Will Trump Make Quebec Collateral Damage?

Sure as shooting, when rumours are swirling around the office and your manager or boss drops by your desk to tell you that your job is safe, it's probably time to polish up the old resumé.
So when a Donald Trump economic advisor, Stephen Schwarzman, said that Canada shouldn’t worry about the upcoming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) it is perhaps time to worry just a tad.

Now truth be told, the $600 billion trade between Canada and the United States is fairly balanced, with Canada eking out a slight advantage of about $15 billion, an insignificant amount amounting to less than 2% and considering that a lot of what we export is oil products, on the manufacturing side, where the jobs are, America is ahead of the game vis-a-Canada.

Even Trump understands that his trade beef isn't with Canada, but that won't protect us from collateral damage when NAFTA is renegotiated.

Certainly poor Mexico seems to be in Trump's cross-hairs, not only over the border, but trade as well because of the $60 odd billion trade deficit in Mexico's favour.

Now I'll remind readers that a while back when the PQ proposed its infamous Charter of Values, it called for a ban on religious paraphernalia for employees in the public service, para public service and public education domain.
The real target was the Muslim hijab which sorely offended the PQ's' and many Quebecer's secular and feminist leanings.
But in order to make the law seem fair, equal and so more palatable, things like the Jewish kippah, Sikh turbans and ostentatious Christian crosses were also to be banned, a joke because you couldn't find more than a few dozen of offenders wearing these items in the public service.
Of course these people weren't the real target of the law but were deemed by the drafters to be acceptable collateral damage, sacrificed to make the law acceptable to the public, after all a law banning Muslim dress exclusively would never have a chance at acceptability.

And so in Trump's quest to punish Mexico, Canada will have to accept a small level of pain in order for his trade sanctions on Mexico to pass the smell test.

According to CTV Quebec exports $59 billion to the U.S. annually and imports $34 billion, creating a $25-billion trade surplus.

Although Canada has a trade surplus of about $15 billion in trade with the United States, it is in fact Quebec with a $25 billion surplus which is the real big winner in the trans border trade.
Remove Quebec from the equation and Canada would in fact have a $10 billion trade deficit with the USA
Fully half of Quebec's manufacturing exports are sent to the USA, and considering that oil is an untouchable for Trump (who just okayed the Keystone XL pipeline that will carry Alberta crude to the USA,) any trade sanction would likely hurt Quebec the most.

So where will Trump inflict this Canadian pain?

Certainly the ongoing dispute over lumber will be resolved to America's satisfaction, but a new initiative against Canada (and Quebec in particular) is likely to be the grandfathered protection of the entrenched dairy industry in Canada.

Quebec's monopolistic marketing agency which controls dairy production must be quaking in its boots at the prospect of coming under the mire of Trump's trade negotiators.
Quebec controls 37% of the Canadian dairy market which effectively bars imports from the United States.
Any attack on the dairy cartel that controls Canadian and particularly Quebec  production would be devastating because quite simply we cannot compete with American producers.

Prices remain high  for a variety of reasons, most importantly is inefficiency due to monopolistic policies but perversely because of the quotas attached to production. In order to produce milk, a dairy farmer must own or acquire quota, the right to produce milk, which costs between $25,000 and $45,000 per cow. I'm not kidding.
This quota saddles dairy farmers with enormous debt rendering competition with American farmers impossible.
But targeting this Canadian dairy monopoly is a no-brainer for Trump and already American dairy producers are urging the President to act.

"U.S. dairy organizations and the state departments of agriculture across the country turned to President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday to combat Canada’s existing and soon-to-be-expanded protectionist policies designed to block imports from the United States.
Joining in the plea to Trump are The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), the National Milk Producers Federation, and The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA).
In a letter the groups urge the president-elect and his key cabinet members to take immediate action."

Because of Quebec's disproportional percentage of the Canadian dairy market, it will be impacted to a much higher degree than other Canadian provinces and so conspiracy theorists might believe that Canadian anti-Quebec federal politicians will be inclined to give in because the pain will mostly be limited to Quebec.

