Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 11, 2005, Winnipeg, Manitoba A10 Winnipeg free press monday april 11, 2005 Freedom of Trade comment editor Terence Moore 697-7044 Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights editorials in defence of Canada t he federalist cause is at a Low ebb in Quebec and the National parties Are in no condition to defend Canada against a new upsurge of que Bec separatism. The National parties now circling each other looking for chances to discredit each other should also be showing canadians what they will do to keep the country Strong. Federalists have brought their own cause into Dis repute in Quebec. The Liberal government of Jean Charest elected in april 2003, has disappointed the Public by cutting Public services. Day care fees were raised. Benefits to Post secondary students were Cut. The Premier briefly tried to expand fund ing to jewish parochial schools but withdrew the idea in the face of Public objection. Or. Charest had set the goal of re Engi Neering government in the province but the Public has yet to see helpful results. Opinion polls find Little support for his government a weak third behind the parti sub Cois opposition and Mario Dumont a action a Moc Pratique among French speaking voters. The Federal liberals meanwhile have revealed in the investigation of the now defunct sponsorship program a system of deceit and corruption that channelled save the nation subsidies from the fed eral Public works department through a network of intermediaries into the coffers of the Federal Liber Al party. The sponsorship program offended Quebe cers because it treated them As politically immature people who could love Canada because of publicity campaigns. The surreptitious financing of the Liberal party through the same program showed that the party lacked spontaneous support from financial backers in Quebec and Laid its hands on Public funds instead. The conservative party and the new democrats have no significant following in Quebec. French speaking voters turning away from the liberals Are most Likely to turn to the bloc sub Cois whose aim is to separate Quebec from Canada. At the moment prime minister Paul Martin and his government Are in no position to stand up for Canada or to resist unreasonable demands from provinces. Since the news from the sponsorship inquiry got worse he has been pleading with opposition Leader Stephen Harper not to precipitate an election and making sympathetic noises to Ontario Premier Dalton Mcguinty who wants $23 billion a year from Ottawa in return for his loyalty. The next parliament May have few Quebec federalists on its benches. The next Quebec government May be either separatist or leaning that Way. The last major Effort by a Federal government to stand up for Canada produced the sponsorship program and brought federalism into discredit. Canada has to do better than that. The parties should let the Public know what they have in mind. Amusement tax mayor Sam Katz has defended the 10-per-cent amusement tax the City slaps on entertainment productions As a decent idea funding As it does the development of arts Talent in the City. There Are however other ways the City can promote local Tal ent and productions to maintain that funding to the Winnipeg arts Council. City Council should ask the administration to review alternatives to the current tax on ticket sales. Or. Katz should Bow out of this discussion however. He has an irreconcilable conflict in the debate about the merits of the entertainment tax. The can West global baseball Park or. Katz a own business draws direct Benefit from the imposition of the amusement tax which is collected but then returned by the City Penny for Penny to the opera Tion. It is the same arrangement City Hall made with the owners of the its Centre when various Levels of governments were working out their contributions prior to the construction of the Arena. This makes a mockery of the rules that dictate which entertainment operations pay and which Are exempt not for profit and Charity organizations and those productions containing 60 per cent local Talent. The its Centre and or. Katz a baseball club Are private enterprises intent on making profits and when Hilary Duff draws the Arena a Box office Success it is not because maintenance Crews played their part exceptionally Well. In fact whatever rules May exist for everyone else City Hall can decide with a show of hands who is exempt or who gets a rebate. The Core problem with the tax however is that it exists at All. The tax the Only one of its kind in Canadian cities is an irritant that has been cited by producers and promoters As one More reason Why big name productions choose not to Stop in Winnipeg on Cross Canada Tours. Most of the $1.8 Mil lion gathered annually from the entertainment tax comes from the ticket sales at movie theatres but it makes it that much harder for All entertainment venues to turn a profit. Former mayor Glen Murray talked a Good line about lifting the amusement tax off the backs of local arts groups but never came through with his election Promise. In his unsuccessful new Deal he cited alternate sources to tax so groups funded by the Winnipeg arts Council would not suffer. The Good ones included a new tax on alcohol ? another dime collected on every Beer sold at its Centre concerts or hockey games can to Hurt sales ? or a Levy on hotel rooms already a reality in other Cana Dian cities. City councillors should give such options a second look. And Short of voting to axe the tax or. Katz should leave this matter to colleagues not affected by evident conflict. Canadian passport devalued our passports the most important Federal government document Many of us possess Are in big trouble on two fronts. Front one auditor general Sheila Fraser says wanted criminals May be obtaining Cana Dian passports because there Are very serious weaknesses at passport Canada. Front two the Feder Al government has shown All the guts of an eviscerated Chicken in dealing with two canadians who got into trouble while travelling abroad ? Zahra Kazemi a photojournalist who was Bru tally raped and beaten to death in Iran in 2003, and Maher Arar who was tortured in Syria after being secretly shipped there by the United states in 2002. In both cases Ottawa has been slow to act slow to Tell canadians what went on and slow to Call a Spade a Spade. The passport problems Are unfortunate from a practical Point of View the . State depart ment has just announced visitors entering the . By Road May have to have passports by the end of 2007. More importantly though they Are a sad reflection on the state of Canadian sovereignty. Edward Watson Mcwhinney who was a British Columbia professor my and constitutional expert wrote that a key part of sovereignty is the Legal Power to represent and vindicate the claims and interests of citizens with other Ottawa a Nimby Pamby approach to foreign affairs has diminished Canadas sovereignty. Long before the phrase was