The CBC's Office of the Ombudsman

Since the "Lawand report" last year, there have been a few CBC stories that have bothered me and others (via CanuckJack). It got to the point where I was seriously questioning the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's integrity; an upsetting position, given that they're publicly funded.

In reading the CBC Ombudsman's latest annual report, and his findings regarding the "Lawand report" (including his further observations), I do sense a commitment to principled journalism. However, I can't help but wish that the Office of the Ombudsman had more teeth. For example, the following review of a complaint is from his annual report:

GEOFFREY POUNDER
Program: The World At Six, CBC Radio
Mr. Pounder complained about a CBC Radio report about Venezuela. Chavez may or may not be the villain the CBC makes him out to be. But the CBC's presentation is so dubious that it is impossible for listeners to form their own judgment.
...
Review ([David] Bazay)
While it is true that program balance can and should be best determined over time, and while I found overall coverage to be pretty well balanced, I did agree that there was some merit to Mr. Pounder's complaint. The report gave voice to one of President Chavez's supporters and to two of his critics, including the priest/sociologist cited at the very end of the item who described President Chavez as a tropical Milosovec, and accused him of destroying Venezuela's democracy. I shared Mr. Pounder's view that in fairness the president or one of his supporters should have had the opportunity to respond.

I wonder whether that's enough; whether, in the event that this sort of reporting was shown to be systematic, anything could be done about it. Again, it's my money we're talking about here.

I suppose the 43 466 complaints regarding the Green Party's exclusion from the televised leaders' debate last year support the notion that the CBC would be held to account for such actions; well, that they would draw significant ire anyway. And with the Ombudsman recommending greater public access to the Office in his annual report, one can hope that there wouldn't be a shortage of publicly-available evidence.

Update: May 9: The Auditor General also evaluates the CBC periodically.

Rory Stewart on The Agenda

If you haven't heard Rory Stewart speak, do yourself a favour and watch or listen to Steve Paikin's interview with him on The Agenda.

Green Party policy and nonviolence

The Green Party has announced that Kevin Potvin will not be allowed to run as their Vancouver-Kingsway candidate in the next election because his views are antithetical to Green Party values. The press release opens with the claim that Potvin [expressed] approval for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and that [n]on-violence is one of the Green Party's fundamental principles, so the party's position is clear.

I would hope that May read Potvin's article from 2002 before coming to that conclusion. And even if she did, I find such an unequivocal conclusion to be a bit of a stretch: after all, as Potvin clearly stated in the article, and in his rebuttal to the recent criticism, he was stating his feelings at the time, not advancing a violent ideology or some such. Besides, he was a journalist at the time. While such a statement from an elected representative of a country that must work closely with the United States might raise some eyebrows and ruffle some feathers, that's exactly what journalists are supposed to do.

Now maybe May had a telephone conversation with Potvin prior to issuing the press release. Maybe he said something to her that was aberrant to the rebuttal he posted. If so, I think it should've been included in the release, because the party's position seems flimsy as it stands; another example of the excessive caution in Canadian politics.

To take a theory such as nonviolence and apply it so broadly to everything representatives (and would-be representatives) of your party say and write is to invite disaster: if they manage to navigate that minefield at each and every press conference, you can be certain of what will be first and foremost on their minds at all times, and, by extension, of the chances of anything remotely illuminating being said.

And how did nonviolence get so high up in the party's platform anyway? When I hear antithetical and the Green Party, big oil and clear-cutting come to mind, but not violence. Not that I think violence solves anything, but it has about as much to do with environmental protection as womens' rights, or abortion. Let's stay on message here, people; at least 'til we get a bleedin' seat anyway.

The Minister of Industry responds...

I sent my MP a message last May regarding Bill C-60 (an Act to amend the Copyright Act). I got a copy of the Minister of Industry's response to him in the mail a week or so ago. The letter is dated March 1, 2007 and reads:

Mr. Pierre Poilievre, M.P.
Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Dear Colleague:

Thank you for forwarding copies of recent letters from several of your constituents regarding possible amendments to the Copyright Act (the Act).

