The Wolfowitz Principle

Almost forty years ago, Dr. Lawrence J. Peter enunciated the principle which bears his surname. Peter believed that "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." There were, said Peter, many reasons for this. But the prime reason was that the set of skills which led to an employee's success at one level of the organization were not the skills required at a higher level. And, never having developed the required skills to succeed at a higher level, the employee -- and the organization he or she worked for -- failed at the task at hand.

Paul Wolfowitz is a stunning example of the Peter Principle. A mathematician by training, he is universally acknowledged as a very bright man. But, like another technocrat before him -- Robert McNamara -- he has been a remarkable failure at the American Department of Defence. And, also like McNamara, the man he worked for sent him off to the Presidency of the World Bank. The jury is out on Mr. McNamara's time at the bank. But it is becoming increasingly clear that Wolfowitz's tenure there, like his tenure at the Defence Department, has been a train wreck.

Both McNamara and Wolfowitz made their reputations as gurus of statistical analysis -- techniques which are widely thought to accurately predict the results of human endeavour. But, as McNamara now readily admits, those techniques are only valid if one thoroughly understands the terrain -- geographical, cultural, historical and political -- over which one travels. During McNamara's time at Defence, the numbers -- particularly the body counts -- were always on his side. But he, and the government for which he worked, did not understand Vietnam at all. By 1967 he wasn't sleeping at night, his wife had an ulcer and he knew that -- despite the numbers -- the war he had crafted was not winnable. Lyndon Johnson thought McNamara was melting down and replaced him with Clark Clifford, who understood that McNamara had stumbled upon the truth.

It would appear that Wolfowitz and his president have had no such epiphany. Even though his predictions that the war in Iraq would be easily concluded and paid for by Iraqi oil money have proved to be so much smoke, Wolfowitz went off to the bank convinced, as ever, that history would vindicate him.

And, if Wolfowitz did not understand Iraq, he understood the World Bank even less. That is not to say that, in some ways, Wolfowitz was not a good fit for the job. He, like several of his predecessors, believed that the way to improve the lot of the world's poor was to practice what John Ralston Saul has called "crucifixion economics," a set of economic principles perhaps best illustrated by the bank's requirements before it loaned money to Russia in the early nineties. Essentially, all the major assets of the state were privatized at fire sale prices and found their way into the hands of a few wealthy Russians, thereafter referred to as "the oligarchs." Then state services were drastically curtailed. The result was unemployment, loss of pensions and a crisis in Russian health care. Wealth was shifted up into the hands of a few, not down to the masses.

Naomi Klein, in a recent column in The Nation, provides a laundry list of similar demands which had to be met by other poor countries before the bank would lend them money. " . . . it forced school fees on students in Ghana in exchange for a loan; it demanded that Tanzania privatize its water system; it made telecom privatization a condition of aid for Hurricane Mitch; it demanded labor "flexibility" in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami; it pushed for eliminating food subsidies in post invasion Iraq." And if -- as in Russia -- things got worse rather than better, what was Wolfowitz's solution? Eliminate corruption and crony capitalism in the offending countries -- as if the bank's own demands had not encouraged, indeed, demanded such corruption.

And then came the case of Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz's companion. She had worked for the bank before Wolfowitz's arrival. And, sensing a potential conflict of interest, Wolfowitz took steps to -- at least temporarily -- remove her from the organization. To that end he worked out a deal whereby she would remain a bank employee, but she would be seconded to the U.S. State Department. However, the storm broke when reporters -- like David Corn, also of The Nation -- discovered that Riza's transfer included a 36% pay hike (from $132,000 a year to $180,000 and guaranteed annual raises of 8%). Nice work, if you can get it. Or, more precisely, nice work if you know someone who can get it for you. The salary increase will also effect Riza's pension. Under the new regime, she can expect an annual pension of $110,000 a year. Had she not been offered the promotion, her annual pension would be $56,000 a year.

All of this makes it hard for the bank to rail against crony capitalism. Mr. Wolfowitz does not owe his rise to competence. Instead, in the idiom of the day, he knows how to network. He has demonstrated his incompetence at not just one but two of the world's most powerful institutions. That kind of incompetence is greater than even Dr. Peter recognized. It needs a new name. Call it the Wolfowitz Principle.

The Myth of Inevitability

Thirty years ago I sat in a Canadian history class at the University of Manitoba. The class was taught by Gordon Rothney, one of the finest scholars and teachers I have known. He and I shared a place in common. He was born in, and I taught high school in, the same little town in the Eastern Townships. During the course of the year we, of course, discussed Quebec's place and future in Confederation. Rothney had no sympathy for the nationalism espoused by Rene Levesque; but he understood where it came from. And, more importantly, he was of the opinion that the nationalists would eventually win the day -- not because they had justice on their side, but because of what, he felt, were the inexorable tides of history.

He believed that the history of the twentieth century was the story of how power was being consolidated into geographic blocks. That consolidation began with economic pacts, like NAFTA and the European Economic Community. Eventually it would erode international borders and national sovereignty would be a thing of the past. He was quite confident that the growing influence of the United States would eventually hold sway over North America, and that the flow of power from North to South would, in the end, dissolve the historical east-west bonds which held Canada together. I remember arguing that, despite what Tolstoy said, history was not about unstoppable movements of people and resources. It was about wisdom -- or the lack of it -- as expressed in the choices which people made throughout time.

I must admit that, over the past thirty years -- particularly during the last Quebec referendum in 1995 -- I have sometimes thought that he was right. But, as of today, Canada has not disintegrated. Some -- myself included -- would argue that the present government's take on the federation makes that dissolution easier. But, for the present, it looks like we will hold the family together.

I thought of Rothney this week as I read John Ralston Saul's excellent book, The Collapse of Globalism. Saul claims that in the thirty years since I sat in Rothney's history class, the so called best and brightest among us have been in the thrall of an ideology of economic determinism. The result, in the 1980's and 90's, was public policies which were presented to us "with the force of declared inevitability." But, says Saul, there is nothing inevitable about our situation. Instead of being trapped by the tides of history, we are in an "interregnum," an era characterized by "a vacuum of economic thought, which adds an element of even greater uncertainty, because economics is a romantic tempestuous business, rather theatrical, often dependent on the willing suspension of disbelief by the rest of us." And, ironically, in the midst of this vacuum, we have come to see all of existence through an economic prism.

Having willingly suspended our disbelief, we have forgotten that we have choices, that "we have the power to choose in the hope of altering society for the greater good. . . The conviction that citizens have such power lies at the heart of the idea of civilization as a shared project." For, Saul writes, "To believe in the reality of choice is one of the most basic characteristics of leadership. Curiously enough, many individuals who think of themselves as leaders find this reality very difficult. They believe that their job is to understand power and management and perhaps make minor corrections to what they accept to be the torque of events."

We have substituted management for leadership. It is worth remembering that the current President of the United States holds an MBA from Harvard; and the current Prime Minister of Canada holds a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Calgary. One should not be surprised that they espouse what is, for the moment, the conventional wisdom. Thus, this week Mr. Bush vetoed a bill which would begin the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, arguing that such a bill would inevitably lead to chaos in the entire Middle East; and the Harper government claimed this week that its Green Plan was modest because anything more demanding would inevitably do untold damage to the Canadian economy.

What is so appealing about inevitability is that it relieves us of moral responsibility. We believe in financial accounting; but we work hard to sidestep any accounting for the long term consequences of our actions. Asked this week if, knowing that the intelligence his organization had on Saddam Hussein's nuclear capability was -- at best -- unreliable, he had argued against President Bush's decision to go to war, George Tenet answered that it had become clear to him that the decision was inevitable. To this assertion, former CIA analyst Michael Scheurer, in an op-ed in The Washington Post, wrote that Tenet faced a choice -- to go along or to resign: ". . . Tenet's resignation would have destroyed the neocons' Iraq house of cards by discrediting the only glue holding it together: the intelligence that proved Saddam Hussein was guilty of pursuing nuclear weapons and working with Al Queda."

When you have a mortgage and a family, it's never easy to make that kind of decision. But as Tenet's decision illustrates, the consequences can be disastrous. The potential to avoid disaster, despite what I learned in Gordon Rothney's history class, still resides in our power to choose.

The Fire Next Time

Last week's blockade of CN's and VIA's main line by the Bay of Quinte Mohawks was a taste of things to come. When the Harper government tore up the Kelowna Accord soon after coming to office, native leaders warned that we would face a warm and uncomfortable summer. John Ibbitson, of the Globe and Mail, warned in March that "Reasonable, thoughtful observers with no axes to grind or drums to beat worry that aboriginal crime and aboriginal violence are about to escalate; that this silent long suffering underclass will implode under the pressures of poverty and substance abuse, and then explode in anger." This from a columnist who generally supports Harper government initiatives.

