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Fact: Canada is alone among major industrialized powers without its own car. The U.S. has Ford, GM, and so on. Italy has Fiat. Japan has Honda and Toyota. Germany has Volkswagen. France has Citroen. Jaguar and Bentley (and plenty of others) first started in Britain. Korea has Hyundai. Even Russia has its Lada. But Canada? Nothing.

Back in 2008-09, when the Harper government was debating if it should use billions of Canadian tax dollars to prop up the Canadian divisions of the foreign-owned car companies GM and Chrysler, there was — too briefly, if you ask me — a flurry of nationalist murmurings that the Canadian government should do no such thing but instead, use those billions to develop Canada's first car. The Beaver? the Paddle? The Canoe? Oh, the branding possibilities!

But nothing ever came of that chatter. The government did what everyone expected and gave billions went to GM and Chrysler (and taxpayers made a tidy little sum on the deal). And though Canada still builds lots of Toyotas and Fords and KIAs, we still don't have our own car.

The yearning to have Canada create its own car, though, was more than just nationalism, there were some reasonable arguments about the research and manufacturing spinoffs that would accrue to Canada if we had our own car.

And so it was (and is) with India where, in 2009, leading industrialist Tata Group announced that Tata Motors would build and sell the Nano, the world's cheapest car. This would sweep through India (environmentalists were worried about millions of new car drivers putting greenhouse gases into our already overburdened atmosphere) and the rest of the developing world. India could boast of its own car, bringing new wealth and expertise to that country and, in the process, creating a car for the masses in the developing world.

But, as the American Enterprise Institute's Sadanand Dhume told me today, so far, it's not exactly working out for Tata's Nano — mostly because status-conscious Indians don't want to be driving what everyone knows is “the world's cheapest car.”

And here's the link to Dhume's excellent piece in Foreign Policy about Tata's Nano

The Liberal Party of Canada is urging Canadians to sign a petition that will tell Stephen Harper to lay off the CBC's budget; that “the Conservatives are using the CBC as a scapegoat for their budget deficits and are breaking their election promise to continue their funding.”

Fans/employees of the CBC may be excused for raising an eyebrow to see the Liberals criticizing any government eyeballing CBC budget cuts as part of a government-wide austerity plan for in 1996, as Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien and his finance minister Paul Martin were trying to dig Canada out from under its biggest debt load (measured relative to GDP), the Liberals imposed drastic cuts on the Crown corporation, chopping $414 million from a budget of what, at that time, was $1.4 billion a year. That's a haircut of close to 30 per cent.

The current Conservative government has asked all government departments, including the CBC, for a plan that would shave 5 per cent of funding and a plan that would cut 10 per cent. The CBC's federal subsidy for this current fiscal year is $1.07 billion. A 10 per cent haircut would amount to little over $100 million, a far cry from what the Liberals did the last time a government was trying to dig itself out of a defict hole.

And if you think the Conservatives are worse than the Libs because the Liberals have an “ideological” bias — ask CBC reporter Terry Milewski how enlightened the Chretien government was about his reporting on Sgt. Pepper at APEC.

Others say the Conservatives promised to maintain or increase CBC's funding during the May 2nd election. If you voted for the Tories based partly on that promise, presumably you hope they'll stick to that promise.

Here's the Liberal Red Book of 1993:

“Funding cuts to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation … illustrate the Tories failure to appreciate the importance of cultural and industrial development … A Liberal government will be committed to stable multi-year financing for national cultural institutions such as .. the CBC.” (p. 88)

Then the Liberals went out and whacked 2,400 jobs at CBC and cut funding by over $400 million.

Here, incidentally, are four years of Liberal governments (Fiscal 1996 through fiscal 1999) that came after the big whack of cuts, an example, presumably of a Liberal government “protecting” the CBC's funding (this from the CBC's own annual report in 1999):

I'm still trying to obtain an apples-to-apples series that would show how much the CBC received from taxpayers for the years 1993 through to now. But, based on CBC's own annual reports and the Main Estimates published by Treasury Board, here's what I've got so far:

In Fiscal 1996 (a reminder that a fiscal year is denominated by the year in which the financial reporting ends. So, as the Government of Canada's financial year ends on March 31, FY 96 refers to the the last nine months of 1995 and the first three months of 1996), Parliament apportioned $1.07 billion to the CBC. That was drastically slashed in FY 97 and FY 98, stayed at that low mark in FY 99 of abotu $760 million and then began a tentative creep up again. By the time the Liberals, then led by Paul Martin, left office in the last fiscal for which they are responsible for (FY 06), the CBC's subsidy totalled just over $1 billion.

