![James Laxer](http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/thumbnail/category_pictures/picture-62_0.jpg "James Laxer is regularly asked to comment on current national and global issues by the Canadian media and frequently writes columns in major newspapers and periodicals.
In 1969, he was one of the founders of the Waffle Group, Canada’s largest New Left political movement. In 1971, at the age of 29, he ran second for the national leadership of the New Democratic Party. In the mid 1970s, James Laxer was a leading crusader against the power of multi national petroleum companies. His books, speeches and television appearances helped lead to the creation of a nationally owned oil company, Petro Canada, established to counter the power of companies like Exxon in Canada.
In 1981, Laxer was appointed research director of the federal New Democratic Party. At the end of his two year term, he wrote a controversial, book length critique of the party’s economic policies, charging that they were seriously dated. The report was front page news in Canada and was debated for months in the national media.
In 1984, the National Film Board of Canada hired Laxer to be host narrator, for a series of documentaries on the changing global economy and Canada’s place in it. In preparing the series, Laxer travelled extensively in Japan, Europe and the United States. The series, entitled Reckoning, was denied broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation because it was seen as too controversial.
Instead it was broadcast by a hook up of all the English language educational networks in the country. The series was also broadcast in the United States, as well, by a large number of PBS stations. The Reckoning series has won awards in both the United States and Canada. One of its films won the blue ribbon, first prize, at the prestigious American Film and Video Festival, for best political documentary. The same film won the Atlantic
Film Festival and national Gemini Awards in Canada for best writing in an information series, awards which went to Laxer and the film’s director as co-authors.
In 1986-87, Laxer spent a year in Europe writing Decline of the Superpowers. From 1978 to 1981, he hosted a public affairs television program on TV Ontario. He regularly went to Europe to conduct interviews with leading European political and intellectual figures. In 1993 his book False God: How the Globalization Myth Has Impoverished Canada, was published by Lester Publishing. In Search of a New Left: Canadian Politics
After the Neo-Conservative Assault was published by Viking in 1996. The Undeclared War: Class Conflict in the Age of Cyber Capitalism, was published by Viking in 1998, and by Penguin Canada in 1999, in a paperback edition. Dalton Camp wrote that the Undeclared War "is an informed and cogent book on the great and growing dilemma of our time: how to preserve a free society in the face of increasing disparity and the creation of a new class society---‘a dominant class and a dominated class.’ This is stuff we need to know." Laxer’s book, Stalking the Elephant: My Discovery of America was on national best seller lists for seven weeks in the autumn of 2000. In his review of the book for the Globe and Mail, David Shribman, Pulitzer prize winning columnist for the Boston Globe, commented: "This is a book by a Canadian that can change the United States." Stalking the Elephant is to be published by The New Press in New York in September 2001. In 2003, his book, The Border: Canada, the U.S. and Dispatches from the 49th Parallel, was published by Doubleday Canada. In 2004, Douglas and McIntyre published his book Red Diaper Baby: A Boyhood in the Age of McCarthyism. This memoir of James Laxer’s childhood was the winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award for best biography/memoir in 2005.
James Laxer is a Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto")
[2]Stephen Harper has an aversion to Parliament. When the House of Commons sits, he and his ministers have to answer questions. The body language of the Prime Minister and his ministers, and their surly, disrespectful attitude to those on the other side of the aisle tells the story.
The styles vary. When Harper stands up to answer a question, he does up his jacket in the manner of a butcher securing his apron before he gives an animal the chop. Peter MacKay adopts an unctuous manner at the start of an answer and concludes by sliming an opponent. John Baird bullies and spews contempt. And Jason Kenney plays the jackal, preferring to sink his teeth into dead meat left behind by the others. He’s the one who claimed that York University is such a hotbed of anti-semitism that what goes on there can be compared to “pogroms”. As the grandson of a rabbi who has taught there for the past 38 years, I guess I’m lucky I’m still alive.
The members of the Conservative cabinet are not very bright guys. And they don’t see why they should have to be subjected to cross-examination. Replying to critics is not their strong suit. When the questioning gets too hot as it did before Christmas on the Afghan prisoner abuse issue they don’t shoot the messengers, they just shut them up.
By the time the House rose the Conservatives were dropping in the polls to about 36 per cent, down from the 40 per cent range they occupied about six weeks earlier, and down from their score in the 2008 election. The favourite narrative of the supine mainstream media that Harper is a brilliant political strategist, headed for a majority in the next election, was a little patchy by the time the pundits were going out for eggnog in early December.
Harper does have one golden rule. When the going gets tough, prorogue the House. He did it a year ago to avoid the certain defeat of his government in the Commons. This year he’s done it to get the parliamentary committee investigating the torture scandal off his back.
