Far from seeing Canada on a better path since the publication of his first book on the subject, many of the problems that Mr. Gairdner identified have grown worse in the intervening 20 years and new problems have emerged. Mr. Gairdner’s book presents another opportunity for Canadians to understand what ails us and to work towards solutions. This effort must begin with a willingness to openly discuss many subjects that have become sacred cows, considered third rails in Canada’s stifled political discourse.
Mr. Gairdner invites us to join him in tackling these sacred cows to thereby encourage our politicians to shake off their fear of third rail issues so we can get back on track to an improved Canada.
Hosted by the International Free Press Society on Thursday, January 27th in London, ON. Information here
Or, if you think Stephen Harper is your problem, you are the problem.
A humanities grad! With a PhD! From an elite university! In California! Who taught at York U!
I can see why you might love him.
Shut up, Davenport.
Shut up, Davenport.
Shut up, Davenport.
And the first troll shows up and what do we get?
It attacks the messanger and ignores the message.
Of all the issues at the link, Davenport, do you think everything is perfect concerning all these issues or is there some room for improvement?
If there is no room for improvement is it your position that the Harper government is managing each of these issue perfectly?
And if there is room for improvement what needs improving and how would you go about it.
Or should we forever write you off as unreasonable and continue to believe that you only come here to fling ad hominems and have nothing constructive to add??
Davenport, I guess you’ll be reading Gairdner’s complete works now. I’m looking forward to hearing from you when you’re finished.
batb: “Shut up, Davenport.”
∞²: “Shut up, Davenport.”
Incisor: “Shut up, Davenport.”
Oz: “Or should we forever write you off as unreasonable and continue to believe that you only come here to fling ad hominems and have nothing constructive to add??”
My comment isn’t actually aimed at this post, which is basically a plug for a talk by a guy whose views one can confidently predict are close to 100% in agreement with those of most SDA readers.
All I’m saying is, were this post plugging a talk by some anonymous guy who studied english lit at Stanford U, and subsequently worked as a prof at York, the ensuing comments would be, shall we say, of a certain tone (e.g., google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=site%3Awww.smalldeadanimals.com+%22liberal+arts%22+or+%22professor%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=).
But, if the speaker were all those things and happened to be saying stuff that you agree with, then suddenly, those things don’t seem to matter so much.
In other words, make snarky generalizations about the liberal arts and/or elite-educated professor types at your own risk. You never know when it might come back to haunt you.
“Of all the issues at the link, Davenport, do you think everything is perfect concerning all these issues or is there some room for improvement?”
Of course there’s always room for improvement. Everything always has room for improvement. As for what and how, it’s getting late, so let’s just assume that I disagree with Mr Gairdner about the way in which everything should be improved.
Better than sacred cows- Extreme Sheepherding!
http://www.wimp.com/sheeplight/
Davenport: It just isn’t polite to dig up dirt from a person’s past if he’s doing ok now 🙂
As for what and how, it’s getting late, so let’s just assume that I disagree with Mr Gairdner about the way in which everything should be improved.
~Davenport
I’ll take the last issue up, judge made law.
Do you think that unelected judges should be making laws or do you think that laws should only be made by elected officials and the role of judges is to rule on points of law, case law, and the constituionality of the laws that elected officials have passed through our democratic process?
Can we agree that only elected officials show makes laws?
Yes or no?
And if no, that unelected officials(judges) should be able to make law, then why should they and would you still agree if to that proposition if those elected officials(judges) were all conservatives who were fundamentalist Christians?
Or is there a third way?
Should we be electing our judges?
I just finished “The Trouble With Democracy”. Great book, I didn’t know he had written other books. I will run out and try to find them.
If we were electing our judges and the judges made laws which conflicted with legislation coming out of parliament wouldn’t it cause problems in how our democracy functions to have parliament constantly at odds with judges while judges have the power to veto parliamenary legislation by declaring it unconstitutional?
And what would happen to our parliamentary representatives ability to broker treaties and trade arrangements both foreign and domestic if they were always running into conflict with laws coming out of the courts since the volume of judge made law would increase if judges were elected and had the additional mandate to make law as well as rule on law?