So despite: an apology in the 1997 Liberal Red Book for the CBC cuts and a promise to restore funding and several budgetary surpluses in the last years of the Liberal reign that allowed them to book as much as $3 billion in “contingency” money, the Liberals never made good on that 1997 promise to restore funding. And so, after 13 years of Liberal rule, the CBC had less money in absolute terms and a lot less if you pegged it to GDP or some other relative measure.

So how's the Conservative measure? Despite frequent sabre-rattling by Conservative MPs, the Conservatives have not taken the axe to CBC with the same gusto the Liberals did a decade earlier. CBC funding was trimmed by $32 million (3.2%) in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's first fiscal year (FY 07).  But then — and there's where I want to double check that a comparison using Treasury Board Estimates against CBC Annual Reports yields accurate results — funding under the Tories jumped in FY 09 nearly 20 per cent to $1.19 billion. But in each fiscal year since then, there has been less and less for the CBC from the Conservatives. Cuts of 3.6% (FY10) , 4.5%(FY11), and, projected for this year, 1.52% will leave it in FY 12 (year end March 31 2012) with a subsidy of $1.07 billion — almost exactly where the CBC was in 1996!

Update: Freelance journalist Justin Ling points me to this: Friends of Canadian Broadcasting has crunched the numbers and adjusted them for inflation and published the following chart which, if you're a fan of CBC, would seem to indicate that it would be tough to trust Liberals or Conservatives to protect CBC funding …

There will be many who will wish to diminish the significance of this — not enough MPs from outside Quebec, etc. etc — but when you stand up with more than one-third of your 100+ Parlamentary caucus to run for your party's leadership, that's saying something. And that, folks, was Thomas Mulcair today.

Now, if you believed the whisper campaign that seemed to be afoot in Ottawa, Mulcair was loathed by his parliamentary colleagues. I wasn't prepared to believe this until I heard from at least few actual New Democrats. I have tried my darndest to eavesdrop on as many conversations as I could among NDP MPs and staffers in Ottawa, but so far, I cannot name a single loather. I can find many Conservatives, however, who tell me that they believe Mulcair would likely represent the biggest threat in four years to Prime Minister Harper.

Here is the list, incidentally, of the NDP MPs who have signed on to make Mulcair the first NDP prime minister:

• Robert Aubin – Trois-Rivières
• Tarik Brahmi – Saint-Jean
• Sylvain Chicoine – Châteauguay-Saint-Constant
• Anne-Marie Day – Charlesbourg-Haute-Saint-Charles
• Matthew Dubé – Chambly-Borduas
• Pierre-Luc Dusseault – Sherbrooke
• Réjean Genest – Shefford
• Sadia Groguhé – Saint-Lambert
• Dan Harris – Scarborough-South-East
• Sana Hassainia – Verchères-Les-Patriotes
• Pierre Jacob – Brome-Missisiquoi
• Matthew Kellway – Beaches-East York
• François Lapointe – Montmagny-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup
• Alexandrine Latendresse – Louis-Saint-Laurent
• Hélène Leblanc – LaSalle-Emard
• Wayne Marston – Hamilton-East-Stoney Creek
• Marc-André Morin – Laurentides-Labelle
• Marie-Claude Morin – Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot
• Pierre Nantel – Longueuil-Pierre-Boucher
• Jamie Nicholls – Vaudreuil-Soulanges
• José Nunez-Mélo – Laval
• Annick Papillon – Québec
• Claude Patry – Jonquière-Alma
• Manon Perreault – Montcalm
• François Pilon – Laval-les-Îles
• John Rafferty – Thunder Bay-Rainy River
• Mathieu Ravignat – Pontiac
• Jean Rousseau – Compton-Stanstead
• Djaouida Sellah – Saint-Bruno-Saint-Hubert
• Lise St-Denis – Saint-Maurice-Champlain
• PhilipToone – Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine
• Jonathan Tremblay – Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord

Please pass this around, folks:

R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship (deadline Nov. 15, 2011)

The R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship was created by friends and colleagues of the late Jim Travers to honour his legacy of critical, conscientious engagement on global issues and Canadian foreign policy by funding a major international reporting project in any medium every year.

