dog-adoption heartache part two and updates on other nonsense

Looking for a Dog Number Six is turning out to be very painful.

You'll recall that we narrowed the field to two dogs. The one in the shelter has been adopted. Yay! The other, being fostered by a local rescue group, is not going to be ours. Rescue Group wants a $400 adoption fee, which is about twice what we were expecting.

We routinely pay hundreds of dollars of vet bills, and many time have spent (rather, charged) thousands of dollars of surgery and all manners of special procedures when our dogs have needed anything. Our monthly expenses have always included dog medications, often to an extent that many people would find ridiculous. In our experience, a new dog always needs some medical care right out of the gate. We expect that. Yet to spend $400 just to bring a dog home, when that dog is with a loving foster family right now, is a bit rough for us right now - especially considering there are so many other dogs that need homes.

I had an e-mail conversation with Rescue Group. From her point of view, a person who won't spend whatever adoption fee is requested is a bad risk, someone who doesn't understand that a dog is "well worth that money". From my point of view, she is preventing this dog from finding an excellent forever home over $200. She made it clear the fee was non-negotiable, we wished each other well, and that was that.

I wonder if people in our area who can easily afford a $400 adoption fee are going the rescue route or would tend to purchase a pure-bred dog. Rescue does not seem to be as common here as it is, for example, in New York.

But more importantly, there are so many dogs who need homes. I'd rather spend that $200 on food and care for our new dog than reimburse someone else for their fostering expenses. There are so many dogs at Toronto Animal Services. Why not take one of those?

Why not indeed. I looked at so many dogs on Petfinder this weekend, my heart is aching. I saw so many older dogs in need of adoption. Why are so many older dogs surrendered? What does it feel like to be dropped off at a shelter or a vet's office, to wait for your family's return, only they never come back? What is wrong with people, why do they do that, how do they live with themselves?

We clearly started looking too early. Here's our new plan. Our projected adoption date is Monday, April 25. We'll look at the shelter website that weekend. Of whoever is available, we'll pick a dog closest to our preferred type, and that will be Dog Number Six.

Elsewhere in Allan-and-Laura-land, our washing machine broke in the middle of a cycle, we are writing our Small Claims Court claim, and I still have a final exam to study for and write. Whine, whine, whine. I'm feeling a bit put-upon.

must-share video: dog rescue in japan

My heart goes out to the amazing Japanese rescue people who went to such lengths to save a dog's life.

The Japanese coast guard today rescued a dog washed out to sea with a house by the tsunami from the March 11 earthquake, Reuters reports.

A coast guard helicopter was investigating an island of debris off Kesennuma, in northern Japan, when the dog was spotted on a house roof. Frightened by the rotors, the animal disappeared inside, evading efforts to save him. A boat was sent after the helicopter ran low on fuel, and rescuers were able to catch the dog, who was described as "emaciated but alive."

The video won't embed, but you can watch it here, after 27 seconds of product pitch.

Wonderful update! The dog has been reunited with its owner!

five questions for stephen harper: post yours here

Stephen Harper - famous for sticking to his prepared script and not answering questions from the media (that is, from the people, because that's as close as we get) - has decided he will answer questions after all.

Five.

He'll answer five questions.

Harper has transferred his famously control-freak style of governance from the PMO to the campaign trail. He will answer questions, but only five, and from a media held behind a yellow fence, 12 metres away.

The strategy described by this Vancouver Sun commentary is well-known to USians: it's exactly how Republican handlers worked GWB.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper held his news conference Thursday and declined to tell journalists — corralled behind a yellow fence over 12 metres away — why he limits the daily encounters to just five questions.

The episode highlighted the brewing issue of whether Harper, as the apparent front-runner in the race, is running a campaign in a bubble to prevent embarrassing mistakes.

After several days, it is clear his daily schedule is carefully designed to minimize political risk. Harper has not done any "walkabouts" on city streets where average voters can meet him. Moreover, the photo-ops with voters — such as at a seniors' home and a deli — have been pre-arranged. Also, people who attend rallies must be on a list to gain entry to the event.

Harper only provides one news conference per day, and it is specifically designed to ensure that it is not free-wheeling. Journalists who are travelling with his campaign tour are, as a group, only allowed to ask four questions. One more question goes to a local journalist at the news conference.

On Thursday, Harper was asked to explain why — when Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP leader Jack Layton provide news conferences with no limits on questions — he insists on no more five questions.

Harper chose not to answer that question and moved on to the next questioner. [See comments for more on this.]

In light of this, I thought we should start compiling our own five-question lists for Harper. It's not easy to do, but if we each take five, we could cover a lot of ground.

I'll kick things off. Please add yours in comments.

Five questions for Stephen Harper:

1. Why do you refuse to answer certain questions during this election campaign?

2. Do you believe Canadians have a right to know the truth about the government they are being asked to elect?

3. Do you believe Canadians have a right to ask the government questions?

4. Many Canadians feel your government and your style of leadership has been un-democratic, even anti-democratic. Without reference to partisanship or the opposition, what is your response to those concerns?

5. Given that, in the past, you have acknowledged the need for and the legitimacy of coalition governments - and given that coalition governments are constitutional and are quite common in other Parliamentary systems - isn't your ongoing campaign against a coalition government deceitful, as your real motive for opposing coalitions is simply to remain in power?

elections are not decided by polls, and other thoughts on fair elections

I'm starting to think that in order to have fair elections, we not only have to ban all paid political advertising - an obvious improvement I've been running on about for years - but we must ban political polling too.