In my view, the Act must continue to be supportive of innovation and research while reflecting current technological and legal realities. To this end, a balance between adequate protection for copyright holders and reasonable access to copyrighted material is critical.

With this in mind, I am working closely with my colleague, the Honourable Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage, to determine the appropriate next steps with respect to copyright reform.

Please be assured that I am very mindful of the concerns expressed by your constituents, and will take these into consideration as we move forward.

Sincerely,

Maxime Bernier

c.c. The Honourable Bev Oda, P.C., M.P.

I'm pleased. It isn't practical to expect more from a politician, I would suggest. Notice that he used the word 'balance' to describe his view on the matter. I would go so far as to call that encouraging, save that it's only words at this point.

Chimps: Hauser vs. Heinlein

The brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules, similar to the neural machinery for learning language, according to Harvard evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser... Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others.

That's a very different picture from the pivotal scene in Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, where Valentine Michael Smith finally groks (fully understands) humour as he witnesses chimps in a zoo being cruel to one another.

That's the first thing I thought of as I read the article, and it isn't noteworthy for any other reason.

Dion, The Consummate Politician

Dion said it was parliamentary tradition for MPs to follow party line on confidence votes such as budgets.

"A vote on the budget, like a vote on a throne speech, is a vote of confidence. You cannot vote against the caucus on it."

Spouting tripe about traditions, party lines and what MPs cannot do is no way for a former academic to argue his position. Comuzzi's position - that he was supporting his constituents - wins hands down.

Indoor air pollution

Coincidentally, I was reading Michael LeGault's Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye when a story about air pollution in Canadian ice rinks hit the press. According to LeGault, this sort of thing is quite serious:

Fear causes flaws in our perceptions, which leads to erroneous thinking and conclusions. For instance, a study conducted by the EPA found that the public's top environmentally related health concerns included radioactive waste, radiation from nuclear accidents, industrial pollution of waterways, and hazardous waste sites. Yet, when the EPA polled its own experts it got an entirely different list of concerns. Radioactive waste and radiation from nuclear accidents were not even ranked, and some of the public's lowest concerns, for example indoor air pollution, were ranked "high" by experts...

Toward objective journalism

It seems that every other day I'm reading overtly biased reporting in Canadian newspapers (e.g., coverage of Fredericton MP Andy Scott's resignation and our work in Afghanistan). However, the subject interview gives me some hope for the future, as Jooneed Khan has been writing about the facts for about as long as I've been breathing. Of course, you could look at it as a last bastion, but I'm feeling optimistic today. Here are some highlights from the interview (the emphasis is mine):

My concern has always been that before one can form an opinion, one needs facts--as wide a spectrum of facts as possible. I’ve found that mainstream media selects the facts to bring people to think and look in a certain way; and that was not only incomplete, but a disservice to the reader... I’ve tried to bring those facts which were selected out, and put them together in a coherent way...

[A] very recent example is Lebanon. The hue and cry in the western media... that Hezbollah is radical, that it’s a proxy for Syria and Iran, that it’s threatening Israel, threatening Lebanese democracy. The statements that I’ve heard out of the White House, from Ottawa and Paris constantly reiterate democracy, democracy. I thought, this is a totally artificial debate, which can have dangerous consequences, so I did a piece last week, called the “Democractic Deficit in Lebanon.” I just brought the facts to show that when you have a dictated arrangement--dictated by the US and Saudi Arabia--on the Tyre Agreement, where they have allotted 64 seats to Muslims, 64 seats to Christians on a sectarian basis and you haven’t had a census in the country for 75 years... [E]veryone who has done estimates based on the official figures has come to the conclusion that the Christians today are about 35 per cent of the population. Even the sectarian democracy that they’ve imposed does not reflect the true sectarian makeup of the society...

