I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate.

Around the country, scientists were shocked that the federal Minister for Science interpreted a question about his acceptance of evolutionary theory as an attack on his religion. Some likened his response to a refusal to answer whether or not he thought the earth was flat due to his religious beliefs.¹ Others were more blunt, wondering how the chiropractor-cum-cabinet minister could possibly retain the science portfolio if he rejected one of the world’s most well-established scientific theories.

The issue is particularly troubling given the Conservatives’ gutting of research-based science funding in their January budget. With a focus on the commercialization of discoveries to “bring them to the marketplace” quickly, important areas of scientific study remain woefully underfunded.² Whereas in the United States the Obama administration has pledged $10 billion USD to fund basic research, the Conservatives have forced research agencies in Canada, including those responsible for studying stem cells and climate change, to cut spending by $148 million. It is not difficult to see Conservative ideology at work here. Add to that the unrestrained hostility that Mr. Goodyear and his staff have for lobbyists acting on behalf of the scientific research community — witness his boorish behaviour of loudly accusing them of lying whilst an aide screamed at them to “shut up” mere moments into a scheduled meeting — and it is no wonder that scientists in Canada see no alternative in such a climate but to ironically move Stateside to what is now a more hospitable environment for scientific research.³

A history of holes

Goodyear is not the first Conservative cabinet minister to display pride in a preschool ignorance of evolutionary theory, or outright hostility to it. Stockwell Day, the Conservative Trade Minister and former leader of the party while it was incarnated as the Reform Party, is known for his creationist views, which, together with a suitable compendium of gaffes, likely cost him the 2000 election.

In response to their respective creationist kerfuffles, Mr. Day and Mr. Goodyear and other government spokespeople have rightly said that MPs, including cabinet ministers, are entitled to their beliefs. They have said the government is not in the business of promulgating either creation “science” or any other viewpoint. Those would be comforting words but for the fact that Mr. Day lamented that creationism was not taught in public schools, and that Mr. Goodyear controls funding for an area of science he is openly hostile to, in a Ministry he has demonstrated is controlled by ideology over need. They would be comforting words but for the fact that Day, Goodyear, and their apologists shrilly cry foul when their views are challenged by the media, because somehow their religious beliefs are sacrosanct and untouchable, even when they themselves present them to the public, or offer them up in some unpalatable concoction of public policy and private piety.

Furthermore, when a creationist openly ridicules evolutionary theory and its scientists on the floor of the House of Commons, the public venue entrusted to him by his riding constituents so that he may represent their most fundamental needs, he has made two fatal errors: he has abrogated his political responsibilities, and he has polluted his public office with his private religious beliefs contrary to the stated aims of even this Conservative government. On April 2, 2009, James Lunney, another chiropractor and now Conservative MP for the British Columbia riding of Nanaimo-Alberni, addressed Parliament.⁴ Evolutionary scientists are arrogant anti-scientists, he said. He claimed that all the millions of Canadians who believed in a creator were being ridiculed in the debate surrounding Mr. Goodyear’s curious response to a question about evolutionary theory. Lastly, and ghoulishly if not laughably, he said that, since Charles Darwin could not be conjured from the grave, today’s evolutionary scientists could not disprove that the father of evolutionary theory would not today abandon it if presented with the “discoveries” of the likes of creationist and Seventh-Day Adventist Robert V. Gentry⁵ — discoveries dismissed as amateur pseudoscience after peer review.⁶

A concession, of sorts

In the end, Mr. Goodyear was forced to affirm a “belief” in evolution, some suggesting that those in the upper echelons made him do it to avoid yet more Conservative controversy. Unfortunately, his espousal had nothing to do with evolutionary theory, and only underscored the Science Minister’s appalling ignorance of science. “We are evolving every year, every decade,” he said. “That’s a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment.”⁷

Yet again, Canada seems destined to belatedly follow the United States in areas of public policy and cultural myopia. We can only look forward to the day when we also follow their political lead, and discover energizing politics, youthful ideas, a devotion to reason, and dynamic leaders once again.

1. Anne McIlroy, Minister won’t confirm belief in evolution, The Globe and Mail, March 17, 2009.
2. Carolyn Abraham, Researchers fear ‘stagnation’ under Tories, The Globe and Mail, March 2, 2009.
3. Ibid.
4. Aaron Wherry, James Lunney v. Evolution, Macleans.ca, April 2, 2009.
5. Darrell Bellaart, Darwin would think again, Lunney tells House of Commons, Nanaimo Daily News, April 4, 2009.
6. Polonium Halo FAQs at The TalkOrigins Archive.
7. Anne McIlroy, Goodyear continues to deflect questions on evolution beliefs, The Globe and Mail, March 18, 2009.