I don't see any way out, so heeding Trump's henchmen telling us not to worry might not be wise, and in fact Quebec should probably worry a lot.

......Stay tuned.

Is Canadian Bilingualism Dead?

If you're wondering what the heck Prime Minister Trudeau was thinking when he answered in French, a question put to him in English, at a town hall meeting in Quebec, your aren't alone. Almost the entire media missed the point.

Justin responded to the Anglo questioner rather smarmily, telling her; “Thank you for using our country’s two official languages, but since we’re in Quebec I’ll respond in French,” ..Yikes!      Link
 One can only imagine Justin telling a Francophone, that he would respond in English to a French question because it was asked in Manitoba!

Justin's bizarre performance can actually be understood as he has been thoroughly roasted recently in a spate of articles in the French press for not protecting and promoting the French language in Ottawa and his reaction was nothing more than an ill-conceived and feeble attempt to reverse that perception.

But his desire to appear as the defender of the French language backfired in more ways than one, the first being the vicious backlash in the ROC (Rest of Canada) over his disrespect of an Anglo-Quebecer and the second and more serious consequence is that his unintentional action sent a message that his vision of Canada is a unilingually French Quebec and a unlingually English ROC.

So not surprisingly, the usual suspects of French language militants were largely silent over the issue because supporting the decision of the Prime Minister, to speak only French in Quebec weakens the argument of a bilingual federal government. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place, there seems no position that can satisfy their desire of a French only Quebec and a bilingual Ottawa.

His poor father, Pierre-Elliot Trudeau, father of the Official Languages Act and the policy of a bilingual Canada, must be spinning in his grave at Justin's stupidity.
Now to be fair, Trudeau 'light' probably did not understand the consequences of his maladroitness and as the song lyrics go;

“I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood ”

But the affair begs the question; is bilingualism going down the drain, the once vaunted idea of a bilingual Canada A Mari Usque Ad Mare?

Almost fifty years ago Trudeau senior enacted the Official Languages Act, legislation that enshrined the rights of Canadians to be served by the federal government and the courts in either English or French.
But more than that, the law which was generally well received set the table for a different Canada, one where French was treated equally to English.
While I say the law was generally well-received, not so in the civil service where the entrenched English majority held 91% of the jobs and were loathe to part with any one of them.
While there was some opposition, the law generally fostered an era of linguistic detente and the country embraced bilingualism much as we have embraced environmentalism today. French immersion schools were opened in Western Canada where parents chose to expose their children to the French language in order to afford them more opportunity in the future bilingual Canada.
But the success of the French immersion programs are dubious, about half the students move back to English classes and those who graduate have their French skills eroded due to lack of practice. Today only 10% of Canadians living outside of Quebec can hold a conversation in French and if you don't count francophones living outside Quebec, that  figure drops to about 6%, a pretty grim number.
While bilingualism is rising in Quebec, it is falling in the ROC.

What happened?
Well it boils down to a demographic shift and the negative reaction to French in the rest of Canada in response to the sovereignty movement

Firstly the population and indeed the influence of French in Canada declined through demographics, where an inspired immigration surge left French on the outside looking in. Today less than 20,000 of the 300,000 odd immigrants Canada receives each year end up adopting French as their language of assimilation. This language time bomb has been rightly criticized by French language defenders but there's little to be done about it.
Quebec will receive about 50,000 of the 300,000 immigrants coming to Canada in 2017, only about 17% of the total which is substantially lower than Quebec's 23.4% size relative to the Canadian population total. But worse than that, about 10,000 of those immigrants will skedaddle to other provinces and of the remaining, half will adopt English as the language of assimilation, meaning that of the 300,000 new immigrants Canada receives each year, less than 7% will adopt French, a paltry number indeed. (This assuming that all immigrants to other provinces adopt English.)
By my rough calculation, because of this immigration reality, the proportion of French in Canada will drop by 1% every eight years, bringing the French proportion to under 20% in about 25 years from today's 23.2%, a calamitous drop.

