Merry Christmas to Iran!

Merry Christmas, all. Our Christmas gift from the international relations realm this year:

Multi-lateral sanctions on Iran!

An interesting thing I wanted to bring out with the adoption of these sanctions is how they actually indicate the waning global hegemony of the United States and their reluctance to diverge from the multilateral from here on in. The rhetoric present only a little while back – veiled threats of a pre-emptive Iranian invasion interspersed with the word ‘evil’ (granted, by Bolton) – is gone, replaced by statements like the one given by acting UN ambassador Alejandro Wolff yesterday. He timidly whimpered that

"If necessary, [the United States] will not hesitate to return to this body if Iran does not take further steps to comply”

“We will not hesitate to return to this body”? What happened to all options are on the table, even military action? What happened to the axis of evil? What kind of global hegemony is the United States becoming?

The next year will be one in which nuclear weapons proliferation takes centre stage – Iran and North Korea certainly don’t look ready to back down any time soon. As soon as the sanctions were approved, Iran said it would immediately begin installing 3,000 centrifuges at a uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. If anything, we may have persuaded Iran that there is no option but to develop nuclear weapons under the stifling of their ambitions by the world community. The possibility of talks between the West and Iran have just dramatically dropped, and as a result this will certainly be an interesting (and dangerous) year for the world.

And, because its always so hard to find and never linked to by the BBC, here are the links to the full text of Resolution 1737 and the list of materials being withheld from Iran.

If You're Ugly, Forget About Adopting A Kid From China

CBC Story Here

"Under the new rules, people are only eligible to adopt if they've been married at least two years... Couples must have a Body Mass Index — a measure of obesity — of no more than 40, and be 30 to 50 years old.
The rules bar parents who take medication for psychiatric conditions including depression and anxiety.

Those with a 'severe facial deformity' are also excluded."

New restrictions by the PRC government on who can adopt Chinese children. Chinese adoptees aren't allowed ugly parents, aparently.

Harper Named Canadian Newsmaker of the Year

Globe and Mail article Here and partial reprint of the Time article Here

"For the way he has dramatically reshaped the national conversation, for restoring a sense of competence and integrity to high public office, and for proving that big ideas still matter in Canadian politics, Stephen Harper has been chosen by TIME as Canada's Newsmaker of 2006."

As CBC, CTV and the Globe and Mail point out, the title is awarded to the person who makes the most impact - for better or worse - on the news in Canada. As such, I doubt that there are Conservative opponents sitting at home shaking in their shoes about this. Nonetheless, Harper deserves the title. Over the last year, Harper has taken some bold moves that most minority Prime Ministers would not have gone near. He's bucked the notion that minority governments have to be treated like a ticking bomb to be defused or at least buried. On the contrary, he's made large strides to changing Canada's political culture. Whether you agree with the changes is another issue.

[Update]: Reached for comment on this event, Dion conceded with displeasure that Harper was "hot, hot, hot".

My Words on Senate Reform

Another small step for democratic reform in Canada, as Prime Minister Harper, in front of a rare media-attended caucus meeting, announced the tabling of a bill to consult the voters in plebiscites for the appointment of senators .

This is just another positive step for the Conservative government, as they continue checking off things that they've promised to do during their campaign and maintain their principled approach to governance.
I've always been for democratic reform in the senate, and even struggled with supporting proportional representation for a while before firmly entrenching myself in the first past the post camp. Let's face it, the senate is an archaic institution that has long lost its function as the sober second thought for Canada. Recently in Canadian political history, it has basically become a Liberal party filibuster machine, to be activated should the Liberals ever not hold the House of Commons.

The Senate lacks legitimacy, and it lacks accountability. Canadians demand better in the 21st century, and an unelected senate is a vestige of the 19th. Let me be clear: constitutional wrangling is not an option we want to deal with right now, and this is why incremental, bite-sized reform is necessary for the Conservatives right now, especially considering their minority situation. This is a necessary first step that will gradually establish an elected Senate as the norm. Combined with the bill limiting the amount of time Senators may stay in the senate, in the future it may be quite possible that changing the constitution vis-à-vis the senate will simply be a formality that reinforces an idea that has long been devoid of contention.

