Mitch Wolfe: The Playful Contrarian

The headquarters of The International Civil Aviation Organization (“ICAO”) has been located in Montreal since 1946. Now, the upstart oil-rich kingdom of Qatar wants to lay down some really big buckaroos to move the ICAO head office and all its employees from Montreal to Qatar’s very own foreign worker-based country.

These autocratic Qatar oil sheiks have a lot of chutzpah. But respect for civil rights and workers’ rights? Not so much.

Before I speculate on the “shock and awe” attack ad campaign that Stephen Harper will unleash against this unsuspecting Persian Gulf emirate, here is some important background information.

ICAO’s current Montreal headquarters were built in the 1990s at a cost of about $100-million.

The organization employs 534 people and it generates over $80-million annually for Montreal’s economy.

For over 67 years, Montreal has been an effective host of this UN Agency. There have been no serious complaints by the UN, ICAO, or its employees about Montreal, or Quebec, or Canada. Except that now, Qatar has suddenly discovered that the weather in Montreal is too cold. And Canada may be too far from Asia and Europe.

This does not seem to be a deal-breaker to me. But the UN and its members have been known to make some wacky decisions. Electing Libya to the UN Human RightsCouncil in 2011, comes to mind.

Losing ICAO would be a blow for Canada and Montreal, the hub of Canada’s aviation industry.

Qatar is proposing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to construct new premises in Qatar, to move materials and staffers, and to pay for all expenses resulting from staff terminations and severance packages.

Qatar is also counting on using its oil wealth and its influence in the Arab and Muslim world to persuade enough Arab and Muslim UN member states, and at least 60 per cent of the 191 UN member states, to vote against Canada and move the ICAO headquarters to Qatar. The idea seems to be to punish Canada for its apparently one-sided pro-Israeli international position.

Qatar’s big mistake is thinking that the Prime Minister and his Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird are just going to roll over and do nothing — essentially wimp out like past federal Liberal leaders. Or like past federal Liberal governments, which tried to get along diplomatically by going along.

Such past Liberal governments would seriously consider throwing Israel under the bus over an issue like this. Or perhaps cutting back on public support of Israel, under the guise of being an “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians in order to curry favour with Arab dictators and Arab oil sheiks (and to get their vote). Keeping ICAO in Montreal and perhaps winning Canada a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.

Fortunately, Canada is not currently led by one of these past governments, or by federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. If Justin were faced with this very real threat from Qatar, he would probably engage in some serious soul-searching and naval gazing, searching far and wide for the root causes of why “poor” Qatar feels “excluded.” His mother, Maggie Trudeau, would probably whine publicly that Qatar is acting like a bully to her poor son, Justin. And to Canada. Because Justin and Canada just want to get along with everyone.

Unfortunately for Justin, the harsh reality is that Canada lives in a very tough, brutal, and competitive world where singing Kumbaya and dancing with flowers in your hair around the maypole do not impress oil potentates like Qatar.

Fortunately, Harper and Baird no longer give a flying frack about Canada being voted in as a temporary member of the UN Security Council. They also don’t give a frack about sucking up to such sterling UN members as Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen — or a whole host of other morally challenged UN member states.

Fortunately, in other words, Harper is one tough, decisive, hard-nosed, and hard-assed dude. And so is John Baird.

Quickly, Harper and Baird secured the very important support of the Obama Administration in opposing Qatar’s move on ICAO. Harper has temporarily buried the hatchet with Quebec Premier Pauline Marois. And together the right wing anti-Christ and the Separatist Destroyer of Canada have joined to fight Qatar’s bid to buy ICAO from Montreal.

Harper, not known for being particularly trade-union-friendly, has also secured the valuable support of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (“ITF”) and the International Trade Union Confederation (“ITUC”).

Both international unions are shocked and outraged that the UN would contemplate moving its headquarters to a country where there is a disturbing lack of democratic rights and workers’ rights.