Maybe as soon as the writ drops, all pollsters should a mandatory six-week vacation. They could work privately for the parties and whoever else commissions them, but they would be embargoed from releasing results to media, and parties would be similarly prohibited. If we are concerned with the integrity of elections, this daily barrage of poll numbers has got to stop.

This country is insane for polls. We are constantly bombarded with the percentage of Canadians who have done this, haven't done that, bought something, ate something, thought about buying something, thought about trying something... it never ends. But daily polling during an election campaign is not only annoying and unnecessary. It's potentially damaging to democracy.

In a perfect world, voter turnout would always be high. Citizens would understand that there are substantial differences between the major political parties, and that decisions made in Parliament have profound and permanent effects. Everyone would understand that voting is the bare minimum of political participation, and they would take their voting rights and responsibilities seriously.

But, much to the joy of the corporate rulers of our world, and whichever black cat or white cat is currently in power, masses of people in North America who are eligible to vote, don't. Like most measures of quality of life and health of democracy, things are a bit better in Canada than the US. The 2008 federal elections in Canada showed the lowest turnout in Canadian history, yet that exceeded turnout in every US presidential election except three (1960, 1964, 1968, all in the low 60% range). (Sources: here, here, here.)

When it comes to US elections, turnout may be the least important problem. Elections are fraudulent in many respects: political parties control voter registration, voter rolls, vote counting, and a host of other shenanigans. There is no US equivalent of Elections Canada - a fact many Canadians are amazed to learn. It has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that both the 2000 and 2004 US presidential elections were fixed. And of course, there are only two parties, and they differ only in rhetoric.

Both countries use an undemocratic first-past-the-post system, but at least in Canada the units are much smaller. Imagine if every Ontario vote went to one party! And at least in Canada there's hope that we may one day have a proportional representation election system. I think.

So, returning from my digression... turnout is low all around. There are many reasons for this - lack of trust in the system, learned helplessness (the belief that one's actions cannot affect outcomes), ignorance, fear, and probably many other complex reasons that are poorly understood. It's often called "apathy", but that's a broad term that explains very little. People do care about their own lives, and they do care about issues. But they may not understand how what happens in government actually affects those issues they care about. Or they may not believe they have any choice.

But given that so many people don't vote, isn't it likely that constant predictions on the outcome of an election - especially that one particular outcome is all but certain - only serve to further suppress voting?

I suppose there's an argument that certain poll results might stimulate voting. For example, we recently heard that 74% of Canadians do not want a Harper majority government. If polls show the Conservatives on the verge of a majority, perhaps more people will vote in order to prevent it. It's a weak argument, at best. It applies only to very specific situations, and it's based mainly on wishful thinking. Rather than try to calculate which poll results might increase turnout and which may decrease it, why not just wait until the people have their say?

We're all so accustomed to this constant polling that we accept it as a natural fixture of the political landscape. But if you stand back and think about it, what good do polls serve? Not to the parties and the candidates - to the public. If we had absolutely no idea what was going to happen on election day, or if we are constantly being told what will happen, what difference does it make?

I can think of only one difference this constant polling might reasonably make: people thinking they already know the outcome of the election - so why vote.

in which i vow to stop worrying about grades

Remember the exam I was so anxious about? I just got my grade: A-minus.

I'm having a good laugh over it. And I'm done worrying.

To be fair, I really haven't been worried about grades in general. It was only about this course, which I find difficult and dull. But if I can get an A-minus on a Research Methods exam, the rest should be easy.

coming to a library near you? stress-relieving dogs and speed-dating

Dogs and libraries, the perfect combination! Many thanks to NN for sending. I needed a happy story, after this.

Black’s Law Dictionary? Check.

An Introduction to Legal Reasoning? Check.

Small, cute dog? Check.

Yale Law School, renowned for competitiveness and its Supreme Court justices, is embarking on a pilot program next week in which students can check out a “therapy dog” named Monty along with the library’s collection of more than one million books.

While the law school is saying little so far about its dog-lending program, it has distributed a memo to students with the basics: that Monty will be available at the circulation desk to stressed-out students for 30 minutes at a time beginning Monday, for a three-day trial run.

“It is well documented that visits from therapy dogs have resulted in increased happiness, calmness and overall emotional well-being,” Blair Kauffman, the law librarian, wrote in an e-mail to students.

The school is not saying what sort of dog Monty is; what happens to him when school is out of session; or how Monty himself may be kept from becoming overstressed with all his play dates.

Sebastian Swett, 26, a second-year student at the law school, said he had signed up for a session with the dog, but does not necessarily think that it will relieve all the pressures that come with being a student at Yale. “I don’t think its going to solve anybody’s anxiety problems, but it’s certainly nice to play with a dog for half an hour.”

Monty, according to the memo to students, is hypoallergenic and will be kept in a nonpublic space inside the library, presumably away from those who don’t much like dogs.

“We will need your feedback and comments to help us decide if this will be a permanent ongoing program available during stressful periods of the semester, for example, during examinations,” the note to students reads.

A handful of other universities offer similar services, including the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh.

Elsewhere, another stab at keeping the library vital and relevant. "Where's your section on kindred spirits?"

Outside of college campuses and romantic comedies, the library is not usually a place to pick up a date. But that didn’t stop several dozen singles, mostly in their 20s and 30s, from showing up on a recent Tuesday night at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library for its first speed-dating session.

