aMMusing

In the wake of all the chatter over the Harperites’ elimination of the mandatory long-form from the 2011 census, I have been thinking a lot lately about how Harper’s Conservatives have seemingly been getting away with dismantling the Canada the majority of us know and love despite his minority standing in the House of Commons. This article by Frances Russell Murdoch published on The Tyee puts into words, in a way I never could have, how the census debacle is only the latest manifestation of the Harper government’s implementation of the hard-right agenda that centrists and left-leaning Canadians feared so much prior to the rise to power of the Reform/Alliance Conservatives.

Taxes are not inherently a bad thing; mismanagement of tax dollars is. Having the state dictate to me where I can or cannot smoke or who I can or cannot f*ck is a bad thing, but having a state upon which I can call upon should bad luck befall me is a good thing. Meanwhile, it slays me to see, economic recession notwithstanding since the pattern began well before the recession struck, how these Conservatives, like Mulroney’s in the 1980s and 1990s or the U.S. Bushites of the 2000s, have made a porridge of the country’s finances (i.e., mismanaged tax dollars) to the point that, like Obama in the U.S., it will take another party longer to fix than it took these asswipes to break.

It breaks my heart to see Canadians and Americans alike fall for empty populist buzz phrases without realizing the negative long-term consequences. The left is not without its fault, but looking at the last century in both countries, it is clear that progressive policies have improved the lot of the majority far more than so-called conservative policies.

June marks the beginning of another season of Gay Pride celebrations in major Western cities. On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Riots in New York City occurred, marking the moment when gays and lesbians stood up against persecution, thus the usual choice of a date in late-June to commemorate the event. But over the years, as Pride events have become more mainstream and commercial and akin to a circuit party, the date choice can range from June to September in different cities, as in Sin City North, for instance, where it now happens in mid-August.

The fact we use the word “celebration” today is telling of the shift that has happened over the years with regard to this commemorative event. Thus, I’m glad that former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray reminds us that the event, not that long ago, used to be a protest. It’s hard to imagine that a mere 20 years ago, it was imperative for some to be secretive about their sexual orientation for fear of losing their job. Thus, some would avoid the event at all cost in order not to be associated with it in any way.

Indeed, much has changed for the better HERE since I was in my 20s, so the term “celebration” may not be totally out of order. What’s more, I now live in perhaps the most tolerant, if not downright accepting, city in North America with regard to being gay. As well, for my employer and my colleagues at work, my being gay is a non-issue. I never fear of losing my job or my apartment over it, just as I don’t for loving coffee too much or having blue eyes. But it never escapes me that our cities and my country are still oases. Too easily we forget there are places on this planet where being gay is an offense — sometimes criminal, and in extreme cases, sometimes punishable by death.

Even among ourselves, though, we don’t speak with a common voice, and thus don’t form a cohesive community. To be blunt, the only thing I have in common with the vast majority of the guys who hang out in the Village is that we prefer to kiss guys, and even there, there’s a wide array of preferences. (Some don’t like kissing!) So, when it comes to Pride, there are many who can’t stand seeing scantily clad people or adherents to whatever fetish parading down the street, as they not only can’t identify with them but also, in some cases, take offense. “That is not me,” they say, and they resent that others might think they’re anything like them. That’s because, in reality, they aren’t, and it’s way too facile for anyone to accuse them of self-hatred or inward homophobia. For the life of me, I can’t comprehend how a gay guy can be on the socially conservative side of the political spectrum and I would definitely say loud and clear that “he’s not me.” That doesn’t make me self-loathing. He might be, but even that is a cheap shot.

The reason I wish Pride today had more of a protest element is that we don’t have to stray too far from our oasis to find deep resentment and hatred for the gains that have been made in the last 20 years. I don’t know if and how that can be changed. In Canada, where the legal front has been reasonably taken care of, there’s one thing left to protest: ignorance. But elsewhere, there’s that and much, much more. Thus, isn’t it selfish of us to be resting on our laurels and setting aside the notion of protest?

I ended my previous post wondering HOW the participants of the original Éloge du chiac “still identify themselves as French first and foremost.” It turns out that Part 2, which is more than three times the length of the original Éloge, doesn’t totally answer that question. Granted, there is a shocker in finding out that the proudest self-proclaimed Acadian Chiac 40 years ago, who went on to become very militant in his early adulthood, has basically given up the cause today. But as I think about it, I realize that my question was largely irrelevant and revealed more about my preconceived notions of what this documentary would be about. In fact, Part 2 goes much further in that it examines what the state of chiac is today, namely how it has morphed, how it’s perceived, and how it ties into the notion of identity.