Then, in its recent budget, the government provided by-the-bootstraps money to solve native problems. It offered money to encourage native home ownership -- even though native homes are considered community assets; and it also offered money for job training. But, despite the flood of money to lots of other causes, there was no money to improve the deplorable conditions on native reserves.

After Finance Minister Jim Flaherty trumpeted his government's generosity, Assembly of First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine -- fighting back tears -- declared, "I don't know how long we're expected to wait, but I don't think that this country can afford to see such poverty in such an incredibly wealthy country." Last week's actions along the shores of the Bay of Quinte are a signal that Canada's natives intend to wait no longer.

And, despite Mr. Flaherty's claims that his government's financial management of the country represents a "new approach," there is something well worn and utterly depressing about his rhetoric and his policies. As an article in this week's Globe makes clear, the federal government has been in the habit of ignoring its native peoples for over a century. In 1907, the Department of Indian Affairs sent its chief medical officer, Dr. Peter Bryce, on a tour of residential schools. What he discovered was an alarming incidence of tuberculosis among native students -- and a death rate of 24% over a fourteen year period. In some schools, the death rate was as high as 69%.

Bryce pleaded with the bureaucrats in Ottawa to quarantine sick children and to not allow them into residential schools when they were obvious carriers of the disease. The churches, which controlled the schools, refused to follow his recommendations. In order to protect the health of the schools' residents, Byrce recommended that Ottawa take control of the schools. It took over sixty years before Ottawa followed his advice.

Why? According to Dr. John Milloy, of Trent University, the government had set up residential schools on a "contracting out" basis. The deaths from tuberculosis, he says, were caused by "the policy of paying the churches on a per capita basis to run the schools. Numerous letters indicate that because of the funding policy, churches would admit sick children and refuse to send ailing ones home. Pleas to the department for more funding fell on deaf ears." To date, the Harper government has followed a similar policy. Rather than assume its constitutional responsibility for conditions on native reserves, it has left that file (like so many others) to the provinces -- a new form of contracting out. Having tried this failed policy in the past, we are now told it is part of the new conservative "ethic of individual responsibility."

But as Bill Bradley, in a recent essay in Time makes clear, neither the conservative ethic of individual responsibility nor the traditionally liberal "ethic of caring" make the solutions to the problems we face achievable. What we need, he says, is something which connects both the concepts of responsibility and caring -- what he calls the "ethic of connectedness." What we need is the recognition that we will only begin to solve problems when we realize that all of us have a stake in those solutions. We all want the same things, Bradley says -- good homes, good families, good jobs, good health care and good pensions. These objectives cannot be solely market driven. The require a shared sense of responsibility.

In a lecture at the University of Toronto last fall, philosopher Charles Taylor suggested that the only way out of the violence and nihilism of the so called War on Terror and the Clash of Civilizations is to start from Dostoevsky' s insight that "we are all responsible." Only when we recognize our collective responsibility for the predicament we are in -- our "connectedness" -- can we hope to find the the solutions which the planet and humanity so desperately need. The rail blockade at Deseronto last week was a plea for connectedness. If we choose to ignore that plea, then we will reap the harvest of our own neglect. We will all face the fire next time.

To Tell the Truth

The recent agreement between Liberal leader Stephane Dion and Green Party leader Elizabeth May has generated alot of comment, much of it negative. Calling the agreement a "misguided gift to the Greens," The Toronto Star editorialized that, of the two leaders, May was the real winner. Worse, the paper maintained, there was "no compelling rationale" for the agreement. Jack Layton called the agreement "backroom wheeling and dealing;" and Chantal Hebert, also writing in the Star, claimed that the deal was a strategic mistake. She claimed that May has no chance of defeating Peter MacKay in Central Nova, a riding which he and his father have held for almost forty years. Moreover, she wrote, "the 10,000 voters who supported the Liberals in the 2006 election have been turned into political orphans."

On the surface, the disenfranchisement argument appears to hold water. But that argument cuts both ways. If 10,000 Liberals have been denied a potential voice in Parliament, there were 660,000 Green Party voters who were also denied a voice in the last election. And, in the absence of some kind of system of proportional representation, the Green Party -- unless May wins a seat -- will remain voiceless for some time.

Andrew Coyne, in The National Post, writes that "the real target of the operation is not Mr. Mackay. It's the NDP." He suggests that what Dion is doing is trying to unite the political left, so that it will not succumb to the weakness that dogged the political right during the Chretien era.

So there are alot of theories to choose from, all with an appropriate soupcon of cynicism. But there is another explanation; and, in advancing it, I may be looking at the world through rose coloured glasses.

All of these theories start from the same assumption. In the past, any Canadian Party has had to move to the political centre to win a Parliamentary majority. The Liberals have been particularly adept at this. In the '50's and '60's, when the NDP was on the rise, the Liberals advocated programs which began as NDP policies. Thus, we got the Canada Pension Plan and Medicare. With the rise of the Reform Party in the 1980's, the Liberals advocated balanced budgets and decentralization of the federal government.

Now, say the pundits, the Conservatives have borrowed the Liberals playbook. If the Liberals under Dion are tilting in favour of the environment, they will, too. And, if the Liberals (in pursuit of a majority) spread money around lavishly, then the Conservatives will, too. The Conservatives, they say, have stopped acting like the purists they have -- with the exception of Brian Mulroney -- always been. And the Liberals -- acting like the purists they have never been -- are marginalizing themselves, choosing not the political centre, but the left wing fringe.

All of that holds -- until the political centre undergoes a radical shift. That happened in 1966 when the Liberals, under Lester Pearson, introduced Medicare. Even though he led a minority government, Pearson realized that -- despite opposition from John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives -- medicare was an idea whose time had come.

Rather than playing politics as usual, Dion may be betting that environmentalism's time has come. If one examines the platform which won him the party leadership, one would have to conclude that he believes this to be so. And, given the Conservatives abandonment of their Clean Air Act and former environment minister Rona Ambrose, in favour of recycled Liberal policies and the combative John Baird, it is not too much of a stretch to conclude that the Conservatives are moving in the same direction. Couple that with the fact that the NDP has espoused green policies for longer than either the Liberals or the Conservatives, and it may be that Dion is right.

If Dion's political antenna have led him to the right spot, then the next election may be the Canadian equivalent of that old game show, To Tell the Truth. For those not old enough to remember, the show consisted of a panel of three guests and a panel of four celebrities. The guests all claimed to be the same person, someone who was notable for a particular accomplishment or personality trait. The task of the celebrity panel was to determine which person was the real thing and which two guests were impostors.

In the next election, I suspect that Mr. Harper, Mr. Dion and Mr. Layton will all claim the environmentalist's mantle. Mr. Duceppe, given the recent Quebec election results, will be working very hard to keep his party's raison d'etre viable. He may even be contemplating a move to Quebec to succeed Mr. Boisclair as the leader of the Parti Quebecois.

In such circumstances, the central question of the next election would be, "Will the true environmentalist please stand up?" Given Mr. Harper's recent conversion to environmentalism, his support for Quebec's status as "a nation within a nation" and his recruitment to the cabinet of David Emerson, it would not be surprising if Canadian voters did not buy what he was selling. And, despite the NDP's support for green initiatives, the Party has never garnered enough support to control the national agenda -- even in its halcyon days under Ed Broadbent. They simply lack the support to give their policies legs.

That would leave Mr. Dion, whose recent suggestion in the Star that we set absolute targets for greenhouse emissions and that we achieve those targets by instituting a carbon tax, would be a clear policy departure from both ineffective Liberal policies of the past, as well as the fuzzy policies of Mr. Baird and Mr. Harper. Support from Green Party advocates could give him political capital to put green policies in place.

Despite opposition, Pierre Trudeau made official bilingualism a part of the Canadian fabric and he repatriated the Constitution. Dion, like Trudeau before him, could put in place policies which, until his arrival, were unthinkable. He could begin the task of turning Canada green. The first steps in that direction might be taken if Canadian voters put together a coalition of Liberal, NDP and Green Party Members of Parliament. It would be their way of giving the policies a test drive.

A wide eyed delusion? Maybe. It certainly would be a departure from politics as usual. In the end it is, perhaps, too much to hope for. But there have been moments in history -- admittedly rare and far between -- when politics as usual has been abandoned for a new order. As Tennyson wrote,"'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."