I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up — I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.

– Stephen Harper, September 23, 2008

When the head of a government starts invoking “ordinary people” just before an election in an attempt to appeal to the broadest base of voters possible, particularly in relation to an issue they collectively know very little about, there is no doubt that the ideological engine is shifting into high gear. Harper strenuously denied the funding cuts were ideologically motivated¹ even as his Finance Minister acknowledged that politics certainly played a role.

We are a Conservative government, and the ministers who sit on the Treasury Board have that hat on as well. This is not a bureaucratic process; the decision is made by the ministers who sit on the Treasury Board, and they have views on certain programs.²

– Jim Flaherty, September 24, 2008

Coupled with the strongly ideological Bill C-10 introduced in February 2008 apparently at the behest of ultra right-wing creationist and Evangelical Christian Charles McVety, deemed “censorship” legislation by the arts community and which would have denied federal funding to film and television productions the government deemed offensive, it’s difficult to imagine how any move the Conservatives might make against the arts could not be seen as materializing out of the right-wing canon. And indeed, an analysis conducted by The Globe and Mail of the Conservative budget in relation to arts funding found that cuts made to arts and culture programs appeared to be almost certainly ideologically motivated.

The Department of Canadian Heritage is the body that receives federal funding for arts and culture. Divided into two “Strategic Outcome” arms, the first, known as SO1, is the mainstay for directly funding Canadian arts and culture, such as film, television, visual, and other arts. The second, SO2, funds initiatives related to sports, official languages, “citizen participation”, even ESL studies. Both are called beneficiaries of “arts funding” by the Conservatives.³

The Globe found that SO1 funding was falling, while SO2 funding was increasing. In fact, all the relevant funding cuts only affected SO1. The government could thereby claim that, although some arts funding was being cut, money was actually being invested back into other “arts” programs, failing to mention the strongly polarized programs making up SO1 and SO2. Moreover, the Conservatives were claiming that arts funding introduced by the previous Liberal government was their own, due to an anomaly in finance reporting after Parliament was dissolved ahead of the 2006 election.⁴

Perhaps sensing the public would not be ignorant of these facts forever, and surprised at the strong and well-organized backlash from the arts community and local governments alike, Harper next announced tax credits for families with children in arts programs. In a breathtaking example of political cynicism combined with naked hypocrisy, Harper introduced the new funding in words barely believable after his tirade less than a week earlier against “whining elitist artists” and their “expensive galas”.

For some children, participating in art, dance and drama classes will be a fun and enjoyable activity. For others, it could be the beginning of much more — a lifelong interest or career.

– Stephen Harper, September 29, 2008

The cynicism of this move did not satisfy those affected by the cuts and the potential censorship legislation, especially in Quebec, where arts and culture strongly identify the distinct society that Quebecers enjoy. It’s interesting to wonder if there would be any way that Jean-Claude Lauzon’s 1992 film Léolo — featuring pre-teen masturbation, food eroticism, scatology, incest, and other wonders — would have ever seen the light of day, had the censorship legislation been in place. Internationally acclaimed, the film made Time magazine’s list of the one hundred best films of all time, but in the world of the Conservatives, this surely would have been deemed objectionable and pornographic stuff during one of the closed-door meetings that would have determined funding for such projects.

But panic ensued, and, in a further example of cynical electioneering, the Conservatives reversed themselves and vowed to scrap Bill C-10. However, the damage had been done. The Conservatives are seen to be ideologically opposed to arts funding, unless they are allowed to call sports, ESL classes, and other unrelated activities “art”. They have ignored the fact that actual arts and culture contribute 7% to this country’s GDP, translating to more than $84 billion of economic gain annually.⁵ They are avowed ideologues, where funding policy is determined not by economic considerations, but by how well-aligned the beneficiaries of those policies are with the Conservative agenda.

Artists, filmmakers, musicians, poets and writers, beware.

1. James Bradshaw, Harper plays populist tune on arts cuts, The Globe And Mail, September 11, 2008.
2. James Cowan and Marianne White, Finance minister defends Tory cuts to arts funding, September 25, 2008.
3. James Bradshaw, Study reveals erosion in arts funding, The Globe And Mail, September 19, 2008.
4. Ibid.
5. Culture sector helps drive economy, CBC.ca, August 26, 2008.