Among them was Jeremiah Lee, a 33-year-old software engineer who said he had not stepped foot in a public library in years. “The kind of person the library can attract is different than the kind you get at a bar,” said Mr. Lee, who wore a dark purple fleece and blue jeans for the occasion. Participants were asked to bring a favorite book, so he clutched a copy of “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell and “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy.

In a basement meeting room a boombox played love songs while daters were assigned numbers and had four minutes to chat, flirt or wrinkle their noses at one another’s literary tastes. Then the men rotated, book in tow, to the next woman. Later, librarians would tally scorecards and connect any two people who indicated mutual interest.

Can “Atlas Shrugged” find love with the “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”? Is attraction possible between a Jonathan Franzen reader and a die-hard Elizabeth Gilbert fan?

Those are the types of questions librarians are starting to field. In a kind of hearts-and-flowers literacy drive, public libraries across the country are sponsoring speed-date nights to draw more young professionals into reading rooms.

In Fort Collins, Colo., librarians strung white lights and scattered rose petals for two date nights last fall. The main library in Sacramento recently hosted its second event. Libraries in Chattanooga, Tenn., Piscataway, N.J., and Omaha all held soirees for Valentine’s Day last month.

“The library wants to be a gathering place that is relevant to younger people,” said Donya Drummond, the reference librarian who promoted the San Francisco event, mostly through Facebook. “We had more people than we knew what to do with.”

Literary speed dating seems to have its roots in Europe. Danny Theuwis, a librarian from Leuven, Belgium, believes he and his colleagues introduced the concept in 2005 with the goal to enliven somber libraries, and make them “more alive, more direct, more emotional,” he said in an e-mail. He trained hundreds of librarians across Europe to host literary speed dating, or “bibdating” in Flemish.

Among the first of similar events in the United States took place at the Omaha Public Library Benson Branch, where Amy Mather, a librarian, and her colleague at the time, Manya Shorr, organized a “Hardbound to Heartbound” night in 2009, on Valentine’s Day. Some 65 people showed up.

Library Journal, a trade publication, named the two women “Library Leaders Creating the 2.0 Library of the Future” for their efforts to attract “a generation that came of age in the Age of the Internet.”

“The age range from 20 to 40 is a population that we do tend to lose unless they have young kids to bring them into the library,” said Audra Caplan, president of the Public Library Association. “They’re paying taxes and voting. We need to be viable to them and provide them with experiences and resources that are useful.”

Last spring the Collaborative Summer Library Program, a national consortium of public libraries, included literary speed dating on its list of suggested adult library programming. Since then, libraries across the country have been dimming the lights and playing matchmaker.

“It’s a safe space,” said Diane Moore, a librarian at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library. “There is no alcohol, so you don’t have to worry about people saying ‘Oh, baby’ one night, and then the next morning waking up and going, ‘Yikes!’ ”

One logistical snag is the preponderance of women. Libraries reported difficulties attracting men in sufficient numbers. In downtown Fort Collins, an event had to be canceled when no men signed up. At the San Francisco event, the sign-up ratio was about one man to every five women. (The one exception seemed to be the same-sex night, when more than twice as many gay men turned up as lesbians.)

“We can’t figure out how to get enough men,” Ms. Moore said. Chattanooga’s downtown branch is planning to host date nights quarterly, and is soliciting ideas for how to draw more men. Some have suggested putting photographs of attractive young women on their leaflets. Others proposed playing down fiction, since men seemed to bring in more nonfiction books.

That was not the case at the San Francisco Public Library, where women and men showed an eclectic range. Not surprisingly, the book you brought advertised something about your compatibility. . . .

at long last, it's opening day!

It's a long, cold winter for baseball fans, but at long last, spring has arrived. It's Opening Day!*

How excited are Red Sox fans for the 2011 season? Of 45 ESPN baseball analysts, 42 of them pick the Red Sox to win the American League pennant and play in the 2011 World Series. All 45 pick the Sox to win their division.

Looking beyond the ESPN horizons, throwing in CBS Sportsline, CNNSI, and the dreaded (and dreadful) Fox Sports, 60 of 66 analysts - 91% - predict the Red Sox will play in the World Series.

Of course, as the saying goes, games aren't played on paper, and divisions and pennants aren't decided by prognosticators. But these predictions don't come out of nowhere. Red Sox fans, don't make any plans for October.

Today at 4:00, Red Sox at Rangers. Life begins anew.




* Major League Baseball Opening Day was actually yesterday, but the Red Sox didn't play. So who cares.

more innocent deaths because of pit bull bigotry

I have no idea why I only learned of this story yesterday, through an email from James. I keep in touch with several bully-related groups, and this has been going on almost a year, but for some reason it completely escaped my radar.

It's one of the most heartbreaking pit stories I've read. I cannot even imagine the anger - the rage - I would be experiencing if this were my dog. This kind of abuse is how ordinary people are pushed to seemingly insane lengths.

I'm sick from reading about it, especially the details of how the dog has been abused while confined. Can you imagine being taken from your loving home, with no understanding of what is happening, and being forced to live in solitary confinement, with no human contact or even a warm bed to lie on? (Rather like Maher Arar. No better when it is done to humans!)

I have not been able to confirm if the dog has been killed, or if the family is still in the appeals process. Their blog is here, but it has not been updated for two days - perhaps because they are in shock and mourning.

Belfast City executes dog for looking like a Pit Bull
After global appeals judge sides with council and sentences Lennox to death

The case of Lennox, a family-owned dog, has become a global landmark case which will now end in tragedy. The American Bull Dog Labrador cross was seized from its family and will be put down by Belfast City Council after a court ruling because he looks like a Pit Bull, dogs which are illegal in Ireland.