Commenting on a possible move to Qatar, ITF general secretary David Cockroftangrily stated, “This defies belief. ICAO is the lead body for civil aviation across the world. How can an organization that has to defend the rights and safety of workers and passengers be moved to a state whose citizens’ pleas for democracy are answered with batons and buckshot?”

ITF President Paddy Crumlin added, “The UN cannot bend to the power of the Riyal at a time when ordinary Qataris’ fights for rights are met with massive repression. It’s doubly outrageous when thousands of staff at Qatar Airways are denied the fundamental right to union membership enshrined by the UN.”

ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow argued: “The people who work for the ICAO need to know that they would be moving to a rights-free zone where the fundamental standards of the International Labour Organization, a sister body of the ICAO, simply don’t apply. No foreign employee, whether a cleaner or a football star, is allowed to quit Qatar unless their employer allows them to.”

Note that Qatar is an absolute monarchy with about 250,000 citizens and over 1.2 million foreign workers who do most of the work there.

The above trade union leaders are referring to the fact that foreign workers in Qatar are treated as indentured slaves. Upon arrival, their passports are held by their employers. They have no freedoms. No democratic rights. No protections as workers or as humans.

They are terribly underpaid, underfed, and overworked. They live in overcrowded premises. Their lives are entirely controlled by their employers. And they are not allowed to do anything, including leaving Qatar, without the consent of their employers.

Not exactly a Workers’ Paradise.

Guess what, Attack ads work.

NDP BC Leader Adrian Dix tried to take the high road in this week’s BC provincial election.

And he crashed and burned. In one of the greatest upsets in BC and Canadian political history.

Adrian Dix was hoping to cruise to victory on the basis that BC voters were sick and tired of the Liberals after 12 years in power. And they wanted to kick the bums out and have a new government, for a change.

Dix had Liberal leader Christy Clark and the Liberals on the ropes.

BC voters had not forgotten that former Liberal leader Campbell had brought in the hated HST tax.

And the Liberals, like most parties in power for too many years, inevitably succumb to scandals and bungling.

And hence were extremely vulnerable.

Instead of hammering Clark and the Liberals with attack ads, reminding the voters why they were sick and tired of the Clark Liberals, due to their myriad of scandals, blunders, HST tax, costly government programs and arrogance, Dix tried to be Mr. Nice Guy.

Dix tried to moderate the NDP image. Make them more user friendly. Sort of government-ready to prudently manage the economy. Sort of what Horwath is doing in Ontario, while she does the two-step with Wynne.

That was a serious election blunder.

Then to make matters worse.

The old leftist crazy anti- business, anti-profits, anti-economy, anti-prosperity NDP monster also raised its ugly head, when Dix promised to kibosh the expansion of a crucial Kinder Morgan pipeline that moves heavy oil from Alberta to the Vancouver port.

In effect, Dix was threatening to bring BC’s economy and its prosperity to a halt.

Even before the environmental studies had been completed.

Will the Loony Left in BC, ever learn?

And the rest became political history.

So what are the lessons for Andrea Horwath?

As I have stated in numerous Huffington Post articles, Horwath, like NDP Adrian Dix, had Wynne and the Liberals on the ropes.

The Ontario electorate is sick and tired of the Liberals after 9 years of Dalton McGuinty.

There have been numerous scandals, OLG, eHealth, Ornge and the cancellation of the two gas plants at a cost of over $500 million and still counting. There is a scandalbrewing at OLG again.

Senior executives at OLG are earning bonuses and income in contravention of the government’s own guidelines for wage freezes on senior government officials.

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

More appropriately, the OLG “House” seems to be always winning.

And the poor Ontario electorate are being taken as suckers to the cleaners once again.

There are probably other OLG, Ornge, eHealth scandals, hidden inside the Liberal Government.

The only way to uncover these government abuses, is a change of administration.

If Andrea Horwath truly wants to clean up the Ontario government and make the Ontario government accountable, put your money where your mouth is.

