A Sordid Little Affair

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
  - George Orwell

The break-in at the Watergate Hotel in 1972 was not necessarily a big deal.  One political party spying on another prior to an election was but a sordid little affair.  That was until there appeared the spectre of a cover-up after the fact.  Who was behind it all?  Was it directed by the White House?  If so, who in the President’s office knew about it?  The initial affair became irrelevant.  Rumours and hints begat a Special Prosecutor.  A White House staffer started to talk.  The President’s two main advisors resigned.  Then came more revelations and denials. Do any of you remember Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech?  And everything ended when a sitting President of the United States was forced to resign, something that had never happened before or since. It was undoubtedly the biggest scandal to ever hit Washington. All because of a sordid little break-in at the Watergate Hotel.

Another sordid little affair, this time involving improper expense claims by a Canadian Senator, is now demanding our attention.  And as with Watergate, the revelations of wrong-doing now go far beyond the two or three Senators originally implicated.  The focus of the scandal has now shifted from the Senate to the Prime Minister’s office.  The PM’s Chief of Staff has already been forced to resign.  And the PM keeps on repeating his version of the “I am not a crook” theme. 

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
  - Claud Cockburn

What finally got at the truth in the Watergate case was when the Special Prosecutor got the courts involved and people had to start answering under oath.  Although lies were still made and facts not revealed, eventually enough of the truth came out to identify those responsible for the cover-up.  And this in turn, eventually led to the President himself.  And in my opinion, this is what must happen in Canada.  However, it will be harder to accomplish in our form of government.  With all power in the hands on the PM, who may or may not be implicated, there is no one else to call in a special prosecutor or convene a judicial inquiry.  Nor does it seem that there is any way of getting in front of the courts unless a criminal indictment or a civil suit is brought forth.  The only one who may raise a civil case is probably Senator Mike Duffy, but I suspect that he isn’t too keen about the idea since he does not know who the defendants might be or what they may throw back at him.  So the only avenue left would be a criminal matter.  The RCMP seems to be heading that way with the recent disclosure of their Information to Obtain (ITO).  The most likely target for this is probably Nigel Wright.  They may also include Senator Duffy.  This would be a good thing no matter the outcome of these court cases.  This would at least force people to answer under oath and may get answers much closer to the truth than we have now.

For those of you who like conspiracy theories, how’s this for a scenario.  The PM and his staff, in order to get his plans for Senate reform moving (it has been sitting in limbo for two years), come up with a scheme to embarrass a few Senators and make the whole Senate look bad.  Question some Senators’ expanse claims because the public thinks only about money matters.  Everything is to be done quickly and quietly except for controlled disclosures.  And then things start to go wrong.  Someone comes into information they were not supposed to.  One of the Senators baulks at playing along.  He doesn’t want to be out of pocket.  And then things went even more horribly wrong.  Think about it.  The Watergate break-in was only supposed to get a bit of intelligence information about the opposition’s strategy.

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.
  - Dalton Camp

Short Snappers

Short Snapper postings will appear on this blog site from time to time.  They are made up of short, one paragraph observations of events or phenomena.

            The entire country, even continent, seems transfixed with the episodes of the Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford.  News coverage of his trials are carried by CNN and every news outlet in Canada daily.  On-line polls in almost every city ask what should be done with him.  My view, however, is that Rob Ford is Toronto’s problem and he must be dealt with solely by that city.

            Our beloved leader . . . er, Prime Minister, Steven Harper, has had a knack over the years of pulling something out of the hat when his government is under attack.  Often this has amounted to something quite outrageous, such as proroguing parliament.  It will be interesting to see what he offers up in the next couple of weeks to take the heat off the Senate situation and the incessant questioning of the Leader of the Opposition, Tom Mulcair.

            As you drive down the road, do you ever wonder why BMW does not put turn signals in their cars?  If they do, however, include this feature, why don’t BMW drivers use them?  Maybe it has something to do with their complicated iDrive system.  It can be quite disconcerting to drive near one of these car/drivers.