On May 19, 2010 Lennox was seized by Belfast City Council Dog Wardens from his loving family home where he lives with his owners and his kennel mates. Since then he has been confined in conditions which are described as inhumane. The judge has also ruled that his family must now pay for his 11 months confinement.

Lennox's family has made it clear that they will appeal the most recent judgment. They have also been outraged by the fact that there has been so much public encouragement behind the ruling. His owners have had no visitation right for the past 11 months. They have not been contacted by the Council apart from two hours after Lennox was seized.

Photographs of Lennox in confinement have recently emerged showing Lennox in a cold concrete kennel which is too small, has no fresh water supply, heating, toys or stimulation for the dog. He is surrounded by feces with only sawdust for bedding.

International animal advocates, local politicians and media have prompted a global campaign for the release of Lennox. So far their petition has hundreds of thousands of signatures. Groups who have lent their support include the ADBA Inc, various Animal Rights groups, Animal Welfare organizations, Veterinarians, Dog Breed and Behaviorist Experts.

The most heart-wrenching plea came from Brooke, the 11-year-old daughter of Lennox's owners, who is registered as disabled. She grew up with Brooke and the pair became inseparable. Due to her condition Brooke is unable to play with other children and so Lennox became her playmate. Since Lennox's imprisonment Brooke has missed school due to ill health caused by stress. Brooke’s specialist Doctor at Belfast Royal Hospital for Sick Children has also expressed growing concern for the child’s separation from her pet.

Before the young dog was seized from his home he had committed no crime and no members of the public had complained about his behavior. On the day he was seized three police officers arrived at the family home unannounced along with the Dog Wardens. The police were sent away and the Wardens sat down with the family, had tea, smoked cigarettes and played with the family's other dogs.

The Wardens then measured Lennox's muzzle and rear legs with a dress-maker's tape measure and decided, without any professional advice, that he was a "Pit Bull Type Breed". They led him from the home to be put to death according to Life with Dogs.

Lennox's family is experienced dog owners fostering dogs from various dog shelters. When Lennox was a puppy they had him neutered, licensed, insured, DNA registered, Pet Safe registered and micro chipped.

Although Belfast City Council claim that Lennox is a Pitt Bull type dog they have issued him with a dog license every year for the past five years.

the road to adopting a dog is paved with heartbreak

It's been several months since Allan and I decided we're ready to adopt a new dog. Cody left us at the end of last summer, and through her aging and illness, it's been a long time since Tala had a lively sister to play with. Allan takes Tala to the dog park at least once a week - both for fun and to make sure she stays socialized with other dogs - but she needs a sister. And we need another dog! Without two dogs, our family is just not complete.

For various practical reasons, we decided late April is the right time. We've been forcing ourselves to hold off on browsing through Petfinder until closer to that time, knowing that once we start, we'll be immediately smitten by any number of wonderful, needy dogs. Last week, we both crumbled.

Now once again we are faced with the dozens upon dozens upon hundreds of dogs who need homes. It's not that I don't know this. It's something I think about quite a bit. It's seeing their faces. I know many wmtc readers will understand this from personal experience.

In our area alone - as in all of yours - there are way too many. Even narrowed down by our preferred size and type - still too many. A combination of puppy mills, irresponsible breeding, lack of understanding about spaying and neutering, and sheer stupidity and thoughtlessness leads hundreds of dogs and cats to be left homeless in every town and city of North America. Another factor is poverty. As millions - literally, millions - of people in the US lost their homes, animal shelters were overwhelmed, as people surrendered animals in an effort to save their human families.

I was trying to decide if I could handle actually going to a shelter to look at dogs, as opposed to using Petfinder. We adopted our first dog, the amazing Gypsy, from a high-kill shelter in New York City (no longer in operation). That was way back in 1987, and it's still etched in my memory. Gypsy was on death row, along with many other dogs - big dogs, older dogs, dogs in very poor condition. You tell yourself you can only save one. Little good that does.

We haven't been to a shelter since. Of our other dogs, two we physically rescued from the street, and two we took from foster families, where other people had rescued many dogs and were now placing them.

Of course, every dog taken from foster care makes room for another dog to come out of a shelter and into a home. The end result is the same, but it leaves some of the hardest work to someone else. Foster care helps dogs stay - or become - socialized; the longer a dog remains in a shelter, often the less adoptable it will be. I want everyone to adopt dogs from foster homes, but for me personally, it feels like cheating. Taking the easier way out. Since we're people who can take an unsocialized, hard-case dog from a shelter, shouldn't we do that?

I thought using Petfinder would cut corners on the heartbreak. I was wrong. Petfinder is just as bad; in some ways it's worse. Where in a shelter you see a handful of dogs who need homes, Petfinder shows you a universe of homeless animals. It's crushing.

One foray into Petfinder and we instantly saw 20 or so dogs in Southern Ontario who fall into our general category. We are especially taken with two. One is being fostered in Mississauga. The rescue group said if we take her, another dog from an overcrowded US shelter, in danger of being put down, will take her spot in the foster home.

The other dog is with Toronto Animal Services. I asked if she was at risk for being put down, and was told that they don't euthanize adoptable dogs. They won't hold her for us - which is good, if someone picks her up before we're ready, it will be a great thing - but if she's still there on April 25, we may brave the heartbreak of the shelter for dog number six.

peel water bill update

There's been a lot of activity in our battle over the bizarre water bill (background here and here), but unfortunately it all amounted to spinning our wheels in mud.

