First, on the election. Sorry I missed a few days. It is a combination of several things. First, boredom. Despite being a ‘nail biting’, ‘tight race’, when the candidates and the media agree on so much it is hard to keep motivated for daily commentary. Second, my own fear and loathing have been getting the better of me and making me want to just forget about it all. But, here we are and I owe you a report. So, here goes.
Paul Martin said that he won’t try to form a coalition with the NDP if he gets less seats than the Conservatives, ruling out that great hope that many left-liberals held, and bringing things that much closer to my own projected scenario, a Conservative-Liberal coalition government. It is actually going to happen folks, and it is going to be ugly.
I suspect that the husband of Canada’s governor-general Adrienne Clarkson, John Ralston Saul, would find this to be an example of the genius of the Canadian people. When the Quebec referendum of 1995 happened, and the Quebec population voted 51%-49% to stay in Canada, most federalists were really scared by how close it came. Ralston Saul said no, it should have been even closer — the electorate did the exact thing needed to humiliate both sides. Maybe an optimistic gloss on the high apathy plus the statistical tie between the Liberals and Conservatives is a similar message. Now if only we had a way of humiliating them without punishing ourselves…
So here’s the hilarious news. The Canadian government has finally disclosed a report on the Maher Arar case (Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian origin, was deported to Syria by the US thanks to Canadian intelligence, tortured for ten months before managing to return to Canada). The report consists of 89 fully blacked out pages. Thanks a lot, Canada!
In news that won’t be distressing to a lot of people in Toronto, it seems our good police chief Julian Fantino will not be continuing in his post, from which he served and protected the city’s most vulnerable so effectively, after March. So long chief, and it couldn’t have happened to a better guy.