I think it’s fair to say that, although it still has a distinct sound and still contains many so-called archaic words — like harde instead of “linge” (clothes) or éloize instead of “éclair” (lightening) — it has sadly (at least to me) become more “franglais.” But as one of today’s teenagers in Part 2 muses, perhaps the fact that a form of “chiac” still exists is enough to resist a complete abdication to English. It’s still a resistence of sorts.

A shortened version of Part 2 airs on Radio Canada in the Atlantic region on Sunday, October 18 at 7:30 pm.

My sister was not quite 14 in May 1968. She, along with other teenagers from Moncton, participated in a short NFB documentary called L’éloge du chiac about the virtues and demerits of chiac, the particular way French is spoken among Acadians in southeastern New Brunswick. Forty years later, those same participants, including the young (at the time) teacher, were brought back together for L’éloge du chiac Part 2 whose premiere is happening tonight at the NFB in Montréal and to which I’m heading in a few moments.

Just so you understand, chiac is fundamentally French, peppered with archaic French words and contemporary English words, as well as hybrids verbs from English made to sound French (as in j’ai crossé la rue for I crossed the street). No one in my immediate family ever spoke hardcore chiac, although my cousins just a few yards down the street certainly did. But, I must admit, in the original Éloge, my sister definitely had a chiac lilt that I don’t hear anymore.

I found it interesting viewing L’éloge again after so many years, in particular the way my sister at that age already affirmed herself as being Acadian, whereas it took me moving to Montréal in my 40s to finally fully assume my Acadian identity rather than thinking of myself as a French Canadian cultural mutt. But also fascinating to me was to learn that my sister, who now principally lives in French, recognized that, at 13, she spoke French only at home and in school. She declared:

My family is French; we’re from Québec. Me, though, I’m Acadian, so I’m not going to start speaking English with my parents! My mother hardly knows any English; I pretty well have to speak my French. But with others, I can admit that I always speak English.

That’s the thin edge of the wedge: trying to live in French in a town that’s predominently English-speaking, where two of the three TV stations were English and the only French radio station was Radio-Canada. It’s easy to see how assimilation could take hold back then. Moreover, back in 1968, Moncton was far from hospitable towards French. This was the era of the anti-French/anti-bilingual Mayor Jones. It was the era when French-speaking cashiers at the Eaton’s department store were strictly forbidden to speak French at work, even with customers whom they knew spoke only French (like my mother). It’s very clear in the original film that there was a sense of inferiority among these teens about the French they spoke. But without hesitation, I can say that today, whatever shred of vibrancy Moncton has is in large part because Acadians stood up and took pride in their culture and their language, thus throwing a splash of colour in an otherwise drab cultural landscape.

Is chiac “good French”? I’d have to say No in the strict sense of what that phrase implies. But it is a sign of a people’s determination to survive and to preserve much more than a symbolic link with who and where they come from. And what I look forward to seeing in Part 2 of Éloge is how, 40 years later, these Moncton teenagers of the late ’60s still identify themselves as French first and foremost despite having had to struggle to keep hold of that language and culture.

So! Canada went through another federal election — the third in about four years — and this one yielded essentially the same results as the previous: a Conservative minority government. But with 37.65% of the popular vote compared to 36.27% in the January 2006 election — a mere 1.4% increase nation-wide — the Conservatives managed to get elected in 19 more seats. In other words, having won 46.43% of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, the Conservatives’ overrepresentation this time compared to the popular vote is 8.78%, whereas, by winning only 40.26% of the seats after the 2006 race, their overrepresentation was a mere 3.99%, which made them at the time the weakest minority government in Canada’s history.

Oct. 24 judicial recount
One seat from the Bloc Québécois has shifted to the Liberals.

Again, if we had a form of proportional representation like most democratic countries — Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. remaining the only standouts — the Conservatives would not have advanced as they did this time. In fact:

• the Conservatives would be in the same spot, give or take a seat or two;
• the Liberals would have gone down in standing to roughly where they went (plus maybe five seats);
• the Greens, this time having well passed the generally accepted 5% threshold of the nation-wide popular vote, would have 20 seats instead of being shut out of Parliament, and
• the number of votes that would not have yielded a seat whatsoever would have gone from about 1 million of a total of 13.8 million (7.22%) to a mere 64,000 or so (0.46%).