Man of the People?

Watching George W. Bush since November's election, I am reminded of an old movie. In 1957, director Elia Kazan, writer Budd Schulberg and actor Andy Griffith collaborated on the film, A Face in the Crowd. It is the story of an Arkansas good old boy who sings a pretty good song and whose "aw shucks" persona pave his way to television stardom. It is a role which Griffith has perfected over the years. But in this film, Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes is a kind of Darth Vader from Mayberry.

On television he comes across as a man of the people, a common man of uncommon wisdom. Unfortunately, as his star rises, so does his ego. At the end of the film he is full of contempt for his viewers, feeling he can say anything he wishes; but he saves his most caustic comments for the end of his show, when the credits role and the sound has been muted. Beaming at his audience, he looks at the camera and tells them that they are fools. He can manipulate them in any way he chooses.

Of course, one of the many people he has betrayed slips into the control room and turns up the sound. The public sees behind the persona and abandons him because, in the end, they are not the fools he takes them for.

These days Mr. Bush seems alot like the defrocked Lonesome Rhodes. His theme is consistent: he continues to proclaim that he is "the decider." But one gets the sense that the public has changed the channel. Bush's contempt for the rules against domestic spying, his inability to mount an effective cleanup of New Orleans, the swamp at his Justice Department and -- above all -- the continuing disaster in Iraq, have torn the mask away from the good old boy.

In the last chapter of her book, The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman followed the quagmire of Vietnam from the end of the Roosevelt administration to the end of the Nixon administration. Calling the chapter "America Betrays Herself in Vietnam," she detailed how successive presidents fell victim to a kind of "self hypnosis," convincing themselves that unless the United States defeated the Communists in Vietnam, they would conquer all of Asia, eventually landing on the shores of San Francisco.

It is a history of paranoia and hubris, which no amount of evidence to the contrary -- of which there was plenty -- could alter. Certain that they were men of moral courage, five presidents (Democrats and Republicans) identified Vietnam -- which Lyndon Johnson referred to as a "raggedy-ass fourth rate country"-- as a clear and present danger. The last two presidents tried to bomb the place into oblivion, never understanding that each increasing show of force merely strengthened the resolve of the North Vietnamese, who were prepared to wait the Americans out.

There was an enemy, of course. But it was in Moscow, not Hanoi. And eventually the enemy did itself in, the consequence of the regime's own incompetence. Unfortunately, those who pulled the levers of power in Washington never understood this and they refused to change course.

But, despite Washington's ill conceived notion of courage, Tuchman did not disparage the real thing. In fact, she wrote, "Aware of the controlling power of ambition, corruption and emotion, it may be that in the search for wiser government we should look for the test of character first. And the test should be moral courage." However, she wrote, " there is always freedom of choice to change or desist from a counter productive course, if the policy maker has the moral courage to exercise it."

Thus, the true test of moral courage was the courage -- in the face of a failed policy -- to change course. With so much invested in Vietnam, several presidents refused to cut their losses and chart a new direction -- until the people, through their elected representatives, forced that change. Such, it appears, will be the fate of George W. Bush. There is an enemy out there. But it was never in Iraq. Having reached the pinnacle of success, Mr. Bush is becoming just a face in the crowd.

The Best Leaders Money Can Buy

This past Monday, statistics on how much the major American presidential candidates have raised in the first three months of the year were released to the public. It was not surprising that Hilary Clinton led the pack. What was surprising was how much money she had raised -- some $26 million. Mitt Romney led Republican candidates with almost $23 million; Rudy Giuliani has $15 million in the bank; and John Edwards, another Democrat, has raised some $14 million.

It is quite a stretch to claim that that kind of money is given out of a sense of civic responsibility. It is true that the internet has opened up campaign charity to people with twenty or thirty spare dollars in their pockets. But that kind of money doesn't come from the common folk. These days they are too busy just trying to pay their bills. Moreover, that kind of money doesn't buy a night in the Lincoln bedroom. It buys policy.

And, lest Canadians think that we are somehow free of such electoral corruption, it is worth remembering that Howard Dean was invited to last year's Liberal convention in Montreal to offer advice to the party faithful on how to win the next election. And earlier last year, the Liberals' provincial cousins invited James Carville to their annual retreat to show them how to navigate the road to victory in the election which we will face shortly in Ontario.

And it is not just the Liberals who have sought the advice of American political consultants. Carville's influence is being felt in both of Canada's major parties. Coincidentally on Monday, The Globe and Mail and Canadian Press ran stories about the new War Room -- a Carville innovation -- which the Tories have set up in suburban Ottawa. The new facility, which has been leased until January 2008, consists of 17,000 square feet. It includes a television studio to produce political propaganda; and it contains 100 new desks with new computers atop each one. After the facilities tour, staged for members of the national media, Environment Minister John Baird and Industry Minister Maxime Bernier ran the latest attack ad against Stephane Dion, which airs this week in Quebec.

Keep in mind that no election has been called. In fact, Baird says that he "sincerely" hopes that there will be no election for awhile. But, he says, that decision is in Mr. Dion's hands. Of course, given last week's vote on the budget, Baird's statement is patently false. That decision rests in Mr. Duceppe's hands.

What the Tory war room and attack ads confirm is that the "perpetual campaign" has finally come to Canada. We have reached the point where our politicians care more about running for office than they do about governing. And what this week's figures from south of the border confirm is that the perpetual campaign is very expensive.

Which begs the question, what if those funds -- and all that energy -- were directed toward policy rather than politics?

Politics is about means. Policy is about ends. Clearly, someone has confused means and ends. There used to be an axiom about the moral quagmire to which such confusion leads. One suspects that the people behind the war room operate on the assumption that the public is stupid. If they are correct, we are in deep trouble. However, as the last federal election -- the one which gave the Tories a minority government -- proved, the Canadian public generally knows exactly what it is doing. It's the party in power which cannot --or will not --draw the distinction between means and ends.

Three Men on a Horse

The results of this week's election in Quebec leave the residents of that province -- and, indeed, the whole country -- in an intriguing connundrum: What happens when three men are riding the same horse and one man wants to turn right, another wants to turn left and the third -- presumably -- wants to go straight ahead? The theory of minority government says that all three will have to meet, compromise and find a way forward. However, because Quebec has not had a minority government in over a hundred and twenty-five years, putting the theory into practice -- something which is always hard to do -- may be particularly difficult.

There are those who rejoice in the rise of Mario Dumont and the Action democratique party. And it is finally encouraging to see that the official debate is no longer between two mutually exclusive alternatives -- federalism and separatism, or as the Parti Quebecois would prefer, sovereignty. However, the political landscape defies such simplistic analysis. After all, M. Dumont says that he is in favour of an "autonomous" Quebec; and nobody, including M. Dumont, seems to be quite sure what that means. A more realistic assessment of Monday's election results is that Quebecers looked at at the Parti Liberal and the Parti Quebecois and said, "a pox on both your houses." And, because they had a third alternative, they decided to park their votes with M. Dumont -- for now.

All political choices are "for now." But it is worth remembering that axiom, particularly when dealing with la belle province. One should not, for instance, come to the conclusion that separatism is dead. It may lie dormant; but it never dies. Sovereignty can be revived from anywhere on the political continuum. Rene Leveque espoused it after spending many years on the political left. Lucien Bouchard came at sovereignty from the political right. What is required to ignite the fires of sovereignty is not a liberal or a conservative bias. What fans its flames is a heightened sense of injury, articulated by a man or woman of common origins, who can remind French speaking Quebecers (we sometimes forget that there has always been a significant minority of English speaking Quebecers) of many wrong headed decisions, from the hanging of Louis Riel, through the Conscription Crisis of World War I, to the economic divide which resulted in the Two Solitudes.

And, while such common folk can rise to positions of influence among Quebec's elite, someone who has been born into that elite cannot hope to argue successfully for separatism. Jacques Pariseau was a committed separatist. But he always looked and sounded -- even in French -- like a British banker, bemoaning his lost privilege. Quebecers looked at Rene Leveque and saw the kid who fought with les anglais in the streets of small town Gaspe; and when they heard Lucien Bouchard, they heard the outsider from the Saguenay.

Even more importantly, separatism needs a perceived slight to nous autres to gather steam. After all, for Quebecers, it was the bigoted English who hanged Riel; it was the English Imperialists who forced young Quebecers into a war which they did not think of as their own; and it was the rich English captains of industry who kept French Canadians working in the factories of St. Henri or on the farms of les habitants.