            China is once again under attack.  This time it is for actually liberalizing some of their rules.  The poor country just can’t win.  (Stay tuned for a future blog on my views of China.)

            A new platform for video games was released this week, and of course it engendered great excitement.  But did you ever think about the amount of ingenuity, imagination and talent goes into the constant development of new games and platforms?  Can you imagine how much good could result if that much ingenuity, imagination and talent were turned loose on real problems like climate change or medical research?

Lest We Forget Part 3

You know, they could be all around you.  They may live on your street or in your neighborhood.  There are two on our street and two more who were once part of the group.  You may run into them in the grocery store or the gym.  They may be sitting next to you in the beauty parlour or the bus.  Who are these strange creatures?

They are military spouses, that’s who.  And in many ways they are the ones who also need remembering on Remembrance Day.  They are the real heroines and heroes behind so many of our military personnel and veterans.  I say spouses whereas some years ago I would almost exclusively have spoken of wives.  But today there are military women who are supported by their husbands.  But whatever the gender, they all must be remembered and honoured.

We see, of course, the Silver Cross Mother every year at the Remembrance Day ceremonies, representing mothers who have lost children to war.  But we never see a Silver Cross Wife.  Most people have no idea what it is like to lose a spouse in their young years, often with a family to raise and explain why Mom or Dad is not coming home. 

But the real story is with the day by day and year by year experiences of these spouses who see a service member through an entire military career.  They start the life with optimism and enthusiasm.  Unlike the military member, there is no basic training for the spouses in their new life.  They are not told how to withstand the long absences.  They are not told how to react when they hear of death or disaster; how to tell the children why Dad or Mom can’t be there for their school graduation; how to understand what often sound like inane or stupid orders from their spouse’s senior officer; how to give birth without their husband; how to support other military spouses when they need help; how to uproot their homes every couple of years because their spouse has just received a new posting.  And they don’t tell you that you will have to do this year after year for as long as your spouse chooses to stay in their military career.      

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
  - Calvin Trillin

But the really amazing thing is that so many military spouses do all that and more.  They run the household. They cook the meals. They manage the household budget.  They pay the bills and do the shopping.  They get the kids off to school every morning and get them to bed every night.  They don’t complain (much) when the biggest snow fall of the year arrives two days after their soldier or sailor deploys for the winter or for a year.  They referee the sibling arguments.  They get everything ready for the next move and then unpack everything at the other end.  They attend the parent teacher interviews that you can’t.  They keep the small, daily disasters a secret from you when you’re away.  They don’t turn to you for help when the furnace breaks down because they know exactly what to do, or know someone who does.  They do this all by themselves because you are busy fighting terrorists or pirates or helping out in a natural disaster; because you are doing your job. And for some of them, the day comes when they have to tend to your damaged body or mind, or they have to arrange to have you buried.  They truly are heroines or heroes.  They deserve our praise because they allow your soldiers, sailors and airmen to protect your country.  So when you shake the hand of a person in military uniform, give their spouse a big hug too.

So here’s to Mary and Barb, Lynne and Verna and Pat and Monica and Bev and Marlene and Alice and Sue and Denee and John.  God bless them all and so many more.

“If the Navy had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued one.”

Numerous Navy Chief Petty Officers when I was a young officer

Lest we Forget Part 2

The following poem was sent to me by a fellow Kootenay survivor, Burt Tiffin.  Burt was a hero of the Kootenay disaster being eventually credited with saving the lives of eight men by rescuing them from the main cafeteria which was full of thick, acrid smoke. But he never got proper recognition for that deed.  Burt and I got to know each other during the writing of my book, “We are as One”.  We continued to correspond for the next couple of years until he passed away in early 2012.  He told me of the cruel fate that had been assessed him when he was forced out of the Armed Forces in 1974, five months short of being eligible for a military pension. Sounds familiar based on recent headlines.  Burt died still fighting with Veterans Affairs for adequate treatment.  So here’s to the memory of Burt Tiffin – sailor, hero, poet.