Allan made another round of phone calls and followed yet more trails: the City Manager's office, our MPP's office, the Commissioner of Public Works, the Ministry of Consumer Services, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. We got legal advice from lawyer friends, a lawyer where Allan works, and someone at the Mississagua legal aid clinic who was very generous with her time. We fielded more calls from Peel, asking to know "our decision," meaning, "Are you going to pay or do we shut off your water?"

People were variously shocked, sympathetic or buck-passing, but no one could actually help. It comes down to this: we say you used this water, so you owe us this money.

We had only one option left. We paid the bill and are now going to Small Claims Court to try to recover our money. It's a gamble, but we're willing to take it.

* * * *

It appears that Small Claims Court in Ontario is a much more structured and weighty system than it is in New York City. We hope so.

In New York, you're luckiest if the other party doesn't show (which happens frequently); then you win by default. If the defendant appears, it's a roll of the dice. A lawyer - volunteering in exchange for continuing education credit - hears the case. He or she may take the job seriously and fully listen to both sides, or may be annoyed and impatient by this waste of non-billable time, make a snap judgment and move on to the next case. Your case can be heard by a judge at your request, but it will be weeks or months until a judge is available... then the judge may be no better than the volunteer lawyer.

New York City Small Claims Court is effective for extremely simple, clear-cut cases, such as when someone has done work and not been paid. Many people use it for that - as we did once, long ago - and recover what they are owed, plus interest, plus court fees. For those cases, it works. But for anything even slightly more complex, it's a total crapshoot.

By all appearances, Ontario Small Claims Court seems to operate like an actual court system - but that impression is based only on the information on the website. We hope to file the suit on Monday. Who knows what adventure lies ahead.

a must-read: jason kenney's toxic legacy

This excellent piece in Embassy is a must-read for anyone who cares about justice - and Canada - and keeping any link between the two.

Jason Kenney's troubling refugee legacy
By Jim Creskey

Jason Kenney was making changes to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration at a torrid pace — or so it seemed — until he was stopped dead in his tracks last week by a non-confidence vote. Now, before the May 2 election, might be a good time to take stock of what he accomplished.

The migration department he was given by Stephen Harper was a house built on policy and practice laid by Liberals and Mulroney Progressive Conservatives and shaped by Charter rulings, public consultations and politics — lots of politics. It was a place of noble aims, practical goals, unkept promises, interminable long waits and a lot of over-worked public servants — some of them amazingly compassionate, others sullen and patronizing. A few were even found to be corrupt.

Correctly seen from outside Canada, it was one of the best immigration and refugee systems in the world. But it was also inclined to dysfunction, some of it caused by misguided budget cuts in the wrong places, some of it from various levels of distressed leadership that had started to buy into a pessimistic narrative.

It was also the kind of ministry that could (easily) wreck or (not so-easily) launch a politician's career, and the youthful Kenney, who was born in 1968, was definitely in launch mode.

In the course of undertaking his ministerial responsibilities for the protection of refugees, Kenney came across a vote-harvesting scheme that actually had nothing to do with refugees or their protection. Its subject was fear.

Kenney — with some help from Prime Minister Harper and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews — used the arrival of two boatloads of Tamil asylum seekers in an attempt to prod public opinion toward the idea that "bogus" refugee claimants were overrunning Canada.

Pretending to punish smugglers — who were largely phantoms out of reach of Canadian authority — he put forward Bill C-49, which resolutely set out policies that would punish the refugees themselves.

C-49 was a profoundly flawed piece of work that proposed building special prisons for refugees who had the good luck to escape to Canada from foreign murder and mayhem but the bad luck to have been caught using the help of a smuggler. Further punishments included the withholding of family reunions as well as healthcare and other services.

It was a strategy that promised to sweep up more votes from ordinary Canadians who could be sold the idea that they needed to be protected from a flood of illegal arrivals. It was pure theatre, with the two ministers and even the prime minister turning up at the two rusting hulks, the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea, to promote their bill, the extremely wordy Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act.

It was also politicking in the same vein as Republican anti-immigrant propaganda in the US — to the detriment of genuine refugees who are in a way the canaries in the Immigration Department's mineshaft.

If the least powerful clients of the Citizenship and Immigration Department — asylum seekers — were being treated fairly then we would have a strong hint the portfolio was being well managed. Unfortunately they are not.

Kenney's refugee legacy has been deeply disappointing. The number of asylum seekers needing protection and allowed into Canada has declined markedly on his watch.

A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report released this week charted a 30 per cent drop in the number of applications for asylum in Canada. The UN study came on the heels of reports that CIC is looking at scrapping visa applications from designated source countries. Ironically, the result of that change would be more desperate people resorting to smuggling.

At the same time, Kenney's publicly disparaging comments about whole groups of refugees have raised concerns that his department's appointed refugee judges are being influenced. For that reason, the immigration minister holds the power of life and death over a refugee claimant. He also occupies a pulpit of great influence when he speaks in public.

If he said, as he did, that Mexican and Czech Roma refugees were systematically abusing the system or that US Iraq War resisters were fraudsters or "bogus," how many of his department's judges would want to prove him wrong?

There are plenty of appointed refugee judges who are fair and balanced, working hard to be well informed about the situations and the personal circumstances in the refugee's home countries.

