Canada denies British MP entry as threat to national security

Canada's Conservative government has denied British MP, George Galloway, entry to Canada on the grounds he is a threat to national security.

Galloway is a passionate voice for the counter-narrative. He likes to tell the other side of the story about the Middle East.The powers that be in Israel along with that country's backers elsewhere, hate him for it and have even tried to trump up charges, using faked documents purporting to show he was taking oil money from Saddam Hussein.

Lately, Galloway has been defending the people of Gaza and highlighting what he claims are the war crimes of the Israelis. The media and other have labelled him loon, of course. Their case is a bit weaker now that Israeli soldiers have now said they were ordered to shoot civilians as part of God's plan for Israel's manifest destiny.

Jason Kenney is the Canadian immigration minister in. As background, Wikipaedia describes Kenney as "one of the leading supporters in the Canadian House of Commons of the 2003 invasion of Iraq". Clearly not a deep thinker or one who pays much attention to evidence.

Like so many conservatives in recent years, Kenney apparently doesn't really understand democracy, debate, freedom of speech and most of the other critical parts of modern democracy. They are among the first things to get the heave-ho when this sort of conservative wants to impose their views on everyone else.

Galloway is no threat to Canada's national security. But Mr Galloway is very much disliked by Canada's powerful pro-Israel lobby, who also have very deep pockets. Together, the Conservatives and the pro-Israel lobby have shot themselves in the foot yet again by being heavy-handed and resorting to tactics that will endear them to no one who actually understands freedom and democracy.

Canada's government is having a tough time justifying keeping Canadian troops in Afghanistan and I suppose they were afraid Mr. Galloway's forthright views on that subject might erode public support further. That's a political matter. It's not a reason to be banning people who disagree with you and go about it in a peaceful and democratic way.

Canadians used to be outraged by the Americans when they banned prominent Canadian anti-nuke writers like Farley Mowatt from attending conferences in the US. Now it's the Canadian government's turn to be unbelievably stupid.

I've signed this petition in support of allowing George Galloway to come to Canada and engage in the debate about the Middle East.

It's snowing out there

Canadians are looking at their first coast-to-coast white Christmas in almost 40 years. Last winter was a record year for snow in many areas, though it didn't start quite as early as this year. As you can see from the photo (Caledon, Ontario - 30km NW of Toronto), that's a lot of snow in Southern Ontario before Christmas. In recent years, there has been no persistent snow on the ground in that region until after the New Year.

Interestingly, you don't get a lot of snow when it's really cold. You get a lot of snow when it's not very far below freezing. You get a lot of snow when there is a lot of water in the atmosphere. Water that has evaporated in large quantities. In Canada, snow comes from the North.

With the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay being warmer than usual, they remain open longer than usual and you get more evaporation than usual. Hence more snow. Perversely, the growing volumes of snow in Canadian winters are a sign things have gotten quite a bit warmer (from a snow perspective) than usual.

It will be interesting to see what happens for the remainder of the winter. Some places have already received as much snow as they would normally see for the whole year.

Phillips said some parts of the country are seeing snowfall amounts that have outpaced last year's record and near-record totals at this point in the season.

But he also said it's unlikely that trend will continue.

"Already in many places in eastern Canada, we're ahead of the record from last year," he said.

"But, you know, we have a long, long way to go. I'm thinking that, hey, there's not enough left in nature to give us another one of those years."

Nature may surprise.

Canadian Election

Canadians have returned a minority Conservative Party government. The Conservatives won 143 of 308 seats, with 37.4% of the vote nationally. They needed 155 seats for a bare majority.

In most provinces, the Conservatives won a clear majority of seats, but Canadians in the two most populous provinces - Ontario and Quebec - did not back them. The Conservatives won the largest minority of seats in Ontario and ran 3rd in Quebec. More than half of all Canadians live in these two provinces, so if you don't win them, you don't win a majority.

The First Past the Post voting system threw up the usual upside-down results.

The Bloc Quebecois won 10% of the vote nationally and 50 seats - all in Quebec - where they won a clear majority of seats.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) won 18.2% of the vote nationally, but only 37 seats.

The Greens got over 940,000 votes nationally or 6.4% of the total vote. That's 50% more than in 2006 and two thirds of what the Bloc got this time out. But the greens won no seats as Green support is accross the country rather than regionally based.

The total turnout was 59.1%, putting the shares of each party into perspective. Even the Conservatives, with 37.4% of the vote are only supported by barely 20% of ALL Canadians. The rest have even less support.

In Alberta, no party other than the Conservatives won more than 13% of the vote and no seats. The turnout was a dismal 52%. Low even by Canadian standards. If you aren't a Conservative there, there is no point in wasting time voting.

Overall, 65.4% of Canadians voted for parties other than the Conservative party, but won slightly more than 50% of all the seats.

The election result leaves Canada more or less where it was 6 weeks ago prior to the election being called, with a minority Conservative government required to seek support from three opposition parties who have more in common with each other than with the Conservatives.

Conceivably, those three parties could form a government if they chose to. But the main stumbling "bloc" there is the separatist Bloc Quebecois who have little interest in working constructively for the good of a united Canada.

