One more addition to the abortion debate

RU-486 or mifepristone (brand name: Mifeprex; manufacturer, Danco Laboratories) has been in the marketplace and in emergency departments as a prescription drug for some time. Popularly called the "abortion pill", it induces a miscarriage within two weeks. The US FDA released this public health advisory, reporting six deaths related to Mifeprex. The drug has been used in more than 560,000 abortions in the U.S., so the reported risk of death is more than one in 100,000. The reported risk of death associated with surgical abortion is one in a million. So, the case can be made that medically-induced abortions may be more dangerous.

After a three-month-long kidnapping, Jill Carroll is free!

With the release of Jill Carroll and the rescue of Kember, Loney and Sooden, there is hope that we can win the war in Iraq. If you are in bookstore, read Max Boot's "Guess What? We're Winning" in American Interest. In the age of microelectronics, 24/7 news, reality tv, robotics, sci-fi, and video games, people seems to want instantaneous victories like they want instant fixes. Well, wars take time to win. Max Boot made some good points about American history in warfare. In terms of defeats, U.S.A. failed miserably when it tried invading Canada in 1776 and 1812. In terms of humiliations, the US military suffered far greater losses in Litte Big Horn, Pearl Harbor and the fall of the Philippines. In terms of soldiers dead, the Second World War and the Vietnam War were far more deadly. The bottom line: Insurgents in Iraq are really more gangs than revolutionaries, more diverse (Sunni Ba'ath party remnants; Sunni al Qaeda; Shiites) than unified, and generally without a central leader (like Ho in North Vietnam or Mao in China or Massood in Afghanistan). The U.S. Army can win this war in Iraq.

Prayers are not enough

Sigh, prayers are not enough. This study of 1800 coronary bypass patients provides strong evidence that medicine and science prevails over faith and prayer. In my career dealing with intensive care patients, I have encountered one cancer patient who used meditation and positive thinking as her primary treatment at home. At the end, it failed and she relented and consented to aggressive, full medical treatment.

The upcoming federal budget

Check out: Swelling surplus touted for tax relief from Thursday's Globe and Mail. With increased and sustained royalties and corporate taxes collected from companies extracting natural resources, the next Federal Budget could include both a reduction to 6% in GST and a preservation of income tax cuts by the previous Liberal budget, in addition to a child care allowance of $600 to be handed out on 1st July and ramped up to $1200 on 1st Jan. However, Finance Minister Flaherty has already hinted he will delay a plan to cut capital gains tax for individuals on the sale of assets when proceeds are reinvested within six months.

A lesson on Israel's election

Well, Israel had its election yesterday. Everyone over eighteen years of age can vote and anyone over twenty-one can run in the State of Israel where the electoral system is an extreme form of proportional representation. Voters vote for a party list (of candidates). Any party list garnering 2% of the national vote will qualify for allocation of parliamentary seats in the Knesset. The number of Knesset seats each list receives is proportional to the number of votes it received. So, we divide the votes garnered by a qualifying party's list by 120 (the number of Knesset seats). Yesterday, 12 lists received enough votes to send winning candidates to the Knesset. 12 political parties in a parliament of 120 seats! The party list of Kadima (Hebrew: Forward) has 21.8% total vote, yielding 28 seats. What follow are parties getting 20, 13, 12, 11, 9, 7, 6, 4, 4, 3, and 3 seats. The three biggest parties, Kadima(28), Labor(20) and Likud(11), together won only 59 seats. Anyway, the rules state: the president asks the party leader, Kadima's Ehud Olmert, with the most seats to form the next government. Olmert has 45 days to do it and then the Knesset will vote to approve the cabinet, kind of like a confidence vote. Now, onto the politics. Internationally, the campaign issue is the Wall and withdrawal of Jewish/Israeli settlements from Palestinian West Bank; Kadima and Labor are pro- and Likud is anti-withdrawal. Fiscally, Likud is unpopular because it had a history in government with cutting social funding and services in order to reduce the deficit while the Pensioners of Israel party advocates evidently increasing pension payouts. Then, the various parties spread out like colours in the rainbow. On the Left, Labor had union roots, Meretz-Yachad had socialist roots and Hadash had Communist roots. Ethnically, Balad and the United Arab List are Arab parties; Yisrael Beytenu is Russian. On the Jewish side, there are Shas, National Union-National Religious Party, United Torah Party. That's it--twelve parties!!! Twelve parties to haggle over the annual budget. Each Knesset member is a "kingmaker" who can tip the balance of power when sixty-one is what you need to form a majority coalition government. O.K., there are historical reasons for proportional representation due to the multitudes of opinion and opinion leaders at the time of Israel's founding. Now--Canada is not the same as Israel. Don't go there and start copying proportional representation. If Canada goes there, get ready for minority governments every time, always worried more about winning votes in parliament than governing.