Travers worked as the Southam News correspondent in Africa and the Middle East during the 1980s, covering major stories from Apartheid in South Africa and the Ethiopian famine to the conflict in Lebanon and the Iran-Iraq war. Returning to Canada, he continued an influential career as General Manager of Southam News, Editor of the Ottawa Citizen, Executive Managing Editor of the Toronto Star, and finally as an award-winning national affairs columnist known for his compassion and playful wit.

At home and abroad, he had a sharp eye for world news and its domestic implications, and was concerned by the lack of in-depth international coverage in the Canadian media. The Fellowship aims to help fill this void and support those hoping to work in Travers’ tradition.

Applicants with imaginative, innovative perspectives on a wide range of global issues are encouraged to apply.

Terms

A $25,000 award for one year, administered by Carleton University. It is intended to cover the costs of travel, hired equipment and help (photographers, fixers, etc.), and time spent researching, reporting and producing a significant project. The award will not cover the purchase of equipment. Successful applicants are expected to focus exclusively on the fellowship during the period outlined in their proposals and to complete the project by the end of the calendar year in which its awarded.

Publication and / or broadcast of fellowship work will be accompanied by an appropriate credit citing financial support from the R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship. While published work shall remain the property of the fellow, Carleton University reserves the right to use completed projects to promote the fellowship.
Fellows are also required, upon completion of their project, to submit reflections for use on the fellowship website.

Eligibility

The fellowship is open to Canadians and non-Canadians holding valid work permits who are working as freelance or full-time journalists in any medium. Students enrolled in graduate-level journalism or equivalent programs are also encouraged to apply.

Ethics

Applicants must agree to abide by the ethics guidelines of the Canadian Association of Journalists and the ethics policy of the Carleton School of Journalism and Communication http://www1.carleton.ca/journalism/ccms/wp-content/ccms-files/EthicsPolicy.pdf

How to Apply

Applicants should compile a package that includes:
· A 750-word story pitch demonstrating command of and insight into the proposed subject area, and touching upon its relevance to a Canadian audience and potential impact on public policy. Proposals dealing with a wide-range of global topics will be considered. Applicants should clearly indicate any current or potential institutional partners associated with the proposal. They should also indicate which medium(s) they intend to work within.
· A one page reporting plan outlining how the work will be researched, produced and published within the calendar year
· A letter from a credible media outlet expressing interest in publishing or broadcasting the finished project
· A detailed budget indicating how the award will be used
· Up to 5 clips or writing samples. Radio, television, and digital media applicants may submit clips in their respective medium
· Curriculum Vitae
· Letters of reference: Applicants are encouraged to include up to three professional letters of reference from a supervising editor familiar with their work. Students must also include a letter of reference from a faculty member speaking to their capacity and preparedness to successfully undertake the project
Please email your application to: traversfellowship@carleton.ca

Application Deadline

November 15, 2011

Selection

Fellows will be chosen by an award committee comprised of faculty members from the Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication, the Travers family and a senior journalist. Committee members will give preference to:
· Applicants with an impressive record of achievement commensurate with the stage of their career, as demonstrated by published work of distinction or evidence of significant potential to excel
· Applicants demonstrating a capacity for insightful, independent analysis and creative storytelling
· Proposals that show a strong consideration for social, political or economic justice and that have potential to impact Canadian public policy
· Proposals that address topics relevant to a Canadian audience
· Proposals with a concrete strategy for dissemination and publication, including plans to engage audiences online prior to publication
The fellowship award will be announced by March 2012.

More information

http://www1.carleton.ca/journalism/awards-and-scholarships/r-james-travers-foreign-corresponding-fellowship/

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a wonderful, well-deserved reputation as one of the leading beacons in the world when it comes to advancing knowledge and enlightenment.

That said: Not all of their graduates go on to the kind of distinguished career the MIT community might hope for. Take Ali Akbar Salehi (please!), for example. The Iraq-born Salehi's current title is Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Islamic Republic of Iran (that's a Reuters pic of him on the right). But in 1977, MIT awarded him a doctorate. He also spent time at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics. So he must be a smart guy. And yet, this week while I was in New York covering the United Nations, I watched him embarrass himself with this statement to the equally embarrassing charade known as Durban III.

