Some Political Thoughts

Trump’s Tariff Tiff

“At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas.”
  - Aldous Huxley

The imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum by the United States last week under the guise of national security was, to put it mildly, an insult to Canada and the European Union.  America will gladly sell any of these countries any amount of military hardware, but it cannot apparently contain any steel or aluminum from any of these other countries. It is a stupid move, but it appears that, as it applies to Canada (and Mexico), it is a blackmail tactic to force Canada and Mexico to cave in on US NAFTA demands.  This became blatantly obvious when PM Trudeau recounted the conversation with the US Vice President wherein Trudeau was ‘uninvited’ to visit the US President to discuss these issues unless he supported one of the US’s key demands.

I was very proud of our Prime Minister when he announced the retaliatory measures that Canada was prepared to take.  He not only spoke forcefully about Canada’s partnerships with the US but was temperate enough to offer the US one month to rethink their stance.  He was strongly supported in this news conference by our Minister of Global Affairs.  Some said that, as a result, we started a ‘trade war’, but any trade war was started by the United States, not us.

Of course, there was the usual outcry from opposition politicians and pundits.  In some cases, the outcry seemed to follow the adage “rape is inevitable so lie back and enjoy it” (this is a turn of phrase and should not be construed as a slight against rape victims).  As with many of the complaints of pundits these days and on many subjects, they offer many objections to ideas or actions, but no answers to what should be done.  One opposition leader advocated that the issue should be settled by negotiation.  But as was seen by the reaction by the US Vice President, there is no desire on the US’s part to negotiate this issue.  If your negotiating opponent’s idea is a “I win, you all lose” attitude then you must get his attention and make it clear that you cannot and will not accept such a condition.

I think the measures being proposed by Canada and the EU are the right ones and are proportional to what is being done by the US.  

Ontario Election Blues

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”
  - Bertrand Russell

This Thursday is election day in Ontario and I am confused.  It seemed obvious that for most people in the province it was a case of anybody but the Liberals.  The choice at first seemed like a slam dunk for the Conservatives.  They had an overwhelming lead.  And then their leader, the unpredictable Doug Ford, started to open his mouth and over the last few weeks, that lead has all but evaporated.  Is this the kind of ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’ Premier that we need in Ontario?  He is now 1% behind the New Democratic Party.  But in the magic that is election tallying, he is still expected to win a majority based solely on his strength in Toronto.  If he wins, he will become the Premier of Toronto because he has no incentive to care about any of the rest of the province.  I don’t think that Doug Ford is another Donald Trump.  I don’t think he’s near as intelligent as even the US President.

“Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.”

  - Harry S Truman

I am usually a Liberal (or at least a liberal).  But they have done themselves in by poor strategy.  They have spent so much of their political capital trying to shove the NDP into the ocean that they have abandoned those of us who reside in the middle of the road that we have nowhere to go.  There is now a huge gap in the middle of the Ontario political spectrum.  Nobody apparently wants to fill it.

The only leader that has shown a consistent message and has advocated well, as has been shown by the constant rise in her party’s fortunes, has been Andrea Horwath of the NDP.  At best she could possibly win a minority but that would be good enough for her to hold power with support from the Liberals.  If the PCs won a minority, it is very unlikely that any other party would support them unless they compromised way beyond the approval of their right-wing supporters.  The PCs have been sending messages to scare us from voting for the NDP.  They hark back to the government of Bob Raye, but that was over twenty years ago, and certainly the PCs have had their share of failures since then.  They have picked on individual NDP candidates for views that they think are heretical, particularly a couple who have, in the past, stated opinions against veterans and the armed forces.  There has always been a peace faction in the NDP and there probably always will be.  But since defence and veterans’ affairs are not under provincial jurisdiction, why should this matter?

So perhaps you can see my confusion and frustration with this election.  

“The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.”
  - Edith Sitwell