Secondly, separatist fervour took its toll as English Canadians grew tired of the never-ending bashing of their language and culture by separatist Quebec governments and interest in accommodation waned, perhaps not officially, but certainly among those who lived in the ROC.
And so the language scene has perhaps not turned full circle, but certainly reversed to a serious degree, with French returning to the back seat it occupied historically.

Now those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I come down hard on the French media for biased and inaccurate reporting, BUT...
I must say that the gloom and doom articles that I mentioned at the top of the blog are largely accurate.

Even the insufferable Mathieu Bock-Coté was more or less right in his complaint that the Trudeau cabinet is bereft of French speakers, where bilingual ministers are no longer the norm, a shocking development. He further complained that Trudeau has made common cause with Canada's minorities to the detriment of Francophones in general and Quebec in particular.
The idea of the two founding nations sharing control of the country reduced to a joke and highlighted as of late by the French language debate for the Conservative leadership, which was such a linguistic disaster that it was downright humiliating. That the English participants showed up with pigeon French was telling in that they weren't even embarrassed.

A non French-speaking leader for the Conservatives?

Now comes the unthinkable news that the unilingual Kevin O'Leary is running for the Conservatives and will in all likelihood win.

Even Maclean's magazine got into bilingualism bashing in running an article entitled: Canada’s prime minister shouldn’t need to be bilingual, where perhaps a more honest title should have read "Canada’s prime minister shouldn’t need to speak French." 
Would Maclean's be okay with a Prime Minister who could not speak English?

Perhaps the most telling story of the decline and fall of the French language in Canada is the story that emerged from the World Junior Hockey tournament played in Canada recently where the Canadian team (which included seven francophones) were told by coaches that all communication would be in English only and that included conversations between francophone players.
The cherry on the sundae was that the coaches making the rules were francophones!
The coach Dominique Ducharme, explained that the team needed to communicate in one language in order to foster team spirit and to have everyone on the same page, so to speak.

It is quite simply an allegorical tale of what is going on right now in Canada.

A Viewers Guide to Mass Shootings

Nope.......

There's an old adage that says that it's an ill wind that blows no good. In other words, events have to be pretty terrible if nobody is advantaged.  And so it is with terrorist or mass shooting attacks, where executives at all the major news channels wait impatiently (yet silently) for the next suicide bombing, mass shooting, bomb or runaway truck in order to take advantage of the public's gruesome interest, which can goose ratings by a factor of up to eight.

As in real estate, location, location, location is what counts. The closer to home the attack, the higher the interest and that fact even trumps the number of casualties.
Of course attacks in the United States are number one in ratings, but surprisingly Canada rates highly, even for American networks.
CNN went live with wall to wall coverage of the shooting run of the lone nut case in Ottawa, who led police on a merry chase across Parliament Hill after killing one soldier before being shot to death himself.
As attacks go, it was relatively tiny affair with just one victim, but the coverage was huge!
(By the way, I say the above with respect to the family of the victim, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, whose family certainly view the event differently)

And so North American incidents get huge coverage, Europe second, after which things fade rather quickly. Here is my impromptu list of importance in terms of media attention.

5 Stars; North America
4 Stars;. Western Europe/Australia/New Zealand
3 Stars; Israel/Russia/Turkey/China
2 Stars; India / Africa / Asia
0 Stars; Last and certainly of the least interest to the media is a terrorist act in any Muslim country where there are so many attacks that the media doesn't even consider it news.
In the few days following the Fort Lauderdale attack, over 100 people were killed in terrorist attacks in Muslim countries and not once did North American news channels deem it useful to cut to live reporting.