The bill will pass, lest the Liberal wish to appear undemocratic to the people of Canada, and the Conservatives will continue to govern the way they have been governing - using a principled and united approach.

Um.. right.

Good for a chuckle. In the National Post, on page A5:

"Jean Lapierre, Dion’s former Cabinet colleague, was hardly glowing in his endorsement. “A few months ago we asked, ‘Why is Dion running, he is not a real politician.’ He’s surprised us all. We’ll have a better answer [about his appeal in Quebec] when people have had time to think.”

But Lapierre hit on something that could prove to be Dion’s saving grace.

“We were not defeated on our policies [at the last election] but on our integrity, and integrity, like virginity, is hard to get back,” he said."

Nice point of comparison, Mr. Lapierre!

[Edit]: Actually, I wanted to comment on how frank and unwilling to defer to oversensitivity politicians are when they're not in front of a mic. My experience has certainly shown this. Talking to a former bureaucrat about how I didn't speak Chinese fluently because I was only learning English in school, he said, "well, you can shit and piss at the same time, can't you?". On the recognition of the nation debate, another politician mentioned that not recognizing Quebec was like a "man who fucks a woman but never says I love you." Mulroney was well known for his 'off-the-record' statements. I suppose it comes from having to be so politically-correct all the time in the public sphere - you've got to let it out somewhere.

Poor Polls Indicate Approval For Dion and Bad News for Venezuela

CTV ran an article with the title 'Poll gives Dion 55% approval from Canadians' . Let me take this apart for you.

I'm not going to call liberal bias, I'm just going to call bad reporting and bad statistics. Two-thirds down the page, the article notes that "Only about 34 [sic] of Canadians say they followed the campaign closely". Now tell me this, assuming that they meant 34%, how can the other 66% of people answer the pollster's question when they didn't follow the campaign closely? There may be those who would criticize me for bringing this up, as the statement says that they followed the campaign 'closely'. It could be argued that this doesn't include people who followed the campaign to an extent that they didn't self-report to be 'closely'. Let's be clear. Dion was not a favourite. If one didn't follow the Liberal leader campaign closely, it is very likely that one would not know much at all about Dion. Heck, I consider myself to have followed the campaign very closely, and I had to scramble to find out all the information on Dion I could find when he won the race. The question assumes the person answering is competent enough to answer it, which is not the case for the large majority of Canadians.

To top it off, the article also happens to mention that "27 per cent polled either didn't know or refused to answer the Dion question". As a result, the quite small number of people who both decided to answer the question and followed the campaign closely are probably disproportionately Liberal. It's 'scientifically accurate' polling, but the results are flawed, regardless.

Disregarding this critique, there's no reason to panic in the Harper camp. Considering Dion to be a good leader doesn't necessarily translate to a vote in an election. I foresee that this next election will be one in which the campaign will seriously matter, and the campaign will probably show a lot more of Dion's weaknesses and handicaps.

Venezuela's Chavez
Dammit, despite BBC's reporting that the election would at least be close, Chavez won the Venezuelan election with 61% of the popular vote, beating challenger Rosales, who had garnered 38% of the popular vote, prompting the Globe and Mail to publish an article titled 'Chavez wins re-election by wide margin'.

This is especially horrible for Venezuela on the world stage, as Chavez has been unrelenting in calling out Bush as the devil (even during a speech in front of the UN Gen. Assembly. This marginalized Chavez on the international scene, and I suspect that the ensuing labelling of Chavez as an extremist was the biggest reason that Venezuela didn't get a spot on the UNSC just a few weeks ago. Well, he’s continuing the trend, as moments after his re-election he declared with “religious fervour” that Venezuelans have “shown that Venezuela is red” and that his election is “another defeat for the devil, who tries to dominate the world”, along with his usual condemnations of imperialism. This is a disastrous trend for Venezuelans, and now they will have to endure an international reputation that will continue to slump for 6 years to come as they move further down the road to serfdom.

Your First Stop for Liberal Party Convention Results Analysis

Official Results of the Liberal Party Convention here.