I wrote about Palestinian rights and Palestinian suffering at the same time as I wrote about South African [a]partheid, and the legitimate rights of the South African majority. I suppose the South African consulate in those days did call my editors once in a while, but since I could not be silenced on my facts, what the paper did was allow colleagues of mine to peddle the official line. So on one page--mostly in the business section--articles [there] were praising the [apartheid] system as a free economy and a bulwark against Communism and an outpost of the free world[, while] I was writing about the Freedom Charter... about exclusion, which was also part of the reality. So you had in the same paper... two views. And I appreciate that. I think newspapers in a free society should reflect the diversity of views.

His anecdote about reporting from Iraq is less hopeful, but doesn't take away from the fact that La Presse's policies do more to promote objective journalism than any other paper's that I've read about.

Human beings and abstraction

I am often amazed at people's proclivity for abstraction. While the following comparison may be unfair, it does show how people can ignore certain obvious, and sometimes horrific, aspects of their surroundings:

Bertschinger explained that [in Mekele, Ethiopia in 1984] there was enough dried milk, sugar, oil, bread, and rice to feed about 500 people. Then she confessed to Buerk — and the camera — her terrible responsibility. Every few days, several dozen children would graduate from the feeding regimen Bertschinger had helped to establish, and she could replace them with new patients. She would step outside, where more than a thousand people sat waiting in the sun. When she appeared, there would be murmurs and cries, but the migrants remained seated in orderly rows. Bertschinger would examine children sitting alone or held aloft by a pleading parent. She would grasp their biceps to feel bones wrapped in leathery skin. Most importantly, she would search the children’s eyes for a spark of life. If she didn’t see that glint she passed on by — there was no point wasting food on a child who would soon be dead.

See this month's Walrus for Stars Above Africa. What follows are a few reports on the North American release of Sony's Playstation 3:

Police used pepper balls to contain a crowd waiting for the Circuit City... to open Friday morning... The crowd of 200... was waiting in line for the new Playstation 3. [WTOP Radio]

A scene straight out of Lord of the Flies started around 5 a.m. Thursday in front of the Best Buy. [Lawrence.com - thought you'd like that one, Bruce :-)]

A man goes to the hospital after slamming into a metal flagpole during a stampede at a... Wal-mart. [Joystiq.com]

The age-old story of income inequality

In another of those coincidences I do so enjoy, I happened upon this article by Wheelan as I'm reading Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton. Where I would normally tend to side with Wheelan's argument regarding income inequality, de Botton reminds me of just how old not only the gap between the rich and the poor is, but also the very idea of taking responsibility for one's station in life. Wheelan says:

If the gap between rich and poor gets too large, and if those at the bottom feel they have no meaningful route to the riches at the top, then the fabric of society will fray, or even come unraveled entirely.

Utter hyperbole. As Smith and Hume said well over 200 years ago (in their backhanded fashion), it's the rich that provide the greatest service to society, fueling economies with their desires and silly whims.

Wheelan does temper his thoughts as he goes along, though, and raises many of the same points as de Botton, such as our peers wielding more influence on how we view our station than absolute figures, while acknowledging that television can distort one's peer group (it's almost like I *know* Tomkat, ya know). :-)

Freedom of religion: veil threats

A story in today's Independent about the veil debate in Britain got my hackles up - what about piercings? They make people uncomfortable! - with the first few paragraphs - as was the point, I'm sure. However, as I read further, I realized that Blair's comments were closer to that fine line than the story initially implied. And, setting aside whether he should be commenting on a case before the courts - ah, no! - he's right to watch his words: integration and multiculturalism, and their fallout, have long been divisive subjects, despite the everything-is-new flavour they have in the wake of September 11, 2001.

And Canada is no different, as the arrests of eighteen men in Toronto over the summer have shown. We're still trying to get the right balance: even Bernard Ostry, the pen behind our country's multiculturalism initiative of the 70s, has questioned whether these policies can work. As opposed to getting sidetracked by how much of our population will be made up of visible minorities in the future, however, I prefer John Ralston Saul's focus on citizenship being tied to responsibilities and obligations - engaging the immigrant, in other words, to express themselves and contribute, and celebrate the freedoms laid out in our Charter.

