February 20, 2008 Vol. 33 No. 29

Editorial -

Opposition candidates mailing it in

Is the provincial election already over? That appears to be the case in Highwood and Foothills-Rocky View.
Two weeks ago the Western Wheel, along with the local Alberta Teacher’s Association branch, tried to organize an all-candidates forum for the upcoming provincial election.
Although all five parties are active in the Highwood constituency only one candidate returned our calls — Highwood MLA George Groeneveld. The Liberals, Greens and Wild Rose parties never responded and only one week later did the New Democrats call wishing to participate. Not much of an effort by the opposition who are promoting a time for change.
As a result, there will not be a forum prior to the March 3 election which is sad for the Highwood and Foothills-Rocky View constituencies and their voters.
Forums are an opportune time to debate various provincial issues and bring hyper-local issues to the forefront.
These constituencies have been fairly active politically, but they have also been Conservative strongholds for three decades and it appears these are two areas change does not seem apparent to the opposition parties.
It appears the Liberals, Greens, New Democrats and the fledgling Wild Rose party are merely paying lip service to Highwood and the neighbouring Foothills-Rocky View constituency.
The opposition has all but conceded the victories to Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld in Highwood and Sustainable Resource Minister Ted Morton in Foothills-Rocky View. If so, why should they waste their energy on sure defeats when they can perhaps make inroads in Edmonton and Calgary?
If that is truly the case it is a sad time for Alberta politics.
If victory is so assured in Highwood and Foothills-Rocky View voter apathy is also a concern. Is that not an opportune time to have an eager candidate to beat the bushes and get as many supporters as possible to the polls?
Unfortunately, a more likely scenario is that the opposition parties have put so little focus in this area, they were ill-prepared for the election announcement and candidates were not even chosen, let alone armed to mount any sort of attack on the Tory juggernaught.
If the Liberals, or anyone else, is to take a run at unseating the Tories in this area, they had better start looking long-term and find quality candidates now and groom them for 2012.
When is the last time the Liberals have had the same candidate in back-to-back elections in Highwood? The New Democrats?
It takes time to build name recognition, to build support, to build a foundation. It is clear the opposition parties don’t feel it is worth the effort here. So much for democracy.

Guest Column -

Commission muzzling free speech

By Allen King
Contributor

What is the Human Rights Commission (HRC)? What are its boundaries? Has it gone past its time of usefulness? Is it and has it been fair to all people?
Alan Boronoy, one of the architects of the HRC in the ‘60s and ‘70s, is highly appalled at the way these commissions are ultimately used against freedom of speech.
It would appear that the habit of those who oppress free speech may take writers before the HRC whenever they wish. Public policy should mean that one may express facts as they wish, and not just when some political, religious movement or lifestyle choice group says that they may print it. I would submit that the minority religious, and many other groups, have attained full recognition, as have the rights of those who practice no religion. It would be most difficult to argue that our religious majority impose restrictions on anyone.
One might recall the Boission letter printed in the Red Deer Advocate over which Jeff Chandler took part of the heat. The Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) ruled that the letter had broken Provincial law — did it really? It seems to me that had the issue been left as was, the impact would have died. But no, one professor had to make an issue of it, and presto, a big noise. It almost would appear, by some signs, that this man was looking for personal gains, or maybe something else. (Somewhat like the proverbial pail of dung, keep stirring and it keeps smelling). Even the EAGLE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) did not support this man’s views.
Ezra Lefant, former publisher of the Western Standard, printed the controversial Danish cartoons. He was summoned to appear before the AHRC. A clerk, Shirlene McGovern, was assigned to interview him, requiring him to answer questions regarding what he had printed. From this interview, she told him that she would make a recommended report to the AHRC as to what action should be taken.
Is this democracy? In a court of law, the prosecutor must provide concrete proof of an offense.
I relate to Mark Steyn and MacLean’s Magazine against whom a religious discrimination complaint has been accepted by the BCHRC and the Canadian HRC. Steyn wrote in MacLean’s some time ago and has been taken to task, by four university students from Toronto, who were opposed to his article. What is wrong with a rebuttal? That would be free speech and/or expression. Steyn is to be denied the opportunity to marshall his facts in court or offer a fair comment defence. Is this democracy? I do not think so.
The HRC is not compelled to make a proper legal decision, only what they view as appropriate. This can be debated, but we known differently.
Today’s Canadian human rights industry flourishes in a barren landscape where there are no proper rules of evidence, legal procedures or public press scrutiny. Failure to answer a witness summons results in facing contempt of court charges and possibly imprisonment.
Human rights commissions are not proper legal bodies such as civil and criminal courts, but rather quasi judicial organs, created to address old, corrected social injustices of social and gender inequities. They are, as they have always been, instruments for no other purpose but social engineering which have lived past the political tenure of their times, and no longer serve a useful purpose.
The National Criminal Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are the proper, primary instruments with which a democratically elected governing authority protect the Canadian citizenry from hate mongering, violence and discrimination of all kinds and types; so, do we really need the HRC?
I, for one, am appalled at the way freedom of speech is being eroded in this country. Suppressing opinion is always bad, regardless of whether said opinion is stupid, ill informed or misguided. Placing limits on free speech starts down a slippery slope and has been shown many times in the past to endanger liberty. In a free society, justice must not only be done, but seen to be done as well. It appears that the balance between defenders, prosecutors, judges and juries has over time become significantly undermined by these commissions.
Even a cursory review of current events illustrates that countries where individual freedom of speech and the facility of the press to report events and state facts accurately and objectively has been impinged upon (and especially suppressed.) This has spawned hot beds of political violence accentuated by murder and general chaos).
Is the public aware that the ones making the complaints to the HRCs are totally covered financially while the ones summoned must finance their expenses entirely on their own.
Let us return to free speech and expression.