Oppose the budget, and force an election.

Then unlike the limp Dix,

Attack. Attack. Attack.

You have 12 years of Liberal arrogance and incompetence to go after.

I think Horwath can still pull a victory off.

At worse, Horwath will be the leader of the major opposition party.

And Horwath together with Hudak, can then go through the former Liberal government books and expose the Liberal government’s past 12 years of mismanagement.

The future of Horwath and the Ontario NDP lay in marginalizing the Liberals. Not in jumping in bed with them for inconsequential short term progressive public policy gains.

Hudak and Tories are not the devils.

The NDP and Tories can together make Ontario more accountable, more transparent and less incompetent.

It is to Hudak’s interests long term interests to work with the NDP.

Which includes economic policies that work for the majority of working men and women in Ontario.

I know that seems counterintuitive.

But the Tories are not the natural enemy of the NDP in Ontario. The Liberals are.
The Liberals are putting the very existence and survival of the NDP at risk.

Read my lips. The Liberals are going after your NDP base and soft left support.

Weeks ago I warned Horwath, that the more you negotiate with the Wynne Liberals, the more the NDP will drop into the toilet.

My prediction has proven correct.

You may not like my politics, but my predictions about your fate are correct.

If Horwath and the NDP support the Wynne government this time around, Horwath will be toast in about a year and the NDP will have fallen off the political map.

Recent Ipso Reid polls should be good news for Ontario Tory Leader Tim Hudak.

He and his party are up 9 per cent over Ontario Premier Wynne and the Ontario Liberals.

Hudak and the Tories are at 37% of decided Ontario voters; Horwath’s NDP at 29% and Wynne and the Liberals at 28%.

This is real bad news for Premier Wynne and her band of less than merry Liberals.

But these polls provide even better news to Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

Horwath and her party are within striking distance of Hudak and currently ahead of Wynne’s Liberals.

Also Andrea Horwath (30%) is statistically tied with Hudak (32%) and Wynne (32%) as to who would be the best premier.

This should be also troubling to Premier Wynne.

Premier Wynne has tried vainly to make Ontario voters forget about the dying days and months of the unpopular Dalton McGuinty government.

Premier Wynne has tried to reach out to Ontario rural voters who had felt neglected by the former McGuinty government. And were also alienated by McGuinty’s insensitive push to build wind turbines in their backyards, without their consent. In Dalton’s fruitless effort to turn Ontario into a renewal energy superpower.

Talk about Dalton tilting at windmills.

Wynne has also tried to cool the tempers of the thousands of Ontario public school teachers who, only a few months ago, had turned their backs on the Liberal party, for ignoring and abusing their collective bargaining rights. And hitting them in their pocketbooks as well.

Recall these teachers were mighty agitated about the Government eliminating or seriously reducing their sacrosanct banked unused sick days. Which these teachers earned by accumulating unpaid sick days and turning these banked unpaid sick days into cash on retirement.

Sort of like Cold for Cash!! Basinga!

But notwithstanding Wynne’s “touchy feely” mode of government. And apple-polishing the teachers.
The Wynne government is still weighed down by past Liberal scandals: eHealth, Ornge and of course the half billion dollar + gas plant cancellations debacle.

Gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville were shut down, and relocated to save the seats of four Liberals, in the last election, at an outrageous cost, over half a billion dollars, bought and paid for by the Ontario taxpayers.

Because Wynne was a senior Cabinet Minister at the time and Co-chair of the Liberal election campaign, she has to wear the gas plant scandals as a badge of dishonor. Her excuse that she was not present at a pivotal meeting, is pathetically lame. It is beneath contempt. It is an insult to the intelligence of Ontario voters. It simply won’t fly.

So Horwath has Wynne on the ropes. Wynne is winded, but she is not down yet.

So what must Horwath do?

Does she prop up the Wynne government for another year? Or does she go in for the kill?