Canada's balkanisation, disunity and dysfunction under First Past the Post continues.

Democracy - You know when you haven't got it

The Canadian federal election to elect the members of the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa is next week, on October 14th.

Millions of Canadians face the prospect of once again casting votes that elect no one.

The voters who elect no one in any electorate anywhere are called "Orphan Voters". They now have their own web site at orphanvoters.ca .  If you want to see how many votes were wasted in London-Fanshawe, try entering "N6E 2V7" in the post code field. It's a shocker.

Canada doesn't have MMP. They still use First Past the Post. While some in New Zealand have clearly forgotten (or failed to appreciate)  how truly awful First Past the Post really is, millions of Canadians will very soon re-discover how pointless it is to bother casting those wasted votes that elect no one.

Canada has essentially been balkanised into virtually monolithic regions thanks to First Past the Post. Actual votes show that almost all parties enjoy broad support across the whole country, but thanks to First Past the Post, one party with minority voter support is able to dominate in a given region.  This has lead to considerable partisan politicking between regions and no small amount of dischord. No one party has a majority in the Federal parliament and regionally-based minority governments have been the outcome in the past two election and are likely in this one, too. 

Essentially, First Past the Post has produced a divisive and destructive political environment where parties with minority support in their own regions are over-represented in the national parliament.  

For example, the Bloc Quebecois, with 10.5% of the vote in 2006, won 51 seats out of 318 - almost 20% of all seats. But the NDP, with 17.5% of the vote only won 29, less than 10% of all seats.  Almost twice as many votes won the NDP a bit more than half as many seats. 

In the three prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, if you don't vote for the Conservative party, you are unlikely to elect anyone.

In Quebec, if you don't vote for the Bloc Quebecois, you are unlikely to elect anyone.

In Ontario, the Liberals tend to hold sway, with a few Conservative pockets in rural areas, and a vote for anyone else, much of the time, is pointless.

In each case, the 'winner' is simply the largest minority - not the majorityi

In an effort to cast a vote that actually counts, there is a Facebook group devoted to matching voters who have worthless votes in their own electorate with voters for other parties in electorates where their votes are also worthless. They co-operate to vote strategically for a common goal - in this case, keeping the unpopular Conservative party from gaining a majority of the seats with barely 35% of all the votes.

There is a desperate air among these voters seeking - somehow - to cast a vote that actually matters.

Here in New Zealand, we would be fools to get rid of MMP and return to this situation...... 

Canadian petrol price up 13 cents / litre amid election campaign

"Supply fears" related to Hurricane Ike are being claimed as the reason for a huge 13 cent / litre petrol price rise in Canada yesterday.  That would be close to 20 cents NZ at current exchange rates. Canada has other issues that make for a fairly uncompetitive market, but even taking that into consideration, this was a BIG jump. 

The petrol price increase is against the backdrop of Canada's minority Conservative government, lead by PM Stephen Harper, having decided to call an October 14th general election for the federal Parliament in Ottawa. 

The polls are telling a fascinating story. The Conservatives are "way out in front" (according to the right-wing "Sun Media" news chain)........on barely 38%.  The Opposition Liberals are on 28% and four more parties are on 8% or better. 

Canadian voters on the Centre-left account  for over 55% of the vote, but it is split three ways between the Liberals, NDP and the Greens. Even  the populist Bloc Quebecois, based soley in French-speaking Quebec, is arguably a centre-left party. Their 8% takes the total to 63%, compared to the Conservative's 37%. But the Conservatives are the largest single bloc of votes and Canada still uses the First Past the Post voting system. So what 63% of Canadians think may not amount ot much depending one whether or not the Consevatives win a majority of the 318 seats. The past two elections have delivered minority governments, first for the Liberals, then for the Conservatives. 

Clearly Canadians are significantly fragmented on who should govern and the winner of this election will have a hard time claiming they have a mandate to do anything if more than 60% of voters didn't vote for them. But that's First Past the Post for you. Britain's current Labour government "won" with only 35% of the vote just under 4 years ago.  

It will be interesing to see if the petrol price rise features in their election as an issue and whether or not there is any effect on prices here, this far from the hurricane zone. 

Canada's Conservatives are firmly in the denialist camp where climate change is concerned, having done essentially nothing about implementing Kyoto while echoing the "wisdom" of George W Bush on climate change. It's an issue that could cut their legs off. Public opinion in Canada is firmly of the view that something must be done. The conservative media in Canada are doing the same thing there as they are here, highlighting the cost of reducing emissions without making much, if any, mention of what the cost of doing nothing might be. 

Living in a land on the knife's edge between frozen in winter and fried in summer, Canadians are well aware of how their climate is changing. The Canadian version of the reality denying global Conservative model won't easily be able to turn back that tide.

Foriegn Investment: Some good / Some bad

In the wake of the government's decision last week to not allow the sale of 40% of Auckland Airport to a foreign buyer, I've been reflecting on the topic a wee bit. Plus, it rained today and there was nothing on TV. What do I care? I don't watch TV anyway.