But recent legal and media investigations of Refugee Board decisions have uncovered judges who, despite evidence to the contrary, turn down virtually any asylum seeker who steps into their quasi-judicial courtrooms. Others have been found to be so opposed to admitting a single claimant that they grill refugees relentlessly until they are found (in their distressed confusion) to make a mistake in their testimony.

The problem at the top is that the minister's bruising public language is inclined to bring out the worst of his judges.

Kenney's anti-smuggling bill and behaviour in public drew a flood of respectful and non-partisan criticism. Even normally Conservative supporters in church and civil society groups have seen the government was on the wrong track. But their requests for input have been turned aside, with Kenney publicly deriding them as "usual suspects from the immigration industry."

If the Harper Conservatives come back in May with sufficient numbers to form a majority, some version of the now dead Bill C-49 is more than likely to spring up again. Would they reverse themselves and finally listen to the numerous church groups and NGOs, asking them to put some compassion back into refugee policy?

I wish it were so. But looking at the evidence of the Harper government, it would have to be a monumental sea change.

Migration may not be at the top of anyone's list of key campaign issues. The actually number of refugees admitted into Canada at the best of times is small in comparison with immigration numbers. But refugee policy and practice defines a country's soul like few other government actions.

I think most Canadians want their country to have a refugee policy that is fair, efficient and compassionate. But if they expect to see that happen, they need to find out how the system has been managed over the past several years before they vote.

Where and how to do that?

One suggestion is to have a look at the excellent website of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

A even better way would be to volunteer at one of the more than 170 church and secular organizations across Canada that help refugees in a personal way.

zerbisias: what's a half million women's lives every year?

As I've written here many times, I've made no attempt to chronicle the onslaught of anti-choice legislation battering US women these days. I've posted a few updates - most recently here and here - but one could blog exclusively about these laws (some only proposed, others already passed) and have no shortage of material.

Antonia Zerbisias has the right-wing Canadian position, which is just as deadly as the US version.

Twice in the past week, women have had to watch men use female bodies as political footballs.

Oh sure, there are also women in both the U.S. Congress and Canada's House of Commons, but let's not kid ourselves: When it comes to deciding how women should live their lives, it's not a level playing field.

Kick in the Church, and the odds are even worse.

Last weekend in the U.S., we saw lawmakers throw women under the health care bus when it was decided that no federal funds could be used for abortion. That could result in a potential administrative nightmare scenario that, some women's groups fear, might scare insurance providers – and they don't scare easily – into not providing abortion coverage at all.

Not even when it's a matter of life and death.

But then, what's a woman's life?

What's a half million women's lives every year?

Every minute of every day, in some African or other poor nation, a woman dies of maternity-related causes.

Even though studies show that access to family planning can save the lives of mothers, and hence their children, the anti-choicers choose to remain ideologically pure.

"A woman cannot die from complications arising during pregnancy and childbirth if she is not pregnant," exclaimed a clearly frustrated Liberal MP (and physician) Carolyn Bennett in Parliament on Tuesday.

That's when the Liberals, in an attempt to get Prime Minister Stephen Harper to include contraception in his G8 maternal health care initiative, stumbled, bumbled and fumbled.

They stumbled with the wording of their motion to get "the full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options, including contraception" into a policy which "must be based on scientific evidence which proves that education and family planning can prevent as many as one in every three maternal deaths."

Now remember, many Conservative MPs – believers in creationism – aren't too keen on science.

But the kicker was that the motion also stated that "the Canadian government should refrain from advancing the failed right-wing ideologies previously imposed by the George W. Bush administration in the United States ... that required all non-governmental organizations receiving federal funding to refrain from promoting medically sound family planning."

Which, of course, had all the Bush fans on the government benches screaming "anti-Americanism."

The bumbling came with the opposition's lack of preparation for the debate.

The government was well-rehearsed and singing from the same hymn book.

Please click through to read the rest.

It's mind-boggling to me that Canadian parliamentarians would say these policies stem from GWB! The US's assault on women's reproductive rights pre-dates the Resident by about 20 years, and has never let up, not during the Clinton administration and certainly not during Obama's. If they're referring specifically to the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, that is a Reagan legacy. Resident GWB only revived it.

I hope I remember this the next time I hear Canadians complain about how ignorant Americans are about Canada.

on being wrong: conscientious objector josh stieber on being wrong about the military

This is a few months old, but it just came to my attention and it's worth sharing.

Kathryn Schulz is the author of the book Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error and writes a companion blog on Slate called The Wrong Stuff. Her interview with conscientious objector Josh Stieber ran last December.

My Country Right or Wrong: Conscientious Objector Josh Stieber on Being Wrong About the Military

By Kathryn Schulz

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a 13-year-old kid named Josh Stieber vowed that as soon as he was old enough, he would join the military. His goal: to help protect his country and spread its values of freedom and democracy around the world.

With the war still on when he graduated from high school, Stieber enlisted in 2006 and was deployed to Baghdad in 2007. A devout Christian and a staunch political conservative, Stieber became troubled by the gap between the values he was told the military embodied and those he experienced on the ground.

Partway through his deployment, he realized that his perspective had changed so drastically that he would rather go to prison than remain in the military. Instead, he learned about, applied for, and obtained Conscientious Objector status. (For more on conscientious objectors, see my interview with J.E. McNeil, head of the Center on Conscience and War.)

In the interview below, Stieber, who is now 22, spoke with me about how his expectations and his experiences of military life collided, what it feels when "everything you've defined yourself by has fallen apart," and how George W. Bush and Gandhi each played a pivotal role in shaping his military career.