Letters to the Editor -

Water park does not fit the sustainable framework

Kleibrink off to strong start at Scotties As of Monday evening the Shannon Kleibrink’s Alberta ladies curling team was sitting at 5-0 at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Regina. Shannon, an Olympic bronze medal winner in Turin, is from Okotoks and her team mates were the only team to remain undefeated. Six more games and then hopefully playoffs. Go team — we will be cheering as we watch on TV. Look in next week’s Wheel for a rundown on Shannon’s run towards a national title. • • • • • Nice weather eh! I love the plus stuff, but let us be realistic, there is still a lot of winter ahead of us and it feels to me that this is going to be a year with tons of snow in March. Oh well, as long as the minus 40 stuff is behind us we can live with the snow. • • • • • The new town hall in Okotoks is nearing completion. I believe move in day is April 15. It is looking awesome. I’m hoping the town decides to knock down the old council chambers and turn it into a parking lot. We need more downtown parking and the building is very old and the lot would be right across from the Wheel. Nice eh! • • • • • The provincial election is set for Monday, March 3. How will the 300,000 new Albertans vote? Could be interesting. Will the PCs loose seats? Don’t forget to vote. • • • • • The Western Wheel and the Alberta Teacher’s Association tried to organize an election forum for the Highwood constituency, but we could not get all the candidates on board. As a result, there will not be a forum for Highwood which is too bad. A forum is part of the democratic process and a great opportunity to debate some of the issues. Although there will not be a forum for Highwood, there will be a forum for Foothills-Rocky View. The forum will be held Thursday at the Bragg CReek Centre from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The riding includes Black Diamond, Turner Valley, Millarville, Priddis, Bragg Creek and Redwood Meadows. Candidates include Larry Ashmore (Greens), Herb Coburn (Liberal), Ricardo De Menezes (New Democrat), Joseph McMaster (Wild Rose) and incumbent MLA Ted Morton (Conservative).