Budgets: Ontario vs. Alberta

Just the numbers: Yesterday's Alberta 2006 Budget plans to make corporate tax rate 10 percent, the lowest in any province. Meanwhile, you will recall Ontaro reversed tax cuts, cancelled tax credits, and raised taxes by charging a $900 health premium per person in 2004. Well, at the end of the 2005 fiscal year, Ontario has a deficit $2.4 billion. Included in the 2005 financials is a reserve of $1 billion, a contingency fund of $557 million and corporate tax revenue of just under $1 billion. In other words, Ontario could have balanced the budget by using up the reserve and contingency fund. I am not the Ontario premier or an economist. Even so, if trends stay the course and there are no tax cuts announced today, provincial corporate tax and health premium will continue to enrich the Ontario government. Bottom line: The Ontario economy has cruised along quite well, able to take hits like the black out, the border shut-down due to Yellow Alerts in the U.S., and increased health spending and reduced business and tourist spending due to SARS. Alberta may get cheaper; it has also gotten more difficult to find skilled workers. Ontario may lose out in manufacturing jobs; it can yet increase jobs in service industries and in trade. Ontario can take advantage of its international air transport hub in Toronto Pearson airport, free health care covered by OHIP, skilled workers educated by top-notch colleges and universities, and the wealth and diversity of immigrants. If only Ontario can stay competitive with Alberta in providing business and economic conditions ideal for investment. We will have to wait for today's Ontario 2006 Budget.

Entertainers in Canadian politics

We have former professional hockey players in Parliament--Ken Dryden and Frank Mahovlich. We have or had Hollywood actors in U.S. Governors' mansions, Congress, Mayors' offices, major lobby groups--Arnold Schwartznegger, Sony Bono, Clint Eastwood and Charlton Heston. How about entertainers in politics? Up until now, they have usually participated in the sidelines, working on different campaigns. Steven Page, one of the Bare Naked Ladies, campaigned with NDP leader Bob Layton during the 2006 federal election in Canada. Paul Mccartney campaigned in early March for the U.S. Humane Society to lobby Canada to shut down the annual seal hunt. Brigitt Bardot has funded a foundation in her name and came to Ottawa today to also advocate the end of the seal hunt. But the really big news--Ashley MacIssac wants to campaign to succeed Paul Martin Junior and become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. "That's ultimately the plan," the recording star told Sun Media. "At this point, I'd be a crazy dark horse to pound my chest. But I don't see any reason not to say that I am serious and there's nobody in the face of this great country that Stephen Harper would prefer less to have to deal with on a day-to-day basis." Maybe MacIssac's entry will add glamour to the Liberal leadership race the same way Belinda Stronach added glamour to the Conservative leadership race. Anyway, we need thirtysomething-year-olds in politics and MacIssac will be excellent in drawing attention from voters aged 18 to 35. MacIssac may not be rich like Hollywood actors; even so, he expects to raise funds by auctioning his paintings to finance his unannounced campaign. How original. Good for him.