Canada, to its great credit, was the first country to boycott the UN-sponsored Durban process. Canada got the hint that it was all going to turn out rather badly when it learned that Durban II, the 2009 followup to the 2001 hatefest the UN sponsored in Durban, South Africa, would be led by those notorious human rights champions: Moammar Ghadhafi’s Libya, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran and Fidel Castro’s Cuba (the conference chair, vice-chair, and rapporteur respectively). The U.S., the UK, France and others followed Canada's lead in abandoning the UN-sponsored Durban process. And even though Ahmadinejad, at Durban II, was applauded (!) by other UN member countries for condemning Israel for being “totally racist”, senior UN officials chose to criticize Canada (!) for not showing up to listen to such drivel rather than criticize Iran or those who applauded Iran.

And so we come to Durban III, held Thursday at the UN in New York. I was there and I watched this from Salehi: It's just three minutes long but here's the audio This is what hate sounds like, folks . And if you'd like read

Excerpt: “…Supporters of the racist Zionist regime (that would be Canada et al) boycotted this conference on the account that this might support those Palestinians who have been victims of such state racism in the occupied territories …

Salehi, incidentally, spoke in a UN meeting room minutes before his boss spoke to the UN General Assembly. Canada didn't even show up for this nuttiness and most Western diplomats walked out a few minutes into Ahmadinejad's rant. Watch for yourself by clicking here.

 

 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and is wife Laureen attended a private dinner in Toronto Friday to celebrate the birthday of Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar. Later, after the Harpers had left, Kumar’s birthday party continued on, with a performance by rapper Ludacris and comedian Russell Peters. (Some reports say Harper may have met Ludacris and seen his show but PMO sources say the Harpers were gone from the party before the entertainment got going.)

Kumar was in town for the launch of his new film Breakaway at the Toronto International Film Festival, funded partly with money from the Ontario government. Kumar, whose star power in the subcontinent is about equivalent to Brad Pitt’s on this continent, helped Harper out during the last general election, joining him for a campaign event in Brampton, Ont. (The Conservatives took both seats in Brampton, vanquishing the Liberals who held them). Harper first met Kumar in Mumbai, India in the fall of 2009 and named him as one of the 2010 Winter Olympics torch bearers.

John Kenneth Galbraith and I share the same alma mater: The University of Guelph. Mind you, Galbraith apparently hated the place while I loved it. Galbraith, according to this article, called it “probably the worst college in the English-speaking world.” (When Galbraith was there it was simply the Ontario Agricultural College, branch plant of the University of Toronto, 80 km to the east). When Galbraith died in 2006, the University of Guelph was willing to overlook Galbraith's harsh assessment and instead claimed that its (arguably) most famous alumnus was “a dedicated friend and supporter of the University.”

Whatever …

Certainly Galbraith was one of the greatest liberal thinkers of his age and quite possibly of the last few hundred years.

I quite like Galbraith for his wit, candour and plain languge, something that comes up in this review essay in The Nation by Kim Phillips-Fein:

Galbraith delighted in puncturing the self-importance of his profession. He was a satirist of economics almost as much as a practitioner of it. He took generally accepted ideas about the economy and turned them upside down. Instead of atomistic individuals and firms, he saw behemoth corporations; instead of the free market, a quasi-planned economy. Other economists believed that consumers were rational, calculating actors, whose demands and tastes were deserving of the utmost deference. Galbraith saw people who were easily manipulated by savvy corporations and slick advertising campaigns, who had no real idea of what they wanted, or why. In many ways, our economic world is quite different from the one Galbraith described at mid-century. But at a time when free-market orthodoxy seems more baroque, smug and dominant than ever, despite the recession caused by the collapse of the real estate bubble, his gleeful skewering of the “conventional wisdom” (a phrase he famously coined) remains a welcome corrective.

Phillips-Fein is reviewing a “Library of America” collection of Galbraith's writings between 1952 and 1967:

The four books collected in the Library of America volume take as their central target the idea that the economy is composed of rational, calculating individuals, whose personal preferences shape the market and guide it to an optimal outcome for everyone. It is hard to imagine four such books being written today: they were bestselling, lucid, fiercely confident works that argued in various ways against the idea that the American economy operates as a frictionless, benevolent free market.

For example:

Private consumption rose to heights of bizarre extravagance—while schools and parks had to beg for money from the state. “Vacuum cleaners to ensure clean houses are praiseworthy and essential in our standard of living,” Galbraith wrote. “Street cleaners to ensure clean streets are an unfortunate expense. Partly as a result, our houses are generally clean and our streets are generally filthy.” He also observed the odd discrepancy in attitudes toward public and private debt—the one, sharply condemned, the other eagerly encouraged.

