uncompetitive with other jurisdictions. The province's union movement has won great gains for its members at the expense of productivity gains that could help Quebec invest more and compete more efficiently.

For a snapshot of how ingrained that problem is, consider Montreal's municipal maintenance workers, who are guaranteed minimum staffing and a four-day work week. When city investigators tracked three work crews in January over 90 hours, they found that actual labour accounted for only seven hours; the rest were spent driving around, shopping and having snacks in shops. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to Quebec, but it illustrates the nature of the difficulty.

Mr. Bouchard has been here before. He and others delivered the same diagnosis in a 10-page manifesto released last October: in part, that the tax system discourages investment, that Quebec should reduce income taxes and raise consumption taxes, that French-speaking graduates have to be more fluent in other languages, that the province has to raise tuition fees (coupled with income-contingent loan repayment) and massively invest in education and training, and that rejecting change "runs the risk of turning us into the republic of the status quo." Those who see no danger of stagnation will see no need for worry, but they do Quebec no favours.


20/10/06, The Facts: The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, (Back).

Press Release by the Committee:

OTTAWA, Oct. 20, 2006 – In the wake of inaccurate reporting on the committee’s recent fact-finding to the UK, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates – including the aborted and long-awaited visit to Canadian troops in Kandahar – it is time to set the record straight.

CTV National News aired an item on October 17, 2006 by Parliament Hill reporter Graham Richardson that was full of inaccuracies and artistic licence. These are being spread by other media outlets. The committee does valuable work. We can’t afford to have a shadow cast over our efforts by cartoon journalism.

The gist of Mr. Richardson’s story was that committee members wasted a week in Dubai at great expense to the Canadian taxpayer while waiting to get into Kandahar, the dangerous region in which our troops are serving in Afghanistan. The allegation is that committee members had been told by military authorities that there was very little chance of getting into Kandahar, and that it was foolish of them to set forth in an attempt to do so.

First, a reminder of the nature of our committee. We aren’t tourists. We have spent long hours over the past 5 ½ years talking to soldiers, their officers and various experts related to the military about the state of the Canadian Forces and Canadian security in general, and have issued 15 hard-hitting reports about the flaws in Canada’s security system and what needs to be done to repair them.

We have criticized both this government and the previous government for not taking the protection of Canadians and their interests seriously enough, and we have clearly irritated the powers that be.

We pride ourselves on being the antithesis of the cartoon image of the Senate perpetrated by some media and by some politicians who feel there are votes to be gained in denouncing the Senate. We have worked extremely hard and take great pride in both our relentless pursuit of the truth and our bipartisan approach to controversial issues.

Before detailing our responses to the allegations in the CTV report, please consider some of these comments from individual committee members and one of our staff members:

Le Comité sénatorial permanent de la sécurité nationale et de la défense / The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence

“Using the word junket in the context of one of this committee’s trips is a joke. Anyone who travels with this committee works from dawn to dusk and often until midnight. I’ve done it twice for a total of about 15 days abroad, and I might have had three or four hours of down time in total. The staff work hard, the senators work hard, and if meetings get cancelled Senator Kenny comes up with some other work we need to do.”

Major-General (Ret’d) G. Keith McDonald, Senior Military Advisor

“People avoid sitting on this committee because it works so hard. It works hard at home, and it works hard abroad. The proof is in the pudding. Look at how many serious, in depth reports we’ve produced over the past five years. Look at how many hours we’ve spent hearing testimony. Check our schedules when we’re abroad. This report smells like a phony leak from people who don’t like the criticism that this committee has laid out concerning the treatment of the military by this government and the last government.”

Senator Tommy Banks

“As a Nova Scotian with a keen interest in the welfare of the Port of Halifax, it was important for me to see the Port of Dubai and to meet its operators. This is the fourth busiest port in the world. It is operated by DP World, the same organization that operates the terminal in the Port of Vancouver. It was also valuable to learn that DP World wishes to come to Halifax to establish its east coast port of entry into the markets of North America.”

Senator Wilfred Moore

“Look, we worked hard, and we wanted to work harder in Afghanistan. You’d think that people who are forever trying to paint the Senate as a place where people sleep would give credit to a bunch of Senators trying to go into a dangerous situation to get the facts on what Canada is doing there and whether it is worth the price we’re paying.”

Senator Michael A. Meighen, Deputy Chair

“We go where the soldiers are, because we want to know what is going to work for them in doing a tough job for Canadians. We’ve been to scores of military bases across Canada and listened to them, and we wanted to listen to them in Afghanistan. As I said in the Senate, I think it would be difficult to look the troops in the eye if they are over there and we are not prepared to go over and see how they are doing. I know that is certainly the case for me.”

Senator Colin Kenny, Chair

Putting the Facts Straight

TRANSPARENCY: The CTV report gave the impression that trip was some kind of adventure we tried to hide from the public. Not true. The travel budget was unanimously approved on the floor of the Senate. It’s out there in the public domain. The committee issued a press release to the media about the intentions of the trip. It can also be found on the committee’s website. A detailed unfolding of events regarding the aborted Afghanistan portion of the visit is attached.

WHY DUBAI? The committee has two mandates: (a) National Security; (b) Defence. One of the national security issues the committee has been most outspoken about is the lack of security at Canadian ports. Dubai is the fourth-busiest port in the world. It is also the setting-off point to fly into Afghanistan. The committee decided to spend the first part of the trip examining port security at Rotterdam and Dubai, before proceeding to Kandahar.

While in London, from September 5 to 6, 2006, committee members looked into the issue of homegrown terrorism, including lessons learned since the 2005 London underground bombings. We met with the Director General of the Security Service (MI5), New Scotland Yard’s Metropolitan Special Branch, the British Transport Police and with the Cabinet Office’s Security and Intelligence Secretariat.