I urge Horwath to channel her inner Sheryl Sandberg. Don’t fear success.

“Lean in” and put Wynne away, politically.

Don’t be swayed by Wynne’s promise to reduce car insurance premiums and fund home care.

That is such small beer. It is unworthy of the NDP to be so bought off .

Horwath should also channel her inner Hamilton.

The City of Hamilton has been knocked on its ass. But it is fighting back with grit and backbone.

The town is a survivor . Like local girl Horwath. And Hamilton’s number one daughter is the epitome of Steel Town.

She is feisty, gritty, and a bit raunchy. (I really like that in a woman)

With steel for a backbone. And great hair. (nearly as nice as Justin’s)

She is a Hamilton Tiger-Cat, through and through, for God sakes!

And they don’t come no tougher than Andrea Horwath.

Now is her time. While the memories of the Liberal scandals are still fresh in the voters’ minds.

Horwath should not, knock politely on the Premier’s door.

She should break the door down, and charge through. Like the famous Hamilton Tiger-Cat, Angelo Mosca.

Oppose the Budget. Force an Election. And throw the Liberal bums for a loss.

And out of office.

Then she should really surprise Ontario by attacking the deficit; taming public union pensions and salaries; tackling our skyrocketing health costs.

And finally building a mass transit system worthy of the great cities of Ontario.

Wouldn’t that be a political game changer?

Horwath is the only Ontario political leader with the steel cojones to pull this off.

The question is, “Can she man up?”

Newly-elected Federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is in deep, deep, deep political doo doo. He is practically drowning in the brown goo. You could barely see his manly and wavy dark hair above the political crap that has engulfed him. And is threatening to capsize the good ship “Moonbeams and Unicorns,” on its first Liberal maiden voyage.

You know Trudeau is in deep political trouble, when the NDP come to the defense of their mortal enemy, the hard right Conservative Prime Minister Harper. And together they hammer the fair Justin for his insensitive comments about the vile Boston terrorist attack.

Hath hell frozen over?

Are those the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse over yonder?

Is the end of the world nigh?

And if the world ends, will I finally be able to break my permanent Rogers’ smartphone contract?

These are the thoughts that went through my mind as I watched online yesterday, CBC’s Evan Solomon as he interviewed a political panel of Tory MP Candace Bergen, NDP Public Safety critic Randall Garrison, and Liberal critic Dominic LeBlanc.

The issue was Trudeau’s apparent insensitive comments about the Boston bomb attack. Which comments Trudeau conveyed in an interview with CBC Peter Mansbridge. That aired on CBC on Tuesday.

(Note to my loyal American readers, all four of you. Canada does have other television channels, aside from the CBC. That supply us with our daily fix of “American Idol”, “The Voice” and “Dancing with The Washed Up Stars.” Some of us even have cable.)

In the Mansbridge interview, Trudeau appeared to pay mere lip service to the tragedy of those victims who were killed and maimed. What he did not do in that interview, at the beginning of the interview, was forcefully condemn the terrorist attack and the terrorists who did such vile things.

What Trudeau did do, however, was to launch into a barely coherent apparent rationalization for the terrorists’ behavior. He speculated that these terrorists may feel excluded from American society. And it was very important to understand the tensions in American society and to understand the root causes of this behavior. As if American society was to blame for producing the conditions which led to this terrible tragedy. As if the victims were somehow at fault.

Prime Minster Harper in London, upon hearing and reading Trudeau’s comments, reacted by stating that as Prime Minster, he categorically condemned the terrorist attacks and he hoped the terrorists would be dealt with as harshly as possible.

Evan Solomon then interviewed the three political MPs.

Naturally, the Tory MP supported Harper’s views and called upon Justin Trudeau to clarify his comments.

The Liberal MP Leblanc naturally defended Trudeau’s comments and in turn criticized Harper for politicizing the Boston bomb attack for partisan advantage.