Elected judges likely have less pronouncements that are at odds with parliamentary edicts or polular will.
popular..
popular..
To every question he put forward the answer is because of the Liberal party of Canada. Future generations are not going to pay back what we have spent, to make some moron like Micheal Ignatiaff happy. Conservatives are becoming to spineless to oppose the liberals therefore liberal policy is safe whether or not they are in power.
Elected judges likely have less pronouncements that are at odds with parliamentary edicts or popular will.
~trappedintrudeaupia
Depends.
How long are their terms?
Do they run concurrent with parliament or are they elected halfway through a government’s 4 year term?
What happens if you have Liberal judges and a Conservative government or vice versa?
What happens if there is a non-confidence vote in parliament that triggers an election but no similar mechanism for judges and the term judges have shifts in relation to the parliamentary cycle?
What happens if one party’s judges make a ruling that scuttles a treatie or agreement that federal representatives are trying to broker with a foreign nation or block of nations when talks are ongoing or undermines the Canadian government’s position in the negotiating block that we are a part of because one party is opposed on principle to the agreement when talks are ongoing?
Electing judges and giving them an actual mandate to make,/i> law is an idea fraught with danger.
Such redundancies as having judges making laws beg for conflict.
It shouldn’t be in their mandate.
Judges aren’t going to be independent politically if they’re elected because parties are going to aid them in their election bids.
If there are individual contribution caps, party participation will still be advantageous by raising a lot of small contributions and other gains through the use of party machines to get out the vote for their candidate.
“Who taught at York U! I can see why you might love him.”
That would be one very good reason not to love Gairdner. York U. stinks.
Gairdner makes a strong case, however, against the Marxist-London-School-of-Economics-laden Trudeupia Canada’s been labouring under for the past 40 years.
Official multiculturalism (as opposed to regard for hard-working immigrants willing to respect and abide by Canadians’ laws and customs — not wishing to change them via lawfare), official bilingualism, and radical feminism have balkanized Canadians.
Turning group against group, ghettoizing ethnic and gender groups within Canada has worked very well for big we-have-just-the-solution/program-for-you government always proposed by the Librano$, Dippers, and Blocheads but doesn’t work at all for Canada and most of her citizens. It’s bleeding overtaxed, hardworking Canadians dry, while conferring upon far too many new and militant immigrants, who refuse to leave their ancient and destructive battles in their country of origin, special visible minority status which leaves the rest of us in the ditch, paying all the bills. As a 7th-generation Canadian of British descent, I deeply resent that my children have been told that their ancestors were bad people. Our ancestors helped to build Canada into the vibrant, free, generous democracy it is — the country to which immigrants from tyrannical governments have been fleeing for decades. I deeply resent my children and me being the host upon which too many parasites are now feeding, thanks very much.
Under the Liberal$, Canada has been teetering on the brink of not just monetary bankruptcy but moral and ethical bankruptcy as well. The signs of a civilization in decline are everywhere, not least in our schools and on our streets: Trudeau’s legacy. Thanks, Pierre.
Wake up Davenport and cohorts. You have nothing to lose or fear but your smug, entitled ignorance.
‘the facts of life are conservative’
what i valued most about ‘thatcherism’ was that conservative values have a very ‘moral’ component….as reflected in the centuries old mainstream ‘value system’ of our western society
…a society which is under assault from without and within by agitators who cannot cast accounts or see further than their own nose…who know not thrift…who have no faith in their fellow man’s ability to rise above their circumstances ….who naively believe throwing money at a problem solves anything rather changing society’s expectation of HOW they can improve their lot..
all cliches i know but there you are…..and when you have a lllieberalpartyofcanada..a more scurrilous opportunistic crooked cynical and incompetent cohort has never existed before in Canada actually forming Government then you have a sure recipe for fiduciary malfeasance…
i could go on and on but what’s the point…i would simply repeat myself
What begley says, too.
Let’s deal with the substance of Gairdner’s proposed topics and not the troll, shall we?
There’s one of Gairdner’s topics that has not been properly presented and that’s the question of net debt. What isn’t mentioned here is that the $150,000 figure is a composite of actual government debt and what the Fraser Institute claims are unfunded liabilities under medicare and old age security.
