Or, “How to Rebuild a Political Party, in as Few Words as Possible.”

As the rhetoric leading up to this weekend’s Liberal convention in Ottawa begins in earnest I must—I simply must—say my piece.

I am a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party of Canada. I joined… gee I don’t know, back when what’s his name with the squeaky voice beat out Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae for the party leadership. I joined because I was interested in having a say in who would replace Jean Chretien or Paul Martin or however you want to look at it. At any rate, I’ve stuck it out for exactly that reason: because I want to have a say in the party going forward but as the outlook turns grimmer every year I’m beginning to wonder if I can get my money back.

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Rob Ford lumbered into political office on the power of a lot of pretty pathetic promises. I didn’t vote for him but a lot of people did. Granted, the choices were miserable so it’s hard to blame everyone.

Nonetheless, one of the first things that Mayor Ford did upon taking office was to scrap the city’s Vehicle Registration Tax. A $60 charge for Toronto residents which appeared when you renewed your license plate sticker. When we lived in Toronto last year and I had to renew my plates I dutifully paid my $60. The fee went directly to pay for transportation infrastructure, something the city sorely needs to improve and, honestly, I pay enough taxes but I gritted my teeth and forked over the dough. I wanted to drive my car in an already congested city, I guess I gotta pay.

But of the few things Ford campaigned on eliminating the Vehicle Registration Tax was one of them and so it was the first to go. The elimination of the tax, Ford himself admitted, would cost the city about $64 million in lost revenue but would mean money back in the pockets of Toronto’s tax-payers and they could spend it however they wanted. Hilarious, given yesterday’s budget announcement.

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I’ve written about copyright several times before. Now I write more.

The Harper Government, now in a substantially more powerful majority position in the House of Commons, are poised to reintroduce the copyright legislation that died on the table last May. According to Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, the bill will be introduced in the exact same form it was left in before the election.

This is a problem.

To be fair, the most recent incarnation of the Conservative’s copyright reform has been, by far, the most balanced we’ve seen out of that government. They’ve tried before, several times, to introduce copyright reform legislation and always met with an enormous backlash of public opinion. After the latest bill was introduced Industry Minister Tony Clement made a concerted and very public effort to consult with groups that had expressed concern and hear them out. He heard them out and it seemed that he was really listening, but then the election was called, the writ dropped, and the bill met an untimely death.

The problem with the bill being reintroduced in the form it was last left in is that there were glaring—enormous(!)—issues with that bill. Through concerted consultation Mr. Clement discovered these issues. But this time around, according to the Harper Government, no consultations will be made.

In other words, they know the bill is broken, their previous consultations told them so, but they aren’t fixing a thing. Not a thing. Nothing changed or reworded or rejigged after all those consultations. Which really makes you wonder if it wasn’t all just window dressing from a government that, as a minority, really didn’t have a choice. They acted to appease; when push comes to shove, they don’t have to act anymore.

So the bill is broken. While it’s protections are, for the most part, fair and reasonable, the “digital locks” provision which has been in the legislation since the beginning is a fatal flaw.

To put it simply, despite any protections and provisions for consumers that exist in the law, if a piece of media is protected by a so-called digital lock, all consumer rights are null and void.

However, it gets much worse. In the midst of the Conservative’s last push for copyright reform cables released by Wikileaks reveal that the Harper Government actually lobbied to be put on a U.S. copyright watch list. Yes, if you can believe that. The Harper Government actually requested that we be put on an American copyright watch list—a list of prolific copyright violaters—that includes countries like China and Russia. We are on that list, at the request of the Harper Government, under the assumption that public pressure from the Americans would perhaps help pass the legislation through to law. Our government, lobbying a foreign government, to put pressure on our citizens. It seems pretty unreal.

So, there is a lot to worry about. We have a bad bill coming down the pipe. One that was introduced before, protested against strongly, and despite consultation was not amended in any form. And we have a government that, if the cables indicate anything, will do whatever it takes to push through this reform into law. For what it’s worth, both the Liberals and the New Democrats were opposed to the legislation the last time around. There’s also an enormous, well-organized protest movement that mobilized in the past and remains very active and energized. So, if nothing else, we can at least hope that the passage of this bill won’t exactly go quietly.

It wasn’t what I expected to hear as I stepped out onto the deck, blinking back the blinding Alberta sun.

“Jack Layton is dead.”

Maria and I spent the last week, from Friday until this past Saturday, out in Alberta seeing family. I spent the weekend that Jack died whipping around a lake on a Seadoo, sitting around the fire, and enjoying the company of Maria’s Albertan relations. A world away from our place here in Cambridge, from work (for Maria), and, in the way that only a good vacation can make you feel, from reality.

In that context—the context of being away from everything—news of Jack Layton’s dead was even more of a shock.

We were starved for information. On Monday afternoon we got on the road again, on our way to Maria’s grandparent’s bed and breakfast in Three Hills, Alberta, and we searched in frustration for the local CBC station. When we finally found it we listened, and listened. It became clear, quickly, that it was all too real. That the cancer must’ve been far worse than it appeared to be even at Jack’s last press conference, even when he stepped back from the helm, temporarily. But it had come so quickly, without warning, and it seemed to be impossible that Jack was really gone. Like that.

Jack Layton, who had led the New Democrats to mind-bogglingly incredible new heights. Who had taken Quebec by storm. Who had achieve what would have been nearly unthinkable even a year ago.

The thing that amazes me most about all the tributes that have been pouring in for Jack over the past week is the amount of people saying the same thing. Jack Layton was the reason why I first voted. Jack Layton was the reason I became interested in politics.

And the funny thing is, it’s true for me too.

It was in January 2003 and I must’ve been home one weekend from university; the start of the second semester of my first year. I remember clearly watching the NDP Leadership Convention on TV. It was the first political thing I ever did.