At any rate, here are things you might consider when tuning into coverage of the next terrorist or mass shooting incident on TV.
News anchors who seem eminently competent, clever and up to date when reading from teleprompters, melt into the blithering idiots that most of them are in real life, when faced with ad-libbing real time events.
I offer for example the dimmest of the dim, Wolf Blitzer of CNN who could probably not compete with high schoolers on Jeopardy.
On his two appearances on that quiz show he made quite the fool of himself unable to answer the simplest of questions. Watch this short video, cringe and remember that he is responsible for analyzing and telling what is going on in a mass shooting situation.
>

When it comes to providing us we fair and responsible reporting Wolf, along with Anderson Cooper (another Jeopardy failure)  and other talking heads fail miserably, their off the cuff commentary punctuated by wild speculation, false reports and information that turns out to be dead wrong, breaking just about every journalistic and broadcast standard.
For example, the last major mass shooting incident in Fort Lauderdale had every single network telling us that shooter arrived aboard a Canadian flight with a checked hand gun in his luggage.
REALLY.... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????
A CHECKED HAND GUN  IN A CANADIAN AIRPLANE, PACKED BY AN AMERICAN TWENTY-SOMETHING????
I almost fell out of my sofa  laughing at the stupidity of the idea. Did anyone at any of the news organizations have a clue about Canadian gun laws?
This false reporting went on for hours, long after Canadian airlines vehemently denied that the shooter arrived on a Canadian flight or had any connection to Canada at all.
This type of nonsense reporting goes on all the time during live coverage of unfolding events, so as an informed viewer, it is prudent to ignore or at least view skeptically what is being said in the heat of the moment.

Inevitably shortly after the shooting incident occurs and after the perpetrator is killed or captured, panicked bystanders will invariably report another sighting of a second or even third fictitious shooter, sending police into a frenzy and news channels into overdrive.
This happens every time, I mean it, every time, despite the fact that in the eight years of the Obama administration where there were about 200 mass shootings where more than four people died, only 13 were terrorist acts with only two of those involving two perpetrators (San Bernadino and the Boston marathon bombing.)
In the Ottawa attack, at least two other shooters were declared, long after the actual killer was taken down. At Dawson college up to five gunmen were reported. Of course there was only one as was the case in Fort Lauderdale and in just about every mass shooting in North America.

For this mistake you might blame panic and frayed nerves and sometimes even the actions of the police themselves. In Montreal's Dawson College attack plain clothed policemen with drawn guns running down the street were quite understandably confused and reported as bad guys.

Israel, much more familiar with terrorism and mass shooting have figured out a solution to the problem.
Plain-clothed police and security officers keep a fold-up hat in their pocket, which in times of need are popped on the head, clearly defining the wearer as good guys.
How's that for a two-dollar solution!

Another thing news coverage won't ever comment upon is the police reaction to the incident or lack thereof.
Now police react in a timely and efficient manner most of the time, but certainly not always. But when police do screw up, the media usually reacts with stony silence, for whatever reason which I cannot fathom.
Take for example the dismal performance of the Orlando police in the mass shooting incident that killed 50 and injured 53 at the Pulse nightclub last June.
In the best take down I've read, it is a humble blogger who best described the Orlando police incompetence or cowardice.
Read the aptly headlined: When seconds counted, the police were only three hours away.

It was the mass shooting at École Polytechnique  in Montreal in 1989 that has become the textbook example of what police should not do in a mass shooting.  Back then, when police arrived on the scene they set up a perimeter, waiting for SWAT to arrive while the killer was calmly shooting his victims inside the school.
It seemed that Orlando police followed that same protocol with disastrous effect.
At least the Montreal police learned their lesson and redeemed themselves at the Dawson college incident, seventeen years later where two passing patrol officers bravely rushed into the school pursued and confronted the shooter, effectively ending the rampage, when the shooter committed suicide rather than face the police. Sadly one student was killed but it was the superb reaction by police which averted a larger disaster.  BRAVO!

For those of you thinking that we amateurs can't judge police actions, I am reminded of the comedian who told a heckler that he didn't need a pilot's license to know that the pilot who crashed his helicopter into a tree, screwed up bigt ime.
A long tradition in mass shootings is the vast over-reaction by police. Long after the scene has been secured, the shooter captured or killed, police continue to lock down the scene for hours with hundreds of heavily armed police sequestering bystanders, an action akin to closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

Terrorist versus Nutcase
With every mass shooting, news channels immediately raise the spectre of terrorism simply because it makes for much bigger ratings.
Of the 372 mass shootings (yes, more than one a day) in the United States in 2016, only four can be attributed to terrorism and of those terrorist acts , none included a second perpetrator.
In fact during Obama's entire eight year term only two of the fourteen terrorist acts included a second assailant.
It is important to understand that when an American Christian conducts a mass shooting, terrorism is never suggested, but when a Muslim is the shooter, terrorism and jihad is always evoked, even though motives are sometimes more complicated.
So when you flip the TV on in response to a mass shooting in America, it is safe to assume it is the act of a deranged person and not a terrorist, despite what the news channels are hinting at.