Read the interview here.

why i'm voting liberal even though i don't support michael ignatieff or the liberal party

This is the first Canadian federal election for which I'm eligible to vote. Part of what always made me excited about coming to Canada - and now, about being a Canadian citizen - is the presence of a viable left-of-liberal party. For a long time, I've been looking forward to voting for a party that more closely represents my values, the NDP. So here I am, finally eligible to vote... and I'm going to hold my nose and vote Liberal.

I live in a riding that will be hotly contested in this election: Mississauga East Cooksville. Our Liberal MP is retiring for health reasons, and this is exactly the kind of riding the Conservatives hope to grab. Two adjacent ridings, Mississauga Erindale and Mississauga South, are both on the Globe and Mail's list of "50 ridings to watch". Erindale flipped from Liberal to Conservative by a very slim margin in 2008; Mississauga South, while still Liberal, is seen by the Conservatives as ripe for picking. The demographic of Cooksville, smack in the middle, fits a similar profile.

There's no viable NDP candidate in Mississauga. Fortunately, a few non-mainstream parties from the right side of the spectrum will siphon off potential Conservative votes. But realistically, the choice is squarely between a Liberal MP and a Conservative MP.

I intensely dislike Michael Ignatieff. Back in New York, I used to read his writing in the New York Times Magazine, so I know him to be a war-monger and an apologist for torture. There are some very decent MPs in the Liberal caucus, but as a whole, the party is a big tent with few principles. Not unlike US Democrats, they campaign slightly left-of-centre and govern quite a bit right-of-centre.

But my negative feelings towards the Liberal Party of Canada are a snowflake compared to the avalanche of ill will I bear towards Stephen Harper's Conservative Party. Five years of Harper's anti-democratic, deceptive, corrupt, fear-mongering tactics and anti-human legislation make the choice in my riding very clear.

A Liberal minority government would give me plenty to protest. But a Conservative majority government could potentially ruin Canada. Harper's now-infamous boast - "You won't recognize Canada when I get through with it" - feels closer to reality every day.

Voting in our society is not a revolutionary act. It's not a time to seek moral purity or distill principle for its own sake. As an activist, I know there are myriad opportunities to get involved and to collectively create change. Voting is one small moment of activism - an essential one, but also a strategic one.

Strategic voting is often a chimera. If your riding is a shoo-in for the Conservatives, then why not vote NDP and help build the opposition voice in your community? Occasionally, though, strategic voting carries real weight. That's why groups like Catch 22 Harper Conservatives and Leadnow are so vital right now.

Helping Stephen Harper win a majority government in order to lay claim to some false idea of personal integrity seems both foolish and selfish. Foolish, because my leftist worldview is much more expansive than mere partisanship. And selfish, because I have a responsbility to use my vote wisely. I will spend my vote on whatever currency has the best chance of improving Canada, or put more negatively, of keeping the Canada that I love from disappearing altogether.

Where I live, that means voting Liberal.



* * * *

Postscript. I'm receiving a small deluge of email about CBC's "vote compass," including some from CBC News itself. So yes, I am aware of it. It seems to be a dilute imitation of the excellent Political Compass, which I have blogged about over the years: mostly here, with graphic here. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems little more than a gimmick to drive traffic to the CBC website.

Update. Asked and answered. If you're about to defend Vote Compass, please read comments first. Thanks.

maybe the folks who burned the toronto police car can be hired to attack scott walker

Also from the "in case you missed it" files...

An Indiana deputy prosecutor and Republican activist resigned Thursday after the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism uncovered an email to Gov. Scott Walker in which he suggested a fake attack on the governor to discredit union protesters.

Carlos F. Lam submitted his resignation shortly before the Center published a story quoting his Feb. 19 email, which praised Walker for standing up to unions but went on to say that the chaos in Wisconsin presented “a good opportunity for what’s called a ‘false flag’ operation.”

“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said.

...but when we suggest that violent "protesters" may be hired provocateurs, we're just paranoid.

malalai joya's u.s. tour is on

In case you missed it, Malalai Joya was admitted to the US, thanks to pressure from US peace activists.

A prominent Afghan feminist and war critic was granted a visa to enter the United States on Thursday - by the same State Department office that turned her down last week - and belatedly started on a speaking tour that is scheduled to wind up in San Francisco.

The case of Malalai Joya is the latest of several in which the Obama administration, after at first refusing entry, has allowed a visit by a foreigner who has criticized policies of the United States or its allies.

The administration "does not engage in the practice of ideological exclusion," the State Department's legal adviser, Harold Koh, said in a letter in December to the American Civil Liberties Union, which backed Joya and others whose visits were challenged. ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer said the administration has largely kept its promise.

If you're in the US, I highly recommend attending one of Joya's events. Tour dates are here, but because of the visa delay, some dates may have changed. Be sure to check with the local sponsoring organization for a revised schedule.

triangle fire: 100 years on and never more relevant

March 25 was the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire, a seminal moment in the history of the American labour movement. I was surprised that the date received as much recognition as it did, with stories about the fire and the anniversary commemorations making the rounds everywhere I looked. That was good to see, but unfortunately few of those stories spelled out why the anniversary is so painfully relevant to our present world.

In North America, laws protecting workers' safety have been systematically weakened and dismantled over the last 30 years. For migrant workers and undocumented people, such laws barely exist, as was the case when a scaffold collapsed at a Toronto construction site on Christmas Eve two years ago, killing four men and seriously injuring a fifth. Elsewhere in the world - where most of the goods we buy are produced - such laws are still a revolution away. Below, I'm posting a short film about the Triangle Fire that makes one such connection.

