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Was Canada Too Good To Be True?
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| Jayx1 |
This NY times article is bang on the money. A long read but very insightful.
| quote: |
May 25, 2005
Was Canada Just Too Good to Be True?
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
TORONTO, May 24 - The news from Canada has been very un-Canadian of late. Or has it?
A government program sponsoring sporting and cultural events in Quebec has been tainted by allegations of millions of dollars in kickbacks and money laundering. Witnesses before a federal inquiry into the scandal have described envelopes full of cash left on restaurant tables to advance the cause of the governing Liberal Party.
But even as the "sponsorship scandal" has unfolded, one unseemly chapter after another, Prime Minister Paul Martin has held fast, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to a cherished Liberal Party script: Canada as a singularly virtuous country that adheres more than most to values like honesty, decency, fairness and multiethnic equality, not to mention publicly financed universal health care.
"We will set the standard by which other nations judge themselves," Mr. Martin boasted to his party caucus only minutes after his government was saved on May 19 by a single vote in the House of Commons - the vote of a lawmaker who had turned her back not only on the Conservative Party, which she helped found only a year ago, but on her boyfriend, a Conservative leader, in return for a Liberal cabinet seat.
This notion of national rectitude and compassion, long promoted by the Liberals, has been captured in the slogan of a national book chain: "The world needs more Canada."
Of course, quite a few nations have an embellished sense of righteousness, not least among them, many would say, Canada's southern neighbor. But perhaps no other country puts such a high premium on its own virtue than does Canada.
"That's why the sponsorship scandal stings as much as it does," said Janice Stein, director of the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto. With a touch of irony, she added, "We're not like this; we're nice and good."
The recent spectacle of scandal and tawdry politics has some Canadians now wondering if all the self-congratulatory virtue is not mixed with some old-fashioned hypocrisy, or what Robert Fulford, a leading literary journalist and columnist characterizes as "a fable" expounded by generations of Liberal leaders.
"During recent decades our politicians have told us a sweet bedtime story about Canada being an exceptionally compassionate country, a world leader in multiculturalism and wonderfully generous to the poor countries," Mr. Fulford said. "All of this expresses something called 'Canadian values.' All lies."
Most Canadians would probably consider that assessment harsh.
Canadian cities are among the most ethnically diverse and safest in the world. Canadian tolerance took real form during the past two years with the extension of marriage rights to gays and lesbians in most of the country. Canada's reputation as an exemplary world citizen comes from its strong support of the International Criminal Court, a ban on land mines and the Kyoto climate control accord.
But there is another side to the story.
While Canada signed and ratified the Kyoto accord, making a commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions 6 percent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012, emissions have risen to 24 percent above 1990 levels. The powerful domestic oil industry has lobbied effectively to guarantee that the development of oil sands - a noxious source of carbon dioxide - will go on expanding.
In fact, Canada, where logging, mining and oil interests are extremely powerful, has a less than sterling environmental record. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada produces more nuclear waste per capita than any other member country and ranks as the fourth per capita emitter of carbon dioxide, following the United States, Australia and Luxembourg. Environmental activists say that only Finland and Sweden log more forest land per capita among industrialized countries.
When European governments sought to ban the import of Canadian asbestos for its toxicity in recent years, Ottawa complained to the World Trade Organization that such an action would violate free trade.
"Canada for years has fought against international controls on asbestos because of the importance of that industry to Quebec," noted Michael Bliss, a leading historian at the University of Toronto. Mr. Bliss, for his part, dismisses as "posturing" the idea that "Canada is some kind of moral superpower."
Canadian officials constantly lecture Europe and the United States on the need to level the playing field in agriculture for third world producers. But at the same time Canada runs monopolistic dairy product marketing boards that raise tariffs of 200 percent and more to protect its own producers of milk, eggs and butter.
On social policy, Canada has been slow to make amends to indigenous Canadians for a century-long policy of forced assimilation under which parents were forced to send their children to residential schools where they were routinely punished for speaking their native languages and routinely abused sexually. Only a bit more than a thousand victims in the schools, the last of which closed in 1986, have received minimal compensation in a process that has been hobbled by delays and bureaucracy.
As diverse as Canada is, corporate boards and senior political bodies on the federal and provincial levels remain overwhelmingly dominated by people of European stock. Incomes of immigrants have been dropping in recent years relative to the population at large, as 25 percent of the immigrants with college educations are forced to settle for unskilled jobs.