To sum up it might be convenient to remember a few things about mass shootings/ terror attacks.

1. If the shooting happens in North America, there's a 98% chance it is the act of a deranged individual.
2. If the shooting happens in North America, reports of mystery second shooters are almost always false. There is about  only about 1 chance in 90 that there is a second shooter.
3. Terrorists don't generally use guns. Real terrorists go for mass casualties.
4. Not all Muslim shooters are terrorists, some are just nut cases even when they invoke jihadi language.
5. The police will always over-react.
6. Early reports on CNN and other news channels will invariably contain a wealth of false information.

And with that, perhaps you can watch coverage of the next mass shooting with a practised and critical eye.
I would hope that you wouldn't have to put in practice what you might have learned here, but statistics predict that the next mass shooting is due tomorrow...

Trump May Become Greatest American President Ever

Let's get something straight.
Donald Trump is an asshole, a vindictive, mean-spirited S.O.B, a misogynist and a liar with an abnormal ego and nasty temperament.
He is the direct opposite of the charming and diplomatic Barak Obama and for the majority of Americans as frightening figure as ever to grace the White House.

But likeable as he is, Obama will probably go down in history as one of the least effective and most damaging Presidents ever, so a pleasing personality does not necessarily make for a great leader and conversely, a nasty demeanour doesn't necessarily make for a bad leader.

Perhaps our fears about Donald Trump based on his not so likeable personality are misguided and that he may well become an entirely effective leader and even perhaps, a great leader, doing exactly what he promised, that is restoring American world preeminence.

What would lead me to make a prediction that Trump will be more than a fine President?

Well, if these last two months of the run-up to the Presidency are a forecast of what's to come, I daresay America will be well-served.

Trump has already done more good for the country than Obama in all his eight years.

He has started by frightening companies into re-considering sending jobs and building factories out of the country. Of course the pundits and media have reminded us that Trump wasn't really responsible for those jobs saved, but the issue of companies exporting jobs is now a hot topic and those guilty companies understand that they will be shamed mercilessly and will perhaps face a consumer boycott and even perhaps loss of government contracts.
At least Trump is trying and at least he cares and I'm betting he'll succeed in his attempt to preserve jobs in America through bullying and perhaps legislation.
Did Obama ever lift a finger to protect American jobs? 

Trump has lived his business life by his own simple credo of "What's in it for me," and will transfer this ideology to "What's in it for America"  when he becomes President, a refreshing reset in foreign and domestic policy where friend and foe will have to understand and deal with an American president who will ruthlessly pursue America's selfish interest.

Trump's much-maligned  mantra of "Make America great again," struck a chord with voters, who unlike the media understood that America has flown off the rails these last thirty years, where both Republican and Democratic White Houses have overseen the gradual decline in American power and wealth. Hillary would represent the same old, same old, a continuation of disastrous polices both foreign and domestic.

Most importantly, Trump will pursue his single-minded reform attempts with pigheadedness and the confidence required to stand-up to the entrenched powers that be. He isn't a team player and comes to his own conclusions, much to the dismay of those who deem to run the country by divine right.
The CIA is now lecturing Trump over his skepticism over Russian hacking and it's good to see the President-elect show a level of distrust, even if the Russian hacking is true.
The media is moaning that Trump is ignoring good advice, but fail to acknowledge that the CIA more often than not gets things wrong, sometimes horribly so, as with the disastrous consequences as we saw in the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" debacle that lead to the meltdown of the Middle East and the displacement of three million people.
So it's good to see a President-elect tell the CIA, "Umm...not so fast, I'm not convinced.." because if George Bush had done the same, instead of blindly accepting CIA intelligence and advice, perhaps the Middle East would be a different and better place today.
This attitude, no doubt irks a lot of entrenched government and military leaders, but it is refreshing to see and all the media squawking about Trump not taking good advice should be measured by the historic record of that advice.