What prompted my thoughts was the Canadian government deciding this week to block the sale of a high-tech satellite / robotics company to a US buyer.

Canada (where I grew up) began enjoying the "benefits" of foreign investment decades prior to the rage for it seriously took hold in New Zealand political circles. The inverted comments around "benefits" should indicate that this experience has not always been a good one and that foreign investment is far from problem free.

In the NZ Herald last year, investment analyst Brian Gaynor looked at the serious problems that poor foreign investment has caused in New Zealand in recent years. Air New Zealand, NZ Rail, Telecom and more are cited.

Judging by the comments of many business and political commentators in New Zealand, there appears to be inadequate awareness of the potential downsides of foreign investment. At the very least, they are reluctant to acknowledge there are any downsides.

Is all foreign investment good? No.
Is all foreign investment bad? No.

Absolutely and without question any investor, domestic or foreign, who can invest capital in new businesses or industries to generate wealth and value and/or employment and/or a skills base for enabling other economic endeavour is to be encouraged and perhaps even supported in doing so. No country can have too many good citizens - individual or corporate.

But the picture isn't all rosey. In the Canadian experience, foreign investment often meant that a company, or an industry as a whole, was converted into a "branch plant" of a foreign owner. The economies of scale thus achieved often meant that domestic Canadian competitors became uncompetitive and were then either bought up and closed down or they simply shut up shop. Later, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was introduced, and tariffs on imports were reduced or removed, these branch plants were often allowed to run down and declared too expensive to re-invest in. The activity that had taken place there ceased. The skills base associated with these industries rapidly dissipates and in the end no one knows how to do that thing any more. This is one of the main reasons the Canadian government gave for blocking the sale of MDA this week.

Where the investment was in purchasing existing companies rather than building new ones, the effect was often ultimately hostile to the creation of wealth in Canada. Instead, it actually degraded and finally destroyed what wealth had been there by removing domestic competitors from the scene, then closing down local branches entirely. No longer even a branch plant economy, you import all of whatever it was that used to be made here and employed people here.

We can see this today as we wander the aisles of our local supermarkets. Basic, everyday products that used to be made here, from deodorants to tomato sauce, are now imported. Businesses that employed large numbers of unskilled or low-skilled people are now gone or greatly reduced and always under threat of being closd entirely.

The assumption seems to be that "resources will be shifted to new industries" as one letter writer to the North Shore Times asserted this week (objecting to the blocking of the airport sale). But that doesn't make any sense to a 45 years old woman who may have spent the last 20 or more years making carpets at Feltex in Foxton. Who is going to fund her retraining and re-allocation to a new knowledge industry - even assuming she was up to it? She can't. She's out of work. Wages were low anyway. Maybe she didn't even finish secondary school. Textiles have been part of the Foxton economy for most of 150 years thanks initially to the abundant supply of flax in the area. Now it's all gone. Soon the skills will be gone as well.

Canada had also found that its sovereignty can be directly undermined by foreign investment. At one point in the early 1970's more than 99% of the booming Canadian petroleum industry was foreign-owned. The Canadian arm of US companies have shown themselves unwilling to follow Canadian laws when they conflicted with US laws. In particular, they often refused to deal with countries the US had embargoed, but Canada had not.

Famously, in the early 1970s, the Trudeau government in Ottawa had to threaten to order a US-owned Canadian locomotive manufacturer to ship locos to US-embargoed Cuba. The US parent risked being prosecuted by the government there and was in a no-win situation. The US government relented in 1975. Similarly, the Canadian arm of IBM found itself under constant pressure to follow US law.

Canadians went through all this years before New Zealand started down this road. I came to New Zealand in the early 1980s knowing a great deal more, from personal experience, about the downside of foreign investment than even the most senior politicians here seemed aware of. I recall being amazed that they were so uncritical of virtually all foreign investment. People who knew better did try to warn them, but listening wasn't a talent demonstrated by most Kiwi governments elected under the old First Past the Post voting system. Being deaf was supposed to mean you were strong instead of being determinedly deaf and blind or worse - stupid.

The government here (and the government in Canada) has been criticised for playing politics with foreign investment. That could only be possible if large numbers of voters understood foreign investment to not always be a good thing while their political masters most often like to pretend otherwise. In Canada that's a given. In 1970 the "Committee for an Independent Canada" (CIC) was founded to publicise the damaging side of foreign investment. At age 13, already curious, I attended their founding national conference in Thunder Bay, where I happened to live. The CIC later morphed into the "Council of Canadians".

In New Zealand, more and more people seem to be coming to the conclusion that being prudent about what you sell to people who don't live here is prudent and careful economic management and not "xenophobia" as some have attempted to label it.

Not all foreign investment is bad. We should insist our governments at least attempt to tell the good from the bad and reject the latter and thank them for doing so. The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board clearly thought they would make a lot of money out of Auckland Airport's monopoly to aid in funding the pensions of Canadians. Maybe now Kiwi pensioners will get a look into extracting the monopoly rents the Canadians were seeking through the fund administered by our own government?