Why I like Stephane Dion

[maplesyrup]

The wayward press: Special guest blogger Stéphane Dion (sort of)

Turnabout is, after all, fair play. Here's a politician writing about the press gallery. It will probably come as little surprise that the politician who's willing to take on this task is Stéphane Dion, no shrinking violet. This is my translation of a speech he delivered at Laval University this month. Even his admirers will chuckle at the highly autobiographical subtext of Dion's analysis; but even his detractors will have to admit that in many ways he's got our number. One suspects, for instance, that Jean Lapierre would nod vigorously in agreement with many of Dion's points.

An excellent analysis of Canada's political journalists and why when you go to a political event rarely do find any similarity when you read about it the next day in the press. There is no question Dion is fearless and brilliant, and for these very reasons, he is in the current, as well as previous Canadian cabinets.

I don't think a lot of Canadians realize what courage Dion is exhibiting by opposing the cult-like, one-sided thinking that for way too long has been the political atmosphere or climate in Quebec. Similar to Trudeau he is has been labelled a traitor yet his ideas do more for the Quebec people than the all the rest of the French nationalists.

[kimmy]

That was indeed a very interesting piece.

It leaves us in a bit of a dilemna, doesn't it? I mean, it is legitimate to criticize the press for editting and interpretting the news instead of just reporting it. But at the same time, doesn't the news media have a duty to provide more than just relay the politicians' spin to the masses? Do we want a media that just takes everything a politician says at face value? But if they don't... by providing additional information they consider relevant, whatever that information might be, they are providing their interpretation.

Unbiased information; critical thinking and analysis. How can you reconcile the two expectations?

-kimmy

[takeanumber]

There are facts, spin, and then there is editorial.

Opinion is supposed to be confined to the editorial page.

Instead, we get rags like the Calgary Herald that circumvent the journalistic process (which would require them to go out and get the other side of the story) and instead, they slap the word 'commentary' over the news article and call it an 'exclusive'.

Journalistic 'ethics' have become as bad Nixon's.

Shame on them.

[maplesyrup]

Interestingly enough in BC, where it is basically a one company newspaper town, people are turning to The Tyee, an online newpaper source, as an alternative to CanWest Global. Headlines get e-mailed to you on a daily or weekly basis, and they are hoping to have readership of 10,000 soon.

Is it news, comment, opinion, editiorial, propaganda, political or business spin? What's the difference and who can say for sure?

[maplesyrup]

Anonymous letters in The Globe and Mail

I was reminded of all this last week when the Globe published an editorial praising the success of free trade. After all, Canadian exports to the U.S. are up, what more proof is needed? Anyone who disagrees, a labour leader such as Buzz Hargrove, for instance, is surely also a member of the flat earth society, the Globe editorialist intoned.

Well, its true, free trade was supposed to make the Canadian economy stronger, better able to compete in the world, and we were all to be wealthier, with more money for social programs. Which is a better measure of stronger and wealthier? The ability to buy more, or the devaluation of your currency? The U.S. economy grew and so therefore did imports from Canada. That is the connection: upward in the U.S. means more from Canada.

Damningly for free trade believers, regions without free trade agreements with the U.S. saw their share of the U.S. market increase, while Canada, the free trade partner, actually lost ground in the U.S. compared to other exporters.

The manufacturing part of the Canadian economy went into recession shortly after free trade came into effect in 1989. The rest of it followed suit. The 1990s were the worst decade since the 1930s, the great depression years. So much for the economic benefits to Canadians

In order to get Canada moving again we had a sale. We dropped the value of our currency by about 20 per cent. That put Canadian assets on display at bargain prices. Operations as Canadian as the Montreal Canadiens, or Petro-Canada are now U.S. owned.

Our cheaper dollar devalued Canadian earnings. Measured in U.S. dollars our standard of living plummeted. Canadian manufactured exports were cheaper; they were on sale as well. For those foreigners who bought Canadian oil and gas properties there was a bonanza that for some reason the Globe editorial page has not explained to its readers.

It worked this way. Use your strong currency to buy Canadian assets, and get a 20 per cent discount. Sell your Canadian gas and oil in the U.S. at world prices payable in U.S. dollars. Pay your local costs of exploration and production in cheap Canadian dollars, and expatriate the difference home to the U.S.

The connection the Globe could not make was that the more Canadian exports to the U.S. go up, the more money is taken out of Canada in the form of profits remitted to foreign owners. Let's be clear: the U.S. gets the oil, and the gas, and the profit from the sale. Canadians get a dollar that bought them as little as 61 cents U.S.

We can console ourselves with the knowledge we are doing our part to contribute to global warming. And, under free trade, we waived the sovereign right to tax exports or regulate the volume of exports. Now, faced with the bonanza, the obvious thing to do would be to increase taxes on the earnings of the companies, and on the extraction of the resources.

So, did we do that? No, actually, we cut corporate taxes, and we pay companies to take resources out of the ground, by giving them a tax break the Americans invented, called a depletion allowance. I guess the Globe is annoyed that flat earthers like Hargrove fail to appreciate that, with free trade, we got to sell off irreplaceable reserves of appreciating commodities, no longer under national control, so that future profits from oil and gas production in Canada will accrue to the U.S., and without putting real money into the public purse, as happens in Norway, for instance.

Is it not it a great thing what has happened to our social spending as a result of new found wealth from free trade? Of course we cut it by about $25 billion a year in 1995, and at that time abolished the federal commitment to alleviate poverty by ending the Canada Assistance Plan, and we did cut off about one-third of the unemployed from the money they were entitled to, and students now pay way more for tuition; but do not forget, health care is so popular people are lining up for it.

Free trade was going to allow Canadian companies to use the U.S. market like a trampoline to jump into other markets world wide. We would diminish our reliance on the U.S. market thanks to free trade. As the deal jacked up our productivity performance, the world would be beating a path to Canada's door.

The fact that our export markets outside the U.S. shrank, while dependence on the U.S. grew, and that our government invented the first ministers trade missions in the hope that Canadian business, having failed to invest in Canada, would do so abroad, and, maybe, bring the profits home, was not part of the optimistic scenario laid out in Globe editorial after editorial, year after year.

Canada was to be more independent of the U.S., now that all those annoying trade disputes were shunted off into a smooth running dispute settlement mechanism outside politics. No need to curry favour any more because of fear of U.S. economic retaliation.

We can therefore anticipate that the missile shield will be laughed out of Cabinet, if they have time to discuss anything other than softwood lumber, cattle exports, pork, steel, border security, and other cross border business, so badly botched under free trade rules, that even Alan Gotlieb, a free trade believer, has admitted we need another way of dealing with American protectionism.

If free trade was such a success, save us all from any more and please, do let us know what constitutes failure.

And, while the editors mull over the issues of the day, may I add a modest suggestion. Le devoir has signed editorials. Perhaps the Globe could emulate it. Who knows, by suppressing the anonymous letters format, the Globe editorial writers might use their new found independent identities to contribute independent thought to the community. And why not? Le devoir does.

Here is a solid article on what editorials do and don't do, probably including good reasons why they should be banned. People need to sign their articles - I want to know the source, don't you?