"We are putting on blinders," said Ratna Omidvar, executive director of the Maytree Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to reducing inequality. "We don't talk about racism, but of course it exists."
Canada is rarely criticized at home or abroad, making a recent international boycott of Canadian products by animal rights activists protesting the return of the large-scale commercial baby seal hunt off Newfoundland and Labrador particularly rankling here.
The discussion over what exactly is Canada's identity - and whether its favored definition is perhaps a piece of Liberal propaganda - is beginning to emerge in the political debate between the struggling Liberals and the challenging Conservatives.
At a recent Liberal party convention, Mr. Martin pledged that "our most important commitment to the Canadian people was our pledge to protect and defend the values that define us: Liberal values, Canadian values." To which Stephen Harper, the Conservative leader, shot back at a rally of his own: "Corruption is not a Canadian value."
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| starsearcher |
lol...sounds prety fair I guess
*EDIT*
I always find it funny that Canada's national pass time is to make fun and laugh at the US, but in fact we're not all that better in many ways |
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| Jayx1 |
And this from a newspaper called The Telegraph in Calcutta India . This is why i continue to say that what is happening here is no better than the 3rd world. It's time for people to wake up!
| quote: | Delhi lesson for Canada
K.P. NAYAR
Belinda Stronach, who defected from the Opposition Conservative Party to the Liberal side, in Toronto last year
Windsor (Ontario), May 22: Canada’s embattled Prime Minister Paul Martin appears to have learnt a thing or two in the Indian art of political survival from his recent visit to New Delhi.
He is being aided in this effort by at least one Indo-Canadian minister and two Indo-Canadian MPs, who have roots in the Punjab-Haryana region, once notorious for its Aaya-Ram-Gaya-Ram politics.
In a mirror image of the Indian Parliament, Canada’s House of Commons has been paralysed for weeks by shouting matches and adjournment motions and the Prime Minister has been besieged by the Opposition over a corruption scandal.
On Thursday, his minority government squeaked through in a confidence vote on the budget: 152 votes for the government and 152 against. The speaker used his casting vote to bail out the government.
But even that morally questionable victory was made possible Indian-style. Two days earlier, Belinda Stronach, an MP from the Opposition Conservative Party, defected and was immediately sworn in minister for human resources in the Liberal government.
The defector, a colourful 39-year-old heiress to a multi-billion-dollar automobile parts business, is the girlfriend of Peter McKay, deputy leader of the Conservatives in the House of Commons.
Canadian tabloids have hinted at a very close friendship between the attractive Stronach and former US President Bill Clinton and have published pictures of the two together.
Stronach has been in politics for no more than two years, but that did not prevent her from seeking leadership of the Conservative Party. She lost.
She has been a virulent critic of the Liberal Party, which she joined on Tuesday, but she took a leaf out of the defectors’ book in India when she rationalised her decision to cross the floor.
“I regret to say that I do not believe the (Conservative) Party’s leader is truly sensitive to the needs of each part of the country and just how big and complex Canada really is,” Stronach told a news conference after being sworn in as minister.
“For me this was a very difficult decision. I had to do a lot of reflection and inner searching. I came to the conclusion that I can best serve Canada and my constituents in this capacity.”
For the Prime Minister, Stronach’s defection has only given some breathing space. The Opposition has threatened to bring up a series of confidence votes before Parliament adjourns on June 24, but Martin is appealing to the Opposition, Manmohan Singh-style, to let Parliament work.
The weekend brought more trouble for the embattled Martin as shades of the JMM bribery scandal during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s prime ministership cast a new shadow over his government.
A tape surfaced to suggest a deal between the Indo-Canadian health minister in Martin’s government, Ujjal Dosanjh, and two Indo-Canadian MPs from the Opposition, Gurmant Grewal and his wife Nina. Dosanjh has been a trouble-shooter for Martin.
According to accounts in the Canadian media, a spokesman for Dosanjh said Grewal and his wife offered their votes to the government during the crucial budget session in return for political appointments and termination of separate investigations by the police and the ethics commissioner of the House of Commons against Grewal.
The tape, which is likely to be probed, will make Canada’s already murky politics steamier in the weeks ahead.