And that brings us to the three billion dollars which Stephen Harper pitched into the Quebec stable to feed the horse which now has three jockeys. Harper bet on M. Charest to win; but he wound up with no real winner -- just two places and one show. Because the ADQ articulates essentially conservative -- with a small c -- policies, and because M. Charest is a committed federalist, there are some who claim that Mr. Harper is sitting in the cat bird seat and should call an election.

However, Mr. Harper's transparent support of M. Charest (who immediately promised Quebecers that he would use a significant proportion of that money -- $700 million -- for tax breaks) may, indeed, cause a backlash in English Canada. Couple that with Mr. Harper's support for the idea that "Quebec is a nation within Canada" and his determination to shrink the influence of the federal government, yielding more control to the provinces, and you have the makings of a potential crisis.

Pierre Trudeau, who came from the same background as Jacques Pariseau, knew that it was a mistake for the Prime Minister to serve as "headwaiter to the provinces." And, even though he could be guilty of the same Olympian hauteur as Pariseau, he knew how to adopt the patois of the common man, in both French and English. Clearly, Harper lacks Trudeau's vision and his ability to talk to a wide spectrum of Canadians.

We can all hope that there is no October Crisis in our future and that the three men on the horse arrive at some accommodation with each other. For through it all -- the death of Riel, the Conscription Crisis and the October Crisis -- we have, so far, found a path to the future and, in Abraham Lincoln's words, "the better angels of our nature." The next few years will require that, when we make political decisions, we insist that our leaders -- and we -- consult our better angels.

Mr. Harper Moves Left -- Sort Of

The Harper government's budget surprised just about everyone -- not the least of whom were those who think of themselves as conservatives. Writing in The National Post, Andrew Coyne claims that he and his confreres have been conned. "In less than two years of this 'conservative' government, spending has climbed a historic $25 billion. Bear in mind: that's on top of the wild rise in spending during the Liberals' last term. The Tories have taken all of that fat, all of that waste and all of those hundreds of priorities -- and added to them."

Writing in The Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson declares that this is "a budget so Liberal, the Grits should sue." But, as usual, Jeffrey Simpson, also writing in The Globe, sees through the spin and knows to whom Harper is pitching. "The Harper Party [Simpson has not referred to them as conservatives for some time now] is not for everyone. It targets perhaps 40 percent of the electorate. It isn't interested in the regular CBC listeners and watchers, self defined urban elites, most media commentators, whining interest groups, Suzukians, big business, civil servants, or anyone keenly interested in foreign affairs." No, their target audience consists of farmers, retirees, "middle income families living in suburban or exurban areas" and Quebec nationalists "who don't want secession or who might want secession but not now." It is a narrow and inherently unstable coalition.

Simpson is not the only commentator to define Harper's people as roughly 40 percent of the population. Writing in The Toronto Star, Armine Yalnizyan (whose report was the centerpiece of my post of March 7th) puts that number in a different context. She reminds her readers that, "Most Canadian tax filers --59 percent -- report incomes of less than $30,000." That means that, "Most of them will not be eligible for this budget's billions in tax credits." For, besides the financial transfers to the provinces, there were no tax cuts in this budget. Instead, the Harper government offered Canadians tax credits. And, those 59 percent of Canadians pay no taxes. Thus, tax credits do nothing for them. The only people in this category who benefit at all from this budget are individuals who earn between $3000 and $9000 or families who earn up to $14,500 a year. For them the government offers a $500 benefit -- if they are working. In other words, the working poor will get an extra $1.37 a day.

Yalnizyan writes, "This budget may be celebrated as a masterful spin document, but in terms of substance, its biggest failure is that it refuses to address, head on, one of the most pressing issues of our era: growing inequities in an era of incredible affluence." The Harper government is spending liberally; but, despite the cries of betrayal on the right, they are no liberals. Their policies are aimed at a distinct minority of Canadians. But there may be just enough of them to vote for a Conservative majority -- and that is the purpose of the exercise.

However, Harper's rather transparent strategy could backfire. Jeffrey Simpson has a much better sense of history than the Harperites do. "Every time in Canadian political history that the Conservative Party tried to woo these voters, the effort eventually ended in heartbreak. Either it produced a backlash elsewhere in Canada and/or the nationalists were never very interested in Canada, except as the milch cow for money. And, of course, once the milch cow stopped giving at the expected rate, even for a while, resentment grew in Quebec."

This time the resentment is starting on native reserves. Canada's native people have watched as Mr Harper and his team have torn up the Kelowna Accord and then left them out of the money. It is striking how many Conservatives -- in many countries -- lack a sense of history. They believe in that old adage that God helps those who help themselves. But, while God in his mercy may smile upon the helpless, it is not the job of government to do so. Inevitably, those who have been left out -- a distinct majority -- will storm the fortress of the fortunate. Then we will all pay a price for such wilful ignorance.

In Praise of Speedskating

My wife, our youngest son and I spent the weekend at the Ontario Speedskating Association's Short Track Provincial Championships in Ottawa. For parents of young competitors, it can be a somewhat gruelling two days. I do not refer to the skating. It's just the getting there and the long days at the rink that are a little onerous.

But, after all, this is Canada; and you can walk into any rink in any town on any weekend in this country and there will be at least twelve brave souls there playing hockey. It may be three o'clock in the morning and the seats may be empty; but someone is on the ice.

What matters is what happens on the ice. And, at the risk of being pilloried for treason, I here state unequivocally that speedskating should be Canada's National Sport.

I did not always feel thus. When I was a kid, and there were only six teams in the NHL, I followed hockey passionately. We lived in Montreal at the time; and a trip to the Forum or a Saturday night watching Hockey Night in Canada was guaranteed to be time well spent. The game was about skating then -- from one end of the ice to the other. And I knew the names and the reputations of everyone of the players on everyone of the six teams.

The game was not without fisticuffs, even then. I was in the Forum the night Lou Fontinado, a tough defenseman who had previously played for the New York Rangers before coming to Montreal, broke his neck. The sound of his head hitting the ice still rings in my memory.

But times and the game and the personnel have changed. The recent incident, in which Chris Simon slashed Ryan Hollweg across the face with his stick, is just the latest in a string of examples which illustrate that the game has become a contest between bullies. It is no longer about outskating and outscoring your opponents. It is about pulverizing them.

Speedskating is about what hockey used to be about -- skating. It is fast and smooth and inclusive. There is poetry in the long strides, the low profiles and the sharp angles as skaters come around the turns. And there is the speed -- blinding, heart pumping, rhythmic speed.

Moreover, there is a place for everyone. The club our son belongs to started out as an activity for Special Olympics folks and it expanded to include kids as young as three and adults well into their sixties. They compete according to their age and ability and everyone finishes the race -- no matter how long it takes.

The sport is not injury free. My wife is currently nursing a broken arm, which occurred at a practice some seven weeks ago. Obviously, she and we wish that it never happened. And friends and family scratch their heads and wonder why someone her age would contemplate participating in what, to them, seems such an extreme sport. But my wife likes to see her times improve; and she likes the head space in which speedskaters live. Even as she comes around the corner -- in last place -- her teammates, young and old -- as well as her competitors -- cheer her on. Our son sets goals for himself -- to shave so many seconds off a race of so many meters; or to achieve a time which will allow him to compete at a particular meet. The path to success in speedskating is the same as the path to success in life.

If visitors, who had never been to this country, asked me to tell them what Canada is like, I would take them to a speedskating competition. Like most Canadians, they would have the experience of sitting in a rink at an ungodly hour. But they would see what is best about Canada; and they would see why some of us call it The Peaceable Kingdom.

The Great Divide

A study, with the provocative title The Rich and the Rest of Us, was released last week by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It has been generating alot of comment in the nation's media. The study, written by Armine Yalnizyan, is based on an analysis of twenty-eight years of data from Statistics Canada. After massaging the numbers, Yalnizyan reached the following conclusions:

1.Median annual earnings for Canadians in the bottom ten percent of the income scale decreased in inflation adjusted dollars from $3358 in 1976 to $1050 in 2004.

2. Forty percent of Canadians -- those earning $50,000 or less -- are worse off now than in the 1970's, even though they are working longer hours.

3. Canadians earning between $50,000 and $85,000 have seen their inflation adjusted income rise two percent during the last twenty-eight years.

4. The top ten percent of Canadian families -- those earning more than $166,000 a year -- have seen their inflation adjusted earnings rise thirty percent in the last twenty-eight years. And they are putting in five percent less time at work than they did in the 1970's.