It is not accurate to combine the two. Net government federal debt is only $16,000 per capita, a mere 10% of the total figure claimed. The problem with the future liability figure is that it leaves out the value of the asset put against it. It’s based on assumptions about the future value of the contributions to old age security and medicare and the future value of current assets against that liability.
Second, it should be obvious to everyone that there is a large difference between actual debt that you owe today and future debt that you MIGHT owe tomorrow. The second is subject to all sorts of measures to deal with it that the first is not. For example, the future liability of old age security can be completely wiped out by simply raising the age of entitlement.
To go around spouting that Canadians each have a net debt of $150,000 is pure alarmism. Net debt is not the same as future unfunded liability. There’s no possibility of a rational discussion on this topic until the figures have been laid out properly and in sufficient detail. Gairdner does not do this.
Posters at SDA often suggest correctly that global warming contains voodoo science making unwarranted assumptions. This net debt argument of Gairdner’s also contains some similar elements of voodoo economics based on unwarranted assumptions.
Bill Gairdner has written the 2 seminal works on the stste of the Canadian state. His crysral clarity and brutal honesty are unlikely to ever appear in Canada’s coopted media. Thses 2 books gove text book accuracy to the failings of the Canadian state and Who and what is to blame for the decline of open democracy, freedom and civil liberty in this nation.
I would urge anyone interested in saving Canada from partisan authoritarian decay to read these 2 books.
The problem, davenport, with your attempt to denigrate and malign SDA commenters, is that you, like many on the left, tend to generalize. (Note: ‘many’ does not equal ‘all’; it means precisely what it says.]
That is, you claim that we conclude that ALL who went to an Ivy-League school, took humanities, etc..are trapped within the sophistry of postmodern relativism, aka, leftist values.
But you are generalizing. That’s a particular characteristic of many on the left. We are conservatives. This means that we are realists; we don’t live in a virtual or imaginary world. We don’t generalize. We consider:just the facts.
Therefore we know that SOME of those graduates do maintain their ability to reason, be critical, rely on factual evidence.
The third rail is usually high voltage and deadly to the touch. Isn’t it?
Liberals want it touched? OK. You go first.
Dang fat fingers clicked post
Why should third rail issues be touched if they have SFA to do with keeping the country running.
Aren’t those third rail issues more of the “social justice” crap?
If the country isn’t running right? What’s the point of doing anything else that overloads and further wrecks the system?
ET: “That is, you claim that we conclude that ALL who went to an Ivy-League school, took humanities, etc..are trapped within the sophistry of postmodern relativism, aka, leftist values. But you are generalizing.”
Oh, ET. Your above description, while in any case inaccurate (see below), isn’t even of me generalizing about SDA commenters; it’s of me being incorrect in accusing SDA commenters (i.e, your “we”) of generalizing.
But I digress. My 11:54 PM and 1:04 comments were directed at Kate and those SDA readers/commenters who have demonstrated repeatedly their disdain for and mockery of both the liberal arts and the academe, examples of which I even provided a link to as a way to substantiate my point. At no point did I ever imply that Kate’s views were shared by all “conservatives,” “SDA readers”, or “members of the right.”
What batb and john Begley said.
cgh, you are right about the debt issue. Bill Gairdner’s accounting methodology is out some, but I believe his point, as I understand it, is that the future liability of government pensions needs to be addressed. Some workers and some companies have realized too late this lack of proper funding.
Oz: “I’ll take the last issue up, judge made law.”
Since you insist (and since I had a good night’s sleep), I will respond (but you probably won’t like what I have to say).
I find Gairdner’s blurb to be rather leading and somewhat disingenuous. Of course judges shouldn’t be making laws, but has this ever actually happened in Canada? As you no doubt know, judges — even the most activist sort — don’t actually make laws per se, though they are often accuse of doing so by those opposed to their decisions (say, someone like a Mr Gairdner) when they rule that lawmakers are to provide a legislative or regulatory remedy for something or another that they have found to be, say, unconstitutional or illegal.
Without knowing which case(s) Gairdner is referring to, it’s hard to say whether he actually has a point about “judges making laws” or whether he just doesn’t like certain rulings and their legal repercussions.