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| starsearcher |
| Jay you're just upset about the corruption scandal and the Liberals...but I think what you fail to notice is the larger picture of these articles...NOT just that Liberals are bad and all that |
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| Jayx1 |
| Im not upset solely by the Liberals. Honestly my outrage is not partisian. If these were conservatives pulling these stunts id be after them as well. All the COnservative party is to me at this moment is a viable alternative to the current corrupt regime. Dont think for a moment that i wouldnt hold their feet to the fire if they pulled this kind of crap as well. Im more angry at the fact that the average canadian doesnt care and is taking it up the ass. Im sick of people thinking that we are such a wonderful perfect country and morally superior. We are not. We have more problems than the average person wants to realize. Sadly we are a country in self denial and i hope we wake up real soon before we actually do become a 3rd world country. Because the path we are heading down at this moment is a dangerous one. |
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| starsearcher |
I think you are right about the fact that nobody cares...in fact I find that in Canada people just wanna chill drink beer, watch hockey, and of course (not to forget) smoke some herb  Usually if these 3 things exist everyone's happy.
After working a few coop jobs at a few companies I've realized that nobody's really doing anything - which drives me insane because I don't understand how our economy's working even, how do things get done...bizzare. Of course there are exceptions, and I love what I'm doing now because I'm in a team that actually does something!
I'm obviously exagerating but overall I do find that most people just couldn't be bothered to care...beer = good so we can relax.
*EDIT*
From my personal experiences and family members that came to visit my mom and I here, I think that many people - when they see Canada for the first time get such a beautiful impression and they all fall into the illusion that it's a bed of roses and everything is perfect here - and of course everybody wants to move here automatically. Maybe we just give off such a great impression to the rest of the world I don't know...but in the words of Shakespeare - "Something is rotten in the state of..." Canada |
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| zokissima |
| quote: | | All the COnservative party is to me at this moment is a viable alternative to the current corrupt regime. |
I don't mean to just jump in on this, but I think that's taking it a little too far, with the term 'regime'. Bottom line is people here like to complain, and they take the freedom and audacity to complain for granted. Sure, we can draw MANY parallels to various ethnic, religious, racial, and political agendas and situations happening here to many other nations in the world. However, to draw parallels between this place and third world countries, such as India, is just absurd. We do tend to have an overinflated image of what it means to be Canadian, and it is unfortunate that so many people either are stupid and blind, or just don't care about some of the circumstances here. However, just as it is stupid to focus on how 'good' everything is here, it's just as unfit to focus on the inefficiencies of the system alone. The current Liberal scandal really demonstrates nothing that wasn't apparent before. It just so happens that now it's out in the open. I'm not so certain that the Conservatives would do things any differently. Once a faction is in power, they will do what they must to stay in power. The fact that Liberals are shown to be liars right now does not change the fact that their policies are still better suited to serve me than those of other parties. You didn't have to look too far to see some very obvious discrepancies in the system BEFORE this whole fiasco, thus the conclusion of lies and corruption could have been drawn LONG before this. |
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| Jayx1 |
Nothing has ever been perfect here. That is very true. But this scandal takes petty corruption and brings it to a whole new level. This is not just mild small time stuff anymore. What we have here is a scandal that lasted over a decade and went right to the core of the governing party
| quote: | | However, to draw parallels between this place and third world countries, such as India, is just absurd. |
It is not absurd at all. There are many startling similarities between what is happening here and what happens in most third world countries. The difference is that in those countries it has been systemic for most of their history where as it's brand new in Canada. You dont think that countries like India and other third world nations were once prosperous? They were. What made them poor was the kind of corruption that is now emerging in our own country. This is why i say that we have to nip it in the bud now. I'm not saying we ARE a third world country but we are definately in the very early stages of planting the seeds to become one. And it will only get worse if people remain willing to be ignorant to the truth.
And this government is a regime. Regimes typically are corrupt and will do anything it can to stay in power. Regimes are generally undemocratic and manipulative. This is exactly what we have with the current Liberals.
Canada needs to wake up before we wake up 30 years from now and wonder why the country is bankrupt and seeking IMF aid. And im not joking either. |
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| starsearcher |
Before the confidence vote Harper had a few things to say on TV and it was just rediculous...it seemed like he was becomming more absurd with every word and it made less and less sense...
Anyway I'm not happy with the situation now but I highly doubt I'd want Harper running the show either :o |
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| starsearcher |
Speaking of India...
Jay you have problems with OUR smoking laws?
| quote: | Smoking scenes banned on screen as India steps up anti-tobacco war
Wed Jun 1, 7:31 AM ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) - India has banned all scenes showing smoking, cigarette packs or tobacco advertisements in movies and TV programmes, stepping up its war against tobacco use, a government official said.