used in a Beer company a to advertising our passport said i am we proudly presented it know ing that it would be respected and knowing also that criminals and terrorists could not obtain one. We do not have that Assurance today. Is Fraser says outdated documentation and technology plague passport Canada. The Agency Swatch list of 73,000 individuals is Short thou Sands of names. She would not give the office a passing Grade when it comes to with much fanfare the then passport office was made a special operating Agency ? an invention of former British pm Margaret Thatcher ? several years ago. It was supposed to finance its operations from its own revenues and to meet stiff service targets. All went swimmingly until 9/11 and the emphasis suddenly changed from service to Security. The Federal Cabinet did not change its passport policies quickly ? and the office has been struggling Ever since to catch up to the requirements of the new Century. The sad fates of is Kazemi and or. Arar indicate that our whole foreign affairs Bureau Cracy is having trouble keeping up with most of the world. There was a time when foreign affairs was the Premier Federal department. It attracted More then its share of Rhodes schol ars. Public servants left foreign affairs to take senior positions in other departments. No More. Years of under funding have taken their toll. The percentage of our diplomatic staff serving abroad ? 25 per cent at present ? is a g-8 Low. The Federal governments Lack of interest in foreign affairs and defence has also Hurt. What few foreign affairs initiatives there were came out of the office of the min ister for foreign affairs or the prime minis Ter a office. The depth to which the department has fallen was revealed when we Learned prime min ister Paul Martin had to hire an academic to help write the governments Long delayed inter National policy review. Jennifer Welsh Saskatchewan born academic Oxford scholar and author of the Well received study at Home in the world was supposed to polish off the first draft of a policy bureaucrats had been sweating Over since december 2003. Her contract ended recently but Canada still does not have a foreign policy. That wont come As any Surprise to the rela Tives of is Kazemi and or. Arar. Tom Ford is managing editor of the issues network Arab thinkers plead for Reform until the recent elections in Iraq and among the palestinians the modern Arab world was largely immune to the winds of democracy that have blown everywhere else in the world. Why that a a pretty important question. For years though it was avoided in both the East and the West. In the West it was avoided because a toxic political correctness infected the academic Field of Middle Eastern studies ? to such a degree that anyone focus ing on the absence of Freedom in the Arab world ran the risk of being labelled an orientalist or an it was also avoided because Western governments basically told Arab leaders that All they needed to do was keep their Oil pumps open and their prices Low and be Nice to Israel. If they did All that they could deny their own people the Freedom America advocated every where else. Meanwhile the Arab Peoples were told by their own leaders and state owned intellectuals that democracy had to come later ? after the nationalist struggle against colonialism or the liberation of Palestine or the creation of an islamic state. Well the combination of 9/11, the Bush poli cies and the flattening of the world whereby everyone can increasingly see How everyone else is living changed All that ? As evidenced this week with the publication of the third Arab human development report written by a courageous group of Arab social scientists under the auspices of the in development program. This is one of the finest in products under Kofi Annan. The first report in 2002, was about the poor state of Arab human development. The Sec Ond in 2003, was about the poor state of Arab education and science. The new one focuses on the acute deficit of Freedom and Good governance in the Arab world. It underscores How much Arab Peoples crave and need free Dom and Good government ? As much any other people. With the great news that iraqis Are finally forming a new government it could it appear at a better time. The report notes that most Arab states today resemble a Black Hole which converts its surrounding social environment into a setting in which nothing moves and from which Noth ing All political parties institutions courts intelligence services police and Media Are centralized in the hands of the Arab Leader ? that a Why the modern Day Arab state is frequently dubbed the intelligence what All these states have in common the report says is that Power is concentrated at the tip of the executive Pyramid and that the margin of Freedom permitted which can be swiftly reduced has no effect on the states firm and absolute grip on but without a majority of people behind them All of these Arab regimes Lack legitimacy. Arab societal structures tend to reinforce these autocratic trends the report says the family the primary unit of Arab society is based on Clannish which implants submission and is considered the enemy of personal Independence intellectual daring and the flowering of a unique and authentic human entity. Once children enter school they find an education Al institution curricula teaching and evaluation methods which tend to rely on dictation and instill submissiveness. This learning environment does not open the doors to Freedom of thought and the Chain constricting Freedom the report notes completes its Circle in the political realm squeezing Arab Public life into a Small and constricted space. This complicated process has led Arab citizens including some among the intelligentsia to a state of submission fed by fear and marked by denial of their the reports authors conclude with their Hope for a Broad peaceful redistribution of Power in the Arab world their fear that Noth ing will change ? which they predict could Lead to chaotic upheavals ? and their expectation of some externally induced change and muddling through. But the important thing about this report is that political Reform is being put on the Arab Agenda by arabs. Yes its scathing about the Western and israeli roles in retarding Arab democratization but its equally scathing about what arabs have done to themselves and How they must change people Don to change when you Tell them they should but when they Tell them selves they must. Read this report and you la also understand Why part of every Arab hates the . Invasion of Iraq ? and Why another part is praying that it succeeds. ? 2005 Winnipeg free press a division of up Canadian Rudy Redekop newspapers limited partnership president up Canadian newspapers limited partnership published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue Murdoch Davis / publisher Winnipeg free press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Winnipeg Manitoba r2x 3b6, pm 697-7000 Patrick Flynn / Deputy editor ;