Which leads to Blair's comments, and the freedom of religion (deemed fundamental in our Charter, incidentally). Veils, kippahs, turbans, etc. have been in the news for years. Britons have worried about integration long before the attacks in London on July 7, 2005. The article goes on to describe how many European countries have attempted to address this problem; while it presents the U.S. as enlightened in this area, I think at least part of the reasoning behind the argument is flawed:

"We want to show our minorities that they are protected by their own people," Sheriff Bacca emphasized.

This emphasizing our differences is counterproductive, as I see it; distracting from the root causes of all sorts of problems, when people of that combative cant decide to boil it down to the 'real' issue of ethnicity, religion, etc.

I don't like reading about early experiences in my country like Baltej Singh Dhillon's, but I do feel that Canada is getting it right, with his case, and with acknowledging our immigration mistakes of the past, as two examples.

Vote for the little guy!

Voting for the little guy just got a whole lot easier (in my books, anyway). As many of you know, I've been voting for the Green Party for years simply because I wanted to see more parties in Parliament, but didn't want to throw my vote away, as it were - that is, on a party that would never get 2% of the vote, and therefore wouldn't get my $1.75 for their next campaign.

Well, an Ontario Superior Court judge struck that law down today! And, in case you think we're talking about a pittance here, the seven parties that were affected by that law in 2004 now get to share approximately $500000! Better than a kick in the pants, as they say.

Campaigning and the 'net

Cheney likes what this Washington Post article called the "new media":

"Sometimes it's pretty trashy," he said of new media's rise. "But I guess I'd put the proposition that there's more time and opportunity for policy discussions and debate than there used to be."

As I read the article - which was worth reading, incidentally - I kept thinking that whether a candidate can use the 'net to their advantage or not is really beside the point; the entire process seems to be falling further away from what's really important: how will you run the country?

And then the article ends with that Cheney quote, voicing and marginalizing my thought simultaneously. I guess I don't see it that way. It seems that, maybe in an effort to get more done, or maybe for far more base reasons, policy sound bites - to say nothing of the trash - have taken the place of any discussion on the campaign trail. After all, the power of the 'net is such that lively and informed debate is probably going on in the shadow of this "new media".

To bring this back to my country, I am holding out some hope that Michael Ignatieff will prove an exception to this rule.

A deadly caricature...

As I read about Kimveer Gill, the gunman at Montreal's Dawson College yesterday, I can't help shaking my head at what a caricature he seems: "Metal and Goth kick ass", the "Trench" handle to go with his coat... And yet we must take him seriously.

My second thought followed on the heels of these three quotes:

Gill is believed to have been carrying at least three weapons: a handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun and a semi-automatic or automatic rifle.

He was armed with three weapons that media reports say were legally registered to him.

Neighbours told CBC Radio that Gill lived with his parents in the house.

His parents were "shocked", meaning they didn't know their son was amassing (and registering!) an arsenal of weapons to rival a Terminator. At least Harper isn't making any knee-jerk commitments; my initial thought is that this isn't a failing of legislation (at least not first): nobody needs that many guns.

Update: September 20: a related interview with the creator of the video game based on the Columbine shootings.

Update: October 2: Andrew Spicer suggested the idea of legislation that allows certain municipalities to ban certain firearms. I don't know whether that would work, but I do like the idea of formally recognizing that rural and urban municipalities have different concerns. I guess it could open us up to the confusion one can face crossing state borders down south, but, still, I feel the concept has merit.

Canada and Afghanistan

In a recent conversation with a friend, I struggled to express my position on Canada's mission in Afghanistan:

[W]hile I still feel that it shouldn't be debated now - waffling is bad for morale, and I don't see how the situation could've changed that much since we first agreed to it, old gov't or not - answering Layton's questions during one or more question periods seems reasonable to me:

* What are the goals and objectives of this mission and how do they meet Canada's foreign policy objectives?
* What is the realistic mandate of the mission and how is it being enforced?
* What are the criteria to measure progress?
* What is the definition of success?
* And what is the clear exit strategy for this mission?