You can study the results at equitablevote.textstyle.ca, a site I developed (but still haven’t finished), which takes actual election results and recalculates what they could have been using the d’Hondt method that has been adopted in many countries. I personally have always favoured a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system over the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system because it’s mathematically and conceptually a heck of a lot easier to grasp.

Among the caveats to keep in mind when looking at these calculations:

• it can be problematic to take results from a “First Past the Post” (FPTP) election because voters may have behaved differently at the polls in a “Mixed-Member Proportional” (MMP) election, where they could vote for different parties locally and regionally, so, as a corollary:
  • the recalculation at my website assumes no such vote splitting, and
  • it assumes there was no strategic voting (which there definitely was in this election);
• the percentage of seats that should remain FPTP could be as high as 75% or as low as 50% (the website allows you to adjust that percentage to see various scenarios);
• the percentage of minimum popular vote nation-wide to be eligible for regional seats has been set as low as 2 or 3% in some countries and as high as 10% in other countries (again, the website allows you to adjust that percentage), and
• there might be a variance of a few seats if the formula were applied by regions instead of nation-wide.

Perhaps the only possible gain of this election, for which the voter turnout was the lowest in the modern history of Canadian federal elections, is that many woke up October 15 feeling frustrated by how over 937,000 votes (or nearly 6.8%) nation-wide can lead to one party (the Greens) obtaining no seat in Parliament, while roughly 442,000 more votes (or 10%) nation-wide can lead to another party (the Bloc Québécois) winning 49 seats. Or how yet another party (the NDP) can get 1.135 million more votes than another party (the Bloc Québécois), but find itself with 12 fewer seats despite polling just over 18% of the national popular vote.

While the highly negative tone of this lacklustre election campaign was likely the main contributor to so much voter apathy, the fact many voters saw first-hand the extent to which their vote can sometimes have no impact on the final outcome has, as well, certainly generated much more talk of electoral reform on online discussion forums. Indeed, a voter like me in the riding of Westmount–Ville-Marie knew all along that it would go Liberal even if that party had nominated Jackson as its candidate, while non-Conservative voters like Matthew in a riding like Guelph had to wrestle with the notion of strategic voting in order to achieve what they perceived as a “less bad” outcome. The fact a party that draws at least two per cent of the popular vote nationally or at least five per cent in a given riding receives $1.95 per vote is often not enough encouragement to vote with one’s conscience.

The leader of the Bloc Québécois in Ottawa, Gilles Duceppe, and the leader of the Parti Québécois in Québec City, Pauline Marois, are in a tizzy over Governor General Michaëlle Jean telling France President Nicolas Sarkosy to “Look beyond Quebec” for the “million of them out there fighting to save their language and their culture.” But the best Duceppe can do is dismiss the monarchy as a “ridiculous institution.” For heaven forbid that anyone but a Québécois pure laine be allowed to “own” the celebration of Québec City’s 400th anniversary as a marker of the francophone presence on this continent.

It’s that kind of pettiness, narcissism and “ahistoricalness” (if I may coin the term) that dampens whatever sympathy I have sometimes for Québec’s sovereignist cause, which evidently is in the doldrums these days if that’s the best that can be argued. Moreover, Acadians know well that THEY were the first French-speaking settlers in North America, settling temporarily on Isle Sainte Croix in 1604 and founding the first permanent settlement the next year in Port Royal. While in Québec City last summer, someone argued with me that that didn’t count because it was nothing more than an outpost, whereas Québec City was the founding of a “real” city that still exists. That, of course, is a totally vacuous argument if you ask me. And it’s not by lying and rewriting history that sovereignists are helping their cause.

I haven’t been living in Québec very long but it’s amply clear that this is a nation that is distinct from the rest of Canada. Québec has remarkable autonomy in many public spheres, from taxation, its legal system and immigration policy. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about on that last point! As Esposo’s sponsor for permanent residence, I will be taking a direct engagement with the Québec government (not the federal government, which will forward our dossier to Québec when it’s determined that’s where we want to live, and notwithstanding that Esposo’s permanent resident status will be with Canada, not Québec), which will want me to ensure he “adapts” to Québec culture (read “speaks French”). Fortunately, I don’t totally disagree with that position and Esposo wants to improve his French as much as I want to be functional in Spanish one day. But when the political discourse of sovereignists takes a dive like this, I wonder if we’ll ever be good enough for the Duceppe and Marois of this world.