Before Parliament reconvenes with a new Speech from the Throne on March 3, the Vancouver Olympic Games will have showcased Canada to the world, with Harper playing the genial (for him) host. His strategists believe that this will repair the reputation the nation earned at Copenhagen, as the “colossal fossil”. By then, as well, these geniuses are confident that the ugly tableau of cover-up, the smearing of Richard Colvin and the constant changing of the government story on the prisoner abuse scandal, will have faded from memory.
Stephen Harper likes to think of himself as the manly leader of a sporting nation. Perhaps in the reflected glow of gold medals, the Prime Minister will acquire the warmth he lacks within to endear him to the forty per cent of Canadians he needs to win a majority in an election in 2010.
Harper would not be the first leader in history prepared to enhance his own power by hiding the savaging of his country’s system of government behind the laurels of young athletes.
A year ago, the Prime Minister was prepared to mislead his fellow citizens about the essence of our system of government---the requirement that the ministers of the crown must enjoy the backing of the majority of the members of the House of Commons---to retain power. To stay at the helm, he was quite happy to delude Canadians into believing that the PM is directly elected and that the members of parliament from Quebec aren’t quite equal to the others.
When the history of this era is written years from now, the story is likely to be that of a not very talented gang with values distant from those of the Canadian mainstream, holding onto office longer than they should have because the opposition couldn’t figure out how to unite to deal with them. Some will bear more responsibility for this sorry state of affairs than others.
Just don’t blame the large majority of Canadians who continue to have the sense to reject Harper and his boys, medals notwithstanding. Yes, Canadians care about the economy, the environment, and the prisoner abuse scandal. They are concerned about the reputation of their country in the rest of the world. Give them a way to rid themselves of Harper in the next election and the people will do the rest.
Links:
[1] http://rabble.ca/taxonomy/term/309
[2] http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/node-images/GoingProrogue2_0.jpg
[3] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/james-laxer/2010/01/canadas-stolen-democracy-welcome-2010#comment-1098012
[4] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/james-laxer/2010/01/canadas-stolen-democracy-welcome-2010#comment-1098142
[5] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/james-laxer/2010/01/canadas-stolen-democracy-welcome-2010#comment-1098324
[6] http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/RelsDec1609.html
[7] http://www.flymail.web.ca/src/compose.php?send_to=dwatch%40web.net
[8] http://www.dwatch.ca/
[9] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/james-laxer/2010/01/canadas-stolen-democracy-welcome-2010#comment-1099948
[10] http://rabble.ca/user
[11] http://rabble.ca/user/register
Watching the state of politics from afar is both frustrating and satisfying. Frustrating in that it's become obvious that the Conservative government are safe from any challenge, from political rivals or the majority of the mainstream media. Satisfying because it only affects me indirectly as I would never choose to live in such a country the way it's being run at present. Seems to me that the opposition needs a complete reboot and in a hurry before the Tories and their media co-conspirators completely rewire the society. In Case You Missed It
I'm just afraid we can't wait that long...we must mobilize and push opposition members to at least show up to work on Jan 25. If there is only silence, Harper will have won before there is ever an election.
To have its democracy stolen, Canada would have be a democracy. A democracy does not allow, in law, secret donations, secret lobbying, excessive secrecy, dishonesty, unrepresentative actions, or waste of the public's money, all of which are legal in Canadian federal politics (and provincial, territorial and municipal politics across Canada -- see details at:
http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/SummaryOfLoopholes.html
And Harper's Conservatives have not savaged Canada's system of government any more than any recent federal so-called Liberal or so-called Progressive Conservative government did in the past couple of decades.
For an accurate, comprehensive summary of what Harper has actually done, what promises he has broken, and what the opposition parties have largely ignored, go to:
http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/RelsDec1609.html [6]
Resorting to hyperbolic and misleading statements works great when talking to someone already convinced of the point you are making -- when will progressives in Canada learn that there is plenty of 100% certified, factual, incontrovertible examples of scandalous activities by Canada's politicians of all political stripes, and that focusing on these activities is the way to grow the number of voters convinced that these politicians are not worthy of their support.
Hope this helps.
Duff Conacher, Coordinator
Democracy Watch
P.O. Box 821, Stn. BOttawa, Canada
K1P 5P9
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Fax: (613) 241-4758
Email: dwatch@web.net [7]
Internet: http://www.dwatch.ca [8]
Since 1993, making governments and corporations more accountable to you, and changing Canada into the world's leading democracy
When Harper has contempt for Parliament, he has contempt for the people of Canada.