News items on Avian Influenza H5N1

Tuesday, March 21: Globe and Mail reported that a nurses' union president and the Canadian Medical Association president were adamant there should not be mandatory flu vaccinations of nurses and doctors. Monday, March 20: "You are leading the way in terms of implementing bio-security measures at the farm level and reporting signs of disease early on to authorities," Canada's Minister of Health Tony Clement told a Toronto meeting of the Chicken Farmers of Ontario, which represents 1,100 poultry producers. "As chicken farmers, you represent the front lines of the war on avian flu. I'm here today to salute the tremendous work that you're doing in that regard." March 17: I underwent refitting of N95 face masks at work--mandatory two years after the first Ontario-hospitals-wide mask fitting during the SARS crisis. March 16: New York Times asked "Is Business Ready for a Flu Epidemic?" "But one piece of the plan may be missing: the ability of corporations to continue to provide vital services. Airlines, for instance, would have to fly health experts around the world and overnight couriers would have to rush medical supplies to the front lines. Banks would need to ensure that computer systems continued to move money internationally and that local customers could get cash. News outlets would have to keep broadcasting so people could get information that might mean the difference between life and death." March 12: New York Times reported "Right now, there are 105,000 ventilators, and even during a regular flu season, about 100,000 are in use. In a worst-case human pandemic, according to the national preparedness plan issued by President Bush in November, the country would need as many as 742,500." February: Ontario Ministry of Health Emergency Management Unit has contracted a respiratory therapist consultant to inventory all types of ventilators. "There are ventilators available over and beyond the 1096 ventilator supported beds reported in 2005. RTs know where they are."

Mid-March "look-ahead" at Ottawa and Ontario

It's March 15. In a little over two weeks from now, Prime Minister Harper's government begins "facing the music" in Parliament. On April 3, Governor-General Jean will deliver the "Speech from the Throne" outlining federal government priorities. I won't rehash Conservative election slogans. So far from all the hints the new prime minister and his ministers have given, a Federal Accountability Act, a Budget reducing the GST to 6% at once, 5% later, and giving a child care tax credit of $600 for the six months starting July 1 and $1200 for the next year are for sure. Moral support for Canadian troops in Afghanistan, tougher sentences on convicted criminials having used firearms, reforms in the Federal Gun Registry, a full package of child care legislation are also in the works. Addressing the fiscal imbalance among Ottawa and the provinces and establishing a wait-time healthcare guarantee will probably come next year. In a week's time, on March 23, Ontario Finance Minister Duncan will release Ontario Budget 2006. From the hints reported in the media, if we don't get a balanced budget ahead of schedule, we should expect major announcements of government spending, and hopefully, a corporate tax cut. E.g. Spending on a potential megaproject of a subway from Downsview to Vaughn, relief funding to the City of Toronto and other cities to cover municipal budgetary shortfalls, additional funding to various school boards and local hospital integration networks.

Canada and Afghanistan iii

Parliament is the legislative branch in Canada. Sure, there have been minority governments since 2004. It hasn't stopped Prime Minister Martin from commiting troops to Kandahar Province. No amount of debate will change that unless Parliament witholds budgetary estimates and stops funding the Canadian operation in Afghanistan. By the way, when there had to be military deployment in Sri Lanka after the Indian Ocean tsunami or Pakistan after the Kashmir earthquake, there wasn't any parliamentary debate.

Canada and Afghanistan ii

There is talk of Parliament as the venue for public education of Canada's military commitment in Afghanistan. Well, the executive branch can do public education quite well. Prime Minister Harper, National Defence Minister O'Connor and Foreign Affairs Minister MacKay have spoken on the issue. The National Defence Department has published websites and made available to the media from Chief of Defence Staff General Hillier down to a corporal serving in Kandahar Province. In addition, the Canadian media has covered Afghanistan widely by itself or being embedded, has covered the return of casualties and coffins to Canada, and has hosted radio call-in shows, e.g. CBC's Cross Country Checkup. This kind of media coverage is superior to or on par with American media coverage of the US War on Terror. A better way for Parliament to debate and study the issue is to examine witnesses in House and Senate Committees. The House Standing Committee of National Defence and Veteran Affairs and the Senate Standing Committee of National Security and Defence can scrutinize the government and the military much better.

Canada and Afghanistan

You can call it the media reaction. What started out as Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin's commitment of troops in Afghanistan based upon a UN resolution, a NATO mandate and an Afghani government request has now become a "war." The media called it a "war" because there were Canadian casualties. Better to call the Canadian deployment in Afghanistan "peacekeeping" or "peacemaking." All of Canada's military adventures since the United Nations invented peacekeeping have been based on international law and requests and consent of host countries, except for the Canadian CF fighter jets bombing of Serbia. I don't remember what former Foreign Minister Axworthy did in Parliament. Please remind me whether there was any parliamentary debate on Canadian CF fighter jets bombing Serbia.