But when it came to the NDP Garrison’s turn, he seemed transformed. Momentarily transfixed. Then Randall Garrison realized that probably for the first time in his political life, he will be coming to the defense of his party’s mortal enemy, Stephen Harper. But as a true politician, Randall realized that Harper was right and that Trudeau had royally screwed up his CBC interview. And that Trudeau was politically vulnerable over his insensitive comments about the Boston bomb attack.

Randall Harrison then lambasted Trudeau and called his comments, “mystifying, troubling, and disturbing.” He could not understand why instead of worrying about the victims and the first responders, Justin Trudeau was caught up worrying about the mental state of the terrorists. To Garrison, this was very disturbing.

To me this was historic. This was epic.

In all my years covering politics and commenting on politics, I have never seen or experienced the left wing NDP willingly and happily embrace the views of Stephen Harper. Who is like the anti-Christ to all leftist followers.

But Randall Garrison did the politically impossible. He leaped right in and defended Harper’s harsh criticism of Trudeau. And then he turned to his Liberal adversary, Dominic LeBlanc and characterized Trudeau’s Boston bomb comments as “mystifying, troubling and disturbing.”

You should see the look on Leblanc’s face. Utter astonishment.

Now that is great must-see TV. That is great drama.

Better than scandal. Better than revenge. Even better than “Dallas II.”

But I must commend Dominic Leblanc. He is a true pro.

He stood his ground. And he strongly defended Trudeau’s comments.

Leblanc argued forcefully that in fact Trudeau had strongly condemned the terrorist attacks in the Mansbridge interview.

But this is precisely the point.

Check out the transcript of Trudeau’s initial comments.

He did not forcefully condemn the bomb attack or the terrorists, when he should have, immediately and at the beginning of the interview, when Mansbridge asked him how he would respond as Prime Minister.

Instead, Trudeau stressed his concern about the terrorists. As Randall Garrison stated, it was disturbing that Trudeau was unduly concerned about the mental state of the terrorists. Trudeau seemed more concerned about the root causes of their actions, than the victims themselves.

And still Justin Trudeau has refused to publicly clarify his comments.

And still he has refused to publicly apologize to the victims, their families and to the Americans.

And he won’t.

Because he is trust fund Justin. The son of Pierre Trudeau.

He believes himself to be the entitled heir to the position of Prime Minister.

And the Liberal Party still believes that it is Canada’s Natural Governing Party.

This is the partial transcript of the Monday interview between CBC’s Peter Mansbridgeand Justin Trudeau, the new Leader of the Federal Liberal Party. Read it and weep.

PETER MANSBRIDGE (HOST, CBC’S “MANSBRIDGE ONE ON ONE”):
(Ottawa — Monday) Let me try to ask this as fairly as I can, because it’s only a couple of hours after something has happened that clearly was not an accident, in Boston. People have died, many people are injured. You’re the Canadian prime minister, what do you do?

JUSTIN TRUDEAU (LEADER OF THE LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA):
First thing, you offer support and sympathy and condolences and, you know, can we send down, you know, EMTs or, I mean, as we contributed after 9/11? I mean, is there any material immediate support we have we can offer? And then at the same time, you know, over the coming days, we have to look at the root causes. Now we don’t know now whether it was, you know, terrorism or a single crazy or, you know, a domestic issue or a foreign issue, I mean, all of those questions. But there is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded, completely at war with innocents, at war with a society. And our approach has to be, okay, where do those tensions come from? I mean, yes, we need to make sure that we’re promoting security and we’re, you know, keeping our borders safe and, you know, monitoring the kinds of, you know, violent subgroups that happen around. But we also have to monitor and encourage people to not point fingers at each other and lay blame for personal ills or societal ills on a specific group, whether it be the West or the government or Bostonians or whatever it is, because it’s that idea of dividing humans against ourselves, of pointing out that they’re not like us and, you know, in order to achieve our political goals we can kill innocents here. That’s something that no society in the world that is healthy, regardless of ideology, will accept.