Trump would never have started a war over fake intelligence or backed rebel Arab forces against dictatorships in Syria and Egypt because it would run counter to his policy of doing what is best for America.
While one American president after another has sought foreign military adventures to disastrous effect, Trump has signalled that he's interested in solving America's problems at home, much to the consternation of those powerful forces that profit.

In fact Trump has opined that it's time for allies to pay their own defence and countries like South  Korea, Japan and indeed all of Europe will be forced to pay for any American defence umbrella provided, be it conventional or nuclear, again a policy that scares the bejesus out of beneficiaries, especially NATO which has been feeding off American largess since its creation.

Trump is also rightly identifying real threats to the United States, not those invented by the utterly hopeless policy wags at the State department.
Against this conventional advice, he believes that Russia is not the great enemy that the current establishment portray and on this he is dead right.
Putin has been wrongfully described by the Obama government as the reincarnation of Joseph Stalin, a cold-war devil to be feared and opposed, a portrayal that the media has lapped up and echoed.
This is because Putin has humiliated Obama in one file after another, having outplayed the American leader on just about every front.
The sad reality is that Putin has been on the right side of the issue in Ukraine and Syria and that Obama and the United States on the wrong side. The fact that Putin won the day makes him a reprehensible enemy in Obama's humiliated eyes, but not Trump's, who has signalled that he does not see Putin as an enemy at all. 
Bravo!

In regards to the State department, I pray Trump throws out the entire lot of idiots whom have led America down the wrong path on just about every single foreign policy, including Israel, Ukraine, Syria, Egypt, Iran and other files where America's position was either dead wrong, misguided or foolishly naive.
As for foreign policy, Trump's endorsement of Israel will have a positive effect on the middle east peace process because those wishing and planning for Israel's destruction will have their expectations crushed, perhaps leading to more realistic positions vis-a-vis peace..
Here again, Trump inherently understands that Obama's tilting to the Palestinian side brings no benefits or dividends to America and as such violates Trumps policy of doing what's good for America first and foremost.

I promise you that Iran won't test or humiliate Trump as it is doing presently to Obama in the ongoing harassment by small patrol vessels of US Navy ships in the Gulf.
You can bet that Trump's rules of engagement will dictate that any Iranian ship that threatens American vessels, even as a test, will be fired upon.
And the Iranians know it implicitly, so they won't even try.

Trump has promised a much-needed course correction, the old route touted by Hillary and the Washington establishment, an unmitigated disaster that many voters understood, something mainstream media did not.

But his real achievements will probably be on the domestic front where I have confidence in Trump's ability to effect real positive change, I offer the example of two little tweets that stopped Congress dead in its tracks over the self-serving bill proposed to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics.

 "Public outcry, opposition from ethics watchdog groups, a divided GOP, and two tweets from Trump critical of the rules change prompted a swift reversal of the proposal...." Link

Whomever says that his tweets are embarrassing or counter-productive are dead wrong, they are every bit as effective in transmitting the President's ideas and opinions as were FDR's fireside radio chats.
While the media makes fun of the tweets, friend and foe alike take notice and apparently so does Congress.

Trump has promised to bulldoze ahead on trade. He's made it clear that any agreement that does not benefit America will be torn up or re-negotiated, something every President since Carter failed to take issue with or action upon.
So countries like Canada and China are already trembling over the issue, because they know the trade advantage they enjoy is going out to be challenged by Trump and are reacting now to limit the damage.

While the trade imbalance between Canada and the United States is only $15 billion in Canada's favour (over $575 billion bilateral trade,) instead of pointing out the pittance, our panicked Prime Minister has already offered to re-negotiate NAFTA, the cross border free-trade agreement. Incredibly, this concession was offered by our frightened, deer-in-the-headlights Prime Minister, even before Trumps assumes office! That is the power of Trump.
With Justin as our leader, how do you think he'll measure up against Trump in those negotiations?