Canada’s current government is focused mostly on raising the spectre of criminal activity, despite the fact that the government’s own statistics show the national crime rate to have been falling steadily in virtually every area since 2004.¹ Of all the pages detailing policy in its 2008 platform, a full 29% mention crime, violence, punishment, penalties, prison, criminal conduct, or tough laws. The government is also fixated on military engagement and the open encouragement of nationalism.

[Addendum, April 21, 2009: Statistics Canada reports that serious crime was at a thirty-year low before the Conservative anti-crime campaign began.²]

Its actions in these and other areas before the 2006 election and subsequently have demonstrated the Party, and Mr. Harper in particular, to be concerned with populism. As a result, they have shown a remarkable disdain for parliamentary democracy, the traditions of a free media, intellectualism, and for anything that does not on its surface appeal to the basest political appetites of Canadians.

It’s simple to examine this government’s three short years of life to peel away the populist policy promulgations, and begin to reveal that long sought-after hidden Conservative agenda. In a morass of breaches lesser and greater, a few particularly egregious offences stand out. And so, in a series of articles, in neither chronological order nor in any sequence of terribleness, I present the Conservative government’s Shameful Acts.

But let’s begin before it even all got started.

1. Breaking Canada’s election laws

Apparently in order to circumvent national campaign spending limits during the 2006 federal election, the Conservative party engaged in an “in and out” scheme. The Party’s national headquarters transferred money to local ridings, which immediately sent the money back using pre-signed bank transfers, claiming it had been spent on campaign advertising. However, the “local” ads were identical to national campaign ads, with only the addition of local candidate information at the end. The result was not only spending beyond the legislated limits by more than a million dollars, but a loss of almost one million dollars to taxpayers, since sixty percent of the costs of the ads were claimed as refundable expenses by local candidates.³

During routine audits, Elections Canada, the independent body overseeing the election process, uncovered the discrepancies, and in April 2008, the RCMP raided the Party’s national headquarters to seize documents related to the scheme. During its investigation, Elections Canada discovered that local Conservative candidates did not know which ads the payments were for,⁴ presumably because the bank transfers were pre-signed by the national Party.

In other words, local candidates were sent money by the Party to fund their campaigns. The candidates immediately returned the money to pay for their campaign advertising, which they had no part in creating, and which they apparently never saw or approved. The local campaigns then collectively claimed that Canadian taxpayers owed them a million dollars in refunds to be processed by Elections Canada. In other strata of society, this kind of willful flouting of financing rules is known as “money laundering”. The euphemistic “violations of the Elections Act” of which they were accused would, if it were any other piece of legislation and any other component of society, be called “breaking the law”.

There is much more shameful behaviour in this story after the Conservatives came to power, including: the Conservatives’ refusal to cooperate with a House investigation into the matter; representatives being told by the Party not to show up after being summoned by the investigative Committee; the Party’s refusal to express confidence in Elections Canada by voting against a symbolic motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois to do so; and Conservative campaign chair Doug Finley’s bizarre crashing of the Committee, apparently in some Orwellian attempt to intimidate Conservative witnesses.⁵ After refusing to leave, he was forced out by security personnel.

The entire “in and out” episode has been described by critics as “disdain for democracy”, and by some Conservatives as a betrayal of the Party’s vision.

1. CBCNews.ca, Snapshot: Crime in Canada 2007, July 17, 2008.
2. The Canadian Press, Crime rate hit 30-year low in 2007, The Toronto Star, April 21, 2009.
3. Richard Brennan, Furor over campaign funds heats up, The Toronto Star, October 27, 2007.
4. Scandalpedia.ca, The In and Out Scam.
5. Peter Zimonjic, Conservative candidates felt betrayed, Northern News, August 2008.

A member of the Canadian armed forces explains heavy ordnance to a young boy.

None of these. Peacekeeping is effectively finished as a tradition as soon as the population wills it. The acceptance of mounting casualties in foreign conflicts that have nothing to do with security at home, the promotion of nationalism in the face of a national identity crisis, the mood that allows parents to look on, smiling, while their prepubescent children dress in real military uniform, handle real ordnance, and talk with real soldiers in front of real recruitment desks — these are the signs that change for a nation of peacekeepers is inevitable.

And in Canada, change has come.