Port security was the focus of the discussions September 8 in Rotterdam with representatives from the Rotterdam-Rijmond Seaport Police (De Zeehavenpolitie R-R), one of the most notable port police service in the world, and Port Security and Customs. We identified lessons for Canada on how to move beyond the implementation of the International Ship and Port Security (ISPS) Code to securing the entire supply chain as well as how Canada could benefit in terms of introducing its own proposed dedicated seaport police.

In Dubai, the September 10 –11 meetings related to port security and operations. The committee met with officials from Dubai Ports World, Dubai Customs, Police, Coast Guard, Navy and Intelligence. The committee was particularly interested in the operations at Dubai Ports World given that it manages operations at a terminal in the Port of Vancouver and plans to examine the possibility of expanding operations to include the Port of Halifax. It is important to note the significance of this because Dubai ports purchase of six U.S. port terminals was blocked by American authorities in March of this year.

KANDAHAR – WHY DID WE GO?

The visit to Kandahar stemmed from the committee’s ongoing commitment to examine the operation of the Canadian Forces and the well being of its soldiers. The committee had recently met with soldiers at Petawawa as they were finalizing their training prior to departure to Afghanistan and spoke of their training experience and equipment. In Kandahar, the committee would have reconnected with these same soldiers to see how their training back in Canada helped prepare them for the mission and whether or not the equipment was suitable for the needs of the mission. Of concern to the committee was the issue of aid development in Kandahar as in recent public hearings the committee could not be provided with accurate figures as to the amount and type of aid Canada is providing to that region. Reference the letter from the Minister of the Canadian International Development Agency contained in the annex of the committee’s recent report, MANAGING TURMOIL: The Need to Upgrade Canadian Foreign Aid and Military Strength to Deal with Massive Change.

YOU CALL THIS A JUNKET?

• CTV reported that committee members were told “weeks prior” to departure from Canada that members would not be allowed to visit Canadian troops in Kandahar. In fact, the committee Chair learned on the afternoon of Saturday, September 2 that the military was recommending that we not proceed into Kandahar as the situation was in “flux”. In fact, some members of the mission had already flown out.

• As committee members and staff were arriving in London, England, at different times, the first opportunity to inform committee members of the situation was on Tuesday, September 5.

• As the military situation in Afghanistan was subject to “flux,” the committee decided to contact the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) from London on Tuesday, September 5 and ask him to consider three proposed options for Kandahar - (1) continue with the trip as planned if the situation improved, (2) go to Kandahar and remain in camp behind the wire at the airport, meeting with soldiers, RCMP, CSIS and members of Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT); and (3) have representatives from PRT, including RCMP and CSIS, come to Dubai to brief the committee.

• A follow-up call to the CDS was placed on Wednesday, September 6 from London in an effort to verify if the situation had changed. The CDS indicated that travel into Kandahar was still not possible. However he did agree to consider the committee’s third proposal. The committee continued with the established meeting program in Rotterdam on Thursday, September 7 and Friday, September 8. The committee arrived in Dubai late in the evening of Saturday, September 9.

• As the committee awaited word from Canadian officials in Afghanistan as to what might be the final option for Kandahar, it proceeded with its Dubai schedule. The previously arranged Monday September 11 meetings on port security and with Dubai Ports World and the various security agencies – that began with preparatory meetings with staff from the Canadian Embassy on Sunday, September 10 – went ahead as scheduled.

SEPARATING JOURNALISTIC LICENCE FROM REALITY

• CTV reported that the committee booked the “Presidential Suite” at the Renaissance Hotel in Dubai that was pictured in the CTV report. Not so. The committee met in a standard boardroom style meeting room that was immediately adjacent. Its rental fees of approximately $500 CDN per day – including food – are comparable to Canadian hotel meeting rooms.

• CTV accompanied its story with background pictures of an opulent room in the hotel, presumably taken from the hotel’s website. If that room exists, it is presumably for visiting princes. committee members’ rooms were the kind of accommodation that you might expect at a Renaissance Hotel in Canada – and any journalist willing to do the legwork can quickly determine that the Renaissance is a mid-level hotel in Dubai, not where the jetsetters stay.

• CTV reported that committee members stayed in suites that cost $U.S. 500. In fact they stayed in rooms that cost $311 Canadian.

• CTV gave the impression that committee members whiled away their days in Dubai. In fact, we worked, as we always work when there are openings in our schedule. Members met eight times for a total of 42 hours to work on – amongst other things – a draft of Managing Turmoil, a report tabled in the Senate on October 5. The report gained widespread press coverage for its insights into a number of military issues – including the lack of public involvement in Canada’s deployment into Afghanistan.

• We were finally advised on Monday afternoon, Sept. 11, that option three was not going to work out, and that the situation in Kandahar continued to be in “flux.” At this point the staff commenced efforts to rebook the committee for an immediate return to Canada.

• Try as they might, this was not immediately possible, due to fully occupied flights or incurring additional costs which would have been greater than the cost of the hotel rooms.

The committee left to return to Canada at 2:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 16, one day sooner than planned.

The committee regrets the failure to complete its Kandahar mission. It does not, however, apologize for trying. The trip might have worked, and it might have given Canadians valuable insight as to what is going right and wrong there, which seem to be in short supply.

Parliament Hill is an easy place to become paranoid, and anyone who works here should resist paranoia. But it isn’t easy. Recent events suggest that we may be seeing a concerted effort to discredit both the committee – which has been critical of both this government and the last government - and the Senate. What better way to argue the uselessness of the Senate than to discredit one of its most useful committees?

For more information:
Office of Senator Kenny 613-996-2877
Office of Senator Meighen 613-943-1421
Office of Senator Banks 613-995-1889
Office of Senator Moore 613-947-1921


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