As for China, Trump has rightfully set a bulls-eye on the $375 billion trade imbalance in China's favour, a ruinous financial drain that has robbed America of its economic strength and built up a world class rival. If Trump takes any action to substantially reduce or eliminate the trade imbalance, America's economy can begin to return to its former greatness. Again, no recent American President ever faced down the issue of the Chinese trade imbalance and unfair trade practices. If Trump succeeds on this one issue, his presidency will be a resounding success.
And so China is absolutely apoplectic at Trump's ascension to the White House and with good reason. It is desperately pandering the line to anyone in the media that will listen that if Trump starts a trade war, both China and America will both be losers, an untruth that is a pathetic and vain attempt to frighten American exporters into convincing Trump to lay off.
Think it will work?

Trump's great advantage is his ego, his confidence, his disdain for others and his single-mindedness, traits that have made him successful in the past and many times, against all odds.

To finish I'd like to offer this off the cuff imaginary conversation that Trump might have had if he were the President back in 1982, on the eve of the first Gulf war where the United States came to the rescue of the Kuwait ruling family and restored the them to power after expelling and defeating the invading Iraqi troops of Saddam Hussein.

Let's listen in on the fictional phone conversation between President Donald Trump and the now exiled leader of Kuwait Emir Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who had fled to Saudi Arabia to operate a government in exile.

Al-Sabah:
 Mr President, I beseech you to help us get rid the invading forces of Iraq and restore our family as the rightful rulers of our kingdom.
Trump: 
Hmm, not so fast.. Why should we help you, after all your country is a dictatorship, not so much different from Iraq?

Al-Sabah:
 Mr President, again I beseech to help us. It is only fair and just and the United States has always been on the side of justice and freedom.

Trump:  
Tell you what. We'll get rid of Saddam's forces and restore your family to power, but under conditions.
First.... You're paying for the war. We'll send you a bill when it is over.
Second.... Any American killed in defence of Kuwait will results in a $3 million dollar insurance payment to the family. Same for permanently injured soldiers. All American service personal involved will receive a $50,000 danger pay bonus paid by your government
Third.... A permanent naval base on the Kuwaiti coast which will be under American jurisdiction à la Guantanamo Bay. 
Fourth... A 30% royalty on all oil sales for 50 years. 

Al-Sabah:
 But...but Mr. President that is outlandish!  It is tantamount to blackmail. I cannot accept such a proposal!

Trump:  
BLACKMAIL!!! 
It's called what's in it for me, the United States of America, you snivelling little dictator.
It's a take  it or leave it offer and it won't stay on the table long. 
If we don't come in to take out Saddam, nobody else will, so make up your mind.
And by the way, just so you know, we are in fact going to invade and remove Saddam one way or another, with or without you.  We can make a better deal with other members of your family who would love to take over from you.. Think about it.

Al-Sabah:
 Okay, Mr. President I accept your terms. I have only one question... How soon can you come?

There's little doubt that Trump will take America out of its present comfort zone and that in and of itself is frightening to many who hate the idea of Trump as president.

To those of you who are perturbed, I ask that you put his personality aside and judge him by his deeds and accomplishments, which already are paying dividends.
You might be pleasantly surprised.

Proportional Voting...No Thank You!

Years ago I sat as a guest with a very politically savvy Jean Charest  in the opposition members gallery overlooking proceedings in the House of Commons. We had just had lunch in the Parliamentary Dining room where I was a bit surprised at how chummy members of opposite parties were.
At any rate Jean displayed  a razor-sharp mind and a flawless memory.
He was giving me a civics lesson in Parliamentary procedure and as each MP got up and spoke, offered a incisive and  pretty amazing critique using his prodigious memory and encyclopedic  knowledge of the issues.
I was duly impressed at the brain power, but came away asking myself "So what?"

Politicians ensconced in Ottawa for any period of time become lost in a world of politics for politics sake, and issues that mean absolutely nothing to average Canadians are debated, promoted, rejected and fought over as if it really mattered.

