08 November 1, 2008 - ObserverXtra

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12 | OPINION Published Saturdays since 1996 by Cathedral Communications Inc. Publications Mail Agreement No | 1004840 WOOLWICH OBSERVER 20-B Arthur Street North, Elmira, Ontario, Canada N3B 1Z9 Phone: 519.669.5790 Toll Free: 1.888.966.5942 Fax: 519.669.5753 CIRCULATION The Observer is an audited controlled circulation publication. Canadian Media Circulation Audit calculates and prepares The Observer circulation reports | 14,942. DELIVERY Delivery concerns can be addressed by contacting our office during office hours or by visiting www.ObserverXtra.com and send us a message. SUBSCRIPTIONS Annual subscriptions are available at a rate of $37.10 (includes GST) for delivery within Canada. Contact the office or email sales@woolwichobserver.com for further details. All issues from 2006 on are available online free of charge. ASSOCIATIONS The Observer is a member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association [OCNA], Canadian Community Newspaper Association [CCNA], Ontario Press Council, and The Greater KW Chamber of Commerce. LETTER POLICY The Observer welcomes letters to the editor on topics of interest to our readers. Letters may be edited for brevity, grammar, and legal considerations. All letters must be signed and contain the writer’s full name and telephone number for verification purposes. Unsigned or anonymous letters will not be considered for publication. If you have a legitimate concern and cannot sign your name to a letter, please contact the editor to discuss alternative means of resolving the issue. This newspaper declines announcements, poetry and thank-you letters in the opinion section. Maximum suggested length is 500 words. PRESS COMPLAINTS General Inquiry | EXT 100 info@woolwichobserver.com Joe Merlihan, Publisher | EXT 107 jmerlihan@woolwichobserver.com Steve Kannon, Editor | EXT 103 skannon@woolwichobserver.com Joni Miltenburg, Reporter | EXT 101 jmiltenburg@woolwichobserver.com Marc Miquel Helsen, Reporter | EXT 102 mmhelsen@woolwichobserver.com Donna Rudy, Sales Manager | EXT 104 drudy@woolwichobserver.com Pat Merlihan, Production Mgr | EXT 105 pmerlihan@woolwichobserver.com Matthew French, Production | EXT 108 mfrench@woolwichobserver.com Lindsay Lehman, Production | EXT 108 llehman@woolwichobserver.com www.ObserverXtra.com The Observer is a member of the Ontario Press Council which considers complaints against member newspapers. For more information about the Press Council contact www.ontpress.com. COPYRIGHT The entire contents of The Observer and online edition are protected by copyright. No portion thereof is to be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the specific permission of the publisher. Reproduction rights can be obtained from AC- CESS Copyright located at 1 Yonge St., 1900, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5 FAX: 416.868.1621 »CARTOON »EDITORIAL »VERBATIM »THE MONITOR The Observer | Saturday, November 01, 2008 Now’s the time for cutting back Regional Coun. Tom Galloway is in the right track when he talks about cutting expenditures in the 2009 budget, now under discussion. Galloway chairs council’s finance committee; he’s well placed to take the lead on austerity measures. Currently talking about a 3.84-per-cent jump in the base budget, he and his fellow councillors should be looking to get that closer to zero. That would show the region is serious about the economic downturn that is hitting ratepayers, who are in no position to watch governments of any level add to their expenses simply because we’re forced to pay taxes. Yes, the region is facing increased costs, especially on the energy front, but that’s true of everybody. Belts will be worn tighter this year, and governments should lead by example. That will mean cutting some programs, delaying some purchases and pushing back capital projects wherever possible. The same measures must be undertaken in Woolwich and Wellesley as the townships begin the process of planning their own 2009 budgets. “I think it’s going to be a busy, busy winter. The shelter numbers are very high for this time of year.” Anne Tinker of The Bridges homeless shelter on the economic downturn The municipal situation is even worse this year thanks to the skewed system of property assessment we’re saddled with. With both the federal and provincial governments facing deficits, neither is likely to have any new cash to help municipalities. Increases of any kind are generally unwanted. Increases above inflation demand some explanation, especially given that many ratepayers aren’t seeing commensurate pay increases – at the end of the day, factoring in all the government taxes, fees and charges, most of us are going to have less in our wallets. In some ways, however, we’re our own worst enemies. We’re placing an ever-increasing demand for services on our governments, particularly frontline governments at the township and regional levels. We can’t have it both ways: more services, lower taxes. It’s one or the other. Some will argue that they don’t want more services and that they are, in fact, getting precious little bang for their buck as it now stands. For these people, tax increases of any kind are particularly galling. If population growth is driving new expenditures – for roads and sewers, for instance – then let the new arrivals foot the bill, some will argue. That reasoning leads us to the slippery slope of user fees, the favourite route of governments too cowardly to raise taxes or cut services. This is precisely the option being explored at the provincial level as the McGuinty government looks to tackle the deficit without breaking its promise to freeze taxes. However, those revenues come from one source: us. Whether income tax goes up by $10 or you pay an extra $10 when you renew your driver’s licence, you’re still out $10. Of course, if you don’t drive – that is, you’re not a “user” – then you’re ahead of the game … until you’re faced with a fee for something else. And you will be. In the face of growing expectations – we always want more – at some point our elected officials have to draw a line, to decide what’s essential and what’s not. There will never be enough money to meet every demand; it’s better to start applying the brakes slowly rather than jam them on when the inevitable wall appears. A national poll this week revealed 90% of Canadians say they would be proud if their province took the lead in reducing poverty; 88% want Canada to be a leader in poverty reduction; and 77% say a recession is all the more reason to act now. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
The Observer | Saturday, November 01, 2008 OPINION | 13 »HARD TALK | RAFE MAIR Notes on privilege, luck and how nations pull apart This is, I warn you, a rambler done on board a cruise ship. As I take in the evening from our neat, little veranda, I ask myself, what the hell am I doing here? Literally billions in the world unable to feed themselves and I’m sitting beside the love of my life complaining because it’s a formal night and I have to wear a tux. At dinner, I get into a discussion about affirmative action and am forced to admit that no one got more out of affirmative action than I. Born into a well-off family, partially educated in a private school, permitted to get away with failing second year arts due to a preference for golf, bridge and women – not necessarily in that order – then out into a workplace in which my father knew everyone who was worth knowing. That I abandoned my “class” and the “establishment” (other than membership in the Vancouver Club) and that I earned my living fighting it, doesn’t derogate from the fact that my very future was due to the affirmative action and helpful network my birth gave me. While I’m not about to take a vow of poverty complete with sackcloth and ashes, I must ask who the hell am I, or any other fortunate people, to criticize universities and other en- »INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS | GWYNNE DYER Perfidious Albion continues to stymie Chagos Islanders For arrogance, hypocrisy and sheer nastiness, few organizations in the world rival the British Foreign Office. Exhibit A in the case against it, for the past decade, has been its marathon legal struggle to deny the former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands their rights. Last week, it cheated them again. The Chagos Islands, a group of seven atolls in the middle of the Indian Ocean, were settled in the late 18th century by slaves who were brought there by the French to work in copra plantations. Britain took the islands from France in 1814, but little changed for the descendants of the original African and South Indian settlers, by now a blended, French-speaking population, until 1967 – when Britain suddenly expelled them. All of them. The islands now have no permanent population. The islands have many thousands of temporary residents, though, all of them working for the U.S. armed forces except for a few British service personnel. The Chagossians were deported from their homeland to make room for a giant base from which the U.S. Air Force could dominate the entire Indian Ocean, and part of the deal was that there should be no local inhabitants to complicate matters. Most of the Chagossians were sim- tities who make placements or jobs available to those industrious people focused on bettering themselves but who were not born as lucky as I was? As I worked out on my daily dose of the hated treadmill, I marveled at how healthy I am, considering the fact that my Amex card, in all probability, has a better expiry date than I do. This made me remember that I was doubly lucky because I always was, and still am, able to work, flat out, doing what I like the best: broadcasting and writing. In fact, for almost my entire lifetime, I have always looked forward to Monday. Not many can say that. A couple of months ago, I was told that I should retire, or at least take it a bit easier, and join a group which regularly meets for coffee at a local Starbucks, to solve the problems of the world. I found myself almost screaming no, no! That’s for old men! Next thing, I’ll be playing checkers in the mall! I can’t pass that Starbucks now without quickening my pace lest an arm reach out and yank me aboard. I finished an interesting book today called Four Nations by Frank Welsh. It’s the political history of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Not a bad book, but too short to do the job properly. Somehow, I was struck by the fact that if Pitt the Younger did not have an older brother, Pitt the elder, alive when his father, the great ply dumped in Mauritius, where they lived in poverty and squalor, but some eventually made their way to England. As they got some education, they started demanding to be sent home, but the British government stonewalled. So the long struggle in the British courts began – and it ended in the House of Lords last week with a triumph for injustice, cynicism and realpolitik. Nobody in Britain now defends what was done to the Chagossians, not even Foreign Secretary David Milliband. “It is appropriate on this day,” he said, “that I should repeat the government’s regret at the way the resettlement of the Chagossians was carried out in the 1960s and 1970s and at the hardship that followed for some of them. We do not seek to justify those actions and do not seek to excuse the conduct of an earlier generation.” Unfortunately, he does not seek to make restitution for it, either. On