In lieu of a copy of his book, perhaps you yourself offer an example case, to give some parameters to what you actually mean when you say “judge made law.”
ahh, davenport – your “I can see why you might love him” and ‘most SDA readers’ is not equivalent to ‘Kate and those SDA readers/commenters”. It means what it says: you(plural) and ‘most’ (a majority).
Likewise, my use of the pronoun ‘We’ did not refer to all ‘conservatives’ or ‘members of the right’. It meant what it said on this blog: it referred to SDA commenters. That’s because the pronoun ‘we’ is always referenced to the first noun example (there is no other example): “your attempt to denigrate and malign SDA commenters”.
By the way – Victor Davis Hanson, for whom most (a majority) of us on this blog have the greatest admiration – is a graduate and professor of an Ivy League (Stanford); a humanist (classics); and a conservative realist.
I must confess that a number of years ago after reading one of Gairdner’s books, I called in to a talk show he was on and called him a “racist”. I argued my case quite eloquently and left Mr. Gairdner rather speechless and shocked.
I was wrong (apologies to Gairdner if he is out there). I had been out of Canada for so long that I was out of touch with the political situation here — didn’t understand how official multiculturalism had gone down the toilet over the years from the time I went abroad in 1978.
What was once a policy designed to encourage cultural understanding and communication between Canadians and celebrate our diversity, devolved over the years into a tool to create conflict and superimpose the fascistic ideology of the Left on the concept of “diversity”.
I think the citizenship manual for new Canadians should come with a disclaimer:
“Dear New Canadian,
Although Canada is a diverse country presumably united under democratic freedom, justice and equality for all, you should be aware that many of our bureaucracies and agencies have been hijacked by Marxists whose main interest is to create conflict between Canadians in order to destroy any sort of unifying National identity, as well as to eliminate diversity in favour of a single homogenous communistic society enforced by totalitarian Marxist elites.”
A disclaimer like that would not only be a helpful caveat for new Canadians, but would have been helpful for returning ex-pat Canadians such as myself.
A paper on judicial activism with specific case references here:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb009/is_2_33/ai_n29034007/?tag=content;col1
The U.S. Supreme Court probably is the most activist high court tribunal on earth, with Canada’s fast becoming a runner-up.(1) Barely a decade after the Charter’s passage, Mandel characterized its impact as the “legalization of politics” in Canada,(2) and Peter Russell, another Canadian judicial scholar, believes that “the importance of judicial review in Canada at the present time equals if it does not exceed its importance in the United States.”(3) Morton and Knopff go even further, calling it a “Charter Revolution” because “Canadian politics has been replaced by a regime of constitutional supremacy verging on judicial supremacy. On rights issues, judges have abandoned the deference and self-restraint that characterized their pre-Charter jurisprudence and become more active players in the political process.”(4) Indeed Alan Cairns anticipated far reaching political consequences from a Charter that designates group entitlements for certain minorities. “The Charter is more than an instrument that hands out abstract rights equally to all Canadians and is indifferent to their various statuses defined by gender, ethnicity, official language status, and the presence or absence of disabilities. In fact it specifically mobilizes Canadians in terms of these categories. It encourages Canadians to think of themselves for constitutional purposes as women, as official-language minorities, as disabled, or as ethnocultural Canadians.”(5) To this extent Les Pal agrees: “The advent of the Charter in 1982 therefore did not so much create new groups as new opportunities, though some organizations were spawned specifically to pursue new litigation strategies related to the Charter’s equality provisions.”(6) It was not long before the Canadian Supreme Court broadcast its intentions in no uncertain terms. In Law Society of Upper Canada v. Sapinker (1984), the Supreme Court declared that its Charter jurisprudence would be “large and liberal” in scope, a welcome signal to advocacy groups who were organizing a litigation campaign.
ricardo, I respect you, but I find it hard to believe that Bill Gairdner was left “rather speechless and shocked”—depending on what you mean by “rather”!
Bill Gairdner is a national treasure and, as such, most Canadians have not a clue about who he is. For decades, he’s been a voice of reason and clarity about how Canada has turned its back on its faith and traditions—and, as a result, is heading precipitously downhill.
Bill Gairdner founded a group called Civitas. SDAers should check out its web site—and buy Bill’s insightful books.
