Northman's Fury

The Conservatives in Ottawa have been doing their best to march in lockstep with the Bush administration in Washington, from using similar tactics on the Kyoto agreement and other climate change talks internationally, to using, and often abusing, national security issues and the military domestically in an attempt to garner votes.

Recently, evidence has surfaced of another similarity between the two administrations.

Reading the news the last few days, the media has finally picked up on the fact that the Chalk River shut-down and isotope shortage was a manufactured crisis, and the Conservatives decided to make matters worse by blaming and then firing the nuclear safety commissioner Linda Keen in a political snit, seriously degrading the perception of independence and objectivity of our regulatory bodies.

They've also been tripping over the feet in their mouths over the detention of prisoners in Afghanistan, and bumbling along with cheque-is-in-the-mail excuses for equipment shortages.

On top of all that is word that the PM's spokesperson and another long-time Tory backer and organizer were intervening on behalf of a real estate developer in Quebec, and Harper making a clumsy attempt to imply something about the guys Greek heritage.

That's from headlines this week, and it's only Wednesday!

The similarity with the Bush administration? They've piled on so many different scandals, with more coming out of the woodwork all the time, that the opposition and amnestic press is likely to lose focus by trying to hit everything at once, Those paying close attention suffer outrage fatigue and the public tunes out all but the latest of the outrages, allowing the previous ones to slide by without a thorough examination.

Given how well such things work, you have to half-wonder if they planned it that way.

Others have said the same thing, but the more I read it, the more shudder-inducing it gets:

"When you walk in the door, all you see are pictures of Stephen Harper," said Ms. May

"I'd say between every window, in every available space of the wall, at eye level, every available space has a photo of Stephen Harper."

"You've got photos of Stephen Harper, but not of previous prime ministers," she added. "Photos of Stephen Harper in different costumes, in different settings, dressed as a fireman, in Hudson Bay looking for polar bears, meeting the Dalai Lama, even the portrait of the Queen had to have Stephen Harper, but in a candid, behind her."

. . .

The prime minister's official Christmas card last December portrayed Mr. Harper looking out a living room window adorned with 24 photographs, small to large, of Mr. Harper in various poses.

When the party last year unveiled its election campaign war room, Mr. Harper stared out from campaign posters on every wall.

That kind of megalomania can't be healthy, for the rest of us.

I've been trying to figure out a way to approach the story that Harper and the Conservatives are doing their best to emulate Bush by pushing science and scientists as far from the decision-making process as possible, the better to enure they hear no dissenting voice when making claims based on ideology rather than facts.

Bob Macdonald covered most of the obvious implications:

The National Science Adviser is a voice of reason to the government over actions it should take on issues such as climate change, genetically modified foods, managing fisheries, sustaining the environment - any time the politicians need to be educated on the basic science behind those often controversial issues. Of course, decisions are seldom made for purely scientific reasons; all too often, the interests of industry, special interest groups or a misinformed public will cloud the scientific truth. The Adviser’s job is to provide clarity and perspective.

But to me, having a scientific advisor and a scientific way of thinking impacts a great deal more than what most people think of as "science" issues. The method, and what it means, apply everywhere.

Thomas Levenson of the Inverse Square Blog posted a story that illistrates the point quite well. Read it and come back.

The point he comes to at the end of the post is why the loss of someone like the NSA is a loss for everyone affected by government policies.

Why doesn’t the fact that readily available cheap (and cheaper-for-the-state) alternatives to life-destroying events exist affect this view? Because of a commitment to an unexamined assumption: Exemplary suffering helps focus one’s mind, it is claimed (how else can you read Madras’s comments) and so anything that might defuse the power of the demonstration is to be avoided. Science be damned.

This is, of course, precisely why the idea of good science matters. . . . this story tells us why the issue is vital. Real science demands that theory be ratified by observation and defensible interpretation of the data. Bad science allows ideology to determine what facts, if any, are admitted into the conversation. Right now, bad science is winning.[Emp. mine]

Any issue you choose, any policy you look at. If there is a bad policy, it's usually because nobody bothered to examine the assumptions leading to it and refuse to accept the poor results as being indicative of a problem with the policy. So the bad policy continues because ideology trumps reason.

It;s happened in the US under Bush, and it's happening to Canada now under Harper. And when it happens, we are all in peril.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision striking down Canada's abortion law as unconstitutional. From that point, having an abortion was no longer illegal. Of course, the battle over abortion continues, and both sides will be making their case once again today.

For myself, I'll point to this post by 900 running down many of the arguments of anti-abortion folks and pointing out their flaws, and quote what The Rev said at The Beav' a couple days ago:

. . . I am not a pregnant woman or a pregnant woman's doctor and therefore abortion is not any of my goddamn business. Or yours. Or anyone else's. To paraphrase: "the state has no business in the bed or wombs of the nation."

Succinct and to the point. My personal feelings, or anyone else's, about the procedure should never trump the decision made by the person most directly affected.

That's the only choice that matters.

Unfortunately, no surprise here.

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier has issued a statement in an effort to pacify allies angry over a training manual for Canadian diplomats that lists the U.S. and Israel as countries where prisoners risk torture and abuse.

. . .

"I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department's torture awareness training," he said in a statement released Saturday.

"The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy," he said. "As such, it does not convey the government's views or positions."

Bernier said he has directed the manual to be reviewed and rewritten, but he did not provide details.

The Conservative's views and positions, it is ever more and more apparent, are whatever the Bush adminsitration tells them they should be. The embarrassment caused by the manual's disclosure is the US government's, and so our spineless shills will rewrite it to please them and embarrass Canadians instead.

Via The Galloping Beaver, Keith Olbermann on the news that Canada listed the US as one of the countries to watch for torture.



While watching that, I can only marvel at how well people tend to view our country, and how we're so often held up as a model for others, particularly on an issue like the torture of prisoners. I just wish it still had some resemblance to reality.

Because not only does our "new" government grovel like an overanxious puppy whenever their masters in Washington get upset, we've also made it perfectly clear that while we may look for the signs of torture, we're not actually going to do anything about it.

Canada does not tolerate torture, but must sometimes work with countries that have questionable human rights records in its efforts to protect the public, a federal lawyer told an inquiry looking into torture claims by three Arab-Canadians.

. . .

Peirce began his inquiry submission with the strong declaration: "Canada does not countenance torture."

But then he went on to say that the risk of mistreatment abroad is just one factor that determines whether the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service should share suspect-related information with foreign governments.

And even if Ottawa did facilitate the men's arrests, he argued, that would not violate the UN International Convention on Torture, saying the agreement obliges Ottawa only from preventing torture on its own soil not in foreign countries.

I really hope we soon have the opportunity to move back to what people still think we are.