A couple of years back, I read an excellent book about the Triangle fire, which I highly recommend to readers with an interest in social history: Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle.

It is without a doubt one of the best social histories I've read.

The Triangle factory fire was a microcosm through which to see an entire era, and Von Drehle is an expert at teasing out the many threads that comprise it: labour, urban immigrant life, the progressive movement, the women's movement, machine city government, corruption, reformers. He brings you mini-histories of each, always enough to imbue context, but never so much that you drown in information. This must be incredibly difficult to do, as any one of those topics is very complex, easily supporting the many volumes of books and hours of documentaries made about them.

. . . In this way, through lively, extremely readable digressions, Von Drehle sketches the background each theme. He includes wonderful mini-biographies of the workers, bosses, organizers, politicians, lawyers, and reformers who comprise the Triangle story.

This is a worn cliche to use about a history, but it's the best way to express it: the whole era comes alive.

In some of the media attention to the anniversary of the fire, there has been recognition of the role of one particular activist in that labour struggle: Clara Lemlich. Jim Dwyer, one of my favourite New York writers, has a very good column about Lemlich here, and there's an excellent piece on the AFL-CIO website: "The Uprising of 20,000 and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire". (The Von Drehle book is referenced as a source.)

Lemlich was a fighter to her dying day, and she richly deserves this recognition, but the AFL-CIO page makes it clear: one person does not create change for workers. Only the people, united - only a movement - creates change. In the US, find out what you can do to support the workers' movement unfolding in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and other states, by building support for the national labour event taking place on April 4: We Are One. In Canada, the best thing you can do right now to support working people is to help get rid of the Harper government.

Thanks to David H for the short doc, and to Amy for Dwyer's column, and for our ongoing conversation that reminded me of the terrific book.

herbert's final: losing our way

I just want to re-run Bob Herbert's last column for The New York Times. Thank you, Mr. Herbert, for being a steadfast voice for working people and for justice.

With Herbert's exit and Frank Rich's departure a few weeks ago, only Paul Krugman remains as a progressive voice in the supposedly-but-not-really-liberal paper. That is not to say that progressive people don't still write for the Times, but in the opinion department, any pretense of balance has been abandoned. It will be interesting to see who is hired or promoted to columnist now.

Herbert, "Losing Our Way":

So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.

Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.

Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago. Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone.

The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.

Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them is grim. Since there is just one job available for every five individuals looking for work, four of the five are out of luck. Instead of a land of opportunity, the U.S. is increasingly becoming a place of limited expectations. A college professor in Washington told me this week that graduates from his program were finding jobs, but they were not making very much money, certainly not enough to think about raising a family.

There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

Americans behave as if this is somehow normal or acceptable. It shouldn’t be, and didn’t used to be. Through much of the post-World War II era, income distribution was far more equitable, with the top 10 percent of families accounting for just a third of average income growth, and the bottom 90 percent receiving two-thirds. That seems like ancient history now.

The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent.

This inequality, in which an enormous segment of the population struggles while the fortunate few ride the gravy train, is a world-class recipe for social unrest. Downward mobility is an ever-shortening fuse leading to profound consequences.

A stark example of the fundamental unfairness that is now so widespread was in The New York Times on Friday under the headline: “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether.” Despite profits of $14.2 billion — $5.1 billion from its operations in the United States — General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year.

As The Times’s David Kocieniewski reported, “Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”

G.E. is the nation’s largest corporation. Its chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is the leader of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. You can understand how ordinary workers might look at this cozy corporate-government arrangement and conclude that it is not fully committed to the best interests of working people.

Overwhelming imbalances in wealth and income inevitably result in enormous imbalances of political power. So the corporations and the very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed. The wars never end. And nation-building never gets a foothold here at home.

New ideas and new leadership have seldom been more urgently needed.

•

This is my last column for The New York Times after an exhilarating, nearly 18-year run. I’m off to write a book and expand my efforts on behalf of working people, the poor and others who are struggling in our society. My thanks to all the readers who have been so kind to me over the years. [He includes his email address.]

geraldine ferraro, 1935-2011

Geraldine A. Ferraro, the first woman nominated for national office by a major US political party, is gone. She was 75 and had suffered from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, for 12 years.

In one of the shoeboxes that house the archives of my life, there is a letter from Ms. Ferraro, or at least from her campaign office. I had written a fan letter and received a lovely reply - not a form letter, a personalized recognition of my appreciation. Ferraro was a trailblazer, and in 1984, her campaign meant a lot to me.

Her New York Times obituary is here.

If you are wondering who was the first woman to run for national office in the United States, that would be Victoria Woodhull, who ran for President in 1872. Her running mate was Frederick Douglass.

george galloway: i don't believe we should punish people for having a dictatorship they didn't elect and can't get rid of

Two weeks ago, at Toronto's Trinity St. Paul Centre, George Galloway spoke about the grassroots revolutions in the Arab world, and the intervention or interference of Western nations. I couldn't be there, so I'm grateful for YouTube and activists with video cameras.

The whole talk is about 26 minutes (parts 1 and 2), and well worth your time. In parts 3, 4, and 5, Galloway responds to some hecklers with his usual arsenal of facts, wit and aplomb. And for a bonus, courtesy of Allan, there is Galloway discussing Libya on the UK's Sky News on March 19.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Libya: