Libya is Obama's Mess To Own

Libya's Lost Generation 

As his administration enters its twilight years, President Obama certainly has several key policy pieces he can proudly tout as his legacy; healthcare reform that eluded the Clinton administration, a resurgent economy as well as wins on several social issues.  Even his record on foreign policy, relatively muddled as it may be, holds several moves which in time could prove to be shrewdly negotiated wins.  The same cannot be said however, for how this administration has handled its involvement in the Libyan Civil War.  Given the renewed questions about potential American involvement in Syria due to Russia ratcheting up its support of the Assad regime, the time is now ripe to revisit the country’s last foray into a messy civil conflict in the region and see what lessons can be learned.    

in 2011, what began as a string of popular protests against the oppressive rule of Libya’s longtime strongman Moammar Gaddafi, inspired by similar movements in nearby countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain that later came to be collectively dubbed as the “Arab Spring”, turned bloody.  As the chorus calling for extensive reforms grew louder, Gaddafi initially cracked down in brutal fashion.  Perhaps remembering what happened the last time the West plead ignorance to flagrant atrocities being committed right under its nose, the United States led an effort to secure NATO a UN Security Council mandate to intervene by means of a no-fly zone in hopes of averting a potential humanitarian catastrophe.  President Obama would later say “We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi -a city nearly the size of Charlotte- could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.”  And so not long after receiving authorization in a tenuous vote where both the Chinese and Russians were convinced to abstain, NATO warplanes made the first bombing sorties over Libya.  Already facing pressure from a fractious alliance of several until-recently-largely-suppressed tribal and militant groups, now being armed by sympathetic countries both in the Gulf and the West (via Qatar), Gaddafi's forces didn’t stand a chance.  In a matter of months the tables turned dramatically.  By October, Tripoli had been overrun and Gaddafi summarily executed by a bullet to the head.  

Western analysis of the situation in the immediate aftermath of Gaddafi being deposed declared the intervention a success, having prevented large scale atrocities and seen the ultimate toppling of, by some accounts, a very brutal dictator.  The US’s representative to NATO even went so far as to pen an article where he declared the alliance’s involvement a victory and went on to call it a “model intervention”.  Now four years later this cheery assessment rings hollow, when the country’s internationally recognized government is now unable to exert control over its own ports and oil fields, Islamists and tribal groups run roughshod over large swathes of its territory and Libyan weapons ransacked from its armories have turned up in other hotbeds for Islamist terrorism across the region.

But before turning an eye towards the extent to which radicals have infiltrated the political and social fabric of Libya itself, it is important to consider the ripple effect of toppling Gaddafi, and what role it played in nurturing the Islamist insurgencies many other countries in the region are now grappling with.  Perhaps the most jarring example of illicit weapon flows from Libya fueling conflicts abroad however, can be found in Mali.  The first wave was caused by ethnic Tuaregs within the country’s security services taking their weapons and fleeing to Mali following the fall of the regime.  Hoping to assist the Tuareg minority in that country launch an insurrection of their own, it instead was hijacked by the Islamist groups such as Ansar Dine with whom they had formed an uneasy truce in hopes of driving Malian forces from the north of the country.  Indirectly or not, the Libyan rebels played a key role in the war, allowing weapons to be funnelled out of the country through Tunisia and Niger and into Northern Mali.  While ISIS made waves last summer when it declared the establishment of a “Caliphate” in parts of Iraq and Syria, Mali quietly gained the notorious distinction of being host to the largest swathe of sovereign territory controlled by a terrorist organization.    

And to make matters worse, it does not simply stop there; Libyan weapons have also been smuggled through Egypt and Lebanon and into the hands of militants everywhere from the Gaza Strip to Syria.  Of particular concern to arms control experts is the widespread proliferation of man-portable air defence systems, often referred to as MANPADs.  Light enough to be carried by individual infantry, they are capable of shooting down anything from a helicopter to a commercial airliner.  Approximately 15,000 went missing in the aftermath of the war, and a buyback effort by the United States has only managed to secure roughly 5000.  Perhaps even more frighteningly, a report on the subject added that several hundred of the missiles were still completely unaccounted for, potentially having wound up in the hands of groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria or Hamas in Gaza.  And any doubts regarding this assertion were shattered during 2012’s Operation Returning Echo, when an IDF helicopter was nearly shot down by a missile that subsequent investigations determined originated from Libya.  More recently, militants in Egypt successfully shot down a military helicopter using the missile.  Other Libyan arms have surfaced in arms markets frequently used by terror groups in places such as Yemen and Somalia.  That NATO intervened without seriously considering the intentions of the groups it would implicitly be backing, or made any effort to secure Gaddafi’s arsenals, instead trusting that the militias would agree to unilaterally disarm was foolish and naive on the part of the Obama administration and its allies.  Of course all the blame for what transpired cannot be placed upon the United States, for Gaddafi’s weapons represented just one stream of armaments that flowed out of the country following the war.  NATO’s mission was imperilled from the get-go by the actions of its supposed allies, who purchased billions in weapons for various militant groups that later went on to fuel other conflicts across the region.  It became incredibly difficult for participating states to credibly state that the reason for intervention was purely humanitarian in nature when moves by allies widely seen as being done in concert with NATO efforts were blatantly aimed at propping up one side in the civil war.  The Russian ambassador to the UN made note of this when he said “NATO forces frankly violated the UN Security Council resolution on Libya, when instead of imposing the so-called ‘no-fly zone’ over it they started bombing it too.”  Whether NATO expanded its mandate at the behest of Gulf state allies or if they intended to take sides in the conflict all along is up for debate, but regardless, doing so enabled the nearly uninterrupted flow of weapons to Islamist terror groups, who once rid of Gaddafi (a strong ally with regards to U.S counterterrorism efforts in the region) were now free to pursue their goal of fomenting instability in the region armed with billions in newly acquired weapons.

Due to the efforts on the part of the UAE and Qatar, who in defiance of an arms embargo supplied arms to several militias, most of whom later refused to disarm once the conflict was over, a fertile breeding ground for terrorist groups was created.  Many of these very same fighters and militias would go on to play significant roles in other terror hotspots in nearby countries, affiliating themselves with groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIL.  Qatar in particular, who continued to funnel arms to Libyan militias as late as September 2014 (two years after the attack on the American compound in Benghazi by a group nominally supported by Qatar), seemingly took no lessons away from Libya, for they continue to arm radical groups in Syria, constructing a potential post-Assad power paradigm that is increasingly likely be eerily similar to that which we now have in Libya.

The government which supplanted Gaddafi’s regime in the years since its fall can only be considered an unmitigated disaster.  This is the case for several reasons, chief amongst them being the totally outsized role played by the tribal militias who deposed Gaddafi.  As previously mentioned, upon the war’s conclusion just about every militia, rather than disarming, instead turned towards consolidating and expanding their territorial holdings.  As a result, the interim National Transitional Council that was appointed to oversee a speedy return to free elections had its hands tied.  Its largest source of funds, oil, was virtually cut off as the majority of the country’s ports, fields and refineries were in the hands of militias who refused the NTC’s demand that they disarm and stand for election if they wished to play a role in government.  Entrusting the momentous task of implementing regime change to a group of insurgents that the West did not seem to fully understand backfired spectacularly, especially when you consider how atrocities against civilians have still continued post-Gaddafi, with hospitals being the site of kidnappings and rocket attacks.    

 The narrative widely peddled in the media as to why intervention was necessary in the first place claimed that Benghazi was the site of an impending massacre by Gaddafi’s  forces.  And yet reexamining the regime’s actions in the months before intervention reveals a portrait of relative restraint.  While the actions taken by Gaddafi’s forces would not have been acceptable from Western forces, intervening only seemed to worsen the situation.  Initial reports on casualties seemed to vindicate NATO action; in September 2011 rebels claimed that 30,000 had been killed.  However the NTC’s subsequent investigations following the war poked several holes in this figure, revising the number down to 11,500 including regime and rebel fighters, as well as missing persons.  In the years since the conflict however, supposedly a period of peaceful transition towards democracy, 2012 and 2013 both saw low level conflict that is estimated to have killed roughly 500 a year.  2014 essentially saw the return of open civil war, and with it the deaths of over 2,750, three years removed from a supposedly successful intervention.

“Throw away your weapons, exactly like your brothers in Ajdabiya and other places did. They laid down their arms and they are safe. We never pursued them at all.”

As the legacy of Western intervention in the country becomes more clear, so is just what really happened.  An alternative narrative has emerged, that Libyan nationals in Switzerland, sympathetic to the rebel forces who were on their last legs in Benghazi, leaked false information pertaining to a potential massacre of the besieged troops and civilians in the city.  Regardless of how true this claim was, their plea for help worked; NATO swiftly intervened and completely reversed the tide of the war, handing the rebels who were previously on the brink of defeat a stunning victory.  Lending credibility to this story are the numbers from Syria.  Before the Libyan intervention commenced in March of 2011, protests had been largely nonviolent and the regime response, criminal as it was, had not yet morphed into the all out war on its citizens that it would soon become.  But by that summer, it is not unlikely that the Syrian opposition took up armed insurrection in hopes of provoking a regime response that would trigger NATO involvement similar to what transpired in Libya.  What did occur was a drawn out war with no end in sight four years after the fact.  And now as the Russians seem intent on taking a more active role in the war there, it's concerning that the only lesson President Obama took away from Libya was that the United States and its allies didn’t intervene enough.  In an interview with the New York Times last year he said “I think we underestimated the need to come in full force.  If you’re going to do this there has to be a much more aggressive effort to rebuild societies.”  If NATO had more carefully studied the conflict it entered, there might not have been any need to rebuild in the first place.  

The Real Outrage About Omar Khadr

"I like my son to be brave...I would like my son to be trained to protect himself, to protect his home, to protect his neighbor, to see a young girl innocent, being raped or attacked, to really fight to defend it. I would really love to do that, and I would love my son to grow with this mentality...[a]nd you would you like me to raise my child in Canada and by the time he's 12 or 13 he'll be on drugs or having some homosexual relation or this and that? Is it better? For me, no. I would rather have my son as a strong man who knows right and wrong and stands for it, even if it's against his parents."

Those were the words of Maha el-Samnah, the matriarch of the now-infamous Khadr family and an Al Qaeda sympathizer whose husband was killed in a 2003 U.S drone strike on Taliban militants in Pakistan's volatile border region with Afghanistan.  It was her and her husband's decision to uproot their young family and move to Pakistan in 1987 which inflicted the first in a series of injustices against Omar Khadr and his siblings.  During the years that followed, Khadr flitted between Canada and Pakistan, later being manipulated by his father's associates into planting IEDs and ultimately engaging in combat with American soldiers under the guise of serving as a translator to foreign "visitors".  Omar Khadr during this chapter of his life committed acts that were undoubtedly wrong, and yet it is important to note that the crimes he was accused and convicted of were committed by a brainwashed fifteen year old with little understanding of the conflict in which he was engaged, an assessment shared by the United Nations, who officially designated him a child soldier in 2010.  The frankly galling failure of those in Guantanamo, Washington and Ottawa to account for this fact in their subsequent prosecution of Khadr was the primary reason behind the ultimately needless fifteen year legal saga which ensued.

Omar Khadr was tried in a court which could not provide a fair and transparent trial.  Since the military tribunals commenced in 2001, 3 of the military personnel appointed to serve as prosecutors resigned, citing a biased and unfair legal process.  Further, Colonel Fred Borch, who served as Chief Prosecutor, was forced to resign when leaked memos purported to reveal that he had bragged about jeopardizing the integrity of the proceedings, and that the officers on the commission had been chosen because they could be trusted to convict those brought before them.  Furthermore because much of the evidence provided by the government in these cases are legally flimsy intelligence reports, if the same notions of evidence and "the burden of proof" which exist in the civilian court system were applied to the Guantanamo proceedings, the government would simply not be able to convict.  To that end, the standards for evidence admission were tweaked so that the reliability and validity of such reports would not be questioned.  In doing so, U.S officials ensured that the tribunal system would not pass muster if an American citizen were to be tried there, seeing as how they blatantly infringe upon several 6th Amendment rights.  And then there's the matter of "enhanced interrogation", and how the confessions and intelligence extracted from them were oftentimes false and/or of little value.  Khadr's attorney claims that his client was waterboarded during his time at Guantanamo, a claim which the U.S government vehemently denies.  If true, the confession to murder which was the bedrock of the plea deal that labelled Khadr a terrorist and war criminal would not be admissible as evidence in court.  Even if we were to not recognize children utilized by terror organizations as child combatants, Khadr's trial was nonetheless a travesty in the eyes of not just international law, but American law as well.  

But perhaps the most outrageous aspect of this case was what wasn't done.  As a Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr was entitled to certain protections and a degree of support from his government, chief among them ensuring that he was receiving fair and equitable treatment under the laws of the United States.  Not only was this not fulfilled, RCMP officers sent to interview him turned their notes over to prison officials, abetting an illegal detainment.  Further, consular officials are supposed to encourage the speedy processing of cases against Canadians held abroad, but this was also not done, nor was a formal repatriation request made by the government at any point during Khadr's detainment without charge.  While Omar Khadr's ordeal began under Paul Martin's Liberal government, it worsened under Stephen Harper.  Countless NGOs, legal experts and even the Supreme Court of Canada harshly criticized the Tory government's actions with regards to Khadr, and yet they only doubled down.  Earlier this week in a last ditch attempt to prevent him from being released, the government argued that releasing Khadr on bail would do "irreparable harm" to U.S-Canada relations.  This failed, as the presiding justice said that the government had failed to produce evidence that the U.S shared this belief.

And so as this decade-and-a-half long ordeal finally winds down, what actually was Khadr?  A war criminal, as the government suggests?  A victim of terrible circumstance, as his many boosters claim?  As he embarks on his new life with hopes of becoming a medic, we shall no doubt find out.  Currently a $20 million civil suit against the government is underway, and Khadr is appealing his criminal conviction in the United States.  So while the ultimate fate of Khadr remains up in the air, an important question to consider is this; When the Canadian government willingly abets the torture and illegal imprisonment of one of its own citizens, a 15 year old boy nonetheless, who is the real war criminal here?     

Why OPEC is Prolonging Cheap Oil (And Why It May Backfire This Time)

In the face of falling oil prices, OPEC found itself under the market's microscope.  News that the cartel was holding production steady at 30 million barrels per day and revising production for 2015 lower to 28.9 million barrels did little to placate volatility-averse traders, who in turn sent US treasury bonds further south, the Dow Jones (DJIA) plunging nearly 300 points and generally had a negative impact on everything from the Canadian Dollar  (CAD) to the Norwegian Krone (KR).  By almost any metric, the markets were affixed on commodities, and specifically fossil fuels.

Seemingly serving as a reminder of just how beholden we are to the black gold, oil played a role in numerous geopolitical developments this past year.  From the thawing of relations between Cuba and the United States to the NATO and EU sanction regime meant to punish the Russian economy, 2014 saw fossil fuels once again take on the role of political flashpoint, furthering some agendas while hindering others.  But the reasoning behind why the Arab-dominated OPEC is dragging its less fortunate members through the mud has all to do with recapturing a near monopoly on oil production it enjoyed on oil exports before high prices drove investment towards U.S shale.

 OPEC was initially formed in 1960 by countries with substantial oil reserves in order to collectively better control the market for exports.  What they discovered during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 was that putting a vital resource under the control of a non-aligned cartel provided OPEC's Arab and Latin American member states with an "oil weapon" that provided them leverage with otherwise superior western powers.  In a move meant to punish the United States and its western European allies for supporting Israel in that conflict, OPEC agreed to an oil embargo.  The subsequent spike in oil prices and ensuing chaos led to a significant change in U.S energy policy, as the hardships experienced by both industry and consumers led to renewed efforts to conserve oil, increase fuel efficiency and develop alternatives to oil.  If OPEC's oil weapon was able to cause the United States and its allies significant economic hardship, why have they been loathe to use it since?

Former Saudi Oil Minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani perhaps stated his country's oil policy most eloquently 40 years ago when he said "''The Stone Age didn't end for lack of stone."  His prediction was eerily precinct, because the following decade saw various factors conspire to create a situation which at a glance may seem similar to the period of "cheap oil" in which we find ourselves right now.  A plunge in the demand for oil (to the tune of five million barrels per day) coupled with a rise in production in non-OPEC states created enough of a surplus that prices continued to fall, capping a 46% decline in 1986.  OPEC countries, historically known for exceeding quotas and inflating estimated reserves, responded to the successful campaigns aimed at reducing global dependency on oil by cutting production several times, by nearly half.  This did little to staunch the bleeding as non-OPEC states stepped in to pick up the slack, and as a result OPEC's market share fell from a peak of roughly 50% in the 1970s to around 30% by 1985.  While Saudi Arabia initially led the charge by throttling production, it found its less economically secure partners largely unwilling to engage in a price war at the expense of much needed revenue.  Fed up with essentially subsidizing excess production in other OPEC countries, Saudi Arabia pioneered the same strategy which it is applying here today, albeit with different targets in mind.

  Back then, Saudi Arabia's primary goal was to make it too expensive for OPEC's more undisciplined members to continue overproducing by dumping the price of oil long enough to run other producers out of business until it once again held major sway on the price of oil.  This time the ultimate goal is the same, but the Saudis are taking aim at the American shale producers whose torrid levels of production have been a large reason (along with the still-precarious economic position of Japan, China and the Eurozone) why prices have taken a nosedive over the past year (even with ongoing instability in Libya and Iraq.  And yet while Saudi Arabia was successful in reigning in its OPEC partners, it was helped at least in part by the fact that the Bush (Sr.) administration made a decision to to double down on Gulf-supplied oil, ramping up military aid to allies on the peninsula and scrapping policies which had been quite effective in reducing demand for oil.  If the United States actually declining to seriously invest in efforts to increase energy efficiency seems ludicrous, take a comparative look at Japan's efforts in the same area.  At the height of the oil embargo, Japan's energy security was even more compromised than that of the United States.  Consisting of a series of generally resource poor islands,  it both did and continues to import 92% of its oil.  At the time of the embargo, roughly 71% of the country's imports were derived from the middle east.  As such, when crisis struck Arab states labelled Japan an "unfriendly country" for its refusal to get involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and slapped it with a 5% production cut.  Very vulnerable to disruptions in oil supply, it was forced to reorient its energy policy with an eye towards minimizing susceptibility of the economy to oil shocks.  As a result, Japanese energy efficiency today is such that it uses less than half the energy that the United States does to produce a dollar of GNP.

American strategic interest in the Middle East is waning

Those days of a Stockholm Syndrome-esque relationship between the Saudis and Americans with regards to energy policy are over.  From the toppling of Iran's Shah in 1979 up until the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States was heavily invested in the region and as such was willing to incur instability-induced spikes in the price of oil.  Following a prolonged economic recession which served as the culmination of a decades long decline in the prosperity of the American middle class as well as the election of a President who ran on a platform predicated upon extricating America from the Middle East, both the government and public no longer have the stomach nor faith in the ability of America to sort out a region so fiercely sectarian, conflict ridden and seemingly resentful of American assistance.  If President Bush's eight years in office were about Middle Eastern foreign policy, the electorate has demanded that President Obama's be about the economy.  To that end, his most highly touted legislative achievements have almost entirely served a domestic agenda, through major overhauls of healthcare policy (ACA), financial regulation (Dodd-Frank) and the Justice Department's tackling of social issues such as marriage equality and police violence.  If anything, this administration's most prominent foreign policy move was arguably its much discussed "Asia shift", which essentially served as a way for the President to fulfil his election promise to end the two wars started by his predecessor while at the same time not giving ammunition to critics who accused the Obama administration of retreating from a leadership role the United States had held since WWII.  Even when the United States has found itself inevitably dragged into one Middle Eastern conflict or another, it has been loathe to get directly involved, instead extolling the necessity of coalition building and Middle Eastern countries taking on a larger role in conflicts that involve them.