Wheels within Wheels

Imad Mughniyeh didn’t have long to be surprised, for the bomb that exploded in the car parked next to his undoubtedly killed him in less than a second. He wouldn’t have been surprised anyway: as the special operations chief of Hezbollah’s secretive military wing, the Islamic Resistance, he would not have been expecting to die in bed. But he may have had just enough time to wonder who finally got him.
In the normal course of events, the assassination of a terrorist leader would be a one-day news event in the Middle East. (Mughniyeh organized the hijacking of an American airliner in 1985, and was suspected of involvement in the bombing of Israeli and Jewish targets in Argentina in the 1990s.) What made it a bit different was that Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus.
Normally, this kind of stuff — targeted assassinations, bombings both by suicide and by airplane, military raids, etc. — is confined to Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, although it frequently reaches into Lebanon and much less often into Jordan. For it to happen in the Syrian capital, however, means that the rules have changed — or at least, that's how some people will choose to interpret it.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, automatically blamed Israel for the blast that killed Mughniyeh, and told a huge crown of Lebanese Shias who attended his funeral in south Beirut that by attacking him in Damascus the Israelis had changed the rules. They had extended the conflict beyond the customary borders, and henceforward Hezbollah would do the same.
“Zionists, if you want this sort of open war, then let the whole world hear, so be it!” Nasrallah told the crowd, implying (without actually saying) that Israeli and perhaps even Jewish people and institutions worldwide would now be regarded by Hezbollah as legitimate targets. The Israel government, meanwhile, denies responsibility for Mughniyeh’s killing (though even in Israel not many people believe it).
Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, swore to track the perpetrators down, pointing out that “The fighter Imad Mughniyeh was the target of lots of intelligence agencies.” He did rather telegraph the conclusions of his investigation, however, by asserting that Mughniyeh’s death had “assassinated all efforts for peace” between Syria and Israel.
Business as usual in the Middle East, then, including the usual rhetoric of conviction when admissions of ignorance would be more in order.
For example, it is by no means certain that Israel organized Mughniyeh’s death. It could have been the United States.
Imad Mughniyeh has been on the US government's list of Most Wanted Terrorists since it was first compiled, and has been accused of being the mastermind behind the suicide bombing that killed 241 US Marines in a barracks in Beirut in 1983 (though he would only have been 21 at the time).
A September, 2006 article in the New Yorker alleged that US hit teams were actively trying to track him down.
So maybe it was the US, in which case Nasrallah was barking up the wrong tree — or maybe it really was the Israelis, in which case the question becomes: why now? Just because they finally got a fix on him? But Mughniyeh’s big successes were far behind him, in the 80s and early 90s, and the Israelis are too sophisticated to buy into the Hollywood notion of a terrorist “mastermind” who is so vital to the conduct of operations that his death would make a big difference.
Assuming that it was the Israelis, and assuming also that they are not stupid, why would they kill Mughniyeh in Damascus (which genuinely does transgress the unwritten Arab-Israeli rules about where this sort of killing is permissible)? Could it be that they were trying to push Hezbollah into the kind of response that Hassan Nasrallah actually gave?
Hezbollah has prospered mightily since its successful resistance to the Israeli army in southern Lebanon in 2006. Luring it into terrorist attacks on civilian Israeli and Jewish targets overseas could only serve to discredit it in the eyes of those in the West who might be tempted to talk to it, and even in the eyes of some Arabs. Are the Israeli intelligence services clever and subtle enough to think this thought? Is the Pope a Catholic?
And what about Nasrallah? Was he actually declaring a jihad against Jews all over the world? Well, no, actually. He seemed to be saying what the crowd at Imad Mughniyeh’s funeral obviously wanted to hear, but he left his real options entirely open. He, too, has been in this game long enough to understand that the goal of the other side is not so much to hurt you as to push you into mistakes that will damage your cause.
We shall have to wait and see, but I would be very surprised if Hezbollah now launched a terrorist campaign against Jewish targets outside the Middle East. This is a game in which people die from time to time, but it is fundamentally about influencing the popular perception of your cause at home and abroad.

Letters to the Editor -

Premier Stelmach brings needed change from within

Dear Editor,
Less than 15 months ago, Ed Stelmach assumed the leadership of the Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party. His win over the candidate favoured by the “establishment” created quite a stir in political circles.
Here was a man who lacked Ralph Klein’s free-wheeling gift of gab, a man who did not have the prestigious background of a Peter Lougheed. He was, in fact, a man of the soil from east central Alberta.
How could he possibly have the qualifications to run Canada’s most dynamic province at such a crucial time?
On Feb. 4 this man called an election.
During election campaigns, opposition parties almost always stress the importance of change. After three decades of Conservative rule the Liberals and New Democrats feel confident they can capitalize on the need to try different approaches.
They failed to realize change can come from within an existing government structure.
And that is precisely the plan Premier Stelmach has adopted.
While recognizing the formidable task ahead, he has set about to adopt policies benefitting people in every walk of life, both in rural and urban Alberta. So far, Premier Stelmach has implemented necessary changes to the petroleum royalty structure. At the recent premiers’ meeting, he declined to “knuckle-under” to the cap-and-trade CO2 emission scheme designed to put Western Canada back into its former subservient state.
He has bargained successfully with the Alberta Teachers’ Association, paving the way for five years without strikes.
Major investment for health care, homeless housing and transportation infrastructure are well on their way.
Politicians need direction from voters between
elections. If their main incomes comes from vested interests, or self-serving cronies, an administration will inevitably go downhill. The opposition uses this to its full advantage in demanding change.
Our criticism and suggestions need to go further than the local watering hole.
Premier Stelmach encourages Albertans to communicate their ideas for improving government performance.
That puts the ball in our court,
Mildred H. Nelson
High River