Yalnizyan's conclusions were immediately attacked by conservative columnists because they were narrowly focused on Canadian families who were raising children under eighteen years of age. Andrew Coyne, of the National Post, fumed that the study contained, "a great deal of selective emphasis and statistical jiggery pokery." He claimed that while median family incomes "slid sideways" over the last twenty-eight years, they "are nearly 20% higher, after inflation, than they were a decade ago." He also suggested that low incomes in families with children is at least partly attributable to the rise in single parent families -- which have increased from 8% in 1976 to 18% today. One parent -- without a doubt -- brings in less money than two.

Writing in the Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson dismissed thr work of most Canadian think tanks as "a waste of time." Then Ibbitson predicted that "[g]overnments that took this report at its word would increase upper income taxes, raise the minimum wage, bolster union rights and increase subsidies to manufacturers." Such policies, he claimed, would be "an invitation to disaster." After all, they were all tried in the 1970's; and everyone knows that they failed badly then. Or did they?

Conservative thinkers tend to hold governments responsible for the economic woes of the 1970's, forgetting that the Arab Israeli War of 1967 changed world economics much more than the economic prescriptions of Milton Friedman ever did. We are still suffering the effects of that convenient amnesia. Ibbitson ignores completely the oil price shock of the 1970's, when oil went from a dollar and a half a barrel to thirty-four dollars a barrel (see my post for November 20th). Before the formation of OPEC and the price distortions it engendered in world economies, one can argue that the very policies Ibbitson disparages were the kinds of investments in human capital that made Canada one of the most competitive economies in the world. Perhaps the real problem has been our refusal to ween ourselves from what until now has been the lifeblood of western economies -- oil. However that may be, even Ibbitson admits that for the bottom half of Canadians "income levels have been flat for a generation."

And it's that great divide between the top half and the bottom half of the Canadian population that should concern us -- simply because such a divide is not sustainable. It cannot be sustained because those at the top of the pyramid rely on those at the bottom to generate their incomes. The bottom half still consume the goods and services which increase the incomes of the wealthy. Henry Ford recognized this fact when he increased the salaries of his workers to the unheard of sum of five dollars a day, knowing that they were the people who would buy his Model T's.

For, however true Coyne's and Ibbitson's criticisms of economic policies in the 1970's may be, the issue is still how fairly we are dividing the economic pie. It is true that Yalnizyan's study ignores Canadians who do not have, or who have already launched, their children into the world. But she also ignores investment income which, for the most part, accrues to the richest Canadians. As Tom Walkom points out in the Toronto Star, "the richest 20 percent of Canadians own 75 percent of the nation's wealth." Moreover, "we allow the country's 100 top chief executive officers to make, on average, 240 times more than the typical worker (up from 106 times the average wage in 1998)"

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives makes no secret of its left of centre politics. What it does make clear is that governments of all stripes -- Conservative, Liberal and New Democratic -- have been following right of centre policies for a generation. The consequences of those policies are now undeniable. It's time for the pendulum to swing back to the left.

Mr. Gore's Movie

An Inconvenient Truth won the Oscar for best documentary feature last Sunday night. The film deserved the award. We watched it a couple of weeks ago with our youngest son, who had seen it in school and wanted to see it again at home.

As a presidential candidate, Al Gore just seemed to lack spark. But he was clearly more qualified for the job than the man who won. And historians will be debating for a long time how the world could have been different if he had been elected by the popular vote instead of the Electoral College.

In the end, however, Gore and his travelling road show may accomplish much more than he ever could have accomplished as a Democratic President confronted with a Republican Congress. Unlike Stephen Harper, Gore has not come to the environmental cause lately. And, until recently, he gained no political points when he advanced his cause. The film features a clip from the 1992 presidential campaign with George Bush Sr. -- in high dudgeon -- claiming that Gore "is so far out in the environmental extreme, we'll be up to our neck in owls and outta work for every American. He is way out, far out, man."

That is a sentiment with which Bush the Younger -- despite a 2000 campaign pledge to curb carbon dioxide omissions -- would appear to agree. But that was also seven years ago. Much has changed -- including the weather. The hurricanes -- particularly Katrina -- of the last two summers and the winter storms which have turned roads in Texas into skating rinks have begun to garner public attention.

And, as Gore makes clear in the film, even though the data has been around for almost two generations, we now have the before and after pictures. Most striking, perhaps, is the now almost non-existent snow on top of Mount Kilimanjaro. And the huge chunks of ice which are slipping into the Arctic Ocean. And the drowned polar bears, which have been unable to find their ice floe refuges, which they and we have taken for granted for thousands of years.

If Victor Hugo was right, and there really is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come, then perhaps Al Gore's time has come, too. After working for over thirty years to solve the problem of global warming, perhaps his efforts are beginning to bear fruit. There are those who say that he could accomplish so much more if he were president. And those people are calling on him to enter the 2008 campaign. But he would be wise not to follow that siren song.

In her book, The March of Folly, historian Barbara W. Tuchman defined folly as, "the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved." A chief cause of folly, Tuchman wrote, was "woodenheadedness," which she explained, "consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs."

In North America, we have been ignoring the contrary signs for a long time. Gore says that it is not too late. But, having recognized the contrary signs, we have to act now; and several small but carefully planned policy changes can make the difference, if we have the political will -- particularly the international political will -- to make them. I suspect that he understands that, ironically, he can accomplish more outside the tent than in.

It would be one of history's even greater ironies if the man who was accused of being "wooden" when he ran for president, managed to break through the woodenheadness of his own time. Al Gore may have lost the presidency. But he may yet win the battle for the planet.

The Banker at the Schoolhouse Door -- Part 2

Readers of this blog will note that I received my first comment last week. And operating on the principle of full disclosure, I must announce that "Anonymous" is really my son, who was posting his comment from Seoul, South Korea. He raises three very good points: 1) the dollar value of the fees mentioned in the piece are not equivalent; 2) the more university degrees granted the less value each has; and 3) not everyone needs to or should go to university.

Let me address each of these points. Consider the first, that tuition of $585 in 1965 is not equivalent to $5555 in 2006. Absolutely true. But, if one considers the growth of inflation during those years, the rising cost of a university education becomes clear. According to the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator (www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/inflation calc.html) the average annual inflation rate from 1965 until 2006 was 4.65%. That means that, if tuition increased with inflation, a freshman entering Trent University in 2006 would have paid $3733.68. If that is our new base, it means that tuition has increased by an additional 48% beyond inflation. Remember this increase has occurred as the number of students has increased. According to Trent, its student population has gone from 4977 in 1999 to 8207 in 2005. (Incidentally, I am indebted -- pun intended -- to our other son, the U of T graduate, for directing me to the Bank of Canada's Inflation Calculator. This is turning into a conversation between the generations.)

Just as Trent's student population has increased, the general student population at all Ontario Universities is expected to grow. The Ontario Council of Universities claims that "The 18 to 21 year old population will grow by 53,000 from 2006 to 2014 according to the Ministry of Finance." The Council also claims that the demand for post graduate professional education will be even greater: "Ontario's 22-29 year old cohort -- the pool the community professional and graduate programs draw on -- is projected to increase in size by 200,000 by 2021."

And, when one compares inflation and the cost of professional education over the last thirty years, the cost of a graduate education between now and then is placed in stark contrast. The $780 which Dalton McGuinty paid to go to law school in 1976 would be equal to $2,828.86 today. At $8,500, the cost of a ticket to law school at the U of O has tripled, even when one takes into account the inflation of the ensuing years.

Why? Well, again referring to figures compiled by the Council of Ontario Universities, "On a provincial government funding per capita basis, Ontario has been 10th of 10 provinces for over 10 years. While the gap narrowed as a result of the Reaching Higher plan [the $6.2 million the McGuinty government injected into higher education two years ago] it is estimated that it would require a further $950 million to reach the 2004-05 funding level of the other nine provinces." The simple fact is that the provincial government has not been investing in higher education in a manner which matches its rhetoric. As the university population has gone up, grant based government funding has gone down; and students have been caught in the squeeze. Thus, tuitions have risen to meet the shortfall.

And, assuming that students have about twelve weeks to work between the spring and fall semesters, they will never make enough to handle tuition costs. If they manage to squeeze in sixteen weeks of work at, say, nine dollars an hour, they'll earn $5760 before taxes. That's not enough to cover tuition and books, let alone the cost of room and board, if they are living away from home. Is it any wonder that they own a mortgage when they graduate?

As for my son's second point, the consequences of flooding the market with degrees, there are two sides to that coin. Yes, a Bachelor's degree in some fields has become the equivalent of a high school diploma two generations ago. On the other hand, just as a high school diploma was the ticket of admission into the new industrial economy, the bachelor's degree has become that same ticket into the knowledge based economy. And, just as some high school diplomas were awarded in the face of little effort, sadly some Baccalaureates have been granted for surprisingly little work. C's and D's still pass.