Nothing wrong with Canada that a Conservative majority won’t cure.
A fine analysis of the usurpation of political power by judges, via the Trudeau Charter of Rights and Freedoms (sic), is Rory Leishman’s book, “Against Judicial Activism: the Decline of Freedom and Democracy in Canada” (McGill- Queen’s Press, 2006).
“Leishman argues that the proclivity of judges and adjudicators to change the law from the bench compromises the rule of law; constricts the historic rights and freedoms of all Canadians; violates the separation of powers under the Constitution; and subverts the democratic process.”
Leishman is altogether correct! His superlative book provides comprehensive documentation about the grievous loss of freedom experienced by Canadians, via the serious loss of powers of their legislatures, since 1982, when the Charter was signed, and courts and bodies, like the Human Rights (sic) Commissions, began to misuse it.
The person who wrote, “Of course judges shouldn’t be making laws, but has this ever actually happened in Canada?” is demonstrating that he/she has not a clue about this issue.
Advice to that woefully uninformed person: stop demonstrating your profound ignorance and read the Leishman book, as well as “The Charter Revolution & The Court Party”, by F.L. Morton and Rainer Knopff (Broadview Press, 2000).
lookout at January 15, 2011 1:40 PM: “…I find it hard to believe that Bill Gairdner was left “rather speechless and shocked”—…”
Don’t mean to toot my horn but I was an experienced debater in those days — travelled widely, spoke many venues in volatile Latin America. And yes, I was conservative at the time — just ignorant about the current situation in Canada.
Today, Gairdner would probably make mince-meat out of me ’cause I’m way out of practice — although he wouldn’t have to, I think I’m on his side now re: multiculturalism.
I read the original in the 90s and thought it was well argued albeit of a more conservative bent than mine.
I guess some feel there is still trouble in Canada. Yes, unfunded actuarial liabilities are a serious issue, whatever their value. The simple fact is our society is aging and it’s hard to argue the quality of pensions and medical care will improve going forward.
We are, however, improving, IMO. We’ve made some incremental moves back towards the bottom up governance (British) model Gairdner pines for.
The belief that we can ever become a truly “conservative” nation is a fantasy; always was. Just consider that before Mr Harper, as Conrad Black points out today, Liberals governed nearly nearly 80% of the time.
That was the problem and Trudeaus’s ridiculous debt, both real and estimated, is still with us. Harper stopped the UN/Mo Strong cleptogovernance model and he’s hated for it. God bless him!
At least we’re more libertarian now than when Mr. Gairdner published his original work.
The glass is half full not the other way around.
I have to disagree with you,SYF,it will take a lot more than a majority Conservative government to cure the ills that plague this Nation,though it would be a good start.
Canada would need a sociological earthquake and total rebuild,as so many of the communist/liberal ways have been inculcated into two generations of Canadians under the guise of “social justice”,and a great many Canadians LIKE it!
We’ve had too many years of teaching the importance of “self” in all our schools from kindergarten to university, and now we’re reaping the results.
There is a real divide, intellectually and socially,between Left and Right Canadians,along many boundaries, East/West,and Rural/Urban,and those divides are what usually in times past led to Countries splitting up.
We Canadians are too frightened by the “great unknown” to do more than talk about separation,except for the blackmailers of Quebec, so I expect we’ll muddle along just as we are for decades to come.
Various politicians will promise “change”,like the charlatan down South, but the only real change will be the Party of the boys who’ve made their way to the great prize,the Public Trough,and everlasting security thereafter.
If Gairdner is still around in twenty years,he’ll be able to pen another good book on “The Continuing Saga of the Trouble With Canada”,with luck,he should be able to milk the franchise to the point he even out does the “Rocky” film series.
2050: “The Trouble With Canada, Vol, 13 ” by W, Gairdner. Watch for it at your favourite book store.
ricardo, I hear you! Thanks for keeping me in the loop.
All the best.
dmorris
I prefer to believe that incremental change and momentum will win the day. Of course this could just be whistling past the graveyard.
dmorris at January 15, 2011 2:31 PM: “…two generations of Canadians under the guise of “social justice”,and a great many Canadians LIKE it!”