Canada and peacekeeping

After World War II and the Korean War, Canada’s position as a “middle power”, together with its foreign policy goals and its sense of national identity, restricted its participation in military engagement across the globe. Peacekeeping, the maintenance of cease-fire between combatants following hostilities, was a role that fit well with both the will of the population and the fiscal means of Canada as a middle power.¹

In 1956, Lester B. Pearson, then Canada’s minister of external affairs, proposed a UN force to defuse the looming threat of war during the Suez crisis in the Middle East. The proposal was accepted, and the world’s first organized, multi-national UN peacekeeping force was deployed successfully to the region, ending hostilities. Pearson is considered the father of modern peacekeeping, and for his accomplishment, he was awarded 1957′s Nobel prize for peace. Canada’s tradition of peacekeeping began with that milestone, and with the recognition by the Nobel selection committee that Pearson, the only Canadian to win the peace prize, had, in their words, “saved the world” from another global conflict.²

Since Pearson, Canada has been engaged in about forty peacekeeping operations, and has been generally regarded with respect for both its “quiet diplomacy” and its leading role in conflict resolution and maintenance, as well as its willingness to bear the human cost: more than one hundred peacekeeping Canadian soldiers have lost their lives in the half-century of the tradition in Canada.³

This is contrasted sharply with the number of Canadians dead in the combat mission in Afghanistan in just seven years: one hundred and eleven fatalities as of this date.

No win, no end

Undoubtedly this disparity is not lost on Mr. Harper and his minority Conservative government, who have pledged close to twenty billion dollars annually in military spending through 2010 and beyond. Despite popular opinion in Canada that the military is woefully underfunded, spending has reached levels not seen since World War II. And the Department of National Defence is asking for twice the current amount through 2025.

A member of the Canadian armed forces explains the workings of a large assault gun to a young boy he has helped dress up in military armour.

Those plans may include sending yet more troops to Afghanistan beyond the 2011 deadline the Conservatives agreed to.⁵ Even as he was determined to echo Canadians’ sentiments that “winning” in Afghanistan was important, whatever that means, and even while he claimed winning was impossible, Mr. Harper did not rule out spending more money, and presumably more lives, on the Afghan mission.

The importance of acclimatizing Canadians to combat missions with unclear agendas and unforeseeable ends has a certain logic for a party fixated on issues of law, order, might, and nationalism, and not so concerned with details of personal liberty and freedom of thought. Afghanistan, in this respect, is a kind of test. If Canadians simply accept perpetual troop deployment while not bothering themselves with the foreign policy issues involved, the Conservatives have won a major ideological battle in this country. The transformation is underway. Dead soldiers are being routinely delivered along the “Highway of Heroes”, elevated to the status of national half-deities, while flag-waving patriots cheer from bridges above. Are those people concerned with foreign policy? With tax dollars spent on unwinnable wars in culturally hostile nations? Or are the soldiers, and by extension the military, the foreign policy directing them, and the Conservative government formulating that policy simply above reproach, with pesky issues of mission worthiness, or even the worthiness of combat missions over peacekeeping missions, simply getting in the way of idolizing soldiers for the sake of their occupation alone?

Wargames

Perhaps there is no more telling sign of a fundamental shift in the population’s attitude to the military than in the signals parents give their children. Last month, I was at the Canadian International Auto Show, which I attend every year. Once again this year, the military had a large display area, showing off tanks, vehicles, bombers, and heavy guns. Soldiers in full uniform, including officers, were everywhere. At the rear of the display area, recruiters manned desks for the various services: army, navy, air force. People wandered in and around the area, touching artillery, clambering on machines of war. High above, a sign proclaimed that the Canadian Armed Forces was hereby “Connecting With Canadians”.

Members of the Canadian armed forces pose for pictures taken by the parents of a young boy holding a missile.

Is this how the Armed Forces connects with Canadians? By turning itself into a playground for kids? By making acclimatization to the military, to machines of destruction, a part of growing up in this country? By making its presence felt at the most unexpected of places in society?

I have said that I do not support the troops, because I am supremely uncomfortable giving unqualified “support” — whatever that may mean — to a government body directed by policy I may not understand. I stated that, not being psychotic, I don’t wish harm on troops or anyone else doing a job of their choosing, but that I’ll reserve my support for those people and those actions I can condone with a clear conscience, with the knowledge that I know what I’m talking about. For example, in the second World War, the need for troop deployment was obvious. In the “war on terrorism”, the desire to wedge foreign policy into a culture defined by its antipathy to the West is less so.

A young boy looks at the material at a recruitment desk while a member of the Canadian armed forces stands by.

And now Canada is seeking out the youngest and the brightest. The sooner it can find them, and the younger they become, the more irrevocable will be the march into the territories of barely controlled national pride, of the idolatry of soldiers and war, of suspicion of dissent, of the turning away from discussion. Eyes fixed on the future, the Conservatives understand that a fundamental change is underway.