Final Quest

I hope there’s a place way up in the sky

Where sailors can pass when their end is nigh

A melancholy place where they’d lend an ear

For a friend or comrade whose memory is clear

A place where no doctor or lawyer could tread

Nor a management type would e’er be caught dead!

Just a quaint little place, kind of dark, full of smoke,

Where folk love to sing loud, and enjoy a rowdy joke.

 

There must be a place where old sailors go,

When their legs feel unsteady, and their gait kinda slow,

Where the liquor is old, and the women are young,

And songs about sailing and dying are sung.

Where you’d see all the mates you’d sailed with before,

And they’d call out your name, as you pass through the door

Who would buy you a drink if your thirst was bad,

And relate to others, “He was a good lad.”

 

Through the mist and din, you’d spot an old guy

You had not seen in years and thought he had died.

He’d nod his old head and grin ear to ear

And say, “Welcome my son.  I’m proud that you’re here!

For this is the place where true sailors come

When the battles are over and the war is all done.

They’ve come at last to be safe and alone,

From the government clerk and management clone,

Politicians and lawyers, the Feds, and the noise,

Where all hours are happy and these good ol’ boys

Can relax with a cool one and a well-deserved rest,

This is Heaven my son, ‘Your Final Quest.’”

 

Adaptation by Burt Tiffin, 27 September, 2010

Lest We Forget

With so much going on in Canada and around the world, it is hard to figure out what to blog about.  However, with November 11^th fast approaching, let’s talk about remembrance.

In my calendar, there are three remembrance dates.  There is November 11^th, the actual Remembrance Day.  Being Navy, there is also the first Sunday in May, Battle of Atlantic Sunday.  And for me and a few other survivors, there is October 23^rd, the anniversary of the explosion and fire aboard HMCS Kootenay in 1969.  That latter remembrance day is probably the most important for me.  I don’t always get to the memorial service in Halifax, but I always remember.

But let’s look at the other two remembrance days, in particular, what they remember. 

November 11^th, of course, came out of the carnage of World War 1, and the date was made to coincide with the date of the armistice of that war.  The remembrance was expanded after the Second World War to include that conflict.

The Battle of Atlantic Sunday was added to the roster of ceremonies after the Second World War to honour the Navy and Air Force veterans who fought the longest battle in any war.  Without victory in that battle, and it was a near run thing, Great Britain would have lost that war, possibly even before the United States entered it.  It was the biggest and longest battle that Canada fought during that war.

It is good to remember the man and women who participated in those wars, particularly those who sacrificed their lives.

But there is a problem when those remembrances of yesterday linger as the realities of today.  It is true of far too many Canadians that those remembrances are all that they know about our armed forces.  They still think of our army as fighting their way across North-West Europe or up the boot of Italy. And they still think about our Navy as escorting convoys across the Atlantic Ocean.  More than the people of any other country that I know, Canadians really don’t understand their armed forces in the modern world, and this has been true for most of the past one hundred years.  We remember soldiers, sailors and airmen during wars and then forget about them except on one set-aside day.  But we don’t know what they do or why.

We likely are more attuned to the army because of Afghanistan and their peacekeeping past.  And we recognize the air force because of things like the Snowbirds aerobatic team and the controversy over the F-35 acquisition.  But the Navy . . . that is another story.