Moreover, if the Bachelor's degree is now the new high school diploma, then one could argue that, just as full public funding was eventually extended to all high school students, the same should be true for university students. And, once upon a time, it was. Back in the 1960's, students in California's state university system paid no tuition. That policy changed when Ronald Reagan became governor.The likelihood of that policy's resurrection is, however -- well, I think you can intuit the answer.

Which brings us to my son's third and last point, whether or not everyone should go to university. The obvious answer is no. However, there are all kinds of knowledge. By the time a millwright or an electrician completes the class time and the training time to get his or her ticket, the time and money spent are equivalent to an undergraduate degree. But once again, the burden has shifted to the student. Gone are the days when organizations supported training programs where they would take in a predetermined number of apprentices every year to meet their present and future needs. These days, students have to shop around their skills to various organizations -- a policy that is pretty much hit or miss.

There was a time when education was seen as an investment -- an investment which benefited not only the student but society in general. If an economy was to grow, it needed trained people to support increased productivity. And productivity growth, in John F Kennedy's words, "raises all boats." In the last thirty-five years there has been a change in perspective. Education is now a cost; and, for a generation, governments of all stripes have been downloading costs to the people down the next rung on the ladder. Students are at the bottom of the ladder. These days the rising tide of productivity, in one wag's words, "raises all yachts." The small craft have been beached.

I now return to the task of insuring there will be enough money in the bank to pay for our third -- and last -- son's education.

The Banker at the Schoolhouse Door

Last week, Ontario Premier Dalton McGunity found himself the target of student protests. The issue was university tuition. Perhaps he was surprised. After all, he is the father of three sons who are attending university and he faces the same tuition bills as the rest of us, times three. Moreover, his government injected 6.2 million dollars into higher education two years ago. And the Liberals also froze university tuitions for two years, only lifting the freeze this September, when tuitions increased 4.6%

But, as Carol Goar pointed out in the Toronto Star this week, student enrollment in Ontario universities is running twenty-three percent ahead of government projections. Students were listening when they were told that seventy percent of Canadian jobs now require some form of post secondary education.

The real problem is that the cost of going to university has increased astronomically in the last forty years. When I entered university forty years ago, my tuition and fees amounted to $585 a year. At Trent University, from which one of our sons graduated last year, incoming freshmen paid $5,557.55 this past September. It's a little cheaper at the University of Toronto, from which our oldest son graduated almost four years ago. There, incoming freshmen paid $5,176.30 this past September. If you live in a small rural community, as we do, the cost is considerably more, given what it costs to live away from home.

But, if your children plan on attending a post graduate professional school, the costs are absolutely stratospheric. Goar points out that when McGunity attended law school at the University of Ottawa back in the late seventies, he paid $780 a year in tuition. The same program now costs $8,500 a year. And that's a bargain. This year at Osgoode Hall, the law school at York University, tuition will set you back $13,966. Next year it will cost you $15,116. At the U of T this year, tuition in the Faculty of Law is $17,280. And if you want to get an MBA at Toronto's Rotman School of Management, tuition is $27,000 a year. At Queens, it costs $2000 to apply for an MBA, then an additional $28,000 a year.

One assumes that these tuition fees are predicated on the certainty that the graduates of these programs will be earning top salaries as CEO's or their equivalents. After all, as Senator Jim Webb of Virginia recently pointed out, the average CEO now makes in a day what it takes his or her average employee over a year to make.

What has happened? Well, as Bob Rae noted in his report to the Ontario government, the expansion of higher education in Ontario occurred before Medicare. Since then, the health system has been draining off money which used to go to colleges and universities. Rae suggested that more student aid be made available in the form of loans. The government would underwrite the loans; but, essentially, the private sector would be given an opportunity to expand its loan base.

This is a departure from the policy of direct investment which Ontario governments used to make in higher education -- when Mr. McGunity went to school in Ottawa and I went to school in Montreal. And it has not been just universities which have seen a decrease in direct investment from the government. One of the major "reforms" which the Mike Harris government brought to Ontario's education system was the elimination of grade thirteen in high schools. Up until then, students could attend grade thirteen and get a general degree after attending university for three years. It is more than just a little ironic that these reforms were made during the stewardship of an education minister who dropped out of high school in grade eleven to first work for and then run his father's waste management company.

All of this is of a piece. And it is a policy which has been aided and abetted by governments of all stripes. The mantra for some time now has been, in Ronald Reagan's words, " Government is not part of the problem, it is the problem." Thus, government has left it to the private sector to fund what it used to fund. And the trade off has been lower taxes. But twenty-five years of such "enlightened" policies have led to the wealth gap, which I have written about in previous posts. What that means for university students of modest means is that they will graduate with a large mortgage over their heads.

When I went to graduate school, my father cosigned for a loan which represented 13% of my annual income before taxes. When our son graduated from graduate school, his accumulated debt amounted to 107% of his annual income before taxes -- this despite roughly $65,000 in scholarships and over $50,000 from us.

I do not begrudge the costs. Luckily, we were able to pay them; and scholarship money was available. Still, he had to borrow alot of money, for which he is now on the hook. And someone is very happily adding to his or her company's bottom line because my son wanted an education. What about those other hard working folks who want their children to succeed -- or the children themselves -- who don't have the financial resources to get them in the schoolhouse door and then stay there?

Higher Education has always been a privilege. The problem is that it is increasingly only available to the privileged.

Everything New is Old

It has been interesting to watch the Harper government's two pronged strategy as it tries desperately to clothe itself in green. But, like the St. Patrick's Day Parade, where everybody claims to be Irish, it's a momentary extravaganza. Wearing green doesn't make you Irish; and claiming to be the Green Party doesn't make it so.

Cynicism abounds in the nation's chattering class. On the right, perhaps the most interesting take on the Conservative make-over comes from columnist Andrew Coyne. He's buying none of it. Says Mr Coyne, "Having allowed the issue to fester for eight months while it tried to decide what if anything to put in place of the Liberal programs it had scrapped, the government has now put itself in the position where nothing it does will be seen to be sufficient, or even sincere."

On the left, James Travers writes that, while the Harper government knows something about politics, it knows very little about policy -- something that troubles the mandarins in the civil service. "The effectiveness of public policy is proportional to the depth of analysis," he writes. It is becoming more obvious with each passing day that what Jeffrey Simpson calls "the Harper Party" is long on conviction and short on analysis.

The evidence to support this conclusion rests on the fact that Harper's green platform is essentially the old Liberal platform. And, while the Conservatives trot out different elements of that platform each week, they run television ads showing clips from the Liberal leadership debates claiming the Liberal record on the environment amounted to nothing -- a charge that contains a lot of truth -- and that "Stephane Dion is not a leader." That's the strategy: Recycle old policies and attack the new leader.

The strategy isn't about the environment at all. Harper revealed that the other day when he said that you can't expect Canadians to radically change their lifestyles. Technology, he said, will save us from ourselves. The truth is that technology offers us hope, but only we will be able to save ourselves. And Mr. Harper cannot conceive of a government which shapes public policy to encourage people to act in favour of the planet. The guiding star in his firmament is the principle that, first and foremost, people act in favour of themselves.

What he can conceive of, with laser-like precision, is a majority government. That -- not the long term future of the planet -- is what he is focused on. Everything he has done in the last year has been in support of that objective. Policy for Harper is a path to power; the long term efficacy of that policy is irrelevant. Whether it be placing Michael Fortier in the cabinet as the unelected Minister for Montreal, or the Quebec is a nation within a nation resolution, or his green light on the road to Damascus environmental policy, it's all about power -- gaining it and maintaining it. If anyone doubts this, note that it is Harper who makes every substantive policy announcement, while his ministers stand in the background, nodding approvingly.

In that Mr. Harper is like most other Prime Ministers -- Conservative or Liberal. There is nothing new in any of this. Actually, he has a lot in common with Mordecai Richler's Duddy Karvitz. Duddy knew exactly what he wanted -- and he got it. But he only got it because his victims allowed him to manipulate them. All except his grandfather. One can only hope that Canadians, like Duddy's zeyda, can spot a con man when they see him.

The First and the Last

Two interviews with two of the key players in the Iraq War debate offer some insight into why the American decision to go to war has turned out so disastrously. The first interview, with Vice President Dick Cheney, underscores the old adage that the first casualty of war is truth. The second interview, with Senator Chuck Hagel, reminds us that Dr. Johnson might have been wrong in his definition of patriotism; but he understood precisely how it could be abused.