1. The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum, Peacekeeping: Canada’s Role
2. CBC.ca, Lester B. Pearson, Top Ten Greatest Canadians, Spring 2004
3. Peter McCluskey, CBC News In Depth: The history of Canadian peacekeeping, October 30, 2003
4. Steven Staples and Bill Robinson, More Than The Cold War: Canada’s military spending 2007-08: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, October 2007.
5. Paul Koring, Canada, allies, will never defeat Taliban, PM says, The Globe And Mail, March 2, 2009.

This is a dangerous position to take in North American society, where unqualified “support” is demanded of us from bumper stickers on ambulances and fire trucks, and where even a local politician not mouthing this mantra on cue may as well pack up and move out of the country. It isn’t difficult to imagine that many people would be satisfied by adding the phrase “or get out” to this slogan. A popular witticism suggests, “If you don’t stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.”

The United States has a strong military tradition, and mass unqualified support for it is part of its culture. This is a latent phenomenon in Canada. With the election of a Conservative government in this country, the role of the Canadian military has taken on a new perspective. For example, there has been a shift from a traditional role of peacekeeping, to active, prolonged military engagement in Afghanistan.¹ The government has created the issue of “Canadian arctic sovereignty”, dubiously spending more than four billion dollars of the military budget for it. And, most telling, Prime Minister Stephen Harper paternalistically chided the Canadian public in March 2006, when the debate about Afghanistan began in earnest. Borrowing the phrase “cut and run” from hawkish American discourse intended to make opponents of the Iraq war appear ignoble and cowardly, Harper neatly described the Canadian Conservative world view.

Canadians don’t cut and run at the first sign of trouble. That’s the nature of this country, and when we send troops into the field, I expect Canadians to support those troops.

In Canada, as much as in the United States, the unqualified demand to “support our troops” is issued from all quarters, by the most nondescript soccer mom from the rear of her SUV, and by the most powerful person in the country.

When Mr. Harper says that he expects Canadians to support the troops, he is effectively demanding that all discourse on the subject of troop deployment come to an end. His demand is tantamount to saying, “It doesn’t matter where we send our troops or for what purpose, you are expected to support them.” This line of thought pushes back discussion of foreign policy issues in the public arena, and favours martial sentimentality over discourse. The Prime Minister is actively discouraging dialogue.

The most common definition for regular Canadians sporting bumper stickers with this phrase seems to go something like this: “Support our troops, because they are in harm’s way while performing a dangerous job at great personal risk.” If this is accurate, then what they are really saying is that there is a need for society to collectively support troops, because there are elements that actively want the troops to be in harm’s way. But this is an absurd proposition. While there may be psychotic individuals who would like troops to be harmed, this is hardly a problem that needs to be confronted by common citizens. Clearly something else is implied by the reverse of “support our troops”.

“Support our troops”, coming from ordinary citizens in 2008, holds exactly the same message that Mr. Harper’s comment held in 2006. “Support our troops” means, “It is enough for ordinary citizens to be sentimental about troops.” There is no further form of support, other than sentimental support including signed cards, flags, and home-made muffins, that ordinary citizens can offer troops. From this perspective, support for troops must be unqualified. There is an implicit wishing away of all questions regarding why troops are deployed in the places they find themselves.

I am not informed enough about the issues in Afghanistan to understand whether or not I should be supporting the foreign policy decisions that sent troops there. I can make no judgement as to whether or not the troops are “protecting and guaranteeing Canadian freedom,” which seems to be the popular notion (although I do know that Canada will be free for a very long time, should its troops withdraw from military action in Afghanistan tomorrow). At best, I am by necessity neutral on the foreign policy issues involved. I suspect many Canadians are in my position.

I am not neutral about supporting troops. I cannot support troops without qualification, and I certainly cannot subscribe to a popular chant that seeks to put all Canadians under the umbrella of what is tantamount to a political slogan that holds an underlying connotation of willful ignorance.

The command to “support our troops” is an appeal to emotion lacking any evidential value. Not merely a logical fallacy, since the statement as commonly used does not in itself propose any kind of argument, “support our troops” is an empty juxtaposition of sentimentality with public policy. Everyone should be suspicious of such appeals.

1. The Canadian military was initially deployed in Afghanistan by the Liberal government in 2002, marking its first combat role since the Korean War. The Conservative government has since sought several extensions for troop deployment there despite political opposition, and has increased military spending to $19,000,000,000.00 for 2009.