“Why do we need a Navy?”  “Why do ships cost so much?  Can’t we just buy them from the Koreans?”  What does our Navy do?”  You see these sorts of questions in the press every time there is a mention of a Navy story.  What has our Navy done recently?  Just last week, one of our Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDVs) intercepted two vessels carrying drugs on their way to North America.  This was part of an operation that the RCN has been carrying out with the United States over the past several years.  Most of the operations take place in the Caribbean, but this one was on the Pacific Coast.  Canada was one of the first nations to send warships to fight pirates off the coast of Somalia.  We have had a continuing presence there for well over five years.  HMCS Charlottetown was a key component in supporting the no fly and interdiction flights over Libya during that country’s civil war to ouster Mohamar Khadafi.  Canada also sent two warships to Haiti after their tragic earthquake, and these ships provided immense help to the Haitian people in the first weeks after the tragedy. Your Navy is busy doing all kinds of things around the world.  Too bad more of us don’t recognize and support that.

By the way, the ships used during these operations were all designed and built in Canada.  In all cases, they are doing things that they were never designed to do.  But the flexibility built into them has allowed them to excel at these tasks.  Canada is bracketed by the roughest parts of the world’s two greatest oceans.  The stories of the bad weather conditions encountered by our escort corvettes and frigates during North Atlantic convoys are well known, but the North Pacific can be even more difficult to survive.  Our ships need to be rugged and seaworthy.  They have to be able to survive and work (fight) in the worst conditions.  Not many countries build frigates and destroyers that can do that.  There was a time when I was in the Navy when US Navy ships were not allowed to go north of 40⁰ in the Atlantic, which is well south of Halifax, during the winter months. We do it all the time. I have seen situations when the only ships, out of a multilateral force, that could successfully refuel at sea were Canadian ships. 

We need ships that are tough enough to meet our needs.  We need ships that are adaptable enough to undertake the unknown tasks of the future.  And yes, we do need a Navy! 

Speech from the Toilet Se . . . er Throne

There is nothing like a wonderful streak of beautiful fall weather to mess up your plans to write regular blog entries.  And that is exactly what we have had for several weeks now.  Who wants to be stuck at a computer indoors when you can be out and about doing other things like moving your outdoor furniture indoors because you know that this cannot last? As my grandmother used to say when the weather was good, dour old Scot that she was, “We’ll pay for this.”  And so, it appears, that day is approaching.  So now it is time to get serious once again and write something meaningful (I hope).

So how about a few words on the Throne Speech presented to you by our friendly government this week.  I think the most positive thing said about it was that the Governor General read it very nicely.  As for the rest, here are a few thoughts on what was, or was not, presented.

Did you notice there was nothing said about foreign policy or defence spending?

You know, I used to think the conservatives believed in the free market for their economic platform, but this no longer seems to be the case.  Witness the following.

The speech said that they were going to bring prices into line with US prices for goods and services.  I’m no economist, but I only know of two ways to accomplish this.  The first is to fix prices based on US prices.  This will, of course, skew the market significantly, but maybe not before they get themselves through the next election.  The second is to peg the dollar against the US dollar, which if events in the US get any worse, could be like handcuffing yourself to the railing of a sinking ship.  Both of these measures have been tried in the past, although admittedly when price controls were brought in during the 1970s they also included wage controls.  In both cases, the end results weren’t pretty.  And besides, they break every rule of a free market economy.

The speech also talked about forcing telecom companies to reduce roaming charges, presumably because Bay Street executives don’t like them when they go to their Muskoka cottages in the summer.  This, of course, is a weak response for people who think we pay too much for cell phone service. These responses have included attempts to lure other companies into the fray, so far with poor results.  I have tried one of the “new kids on the block”.  The service was spotty at best.  The reception was such that the phone was constantly seeking alternate sources which kept resulting in roaming charges right around our own home.  But when they started charging an extra two dollars when you paid your bill at one of their outlets, we had enough and left them. 

People think our costs for cell phone and wireless service should be the same as the US.  But Canada is not the same as the US market.  The biggest difference is in population density.  We have more land area and only ten percent of the US population.  If you examine the big US carriers, you will find that they do not, in general, serve low density areas of their country.  It probably cost about the same in infrastructure costs to serve a high density area like New York or Los Angeles, as a low density area like eastern Ontario.  But those similar costs are paid for by tens of millions of people in those areas of the US compared to less than a couple of million people in eastern Ontario.  And when you also have to serve places like the Maritime Provinces and the prairies, of course the costs in Canada are going to be higher.  We have competition in Canada among three players which is perhaps the most that can adequately serve the broad reaches and low density of the Canadian market.  Any other way of forcing lower costs is just interference in the (conservative ideal) free market.