Saudi Arabia very well may stamp out frackers, and once again gain some degree of control over oil prices.  Fracking is expensive, with a break even price of around $50 per day.  Already western producers are laying off workers and slashing exploration budgets, as petrodollar economies adjust for a rough landing.  But Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal agreed that the days of high oil prices are essentially over.  Electric cars are on the verge of going mainstream, and just about every country has launched ambitious plans to cut carbon emissions and increase the share of renewables in energy consumption.  Oil will continue to be an important commodity for years to come, but the point has come where countries such as Venezula, Russia, Libya and Iraq who failed to diversify their economies while prices were high can no longer hope to nearly entirely fund their governments from royalty proceeds.  The world has finally become serious about pushing alternatives to fossil fuels in a bid to cut carbon emissions, and  falling oil prices might finally topple the last big obstacle to achieving that goal.  One can only hope so, at least.    




    

Campaign Finance Reform May Hold the Key to Slowing Corporate Inversion

While corporate inversion is by no means a new phenomena (McDermott International reincorporated in Bermuda in 1982), recent comments by prominent figures in government characterizing such actions as "unpatriotic" have thrust the issue back into the spotlight.  With pressure increasingly on Congress to close the tax loopholes that allow such moves, the GOP stance on only doing so in tandem with cutting the effective corporate tax rate means that a solution may not be forthcoming anytime soon.  And as such, that leaves us with plenty of time to think of equally improbable but decidedly more creative solutions to this latest issue.

 Although technically donations to political campaigns made by foreigners are illegal, ever since 2010's Citizens United decision greatly reduced limits on political contributions, companies based outside the US have been able to effectively circumvent such laws  (I talk about just how murky US laws governing corporations have become here).  In the last full election cycle, the first since the landmark ruling,  foreign controlled subsidiaries contributed over $12 million to Super PACs on both sides, and that's just what was able to be traced.  Due to Citizens United and other subsequent rulings, political action committees (PACs) that do not coordinate with campaigns and their donors are afforded great latitude when it comes to contributions, with no limits to how much can be given to such PACs, and little in the way of disclosure laws on the part of these committees.  Major corporations didn't miss a beat, creating PACs through their American subsidiaries, and then drawing contributions from employees.  This allowed them to influence U.S elections while at the same time shielding themselves from any chance of prosecution,  But what if we could curtail foreign influence in the American electoral process while at the same time slowing or even stopping the exodus of American businesses and their tax revenues abroad?

Currently the American subsidiaries of foreign companies may make political contributions so long as the subsidiary in question is able to prove that it has funds drawn from domestic operations that equal or exceed the donated amount, as per this FEC advisory opinion (AO 1992-16):

FEC, AO 1992-16: The [U.S.] subsidiary must be able to demonstrate through a reasonable accounting method that it has sufficient funds in its account, other than funds given or loaned by its foreign national parent, from which the contribution is made.

As such when we examine recently "inverted" corporations, we see that the value of their American operations generally represent a disproportionate percentage of their total global revenue.  For example Burger King, who recently announced a merger with Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons in order to relocate to Canada, earned less than half (48%) of revenue in 2013 from territories outside of the United States.  Burger King conducts the majority of its business in the United States through its Miami based subsidiary, and yet since its newly founded "parent company" will be based in Canada, it will only have to pay 26% income tax on revenue earned in Canada, and a rate consistent with the tax code in the country where any income that is repatriated was generated.  While robbing the federal government of tax revenues, due to a very profitable US operation Burger King, should it be so inclined could spend millions on donations to PACs supporting candidates it likes.