Jack Layton’s leaves behind a pretty substantial legacy. He led his party to historic highs, he inspired Canadians—especially, I think, young people and the marginalized—to become  interested in politics, and he was a genuine and kind person in the midst of politics.

But if the gossip out of yesterday’s Liberal caucus meetings have any substance behind them (and these things normally do) then Jack’s legacy may about to be, in the near future, even more incredible. A weakened Liberal Party merging with the NDP would not see the Liberals coming out on top, the New Democrats would lead. Canada’s “natural governing party” forced to merge with the left to survive, because of Jack. Now, imagine that legacy.

Wait a second here. Remind me, what is the goal of federalist politics?

See because I thought—and maybe I’m wildly(!) naive—that the goal of the federalists was the keep the country together and, like any good club, to increase their membership.

So when a former separatist, or, for sanity’s sake let’s say a former separatist party member, decides to come on over to your side shouldn’t that be a cause for celebration? Shouldn’t there be some kind of ringing of the bells, a shower of champagne spraying out of a bottle of Dom Perignon shaken up by none other than Brian Mulroney himself? While the ghost of Pierre Trudeau dances a proper newfie jig.

All I’m saying is that I don’t get it. This whole response to interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel and her tenuous links to separatist parties.

Even  if she did vote for the Bloc Quebecois at some point—which she didn’t(!)—what is she going to do, tear the country apart as interim leader of the official opposition? Does a person’s lackluster political past mean they can never Reform their ways? There are Conservatives, Denis Lebel I’m looking at you, who admit to being “active” members of the BQ in the past. Active. And, my goodness, Stockwell Day once showed up to a presser in a wet suit and we forgave him enough to let him be President of the Treasury Board! Turmel didn’t even vote for the Bloc!

She’s been clear: she’s not a separatist, so let’s leave it at that. Wait, no, let’s not. Let’s celebrate. Because the whole point of a united Canada, like I’ve been saying, is that we need to get all excited-like about our country, and about every time someone decides that they no longer want a geo-political divorce. Hey, Canada, we’re stayin’ together… doin’ it for the kids. Bravo!

Or, “The Real Reason We Left T.O.”.

When it comes up in conversation, Maria and I never shy again from a good Rob Ford joke. We tell people that he’s the real reason why we left Toronto, and some of the time, it feels very much like the truth.

Although they said it couldn’t be done, although they said he’d need the support of council—which he’d never get—and the support of the people of Toronto—which he’d never have enough of—he’s doing it. Rob Ford is nearly single-handedly dismantling the City of Toronto.

He’s blown through the city’s surpluses created by Mayor Miller, he’s repealed taxes and fees which are going to have to be replaced with funding cuts, he’s declared war on the city’s social services and programming, and he’s flipping the bird not just to cyclists and pedestrians, but to motorists too. What’s more, Doug Ford, the mayor’s equally erudite brother, claims to have never heard of Margaret Atwood, one of this country’s most celebrated authors, after she spoke out against Ford’s earlier comments about closing Toronto libraries. That is, Doug Ford thinks that since there are more libraries than Tim Horton’s stores in his Etobicoke neighbourhood, some of those libraries have got to go.

What the Fords are doing to Toronto is not surprising, I don’t think, to anyone. If anything what’s surprising is how easily they’re getting it all done. With the Fords in charge, politics in Toronto feels more like schoolyard wheeling-and-dealing than it does governance of the country’s most populated city.

But,  if anything, Rob Ford’s alleged middle finger salute and his brothers comments about Margaret Atwood aren’t atypical but are becoming the norm. That’s because politics in Toronto, and elsewhere, are seeing the rise of a new kind of anti-intellectualism. A second coming of the Dark Ages.

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Well, look who it is…

It’s been over a month since this site has last seen any activity and there are good reasons why. First of all, my wife Maria and I moved. From Toronto to Cambridge. Moving is busy business and so while we packed, moved, unpacked, and got settled in to our new house this site took a bit of a back seat. Now that we’re here, and I feel like I can finally breathe, I thought it was time to head back out into the blogosphere. Pee on my little corner of the Internet to remind y’all that I’m still here. Eww, that was a gross analogy. Moving right along…

Before our big move though, we encountered some other challenges which not only hampered my ability to update this blog but threatened the very core of our Canadian democratic process—or, at least, my observation of it. Our Internet was disconnected. A full month before our scheduled “move date” (when we were set to move from Toronto to Cambridge) our Internet Service Provider. During the election. So, while one of the most historic elections in this country’s history unfolded we were forced to watch it with a good old pair of rabbit ears. No Twitter. No Facebook. And I couldn’t even blog the next day. We were totally cut off, and it was painful.

So there was the no Internet thing, and then the moving thing, and since we’ve moved, the Report Cards thing and it’s all been enough to keep me away from this site for a good solid month. But now that I’m back into the swing of things, it’s time to start writing again. And what better place to begin than posting a random, catch-up article talking about everything I missed and how I wish I could’ve written about it.

Expect more though, and expect an expanded focus. Even before our move to Cambridge I worked to become involved in our new community, and I love where we live. Expect more about Cambridge, Waterloo Region, and this local community. There’s a lot going on right now in the Region, among other things, the hotly debated issue of Rapid Transit, so there’s a lot to write about. And, expect more reviews of movies, television shows, and music. With my busy 2-hour-a-day commute I didn’t have much time to write about all of the things I was interested in but now, with more time in the day, I can write not only more often, but about more things. I look forward to that.

For now, thanks for stopping by again. And, if there’s any doubt about what we’ve been up to please see the picture above. That’s 13 bags of yard waste: trees trimmed, gardens dug, and a lot of help from our families and friends.