The continuing saga resulting from three national elections

The Palestinian National Authority held elections in Gaza and the West Bank for its Legislative Council on 25th January 2006. Canada carried out a federal election on 23rd January 2006. Germany had federal elections taking place on 18th September 2005. The three election results deserve comparison. Of the three, Palestine is the youngest state having been established as the Palestinian National Authority in 1994. As it was new, it received large sums of money in the form of foreign donations from the European Union, United States, and other governments and individuals including Middle Eastern nations. Legislative and presidential elections were held in 1996; the former was won by Fatah (literally meaning conquest and really is a reverse acronym in for "Palestinian National Liberation Movement"), and the latter was won by the late Yasser Arafat who mishandled diplomatic relations with Israel. The next round of legislative election happened finally in January 2006. One could say that President Arafat was a poor administrator and diplomat--he died in office in December 2004 without having to face voters again. Meanwhile, abject poverty continued under ten years of government by Fatah-led Legislative Council. The 2006 Legislative Election campaign pitted Fatah against Hamas (literaly meaning enthusiasm or fervour and really is an acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement"). Hamas campaigned skilfully, accusing Fatah of corruption--governing with foreign financial assistance and showing no results after ten years except for well-paid politicans and well-armed militia men on various payrolls. (Militia men, in other words, they were not part of the official police or army.) On 25th January 2006, Hamas won 74 out of 132 Legislative Council seats, forming a majority government. The "lame duck" outgoing Fatah government passed legislations giving certain Council powers to the PNA president, a Fatah member. The first act of the Hamas government was to rescind them, reclaiming Council powers from the PNA president, Abu Mazen or Mahmoud Abbas who succeeded Arafat. One has to reminded that Hamas is best known for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and military targets. The saga continues with Western donor countries threatening to withdraw or withhold overseas development assistance to the PNA , and with Hamas representatives and new PNA ministers going on an international tour of non-Western countries soliciting alternative foreign donations. Canada was founded in 1867. The Liberal Party, led by Jean Chretien, gained power in 1993. Prime Minister Chretien's government while accused of being a democratic dicatorship, coincided with favourable business climate as a result of successful integration into the world economy. The Liberal government in Ottawa was accused of numerous counts of abuse of power and corruption and managed to win parliamentary majorities in the federal elections of 1997 and 2000. Prime Minister Chretien was succeeded by Paul Martin in December 2003. Electoral fortunes declined when Prime Minister Martin won only a parliamentary minority in the June 2004. Charges of corruption were renewed and it seemed some voters believed them. At the end with Liberals pitted against Conservatives, Martin had no luck in January 2006. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's party won 124 seats out of 308 to form a minority government. The Liberal Party won 103 seats; Martin went into hiding, popularly known as vacation. In this Canadian federal election, voters did not have complaints of abject poverty nor massive corruption like in Palestine. Demographically, voters were categorized popularly as those who buy coffee from Starbucks or from Tim Hortons. The Conservative Party's message of bringing change for the better in Ottawa resonated with voters of low to middle income, and primarily in areas where the Liberal Party was the weakest, e.g. Western provinces and most of Quebec. The Conservative message was ineffective on middle to high income earners and in areas where the Liberal Party kept its strength, e.g. Ontario cities, Atlantic Canada, Vancouver, and parts of Montreal. Voters who were upwardly mobile, who benefited from globalization, readily discounted the rhetoric of corruption and were unaffected by negative advertising. Compared to Palestinian voters who wanted nothing to do with Fatah, over thiry percent of Canadian voters were tolerant of the Liberals and intolerant of the Conservatives. The saga continues with new Prime Minister Harper forming the first Conservative federal government in thirteen years, claiming he won a popular mandate to carrying out the Conservative Party's five priorities, and handling two problematic files in foreign affairs inherited from the Liberal government. Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin were unable to negotiate a resolution to an impasse on the export of lumbers and processed wood to the United States. Secondly, following Operation APOLLO in 2001-2002, Chretien's commitment of Canadian Armed Forces in the War on Terror in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, Canada participated in a United Nations mandate, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) beginning February 2003. NATO, of which Canada is a part, took on the leadership of ISAF in August 2003. Prime Minister Martin committed Canada to continue in ISAF in December 2005 with troop deployments in Kandahar province. Germany appeared in history as Germanic tribes during the time of Emperor Augustus in early Roman Empire around AD 9-15. Centuries later, Deutsches Kaiserreich, the German Empire was proclaimed in 1871, with Bismarck as prime minister to the Kaiser, emperor. Another century later, modern Germany was born out of the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War, with the Berlin Wall coming down in November 1989 and German reunification in October 1990. Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader, first gained power in 1998 with a SPD-Green Party coalition and won reelection in 2002 with 306 out of 603 seats, a nine-seat majority. By 2005, the SPD-Green federal government had become unpopular among voters accustomed to benefits from the German welfare state. Facing slow economic growth, Chancellor Schroder experimented with cuts in taxes and welfare benefits. On 18th September 2005 Social Democrats were pitted against Christian Democrats. The SPD-Green coalition was reduced from 306 to 273 seats while Christian Demcoratic Union (CDU) leader Angela Merkel's coalition took 286 seats. Both Merkel and Schroder were unable to put together a parliamentary majority of 308. Two months later Merkel formed a CDU-SPD "grand coalition" and emerged as chancellor on 22nd November 2005. In Germany where proportional representation is a feature in the electoral system, no single political party really emerges as representing the majority. The saga continues with Christain Democrat Chancellor Merkel governing with fifteen cabinet ministers, eight being Social Democrats and seven being Christian Democrats. The expectation is that the German federal government will tread slowly because governing will involve constant negotiation at the cabinet table. Three elections, three totally different outcomes. One is a majority government headed by a terrorist political party; next is a minority government expected to always calculate and hope it has enough support in parliament in order to pass new legislations; and the other, a grand coalition government with more than enough support in parliament but always having to argue and negotiate behind closed doors in cabinet before coming out with any clear direction. The saga continues in Palestine, Canada and Germany.