The first interview, with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, illustrated how invested the Vice President is in this war. When asked if his credibility had been damaged by the blunders in Iraq, Cheney's response was, ". . .I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash." This from the man who claimed that Americans would be greeted by Iraqis as "liberators," and who claimed a year ago that the insurgency was "in its last throes."

When pressed to explain the many successes Cheney claimed were America's unappreciated bleesings to Iraqis, he said, "There have been three national elections in Iraq. There's a democracy established there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government. Saddam has been brought to justice and executed, his sons are dead, his government is gone. And the world is better off for it." All of this, of course, conveniently ignores the original rationale for the war, which was self defense. Remember those weapons of mass destruction? The rationale for the war shifted when the facts on the ground proved inconvenient. Throughout the war, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld have ignored facts on the ground when they proved inconvenient -- as they continue to do, now that Iraq is embroiled in a civil war. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said. All of this "stuff" is merely the work of "deadenders." The troika at the top have been loathe to admit the failure of their enterprise -- perhaps because to do so would be the equivalent of declaring moral bankruptcy.

Chuck Hagel has a completely different take on what is happening on the ground. In an interview in this month's GQ, Hagel says, "The administration likes to point to these bench marks -- the Iraqis wrote a constitution, they had an election, they elected a unity government. The administration takes great pride in saying, 'It's now a sovereign nation. They're in charge of their own affairs.' It's completely untrue but they say it anyway."

How does one account for such differing perspectives? The personal history of each man tells the story. Hagel is used to looking at war from the ground up -- from a place where it is hard to ignore facts. Hagel says, "When I got to Vietnam I was a rifleman. I was a private, about as low as you can get. So my frame of reference is very much geared to the guy at the bottom who's doing the fighting and dying. Jim Webb and I are the only ones in the Senate who had that experience." He does not disparage the experience of others, like John McCain or John Kerry. And he has "never doubted the motives of those who wanted to go to war so badly." The problem is that none of them had the experience of war, certainly not from the perspective of a rifleman: " . . . President Bush served a little time in the National Guard. Secretary Rice never served. Wolfowitz never served. Feith never served. Cheney had five deferments."

When asked about those five deferments at an earlier confirmation hearing, Cheney claimed that he had "other priorities at the time." When asked about a congressional resolution expressing opposition to the administration's plan to "surge" another 21,500 troops to Iraq, Cheney declared, "It won't stop us. And it would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops." Hagell's take on the surge is straightforward: "I am not willing to sacrifice more young men and women for a policy that isn't working."

Cheney claims that people like Hagel and Webb don't have the "stomach" to finish the job. Given the bottom up experience of both senators -- both of whom were wounded in Vietnam -- it's not hard to understand the thinly veiled contempt they have for the vice president and his boss. And, when the President and Vice President question the patriotism of those who do not support their vision, it's easy to see why Dr. Johnson believed that patriotism is "the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Webster's by the way, defines scoundrel as "a mean worthless fellow."

As the Ships Sink

On November 7, the day of the American election, E.J. Dionne wrote in the Washington Post: "The Republican Party no longer has a coherent governing philosophy. Republicans who care about advancing a consistent set of ideals are already at each others throats and are likely to stay there." This past Saturday, Andrew Coyne, writing in the National Post, concluded that, "After a year of Conservative rule it is now clear, conservatism isn't just dying -- it is dead. And it's the Conservatives who killed it." From both left and right, from both north and south of the border, a consensus is forming. The Great Conservative Reawakening of the past generation is about to be buried; and the authors of its demise have been so called conservatives themselves.

I have argued in this space that the Great Conservative Reawakening was never a conservative phenomenon: that its main proponents -- Hayeck, Strauss, Freidman, Thatcher, Reagan and all of their disciples --were really libertarians, not conservatives. This was no great insight on my part -- the late Dalton Camp recognized the trend early for what it was; and until his dying day he railed against what he called the "neo liberal" and rampant individualism which corroded the foundations of social stability. For Camp, an evolving but stable society was the bedrock of true conservatism. He believed that the last Canadian conservatives were Progressive Conservatives. The son of a Baptist Minister, Camp understood that the new conservatism of the Reform Party -- which eventually hijacked the party to which he had devoted his life -- was more akin to a religion, wedded to dogma and convinced of its own moral rectitude.

How does one account for the shipwreck that is now taking place? Well, all governing coalitions get stale; and, as this happens, its members tend to choose incompetent leaders. By 1980 Americans, while acknowledging that his heart was in the right place, came to the conclusion that Jimmy Carter's head wasn't. They saw him -- quite simply -- as a man who was not up to the job. As a result, the old liberal consensus built by Franklin Roosevelt gave way to a man who had been inspired by Roosevelt but whose policies were, in many ways, diametrically opposed to what Roosevelt stood for.

In Canada, Paul Martin met the same fate. Widely viewed as an excellent Minister of Finance, as Prime Minister he was nicknamed "Mr. Dithers," an appellation which stuck. Canadians, too, concluded that he wasn't up to the job.

Which brings us to George W. Bush and Stephen Harper -- two would be allies. As was clear from last night's State of the Union Speech, the American public has figured out that George W. Bush is not up to the job. The two critical policies of Bush's presidency -- the War in Iraq and his response to Hurricane Katrina -- have been unmitigated disasters. And, when faced with the consequences of those policies, Bush's response has been to forge ahead, insisting that no change in course is the mark of strong leadership.

Harper, on the other hand, has proved that he can turn on a dime. Whether the issue is luring the recently elected David Emerson into his cabinet, reversing his campaign pledge on income trusts, declaring that "the Quebecois are a nation within Canada," or hurriedly borrowing the very environmental policies he disparaged in the last election, Harper -- for all his apparent rigidity -- does not have his feet set in concrete.

For true believers, like Andrew Coyne, this amounts to "selling the conservative soul." For ordinary Canadians there is the distinct odour of Brian Mulroney's government. It is worth remembering that Canadians gave Mulroney the largest electoral majority in history. But when his party was finally tossed out the door, they retained two seats in the House of Commons. Mr. Harper was celebrating his party's first anniversary in power two days ago. But there was a skunk at the party.

The skunk is the public's suspicion that they've been had -- that they've been victims of a classic bait and switch. They bought the line that they were electing conservatives when, as Dalton Camp knew only too well, they were being sold a pig in a poke. The public --not quite as early as Camp -- but, nonetheless, like him -- have figured out that the so called conservative ships of state are sinking. And that's as it should be.

MacArthur in the White House

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have now informed us that -- despite the results of last November's election, the consistent results of polls for the last two years, the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and congressional opposition from both parties -- they will go ahead with their troop surge.

In the face of such opposition, Mr. Bush likes to see himself as another Harry Truman -- someone reviled in his own day but admired by historians after the dust has settled. In that regard, it is instructive to read what Truman wrote about Douglas MacArthur in his diary on June 17th, 1945, long before Truman fired him on April 11, 1951: "Mr. Prima Dona, Brass Hat, Five Star MacArthur. He's worse than the Cabots and the Lodges -- at least they talked with one another before they told God what to do. Mac tells God right off."

Mr. Bush has told the people, who clearly disdain his war, that -- as long as he is "the decider" -- their opinions will not influence his policies. The problem is that instead of working for the White House, MacArthur now sits in the Oval Office; and he knows that he and Mr. Cheney cannot be fired. Now, with the hubris one is accustomed to see in a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, they insist that they know better than the people who elected them -- and, who most recently, passed judgment on their policies.

Clearly, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney's judgment has been appalling. Consider the record: They were wrong about Iraq sponsoring the 911 attacks; they were wrong about Saddam possessing chemical and biological weapons; they were wrong about Saddam having a nuclear weapons program; they were wrong about sending enough troops to Iraq; they were wrong about Iraqi oil money paying for the war; they were wrong about being greeted as liberators; they were wrong when they insisted that Iraq was a secular society; and, therefore, there would be no fracturing of the country along religious lines; they were wrong about de -Baathification; they were wrong when they disbanded the Iraqi army; and they were wrong when they proclaimed that there would be no insurgency.

They readily admit that their surge is a gamble. But, they insist, there will be a bloodbath and global instability if they do not make one last attempt to impose a military solution before the Iraqis get down to the business of finding a political solution. However, even their surge is a mere shadow of what was originally recommended. In their original proposal, Fred Kagan and retired General Jack Keene suggested that, to be successful, their proposal would require at least thirty to fifty thousand troops. Bush claims that those other troops will come from the Iraqis.