Pauline Marois was crowned the leader of the Parti Québécois a few months ago and has returned to the Québec National Assembly last week following her byelection win in Charlevoix.

Marois is a seasoned and experienced politician, having held several key folios in past PQ governments, including health and finance. Some find her too matronly and condescending, and others hold grudges against her for decisions she has made while minister. Personally, I don’t dislike her personality, and I wasn’t affected by her decisions since I didn’t live in Québec at the time. However, strangely, I think my mother who also doesn’t live in Québec doesn’t like her much, as I remember her bitching about “la Marois” and her policies that she heard about on the news even though they had no impact on her.

Today, she forwarded this link to a TQS news report (in French) suggesting that her poor command of the English language would be a handicap to someone aspiring to become the premier of any province, including Québec. I’m not sure if Mom sent me this link because it’s a jab at Marois or because it reminds her of her own inability to speak English (as in, “See, even she can’t do it!”).

A few things come to my mind as I look at this video. For one thing, I think that a premier would have access to interpreters, so I really don’t think her lack of English is such a big problem. But for me watching this video, I can’t help but squirm for her personally. I don’t think she should be embarrassed; rather, I’m thinking that, as bad as it is, her English is a lot better than my Spanish. And I can so relate to searching and searching for words and only having a long string of “uhs” and “uhms” filling the airwaves. It’s maddening and you feel like an idiot.

In addition to electing a new government, Ontarians will be asked to vote for or against electoral reform on October 10. Indeed, they will be deciding whether or not to move to a “Mixed Member Proportional” (MMP) system similar to New Zealand’s and many other European countries.

Many political analysts are predicting that this referendum will fail. Some point to the McGuity Liberal government’s failure to come clearly in favour of the reform as a reason why it will fail, while others suggest that the government has not done enough to educate citizens on how the system would work. The threshold for this referendum, like in previous referendums held in British Columbia and Prince Edward Island, has also been set very high: 60 percent of the popular vote province-wide and a majority in at least 60 percent of the ridings. While the PEI referendum was a spectacular flop — and then this year’s general election under the old FPTP system yielded, as usual, yet another lopsided majority government — the BC referendum garnered 57 percent of the popular vote — not enough to effect electoral reform in that province but enough not to bury the notion entirely. Interestingly, the alternate system being considered in BC is the “Single Tranferable Vote” (STV) system (similar to Australia’s, I believe), which even someone like myself who is well-versed in electoral reform finds difficult to grasp compared to MMP, yet it came that close to passing.

To me, the high threshold being imposed on these referenda is both problematic and ironic. I’m to first to recognize that a 50-percent-plus-one victory in a referendum — be it for this matter or the secession of a province from the rest of the country — is not sufficient because it would give the winning side a very weak mandate. However, a double supermajority rule is not only extreme, but it is also a highly cynical move by politicians wishing to keep the defective status quo in that it imposes conditions that the current system never achieves and that the new system would never attempt to achieve. In short, reform opponents are quite happy with a system that can give huge majorities on the weight of 38 percent of the vote but don’t want to use that same system to effect a change to the way citizens vote.

That really annoys me, just as the misinformation opponents present annoys me. Like:

What are the most important reasons for voting for/against electoral reform?
MMP is the wrong reform for Ontario. It creates problems far more serious than the proportional problem it wants to solve. [Ed. note: Like what? You're screaming doomsday but not substantiating that claim.]

Why is this particular reform important/not the right one?
MMP is fundamentally anti-community. It shifts political power from the voters in local ridings across the province to party headquarters at Queen’s Park. [Ed. note: First of all, except for independents, each candidate in each riding is already being selected by the party they represent, sometimes through an election of party members in the riding but sometimes by acclamation or by appointment. And secondly, brandishing the term "anti-community" is very deceptive because it implies the current system is pro-community, which it is not because many citizens are now being forced to vote "strategically" by voting for a party that they deem "less bad" for their community.]