The only reason many Canadians “like it” is because they have never experienced it fully; social justice that is, as a blunt instrument to punish perceived “violators”. Most Canadians only experience the “benevolent” side — the free money, the grants, the State as loving caring nanny watching out for us.
But try doing something to contradict the official ideology — as I mistakenly did when I returned to Canada to attend University. I wrote a single paper about my experiences in Latin America that didn’t fit the official Left/Liberal narrative and all hell broke loose — more than 10 years of hell (subject of an upcoming book). I had no idea I was “sinning” against our Official Orthodoxy.
People should be warned with informative pamplets before they cross our borders.
ricardo
If you don’t mind…What was the topic of your paper?
ricardo, I can’t wait to read your book!
I know exactly what you’re talking about: I used to actually, quite prominently, exercise my freedom of expression rights (sic) in the public squrae, with very few negative repercussions. Now, not so much. I need my job. I keep my mouth shut. (Like most of us here, I use a pseudonym. Now doesn’t that show just how “free” Canadians are?)
As a non politically correct bishop recently said about the sheeple, “They’re running ahead of the Gadarene swine” *: ‘love it!
* From Encyclopedia.com: “Gadarene swine [are] the pigs into which Jesus cast the demons that had possessed a madman (see legion), and which as a result ran down a steep cliff into the sea and were killed; from this, Gadarene means involving or engaged in a headlong or potentially disastrous rush to do something.”
As Bill Gairdner so beautifully puts it, “OH, OH Canada”!!
syncrodox at January 15, 2011 3:10 PM
It was a social-anthro paper on “Warfare and Aggression”. An assigned topic — to interview someone who had been in a war and do an analysis. Naturally I picked someone I already knew from a Latin American conflict I was familiar with. Got an A+ (100%) and it was recommended for peer-review journal publication. That’s when all hell broke loose. To make a long story short I never published.
There’s much more to it than that of course. But it certainly woke me up to the fact that Canada isn’t simply a quiet peaceful country to the North with boring politics where nothing ever happens.
Do judges “make” law?
In at least one prominent case, yes.
In 1984, just before going into election, the Cabinet approved what came to be called the Environmental Assessment Review Process guidelines, EARP. Note that these were only guidelines and only intended to be applicable for federal projects.
However, two projects in Saskatchewan and Alberta, Shand and Oldman dams, respectively, were taken to court by a collection of eco-snots led by the Friends of the Oldman River and the Canadian Environmental Defense Fund.
In 1992, this ended up before the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court ruled that EARP was binding and not advisory, thus transforming guidelines into regulation without statutory support. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act CEAA was created to fill the legislative void created by the court decision.
The full court judgment is found here:
http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1992/1992scr1-3/1992scr1-3.html
So yes, courts have made law, and the constitutionality of this specific decision has never been challenged. The decision did not matter much to the two specific dam projects. Oldman was already in operation by the time the court decision came down. In the case of Shand, the project was mostly complete, and the Devine government told the Court and the federal government to get stuffed.
The Court’s ruling was critical. In the judgment, the Court states that if any area of federal jurisdiction is affected, the federal process takes precedence. Because Oldman impinges on the Navigational Waters Act, a federal statute, the EARP guidelines were therefore binding on the Province.
This single ruling constituted possibly the greatest single loss of provincial jurisdiction since Confederation. It was codified in law in CEAA.
Sorry, Davenport, you lose. Not only have judges created law, they’ve effectively redistributed the constitutional balance of power.
kevanywhere at 1:35 AM: “I will run out and try to find them.”
And if you can’t find a copy to buy, don’t forget your friendly neighbourhood public library. They can get it for you, even if they don’t have it themselves.
beagle
You selectively pick quotes from an entire thread of conversation to stake your claim, then laugh hysterically and then make a blanket insult.
Context doggie…context.
ricardo at 2:53 PM, I presume you have a publisher already committed to publishing your work. Please let us know when it comes off the press. This is a good place to spread the word.
ricardo
I look forward to hearing your story. With some trepidation that it will confirm my worst assumptions.
I agree with ET and in addition to Victor Davis Hanson I would add Richard Fernandez (Wretchard) and Thomas Sowell.