Prolonging the error

A Canadian Press report in the June 29, 2016 issue of the Toronto Star claims that the First Nations residential schools were designed to "take the Indian out of the child." Neither CP nor the Star checked their facts. It's irresponsible to place non-attributable words in quotation marks.

No authoritative Canadian ever uttered that statement. Leading the charge was former prime minister Stephen Harper who voiced it in the House of Commons, and the agony of error more recently prolonged by Ontario Premier Elizabeth Wynne.

What to do when the tide of media and political error runs high? Let's try the whole truth.

From"The legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott" by Mark Abley: "The quotation can be traced back to a somewhat different statement uttered by a high-ranking officer in the U.S. Army, Richard Henry Pratt, the nineteenth-century superintendent of a residential school in Pennsylvania: All the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."

Not a Canadian in sight, but why spoil a good story?

The deficit fetish

Letter to the Toronto Star, unpublished.

Re Trudeau touts red ink as road to prosperity, Aug. 28 (2015):

In reaction to Justin Trudeau's plan to revive the economy, Thomas Mulcair asked, "Why do you feel the need to be an even greater deficit hawk than the prime minister?"  Mr. Mulcair has forgotten his mentor, Tommy Douglas.

When asked how he would finance his war on social wrongs, such as poverty, Douglas referred to 1939. In the  Great Depression, Canada got into the Second World War. There were means to fight a war then and there are means to fight a war now, Douglas contended.

With deficit financing and borrowing from Canadians themselves through war bonds, Canada fought the war and emerged a world power To replace our decaying infrastructure, deficit financing is a proper decision.

As for Stephen Harper, he has left the stage on this issue, last seen wandering tearfully around an oil patch.

The Dis-Order of Canada

Letter to the National Post, April 23, 2015

Stephen Harper intends to dumb down the Order of Canada (Order of Canada reform in budget, Apr 23). The Prime Minister is correct in his belief that certain sectors of society are under-represented such as discredited Conservative senators and inhabitants of the yahoo element. The reported feeling is that there is too much Margaret Atwood and too little Don Cherry among Order recipients.

By coincidence, elsewhere in today's National Post (Where culture wars were worth fighting), we read, "A TV-ready image is valued considerably more than any literary pedigree . . . People today go to pundit school. They learn how to be on TV as a pundit, but they don't have any substance. Intelligence has been replaced by volume."

Honours are not intended to be brought "closer to the people," as Harper asserts. Their purpose is to recognize quality achievements to which we should all aspire. Is it time to bid farewell the nobility of the Order of Canada?

A new embassy in Israel

Israel is the sole nation whose purported capital city, Jerusalem, no government in the world recognizes as such. In April 1979, Opposition Leader Joe Clark announced before the Canada-Israel Committee in Toronto that, should he become Prime Minister, Canada would move its embassy to Jerusalem.

"Next year in Jerusalem," he said, "is a Jewish prayer which we intend to make a Canadian reality." In June of the same year, newly-elected Prime Minister Clark affirmed his election promise. Eighteen days later, he said the decision would be deferred "until the status of Jerusalem is clarified within a comprehensive agreement between Israel and her Arab neighbours." That has yet to happen.

This month, Stephen Harper announced the construction of a new Israeli embassy in Tel Aviv. Not even our Israel-obsessed Prime Minister dares risk the opposition that greeted Clark's error.

On occasion, reality does have its effect.

International petulance

Prime Minster Harper insists on parading his embarrassing incompetence on the world stage.  

Some months ago, his petulance lost him an opportunity to speak on Ukrainian human rights with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  At the recent Americas Summit, while President Obama discussed an alliance with Raul Castro, Harper refused to speak to the Cuban President. 

With such adolescent behaviour the PM forfeited face-to-face opportunities to advocate the human rights he claims to espouse. To whom does he speak of human rights, if not the offenders?  

Harper has made a career nullifying Canada's international stature. He has lowered our status as renown peacemaker.