And to top it all off, the government promises us a law requiring balanced budgets.  But it will have loopholes for years that are not good economically . . . bad years being defined by the government of course.  And by the way, what happened to the balanced, even surplus, budgets that we had by the government before the Tories?

My impression of this throne speech is that it is a trap for the party that will replace the Conservatives in 2015.  Because the skewed markets promised by this plan will have to be fixed, with some pain, at a later date.

So there are my thoughts from the throne.

What Tribe are You?

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.
  - P. J. O'Rourke

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
  - Michael Crichton

The proposed “Charter” from the PQ government in Quebec is causing quite a stir these days.  A lot of people, particularly from outside Quebec, are condemning it as being bigoted and against the Canadian Charter.  However, what has surprised me over the last few days are the number of writers who have come to the defence of Quebec’s proposed Charter, particularly here in Ottawa. 
The most telling of these was an article by a journalist named Dave Brown in the Ottawa Citizen.  He praised the Charter as a means of doing away with “tribalism” which he said was the cause of so many conflicts in the world.  He quoted a Canadian psychiatrist and diplomat, now dead, named Chisholm who had been a significant advocate of internationalism, the movement to set up one super international government to do away with future wars.  A nice thought if you can do it, but would we really just like to be considered as “earthlings”?

It’s true that you can pin a lot on “tribalism”.  You can blame it for bigotry, civil strife, civil war and war between countries.  But you can also attribute to it pride, a sense of belonging and nation building. 

But let’s go back to the Charter itself.  The premise behind it is really “if they only were like us,” meaning just like the advocates of the Charter.  If they only dressed like us, acted like us, thought like us, all would be well.  The “just like us” crowd in Quebec are the “pur laine”, old French speaking, conservative thinking people of Quebec.  There is nothing “progressive” in this Charter. 

The advocates of the Charter outside Quebec bear names like Brown, Chisholm and most recently Mathew Fisher.  They represent the majority “tribe”.  They have nothing to lose from such a Charter.  The sameness they want to foist on others is sameness to them.  Dress like me, act like me, think like me and all will be well.  We can all get along then.  The world will be safe from “otherness”. 

But that is the problem with this Charter, don’t you see.  What if I don’t want to dress, act and think like these people.  What am I to wear, how am I to act and think in, say Mumbai, Tokyo or Cairo?  I may act and dress like someone in Omaha but I don’t necessarily think like him.  So what is the “standard”?  Who is to set that “standard”?  What if I disagree with that standard? 

You see, it is diversity that makes us interesting.  Can you imagine how boring it would be to have a meaningful discussion on politics with people who totally agree with you?  It is diversity that brings progress.  If inventors had thought and acted like everyone else, there would be no inventions.  If clothiers all thought alike, we would still be wearing loin cloths (wouldn’t that be fun in Canada’s winter).  If writers weren’t diverse, we would have no literature.  “Great minds think alike; fools never differ,” is only true for the fools.  Great minds do differ and that is what makes them great.  Even in our everyday lives as members of the same “tribe”, we don’t dress alike nor act alike, never mind think alike.

So it is on this level that the PQ Charter and all those who support it are wrong.  We desperately need to embrace diversity; of dress, of action and mostly of thought.

One other thought about the Quebec Charter proposal; Madame Marois’ problem in that province is the clash between Montreal, the most cosmopolitan of cities, and the rest of Quebec.  This Charter is really aimed at Montreal and finding a way to vilify it.  If she could find a way to cut out the influence of Montreal, she would have a majority in any election and in a separation referendum.