Just Justin, being Justin.

These comments display an ignorance and insensitivity that know no bounds.

Justin’s comments are simply appallingly stupid.

These comments reflect the mind of a naïve, content-free man child, in a grown man’s body.

My neighbor’s 16-year-old son has more common sense and native intelligence, than Canada’s latest Federal Liberal leader.

In response to a very simple question by Peter Mansbridge, as to what he (Justin Trudeau) would do as Canada’s Prime Minister. Justin Trudeau barely pays lip service to the suffering of the victims and their families of these terrible terrorist bomb attacks.

Instead, Justin focuses on what he thinks should be our main concern, not the victims, or their families, or how this unspeakable event happened. But we should be sensitive to the feelings and thoughts of the terrorists themselves and ask ourselves what are the root causes?

In other words, according to Justin, these terrorists are not really at fault.

It is something in American society, (or Canadian society) that is at fault.

There is something in American society ( or Canadian society) that seems to exclude these poor misunderstood individuals.

Trudeau then seems to suggest that the fault may lie with Americans, (or Canadians, as the case may be). That is, those in American society (or Canadian society), or in the West, or in the American government or even Bostonians themselves. All these parties, who point fingers at others because they are different.

Trudeau apparently concludes that it is Americans who create the tensions in their own society, that apparently cause these poor misunderstood terrorists to feel excluded from American society. And in turn this feeling of exclusion makes these terrorists feel at war with innocents and at war with American society.

Recall that Justin Trudeau used to be a teacher and an educator. And he has placed a great premium on education as the new Federal Liberal leader. Ironically, the lessons of 9/11 have completely eluded him.

The architect of 9/11, Osama bin Laden, was not a poor misunderstood man who felt excluded from American society or Saudi Arabian society. Bin Laden, like many of the perpetrators of 9/11, were educated middle class and upper middle class members of their respective societies.

They attacked America and other western institutions in Europe, Africa and in other parts of the world, for many reasons. For revenge, and for strategic, cultural and religious reasons. None of these reasons arose out of their feelings of being excluded from western society. Or from being misunderstood or from feelings of being labeled different.

Note in Trudeau’s above comments, he appears to give equal moral weight to monitoring those people who point fingers at minorities as to monitoring violent subgroups.

The tragic reality is that the Boston Marathon terrorists killed three innocent people and injured over 170 people. To date, 13 of those injured have lost their limbs. Many suffer from life threatening lung damage, brain damage and stomach damage. Many of the injured will never recover and will face many more years of operations and years of healing. But Justin Trudeau seems more concerned about those who have the gall to point fingers at minorities and treat them differently.

When in 1970 Pierre Trudeau was faced with Quebec terrorists who kidnapped James Cross and killed Pierre Laporte and had engaged in mailbox bombings, he did not stare at his navel and worry about what the root causes of these terrorist actions were. Pierre Trudeau acted decisively and called in the armed forces, invoked The War Measures Act, suspended civil liberties and put down Quebec terrorists before the contagion spread throughout the province.

It is devastatingly clear now that when the Federal Liberals elected Justin Trudeau, they thought they were getting the son of Pierre Trudeau. Instead, the Federal Liberals are being led by the son of Maggie Trudeau.

Maggie Trudeau is a lovely, warm and affectionate woman. But by her own admission, she was bored by Canadian politics and the affairs of state. She was most happy as a hippie. A flower child. Boogying with the Stones and tiptoeing through the tulips. Justin, like her mother, is a romantic, a dreamer and a simple innocent.

He appears to be blithely chasing moonbeams and unicorns. And tiptoeing through the tulips, barefoot.

As a result of the above comments, Justin Trudeau has become a public embarrassment to the Federal Liberal Party.

And an embarrassment to the Canadian people.

No spin or public apology can undo the damage that he has done to himself and to his Party in the eyes of the Americans, the Canadians and the world.

The damage will be long lasting.