I was actually quite sick this weekend, and was essentially dead to the world all day. I woke up in a sweat at 5 P.M., afraid that I had missed all the ballots of the Liberal Convention. Thankfully, I hadn’t missed the fourth ballot. But imagine my surprise at the second and third ballots. I was certainly surprised at Rae being dropped in the third ballot. I ended up watching the results of the fourth ballots live on CTV.

I think very few people saw this coming. I certainly didn’t, to an extent. I had mentioned to a fellow Conservative over a couple beers last night that Dion shouldn’t be underestimated. He is from Quebec, and has cabinet experience. However, I regrettably never explicitly said that I expected Dion to win. Who would have known Rae would have been upstaged by Kennedy’s King-Making actions? Who would have known that Ignatieff would have had so little growth potential and so little momentum going into the second, third and fourth ballots?

What Do We Know About Dion?
Not only did most people not expect this to happen, I don’t think the Conservatives did either. Going into this weekend, I’m sure the Harper government had a plan for dealing with an election campaign run by Rae or Ignatieff, but I’m almost certain that they weren’t ready for Dion. Dion surprised everyone with his miraculous jump from fourth to first on the fourth ballot, where he garnered 54% of the votes.

Dion is someone who has deep roots inside the party, having represented the Quebec riding of Saint-Laurent-Cartierville since 1996. He was recruited by Chretien in 1996 to serve as Minister for Inter-governmental affairs, but was dropped from cabinet in 2003. He was re-appointed in Martin’s cabinet in 2004 as Minister of the Environment.

Steve vs. Steve
From a Conservative point of view, Dion’s victory is nearly the best scenario. Certainly, he wasn’t expected to win, which puts the Conservatives in an awkward position in which they will have to scramble to anticipate the new leader of the opposition’s moves. Either way, I’m not worried at all about Dion. Ignatieff might have been the CPC’s first choice, but that was because the race was largely seen as a race between Iggy and Rae.

Let’s be clear. Dion’s English is terrible, as we can see in the following CBC interview. This is going to cause him a lot of problems across English Canada, where he is already handicapped by his lack of prominence. Certainly, Dion’s English will win him no points in the West, where many people will be alienated by Dion’s lack of eloquence in English. Regardless of his oratorical ability in French, he will have a huge problem debating in English during a campaign. English Canada certainly won’t be giving him any points.

Dion may be from Quebec, but let’s not say that just because he’s from Quebec a liberal revival is on the way. Quite the opposite. Dion’s history of being a hard-line federalist will give Harper a chance to appeal to the softer federalists, and Dion certainly won’t be winning back many votes from the Bloc. Estranged federalists won’t be lining up to vote for Dion. If anything, the liberal revival isn’t looking exceptionally likely. Dion could soften his stance on Quebec, which would put him in a better position there, but for the time being, he’s not especially large threat to the Tories in Quebec.

Am I worried about the environment being an issue in the next election, given Dion’s tenure as Minister for Environment? Not at all. Dion's time as environmental minister including overseeing a 36% overage on greenhouse gas emissions, along with a reputed 6 to 8 Billion Dollars "lost and unaccounted for," in Dion's Kyoto program (according to Auditor General, Sheila Fraser). Dion didn’t take any significant steps to meet Kyoto targets – it was clear that there was never a plan to actually meet them. It was unrealistic then, and it’s unrealistic now. Regardless, that’s a debate for another day. Speaking of debates, I can’t wait for the smack in the face that Dion will get if he brings up the environment in a national debate.

Dion is no champion. His appeal across the country is extremely limited – even delegates, when polled by The Strategic Council, didn’t think he was the best to beat Harper (only 18% saw him as the best anti-Harper candidate). An Ipsos-Reid poll indicated that a Liberal government with Dion would be 8% points behind the Conservatives, with 27% of the popular vote. I agree with Daifallah when he said you could see the horror in the eyes of the people on the stage, with many thinking ‘What Have We Done’? What happened to Party Renewal and a new vision for the LPC? Instead, what has happened is that the Liberal have elected an old Chretienite with deep roots in the party and a legacy since ’96. Certainly not the renewal that has been suggested since the beginning of the campaigns. That being said, lets not underestimate Dion – we’ve already made that mistake once.