What one thing in particular would you like people to know about MMP?
MMP would introduce 39 “list” members of the legislature. One-third of the legislature would be made up of politicians accountable only to political parties. These list members would not run in local elections, would not have to look after a single constituent’s problem and would not have to face the local electorate in the next election. [Ed. note: List candidates would be known to voters. These candidates would then be accountable to constituents of the whole province, although thoughtful parties would ensure that the ordering of the list would provide local representation of the party where it's less likely to earn one of the FPTP seats. For instance, if the Conservatives are unlikely to win an FPTP seat in northern Ontario, they could list someone who's from northern Ontario first so that they can at least have some kind of representation in that part of the province when that elected candidate goes home.]

Do you feel MMP would lead to more or less stability in the electoral system?
The existing system produces both majority governments and minority governments. MMP is deliberately designed so that majority government would be extremely rare… [Ed. note: Rest of bullshit answer not reproduced here. For reason MMP yields mostly minority governments! A majority government should mean a government that the majority has voted for! And minority governments in jurisdictions that have a form of MMP have not been unstable. Spare me from the "I" countries argument -- Italy and Israel; they don't have a rule like is being proposed in Ontario for the reasonable minimum threshold of the popular vote a party must achieve to be assigned regional seats. What's more, wild swings from one party's majority to another party's majority are much more destablizing in terms of policies.]

Are there misconceptions about MMP? If so, what are they?
That it is fair. [Ed. note: That's all you can say? That's pretty weak! And you're implying that the current system is fair? It's anything but! If your beef is that MMP is NOT fair, then let's agree on another term: fairer. Or what about less imperfect?]

It’s worth your while to read the whole Q&A.

I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised on Wednesday if the political pundits are proven wrong and MMP does pass in Ontario. If it does, then expect other Canadian jurisdictions to consider it more seriously than they have so far. But I’m afraid that the voter apathy FPTP has bred will lead Ontarians to believe the NO-side scaremongers.

I can’t say I agree with Canada’s chief electoral officer’s decision not to ask veiled women to reveal their face when they present themselves at a polling station, and I agree even less with how he refuses to back down from his decision.

My opposition is pragmatic, however. Apparently, it’s not that Muslim organizations have asked for this accommodation. In fact, some spokespeople have said that they would find it perfectly acceptable to ask veiled women to show their face privately to another woman. That wouldn’t be a very difficult thing to accommodate for either the veiled women and the workers at the polling station, and it wouldn’t be the beginning of a slippery slope for more “accommodations.” To suggest otherwise is the same kind of argument that’s been used against gay marriage, and we all know how unreasonable it was to suggest that allowing gay marriage would lead to a systematic breakdown of marriage.

But what makes me most uncomfortable about some who have voiced their opposition to the chief electoral officer’s decision is how, to them, it points to how immigrants refuse to integrate once in Canada. Frankly I think that’s a simplistic view at best, and xenophobic at worse. To some extent I agree that, when in Rome, once must do like the Romans. But there’s room to manoeuver within that. To suggest that there isn’t is indicative of insecurity.

An in-depth article has just appeared on the cbc.ca website arguing the pros and cons of abolishing the Canadian penny and eventually the nickle, as Australia and New Zealand have done in the early 1990s.

I recall in Halifax in the early ’90s, several years after the replacement of the $1 bill by the “loonie” and shortly after the replacement of the $2 bill by the “toonie,” the Barrington Street branch of the Toronto Dominion Bank tried to do its bit to get rid of the penny by accepting it but not giving it out. The argument went along the lines that it costs more to handle the little dark coins than they’re worth. But then it seems that initiative petered out and pennies are as plentiful today as they were back then despite some claiming that each penny costs as much as 4 cents to produce.

I have a little container full of pennies on my kitchen counter — probably a few dollars’ worth. I also try to separate my nickles, dimes and quarters, and often I think of ways of offloading my accumulated quarters. Nickles and dimes are trickier, although I suppose I could burn through them quickly enough by buying a few cups of Tim Horton coffee with them. I try to use my pennies when I’m carrying them with me, but that’s not often because I methodically empty my pockets when I come back home and throw them in that penny container which by now is almost overflowing.

I’m just one of 32 million Canadians with a container full of pennies I don’t recirculate, and the Desjardin Group estimates in that article that each Canadian on average is holding on to about six dollars’ worth. That’s $192,000,000. Given that one can hardly make a full purchase with a dollar coin these days, I think it may well be time to get rid of the penny and start using the “Swedish rounding” method described in that article.

And I wonder when, if ever, the Americans will replace all $1 bills with $1 coins in their currency.