Stephen "My Buddy Steve" and the Softwood Lumber Deal

Rant&Rave: August 2006

I've got to get this off my chest. While I consider myself to be pretty much a "right winger", I was loath to see Stephen Harper and his new Conservative Party get elected. Since then, he has done a few things that were starting to sway me into a more supportive position. Then came the Softwood Lumber agreement. First of all, I don't like to support anything that David Emerson is behind, just because he does not represent the good citizens who elected a Liberal and wound up with a Conservative member through no fault of their own.

We wound up with this deal on softwood lumber largely because Steve wants a way to cozy up to his good buddy, George. Now I believe that having a good working relationship and friendship between our leaders is a good thing, but not at any cost.

The US lumber lobby is ruthless. They claim that Canada is using illegal subsidies for our industry which harms theirs. (How about their hugely excessive agricultural subsidies that harm the agriculture industries all over the world, including Canadian farmers) So they have persistanly imposed punitive duties which to date have totalled over $5 billion in spite of the fact that lumber is included in NAFTA and the NAFTA judicial board has consitantly sided with Canada. Steve's Conservative government and George's Republican government negotiated a deal that is highly beneficial to America and for Canada, not quite so much. A summary of the Softwood Lumber Agreement is here, http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=1234. It is from the government's own website so it looks very positive.

The government claims that the provinces and industry are supportive of the deal. Well, they are now, they weren't initially. They came on-side when former Liberal David Emerson told them that if they didn't come on-side, the government of Canada would drop the whole matter and leave the provinces and industry to the wolves (not a direct quote). No wonder they came on-side, they were given an offer they couldn't refuse.

Of course, the deal can still fail to pass in Parliament when the enacting legislation comes up in the fall. Now, this could happen very easily because Mr. Harper and his merry band are in a minority position in the House and every party other than his is against the bill. Bingo! Harper is crazy like a fox though. Knowing that the Liberal party will still be leaderless and therefor, not ready for an election, the PM has declared that the bill will be a matter of confience. If it fails, the government will fall and we will have an election shortly thereafter. Absolutely brilliant. He has forced the Liberals into a position where cannot sink the deal, snookered the best interest of the Canadian softwood lumber industry and the will of the majority of Canadians and solidified his relationship with Mr. Bush with one fell (or is that "foul") swoop.

I guess that for the next 7 years we will just have to live with it.

BillBoards Along Vancouver Bridges

There is screaming all over the Vancouver media today about the Squamish Native Canadians plans to erect huge billboards beside the approaches to several to the city's bridges. I have two questions about all the fuss.

1. Why is it a surprise?
2. Are the folks who are so upset the same people who have pushed for native rights for the past several years?

As a little background, I know that a couple of hundred years ago when Canada was a huge forest with rivers for highways and the land was owned by England, France and the Hudsons Bay Company, many treaties were signed on behalf of the British crown which recognized extensive rights to the native bands who occupied the land at that time. At the time, these treaties made a lot of sense and were the right thing to do. The only other option was to try to take the land by whatever means necessary. That would have been the wrong thing to do, but has serious effects on Canadian current events.

Since those days, Canada has become a proud nation and taken its place proudly on the world's stage. Both during the time when we had a system of British comom law and more especially since P.M. Pierre Trudeau gave us a constitution and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we have cherished the notion of equality of all our citizens, or at least so far as our rights and obligations as Canadian citizens is concerned; unless you happen to be born a Native Canadian. We have the Indian Act and all the treaties signed so long ago.

In more modern times, Canadians were absolutely indignant about the condition of black people in the United States. We received them by the thousands as they escaped slavery in the US and even into the 1960s we worked to help abolish segregation.

Likewise, we worked very hard on several fronts to eliminate apartheid in South Africa in the firm belief that separation of the races is wrong.

Flash forward to Canada today. Many battles have been won by the native Canadians in the courts to verify and prove the rights granted by treaties signed in the days long ago. Our courts have granted that the treaties are valid and legal to this day and our native Canadians have standing as "First Nations" with powers of nations on a par with Ottawa. As a result, we have defacto apartheid here in Canada today, not inflicted on the minority by the majority, but on the minority by the "First Nations" themselves.

Now, today, in Vancouver, the Squanish Nation owns the land under your bridges. It is their land, they will do with it as they want. They have decided that huge billboards on tall steel poles erected on their land is in their interests. Well Vancouver citizens, you have supported and encouraged native rights to be nations of their own as opposed to being Canadians who happen to be aboriginal. The Squamish Nation has the right to the billboards to block your views of the north shore mountains - live with it.