Phillips-Fein reminds us that Galbraith's attack on unfettered capitalism are possibly even more relevant today than they were 50 years ago though..

“..some of the particulars of his vision may seem out of place today, his argument that there is something absurd about a society that can afford tremendous mansions, private jets and elite colleges while cities close firehouses, shut down bus lines and debate whether their crumbling public schools can even stay open five days a week seems as relevant as ever. So does his willingness to poke fun at those who recite platitudes about the market.
Today, the gulf between the richest and the poorest has grown wider, with the policies that support such inequalities buttressed, in part, by the intellectual project of modern conservatism, which Galbraith once called “one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” With the headlines dominated by news of recession and austerity, how clear is it that we live in an “affluent society” any longer?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has his majority government and he has it without Quebec's help, thank you very much. You don't see that everyday!

So why not hire a new director of communications who, a year-and-a-half ago wrote in his column in Canada's biggest-circulation newspaper that “Many are tired of the annoying lament from a province (Quebec) that keeps yelling at those who pay part of its bills and are concerned by the over-representation of francophones in our bureaucracy, our Parliament and our institutions.”

That was Angelo Persichilli, a journalist for 30 years who, on Tuesday, becomes a political operative as the new director of communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

He does not speak French, a fact noted by several French-speaking members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery today who had been grumbling for the last few years that, too often, briefings and other communications from the PMO were in one official language only.

And now, we have a column where Harper's new director of communications complains that there's too many of those complaining francophones in Ottawa anyway.

This should work out just fine.

Sun News Network will have live coverage of Jack Layton's state funeral from Toronto beginning at 1400 ET Saturday. But if you can't make to Toronto (or to your TV set), the NDP have posted a list of places where well wishers and supporters will be gathering across the country.

“This Saturday, in communities across the country, people are coming together to watch Jack Layton’s Celebration of Life, live from Toronto. From St. John’s to Victoria and from Terrebonne to Courtenay, these large and small communities will have the opportunity to celebrate the life and honour the work of the popular New Democrat leader. Here is a list of events we have heard are taking place across Canada tomorrow. (NOTE: All times are local)”

• Halifax, NS – Bella Rose Arts Centre, 283 Thomas Raddall Drive, 2:00 PM
• St John’s, NL – Foran Room, City Hall, 10 New Gower St., 2:30pm
• Quebec City, QC – Bibliothèque de Charlesbourg, 7950, 1ère Avenue, 1:00 PM
• Montreal, QC- Société des arts technologiques, 1201 Saint-Laurent Blvd, 1:00 PM
• Lanaudière, QC- 663 rue Saint-Pierre, Terrebonne, Les Oeuvres de Galilée, 1:00PM
• Salaberry, QC – Willy's Pub, 1205 Boulevard Monseigneur-Langlois, 1:00PM
• Winnipeg, MB – Knox United Church, 400 Edmonton St., 12:00PM
• Regina, SK – Tommy Douglas House – 1122 Saskatchewan Drive, 11:00 AM
• Saskatoon, SK – École Canadienne Française de Saskatoon 2410 Woodward Ave, 11:00 AM
• Yellowknife, NT – PSAC Boardroom, 4916 49th Street, 12:00 PM
• Edmonton, AB – Myer Horowitz Theatre – U of A Campus, 2nd Floor, Students' Union Building (SUB), 8900 – 114 St., 10:30 AM
• Penticton, BC – Shatford Centre – Galleria Room, 760 Main Street, 10:30 AM
• Vancouver, BC – Canada Place, outdoor video screens, 999 Canada Place, 10:00 AM
• Nanaimo, BC – Diana Krall Plaza, 90 Commercial St., 11:00 AM
• Victoria, BC – First Metropolitan United Church, 932 Balmoral Rd., 10:30 AM
• Courtenay, BC – Florence Filberg Conference Hall, 411 Anderton Ave, 10:30 AM
• Smithers, BC – Alpenhorn Pub, 1261 Main Street, 11:00 AM
• Terrace, BC – Community Room – Skeena Mall, 4741 Lakelse Avenue, 11:00 AM
• Kitimat, BC – CAW Hall, 233 Enterprise Ave, 11:00 AM
• Prince Rupert, BC – Ocean View Pub, 950 1 Avenue West, 11:00 AM