A tale of two newspapers covering the Liberals in Ottawa

In Canadian political science and literature, there is this term called "two solitudes." It refers to English and French Canadians living and operating in their own space and never the two shall meet. So, I compared two mid-market daily broadsheet newspapers with stories on the federal Liberals, Toronto Star and Montreal's La Presse. The Star reported that the Liberal shadow cabinet held a meeting yesterday and immediately went on the attack. Ken Dryden said Liberals went to Ottawa to carry out national projects, and Conservatives, they dismantle. Joe Fontana said the Conservative promise to fix the fiscal imbalance is a "code word" to dismantle the federal government and download federal spending to Quebec and other provinces. The Star even reported on a nostalgia for Prime Minister Trudeau. Talk about Trudeau's Babies / Baby Boomers reliving the good ol' days. On the other hand, La Presse yesterday and today had stories on Martin Cauchon's speech to University of Ottawa students. Yesterday Cauchon hinted at a possible campaign to succeed Paul Martin Junior. Cauchon would challenge traditional Liberal thinking and consider changes in the current health care system and agree on a need to bring fiscal fairness among Ottawa and the provinces. Two cities, two newspapers, two entirely different coverage and emphasis. Bear in mind of the political leanings and competitive markets of these two newspapers. In Toronto, there are four dailies plus two subway handouts. The Star has decidedly social democratic operating principles and editorials and compete with National Post and Toronto Sun, both decidedly neoconservative and with The Globe and Mail, the dominant Bay Street national newspaper. The Star disagrees evidently with Prime Minister Harper's government and is generally on side with Liberals. On the other hand, there are four dailies in Montreal plus two subway handouts. Le journal de Montréal is nationalist-sovereigntist. Le Devoir is nationalist. Both print in French. La Presse and Montreal Gazette are federalist English and French dailies. "Fiscal imbalance" is a term invented by the federalist Quebec Liberal government. Fixing fiscal imbalance is Premier Charest's way to fix Quebec, and hence, avoid the urge to separate. Most Quebec federalists have bought into this idea--except the Liberals in Ottawa led sucessively by Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin. So, it's natural La Presse would cover Martin Cauchon, who served as Prime Minister Chretien's Attorney General, when Cauchon acknowledged and agreed to the need to fix the fiscal imbalance. By the way, Premier McGuinty of Ontario uses the term "Ontario's Fair Share." Ironic isn't it? Liberals in Ontario and Quebec running governments in 2006 are at odds with the Liberal Official Opposition Caucus stuck in political philosophy of 1966 and 1976.