the contrary, the Foreign Office has waged a bitter struggle through the British courts to deny the Chagossians the right to go home. It lost the first round when the British High Court ruled in 2000 that they could return to the islands although not to the specific atoll, Diego Garcia, on which the Americans had their air base, and that ruling might have been allowed to stand if 9/11 hadn’t happened. It did happen, however, and the subsequent mania about security made Earl of Chatham, died he would have been in the House of Lords and thus very unlikely to have been prime minister during the critical early years of Napoleon. Likewise, if the Duke of Marlborough had not married Consuela Vanderbilt, who was forced into the match, and who presented him with a son, Winston Churchill would have become the duke and for all practical purposes denied the leadership which saved the world from Hitler and the Nazis. How often it is that upon such trivialities our salvation rests. As I read about how Southern Ireland slowly gained its independence from the UK, I thought of Quebec. It’s true that, the FLQ excepted, there has been little violence in Quebec, whereas it was endemic to Irish politics. But the part that interested me most was the negotiation process after World War I where England’s commitment was to grant more and more home rule to Ireland which would still be ruled by the British king. Here’s where it gets eerie. As matters progress, England begrudgingly yields power to Dublin which, after a short period, demands more. This continues to where Ireland is essentially independent, except it stays in the empire and owes its allegiance to George V. Sort of like “sovereignty-association.” These negotiations, led for the Irish by Arthur Griffith and Michael Col- the British and American authorities determined to keep the islands uninhabited. So in 2004 the British government issued “Orders in Council” – essentially an exercise of the royal prerogative that sets aside court judgments – renewing the ban on anybody returning to the Chagos islands. The Chagossians went back to court, and in 2007 seven judges of the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that the use of Orders in Council was invalid. This meant that the islanders could rely on the 2000 High Court judgment and demand to be returned to their homeland, so the Foreign Office appealed once again, this time to the highest court of all. And last week the House of Lords Appeal Committee decided, by a three-to-two majority, that the government did indeed have the right to ignore the islanders’ wishes. Lord Hoffman, who wrote the majority opinion, said that there were wider interests to be considered than those of the islanders, and that “Her Majesty in Council is therefore entitled to legislate for a colony in the interests of the United Kingdom.” He also said that the government was entitled to take into account the interest of its ally, the United States – which brings us to the heart of the matter. The U.S.-UK agreement that created the Diego Garcia base in 1966 gave each party a veto on who is allowed on the islands, and it is the United lins, and settled on the basis that Ireland would remain in the empire and nominally under the king, were rejected by Sinn Fein and Eamon De Valera who wanted a complete break or nothing. Collins and Griffith knew that with independence, even with the king as nominally head of state, the road to complete independence was now past the point of no return. They knew that soon the issue of the king wouldn’t matter anymore and Ireland would become a republic, just as fruit, sooner or later, falls from the tree. And so it proved. I argue that Premier Jean Charest is the patient Michael Collins of Quebec and the Bloc and Parti Quebecois represent the De Valera impatience. Think on this, for it’s a little unsettling to look at what’s happening in Quebec: A national assembly rather than a legislature. Their own flag which, when flown by the Quebec government, takes precedence over the Canadian flag, and is flown exclusively over Quebec offices overseas. Status as a “nation” in international organizations. A continuous appeal for not only more money, but more powers leading to what Joe Clark so accurately calls “asymmetrical federalism,” the new phrase for the sovereignty association Rene Levesque wanted. See MAIR »14 States which has been exercising its veto behind the scenes throughout this whole ugly episode. Indeed, one of the dissenting judges, Lord Bingham, referred to “highly imaginative letters written by American officials” that had been placed before the court, although he personally doubted that Osama bin Laden was planning any attacks in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The French used to refer to Britain as “Perfidious Albion,” and the British Foreign Office is indeed steeped in perfidy. But of late it has also learned servility, and it is the latter attribute that is driving its current behaviour. Diego Garcia is an American base, and it is really the U.S. State Department that is denying the Chagossians the right to go home. The Chagossians can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, but no American administration would pay any attention to its rulings. They can wait for the U.S.-UK agreement to expire in 2016 (but it is renewable for another 20 years). So what can they do? The best hope for the Chagossians is a braver British foreign secretary than David Milliband, because the United States is hiding behind Britain in this affair. Washington would never use its veto against the Chagossians openly, and it probably wouldn’t punish Britain severely for defying it either. All it would take is some guts in London.
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