Reading the news this morning, I realized Rex Murphy did a much better job - than Layton, and certainly me - of isolating the major problem, and, very importantly, suggesting a way forward. I particularly liked this passage:

[F]rom the very beginning of this mission, from the long ago days of Mr. Chrétien through Mr. Martin's term as prime minister to this present moment, a clear, full, articulated case for the mission has not been made.

We've had everything else but the full statement of why the mission is important to us as Canadians, how it relates to our national interest and values and a full description of what we hope to see as a result of our troops being there.

Well said, Rex; well said.

The Middle East: Canada's bias

First, let me open by acknowledging that the best of this post benefits from many reasoned opinions that I've heard and read over the past week, including those of many folks at CKCU, and The Train. The cock-ups are all mine, however.

Second, while I haven't explored this to date, the United Nations' role in international affairs seems to have diminished over the years; this, in turn, must affect Canada's role in the arena. I accept this premise, and wish my country would succeed in spite of it.

I think Israel's response under the circumstances has been measured.

With this oft-quoted statement, and others, Stephen Harper expressed our country's bias, even as most of us were still struggling with the bad news.

Days later, seven Canadians were killed in an Israeli attack, and current estimates put the Lebanese, mostly civilian, casualties an order of magnitude above those of Israel. My point is not that Harper could have predicted this, but rather, that by throwing our support behind one side in this conflict, he has spoiled any role we could have played in negotiating some dialogue between the two sides, and cheapened our country's proud history in international affairs.

Subsequent statements by our government "urg[ing] all sides to act with restraint and take all measures possible to protect innocent civilian lives" strike me as obligatory.

On protecting Israelis...

While acknowledging that both the Israelis and Hezbollah are on questionable moral ground right now, the idea that Israel is simply protecting its citizens is ridiculous. Setting aside Israel's significant military advantage - which the U.S. is "rushing" to supply, by the way - Hezbollah's capturing Israeli soldiers needs to be considered in the context of the other prisoner exchanges between the two countries.

It's essential that Hezbollah and Hamas release their Israeli prisoners...

But, again, with this sort of rhetoric, Harper shows our, seemingly uneducated (frankly), bias. I'm not saying I agree with negotiated prisoner exchanges, but if Israel legitimized it in the past, one must acknowledge that it's possible that Hezbollah was simply attempting to start another round of negotiations; again, a possibility that Harper doesn't seem consider, let alone refute.

I'm ashamed of my Prime Minister's position is this conflict, and I sincerely hope that it isn't indicative of future Conservative foreign policy.

Balanced Copyright Reform

Here's a copy of an e-mail message I sent to my MP on the subject:

Hello Mr. Poilievre,

It's come to my attention that draft legislation concerning "copyright reform" could be drafted in coming weeks and months (building on Bill C-60). I suspect you've already received a form letter or two on the subject of "digital rights management" or DRM, so rather than add to that pile, I thought I'd quickly relate a personal experience on the subject, to give you some perspective.

My wife recently bought a number of CDs for a road trip. She'd had her iPod digital music player for a while, but this was to be the first time we took it as our sole source of music for any length of time. With the FM transmitter she'd bought for it, we would be able to play it through the car stereo, the portable stereo of anyone we visited along the way, etc.

However, she quickly became frustrated with the Nickelback CD she bought. She couldn't import it into iTunes (iPod management software), or even play it on her computer. The digital rights management software on the CD prevented it.

It's that DRM software prevents this and other legal uses of the merchandise we purchase that makes it such an important issue. (The fact that it can also open our computers to breaches of privacy and security is a separate, but equally important, issue: Sony-BMG's DRM software is a chilling example of this.)

While the Canadian Coalition for Digital Fair Access has some good information on this issue (as does the more recent Online Rights Canada), it's the "Consumer Technology Bill of Rights" put together by DigitalConsumer.org in the U.S. that succinctly captures what I would like to see in any DRM-related legislation.