"Film actors have a lasting impact on the minds of children and young adults," said Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss. "More and more youngsters and women are taking up tobacco use."
A World Health Organisation said it was checking whether India was the first nation to ban tobacco on screen. The Tobacco Control Foundation of India, an anti-smoking lobby, said it believed India was a pioneer in taking such action.
According to the newly issued ministry directives, each time an actor lights a cigarette up on screen, television channels must blur the scene.
Films already shot containing smoking scenes must run a scroll at the bottom of the screen, warning of the dangers of smoking.
The law will apply to domestic and foreign films as well as old films that are released in cinema halls.
"The new rules will become effective as law from August," a senior health ministry official told AFP. "We decided to give them a little time to modify their films and soap operas."
India, which accounts for one-sixth of tobacco illnesses worldwide, was an early ratifier of a global anti-smoking treaty which took effect in March.
Some 2,200 people die daily from tobacco-related diseases in the country of more than one billion people.
Anti-tobacco campaigners applauded the move.
"India is the first country to ban tobacco on screen," Sajeela Maini, president of the Tobacco Control Foundation of India, told AFP.
"We can show the impact of the move as nearly 76 percent of Bollywood films have smoking scenes."
She added that 55,000 children under the age of 15 were picking up the habit of smoking or chewing tobacco in India because they wre influenced by role models.
"You watch a kid imitating (Bollywood star) Shahrukh Khan and the first thing he goes for is a hat over one eye and a cigarette in hand," said Jyotsna Govil, a senior official of the Indian Cancer Society.
"It really hooks them to tobacco."
But Bollywood filmmakers criticised the ban. "One would understand a ban on surrogate advertising, but to completely ban smoking is ridiculous," filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt said, according to The Times of India newspaper.
Activists said the impact on filmmakers' artistic freedom was a small price to pay as it would help to prevent smoking and the huge costs on treatment.
"There are many other ways of showing tension than showing somebody smoking a cigarette. You can chew a lip rather than a cigarette," Govil said.
India has already banned all direct tobacco advertising as well as tobacco sponsorship of sports events but tobacco products are still advertised indirectly.
India is keen to cut down on health costs from tobacco-related illnesses, an annual financial burden of more than 300 billion rupees (seven billion dollars) for the emerging economy.
While there is no state-provided health system, many patients seek treatment in heavily subsidised government hospitals.
Half of Indian males use tobacco, while use among women varies between regions from two per cent to 21 percent.
Health officials say one of India's most urgent needs is to stop the use of chewing tobacco, which has led to the world's highest incidence of oral cancer. |
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| Jayx1 |
Thats no different than our laws with the exception that people cant smoke in movies. But dont think that wont be the next step here. Smoking scenes already earn a PG rating for adult content in Canada. I wonder if they are still allowed to sponsor events in India unlike here?
Either way you cut it it's ridiculous. Either ban the stuff entirely or leave it alone. At the very least, stop collecting the taxes on it if it's going to be so heavily restricted. |
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| zokissima |
| I'm not really sure how to respond. The way you describe it, we're on the brink of a catastrophic downfall that's almost beyond our control. I guess I just disagree. Call this a regime if you will, complain if you will, but if you would please, realize that nothing will change. Blindness and ignorance are a staple diet here. The nation is not unified in any one goal. Life here is designed to push the individualist to survive by fallin in line, by not caring. It's the same system practically that we see south of the border. They DID have a representative that was chosen by the people, that could have made a difference, but human nature prevailed once again once the smear campaigns began. I cannot understand how you have such strong complaints about pretty much every facet of this governing body, yet are clearly blind enough to draw parallels to other nations. You take political situations, situations completely ununique to ANY given nation, and say "look, see they're bad, and we're doing the same, we're bad as well". Was India prosperous? 2000 years ago, maybe. Does that have any relevance now? Maybe. Are there fundamental differences in regards to culture, religion, and social acceptance that make Canada and India WORLDS apart? Absolutely. If you want to focus on political agendas and the corruption of a ruling body, you have every freedom to do so. However, to start drawing all sorts of ridiculous comparisons, it comes accross as little else except grasping at straws. You take a comparison between two things by citing specific examples, but disregarding the entire picture. I hate to bring it down to such a simple argument, but if it's so bad here, go to India, go to China, go to any former Eastern Bloc state, see what the culture and the mentality of the masses is like over there, then compare. Until you have that first-hand experience, citing quotations from various media, which biased they are regardless of their source, hardly exemplifies a solid argument on the decrepid state of this nation. |
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