Such is the debate over proportional representation, an issue which the vast majority of Canadians have no interest in.
It occurred to me that the expensive undertaking by the government in asking Canadians for input on the issue is as useful as asking a vegetarian for a steakhouse recommendation.
I'd hazard a guess that 95% of Canadians could not tell you how many seats there are in the House of Commons and the Senate, plus the name of three Premiers of any of the provinces outside their own, or three cabinet Ministers.
Can you?
The reality is that the issue of proportional representation and what it entails is one for the politicians not the people, because most of us don't know what it is and don't care at all.

The idea of proportional representation is that seats in Parliament are accorded to some degree in direct relation with the total amount of votes received by each party.
Today we elect MPs and governments based on the 'first past the post' system, where whomever gets the most votes in a riding is elected to Parliament with the party with the most MPs forming the government.

Proportional representation seems much fairer, but as Trudeau and the Liberals found out, the devil is in the details.
Let's look at the 2011 election which Stephen Harper and the Conservatives won.
Here is a table of the actual seats won, the popular vote and the potential results if all the seats were allocated in proportion to the popular vote and in the last column, a hybrid system which combines both systems in a 50/50 split.

As you can see, when Justin Trudeau proposed a new electoral system in the last election campaign based on proportional voting, it seemed like a good idea for the Liberals, which would have seen their seat numbers go up.
But looking at the results of the last election, the Liberal would actually be impacted quite negatively by application of any proportional voting system.

Now you can understand why Trudeau is walking back on his pledge to implement a new voting system.

At any rate you easily see who are the winners in this new system, the fringe parties namely the Greens, NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, so you can understand where support for the idea comes from.

On top of that, we know that many voters who support the Greens, the NDP or the Bloc don't vote for them because their votes are largely wasted in ridings where they clearly cannot win. Under the new system fringe parties could see their support increase substantially as voters see their vote counting.

More importantly we could see the rise of new parties emboldened by the thought of winning seats in Parliament with fractional support, leading to minority government and the dreaded coalition governments of Israel and Italy, even though we are promised it cannot happen.

Now one other point to be considered is the rise of one issue parties. Here in Quebec, federalists have voted for the Quebec Liberal party for decades based on one issue and one issue alone, sovereignty.  Neither corruption, incompetence or scandal can shake voters off the Liberals and as the joke goes... better the Mafia running Quebec than the separatists.

Supporters of proportional voting tell us that fringe parties won't be rewarded because they will need to pass a certain threshold (perhaps 5%) to win Parliamentary representation, an unlikely situation in their opinion.
But single issue parties can easily pass the required threshold, we already have the proof. 
Quebec separatists have been voting for the Bloc Quebecois for years, based on that single issue of sovereignty.

So which issue can actually have such an effect on Canadian voters, an issue so dear to certain people that it would dictate them moving over to a fringe party?
Can you guess?.........

Abortion.

While two-thirds of Canadians support a women's right to choose, fully one-third of Canadians consider themselves Right-to-Lifers.
For most of them, a new party staunchly opposing abortion would be a natural fit and trust me, pro-life people are motivated.
Do a Google search with the words "Right to Life Canada" and you'll be shocked at the number of organizations in place across Canada, in every province and every major city. Organizations full of willing and motivated campaigners who could become a formidable force in any federal election.

I wonder how ultra-Liberals in favour of proportional voting would react to having 50 pro-lifers sitting in Parliament and while pro-lifers may not  be able to overturn abortion, they can and will militate against late-term abortions and will seek to protect the so-called rights of the unborn.
Are they ready for that?

Now as voters go, Canadians have always been pretty lazy and not overly interested in the political process. We like to vote, have a majority government and get on with our lives. The idea of political intrigue on an ongoing basis makes most of us shudder.
Remember the nonsense of our last minority government where the Liberals and NDP were willing to make common cause with the separatists of the Bloc?
We hated it.

Proportional voting is likely the fairest way to do things but in my view not the best for us.
Voting systems have to work for the voting public and Canada's system works fine as it is.

Attention politicians......If it ain't broke, don't fix it.