But three months ago, Bush's own head of the Security Council, Stephen Hadley, wrote a memo to his boss claiming that Mr. Maliki was an unreliable partner because he will not do what he has promised to do. When the memo leaked, Mr. Maliki stiffed Mr. Bush and did not show up for their dinner meeting in Jordan. Mr. Bush has decided to sit down at the roulette table and put all his chips on number 21, 500 and on a guy who Bush can't trust to keep a dinner appointment.

The question is, with the track record Mr. Bush has racked up over the last four years, would you put your life's savings in his hands? And, even if you told him you wanted out of the game, what would you do if his response was, "You're in. . .?"

Much fanfare has been made of the fact that Mr. Bush is the first MBA president. And, in homage to his alma mater, Mr. Bush has made much of the fact that Mr. Maliki and his government will now be held to strict performance appraisal standards; or else, "they will lose the support of the American people." It seems to me that what is fair for Mr. Maliki is only fair for Mr. Bush. The only difference should be that, instead of Mr. Bush holding Mr. Maliki accountable, the American Congress should hold Mr. Bush accountable.

There is precedent. On September 1, 1970, Democratic Senator George McGovern and Republican Senator Mark Hatfield offered an amendment which would have cut off funding for the Vietnam War in fifteen months if the situation did not improve measurably. The amendment was defeated that day; but eventually funding for the war ended after Nixon was told by a bipartisan delegation that unless he resigned he would be impeached. Nixon resigned and the war ended when the senior senator from Arizona led a delegation to Nixon which told him his time was up.

Today the senior Senator from Arizona favours the surge. And no one is suggesting that Mr. Bush resign. But congress ultimately has the power to shut Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney's operation down. However, that will only happen if Democratic and Republican statesmen with the gravitas of Barry Goldwater have the courage to bring the Iraq war to an end.

Those who say that such action is folly have it backwards. Bush's policies are not the solution to the chaos in Iraq; they are the cause of the chaos. There is a conflagration ahead. But Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney only know how to start a fire. Other --wiser-- men (or women) will have to find a way to put it out.

It's Not Easy Being Green, But. . .

Stephen Harper's second attempt at cabinet making was an interesting exercise. Give the man marks for shrewdness. Perhaps cunning is the more appropriate word. Certainly, those who write him off as being politically dense do themselves and the country a disservice. But the distance between politics and policy can sometimes be a chasm.

Harper's removal of Rona Ambrose from the environment portfolio was no surprise. But, in fairness, the problem was not so much Ambrose as it was Harper's Clean Air Act, which was nothing more than a lot of hot (and dirty) air.

The appointment of John Baird was -- politically -- a masterstroke. If the old adage about the best defence being a good offence is true, then Harper put the right man in the job. First in Ontario and then in Ottawa, Baird has proved himself an able parliamentarian. And he has the political smarts to deal with his critics. The problem is that his critics are right. A government which, despite its brand, is really libertarian is philosophically ill equipped to deal with the problem of global warming.

Conservatism, as practised in North America in the later part of the last century and the beginning of the new one, takes its philosophical bearings from people like Friedrich Hayek and Leo Strauss, refugees from European Fascism and Communism. While they considered themselves classic liberals --Hayek applied the term to himself -- they were really libertarians, as Hayek's fellow faculty member at the University of Chicago, Milton Friedman, aptly described their guiding principles.

Believing that individual self interest and the operation of free markets are the best tools to solve political problems, they disparaged collective action as hopelessly confused and ultimately ineffective. In practise their influence has meant the dismantling of several instruments whose purpose has been to increase global security and stability, starting with the United Nations and its various agencies.

Harper has bought into this school of thought; and, besides Harper, its best salesmen have been Harper's Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, and his former Minister at Treasury Board -- John Baird. And therein lies the problem. A libertarian government finds it very hard to think in global terms. All solutions are ultimately a matter of individual choice. So, for instance, Mr. Harper has said that the Kyoto treaty is not the appropriate instrument for dealing with the problem of global warming; and to justify Canada's not meeting its Kyoto targets, he asserts that individual Canadians would not agree to heat their homes "one third less of the time."

What he fails to mention, however, is that only twenty-five percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from individuals. The other seventy-five percent comes from industry and government operated power plants.

And it is here that the powers that be need to be confronted. Instead of using government to encourage research, to mandate fuel and emission standards -- and the tax system to provide incentives for green policies -- Harper and his allies are focused on reducing government influence in the lives of Canadians. If these "conservatives" were in office during the Great Depression we would still be there.

What the Great Depression and the Second World War taught us is that some problems are so large that only government action -- and sometimes international cooperation -- can solve them. The environmental crisis is -- in its scope -- similar to the Great Depression. Canadians understand that. The Liberals, when they elected Stephane Dion to lead the party, signaled that they understand that.

Harper's appointment of Baird indicates that he understands where his weaknesses are. Whether or not he knows how to develop policies to deal with the most important challenge we face remains to be seen.

Fueling the Fire

The report from the Iraq Study Group had a short shelf life. It commanded public scrutiny for about a week. Then it disappeared. Of its seventy-nine recommendations, the only one to live on after the report's debut was that of a "surge" of troops as a prelude to withdrawal. Fred Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, and retired General Jack Keene picked that one up; and, in an article in the Washington Post, later reprinted in the Weekly Standard, they suggested that an additional thirty thousand troops could secure Baghdad and give the present government time to solidify its position. "The key to success is to change the military mission," they wrote. "[I]nstead of preparing for transition to Iraqi control, the mission should be to bring security to the Iraqi population."

Sounds like an excellent idea. And it was an excellent idea three years ago. If Mr. Rumsfeld and company had bought it then, the conflagration in Iraq would probably not have occurred. After all, there was historical precedent. When the British went into Mesoptamia back in 1917, they did so with four hundred and eleven thousand troops. At that time, the population of the region was one third what it is today; and, even then, the British encountered considerable resistance. During the first Gulf War, the first President Bush assembled a coalition of over five hundred thousand troops and those troops did not march on Baghdad.

The problem is that the situation has changed. American soldiers now find themselves in the middle of a Civil War -- something Mr. Bush and his advisers still refuse to recognize -- and, to make matters worse, the people of the Middle East are staring into the abyss of a much wider regional war. The mission is no longer bringing security to the Iraqi population.

Moreover, the surge proposal ignores the logistical and personnel problems associated with adding an additional thirty thousand troops. In an article in The American Prospect, Lawrence Korb, a former Undersecretary of Defence in the Reagan administration and Max Bergmann, of the Center for American Progress, argue that Kagan and Keene's plan is "unrealistic and dangerous" for a number of reasons. To begin with, they say, "there are no active or reserve army combat units outside Iraq and Afghanistan that are rated as combat ready." They do not have the equipment needed to train for such a mission because all of that equipment is already in Iraq. Other equipment could be scrounged from places like Korea and National Guard units in the United States; but,"this would leave the country dangerously exposed, without sufficient force strength to deter adversaries from possible aggressive action."

Finally, say Korb and Bergmann, the surge proposal ignores the reality on the ground. They point out that when the British entered Northern Ireland in 1972, to put an end to sectarian violence there, their troop to population ratio was equivalent to having 750,000 troops on the ground in Iraq. To those who claim that people like Korb and Bergmann don't understand the consequences of failure in Iraq, they say, "they have it backwards. Those who opposed the war from the outset understood the difficulty and scope of the task at hand, while the war's architects are the ones only now coming to grips with the catastrophic implications of a possible civil and regional war." Adding thirty thousand troops at this point will only add fuel to a growing fire.

The Iraq Study Group pointed to a rather messy way out of Iraq. But it requires looking at a much larger canvas. It requires diplomacy. It requires dealing with one's enemies; and it requires building large and diverse coalitions -- all things which the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has difficulty with. He has refused to build coalitions at home, insisting that only legislation which has the support of "a majority of the majority" come to the floor. He has won elections by finding enough votes in strategic states to tip the balance in his favour -- like targeting areas in Iraq with more troops. He claims that dealing with the nation's enemies would be tantamount to abandoning his principles. But he forgets that Ronald Reagan, for all his talk about "the evil empire," dealt with Gorbochov; Roosevelt and Churchill formed an alliance with Stalin; and Nixon went to China.

The recent death of President Ford has reminded us that there was a time when differences of opinion did not call forth the response that "they know what they have to do before we deal with them." The simple truth is that the most powerful man in the world does not play well with others. Things will only change when Mr. Bush grows up -- or when another grown up sits in his chair.