I'll just quote the point that's relevant to my story:

2. Users have the right to "space-shift" content that they have legally acquired. This gives you the right to use your content in different places (as long as each use is personal and non-commercial).

(http://www.digitalconsumer.org/bill.html for the complete list.)

Thank you for your time, Mr. Poilievre.

Cheers,

John Jarvis

The politics of confrontation

A friend sent me an article on the Auditor General's gun registry report that was leaked. The tone of these opposition quotes sent me off on a tirade:

It's troublesome given that ethics, accountability, transparency, turning government around, cleaning government up are supposed to be one of the top priorities of the new government, said New Democrat David Christopherson.

And if they had any role whatsoever in leaking this then they're... betraying their pact with the Canadian people.

A Liberal press release offered more of the same:

This unprecedented affront to the office of the Auditor General, Sheila Frasier, makes a mockery of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's promise to operate with a higher ethical standard, said Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

I think the Liberals (and their NDP terrier) are completely undermining the "new party" spin they've been cultivating around their leadership race with this whining and nitpicking - the "Look, they're worse than us!" tripe - that was the previous minority government's daily bread. Nothing has changed: the Liberals have no vision for the country, and no one to truly lead the way once they beg, borrow or steal one.

It hurts me to say that, by the way, because listening to Ignatieff speak around the time of his announcing his run for the party leadership sparked a hope in me that we might get past the bickering for a time; but it means nothing if he still has these petty vermin below him.

If they'd waited 'til the report came out and acknowledged the mistakes it will certainly include - I've read about the software development debacle, so I know I'm not reaching here - I can honestly say that it would've significantly reinforced that hope I mentioned: simply because it would've been so radically different from anything this squabbling mass of glad-hands has done in years.

The cost of these distractions is concisely stated in the following quote I read a few months back:

Institutional rivalry, lack of foreign policy consensus, and increased media coverage combine to create a foreign policy making environment that accentuates the normal advantage held by immediate policy questions and current intelligence over long-range issues. It also favours the politics of confrontation and competition over that of problem solving.

-- Glenn Hastedt, Public Intelligence: Leaks as Policy Instruments - The Case of the Iraq War, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 20, Issue 3, September 2005.

The Prime Ministers: Louis St. Laurent

My correspondence on the CPAC series continues:

Hmmm... This is a strange series. I didn't like this episode either. He was voted our greatest post-war Prime Minister, yet they spent little time explaining why he'd get the vote of so many historians. What truly positive material we did see came from his own family (relevant, but not very surprising, one would think).

This emphasis on the 'Uncle Louis' facade, and, later, his, and his cabinet's, air of entitlement - which seemed to be much worse than the situations that fall under that category today - were not flattering. And whatever the true proportion of these episodes during his entire leadership, by paying lip service to his great achievements and lack of involvement in the PR machine, the producers are passing judgment on the man.

And this isn't the first example of that. I just found this one to be particularly heavy handed. Man, and I thought CPAC was a more balanced alternative to the CBC; guess no one can resist the opportunity to spin.

Later correspondence focused on Byfield's negativity:

Well, he's a journalist, and I have to say, I valued his perspective on St. Laurent more than, say, on Laurier, because Byfield was there covering the '57 election, for example. The fact that he relates how all the old-timers in his profession were unhappy with the government at that time, for example, is fine with me. I want to know. But it's the producer's job to balance that with St. Laurent's earlier success, and give Byfield a chance to reflect on that, if possible (don't know if he was even working then).

And CPAC's spin:

Well, I for one would seize any media source that showed the sort of balance I'm talkin' about; and I wouldn't let 'em go. :-) I know there are other people who feel that way too. There is such a thing as scoopin' and spinnin' yourself to death, I think. You're certainly sentencing your credibility to death, let's say.

La Convivencia

I just finished watching the BBC documentary An Islamic History of Europe. Its stirring depiction of la Convivencia, with Muslims and Christians sharing the best of their cultures in Spain, while hotly contested, got me thinking about these first decades of the 21st century: it may be naïve, but I feel that Canada is well placed to revive this idea of coexistence.