While Burger King remains at its core essentially an American fast food company, it's unlikely it would feel the need to drastically influence policy, aside from more favourable tax laws (nothing seems to satisfy them nowadays) and looser labour regulations.  But such loopholes present an opportunity to companies whose fortunes are largely tied to government spending and/or policy.  The defence, (which currently has strict export regulations in place) education, health, food, pharmaceuticals industries have in the past tried to influence policies that would adversely affect them (See Pfizer's own proposed inversion via merger, or the HMOs' opposition to the ACA) and if they were to merge with foreign companies, what checks would be in place to limit their influence in American politics?  By preventing subsidiaries wholesale from making political contributions, it effectively ices these "tax emigres" out of the legislative process, and helping determine where tax dollars they did not proportionally contribute go.  American corporations and the people who benefit from them the most may not have the same interests as the vast majority of Americans, but they still live and work in the country, and as such do have a stake in a healthy and robust consumer base and economy.

Preventing the American subsidiaries of foreign companies from making political contributions will not definitively solve the problem of money in politics, nor will it stop the most determined of companies from relocating abroad.  But it will make the decision a tougher one, unlike the no-brainer that it is.  Admittedly, with Republicans currently likening these companies to "economic refugees" (but judging from their response to the influx of children from Central America, they really couldn't care less about actual human refugees), the chances of anything that makes life harder for the Burger Kings and Pfizers of American commerce being passed by this Congress is infinitesimal at best.  Perhaps a more comprehensive solution including both cutting the corporate tax rate and closing these ridiculous tax loopholes would do better in coaxing businesses to return home.  Maybe recognizing the sheer size of a corporation allows it to exercise its freedoms as a person much more effectively than a single American, and putting limits on that freedom would  better check undue commercial influence in the legislative process.   But in the meantime, piecemeal legislation such as this will have to do.

Bill S-7 & What it Means for the NDP

Earlier this week it was discovered that the RCMP had foiled a plot in which two individuals had planned to destroy a New York bound VIA train across the border.  In light of this revelation, the Harper government moved to introduce a bill in parliament that it was said would assist law enforcement officials unearth and disrupt such plots.  WIth nerves still raw following the Boston Marathon bombing and the ensuing manhunt, it’s no surprise this controversial piece of legislation was....controversial.  The Liberals, who had actually passed an earlier incarnation a decade earlier in response to the 9/11 attacks, wholeheartedly supported this Conservative bill.  This of course, led to the NDP landing the sole dissenting role.  While there are genuine concerns with Bill S-7, and very valid criticisms, there has also been very saddening politicking and partisanship on the NDP’s part, with some MPs making very dubious arguments, namely that Prime Minister John Diefenbaker would have “rolled in his grave” should he have known his own party was proposing such a law.  

While many point to the general deterioration in the NDP’s political capital, hastened by an ill-advised move to the centre, defections, and Thomas Mulcair’s generally abrasive attitude as reasons for a decline in its electoral fortunes, I’d say it’s just the petty, dumb, unhelpful and small-minded criticisms and comments that we’ve seen their MPs make in recent months. (Not to mention some pretty dumb policy wonks as well.)

In the last election, they won 103 seats, with 59 of those in Quebec.  Many heralded this “Orange Wave” as the beginning of an NDP resurgence that could down the road lead them to the PMO.  In reality, this shift to their party by Quebecers was generally fuelled by discontent with the Bloc, who had done a terrible job in Parliament pushing both a rather leftist agenda, and soft sovereignty.  First one must realize that what happened in Quebec was very similar to what nearly happened in the last Albertan elections, with the upstart and markedly more likeable Wildrose Party, a carbon copy of the ruling Conservatives minus the social conservatism, nearly capitalized on general discontent with the job the incumbents were doing.  The untested Wildrose did not really put anything too radical on the table, such as a comprehensive (and realistic) plan to diversify the economy.  Instead what happened was that they won seats and took on opposition status in legislature by doing what the NDP did; making themselves into a conduit by which the people could express dissatisfaction with the status quo.  When the people are satisfied, their electoral fortunes will fall.  When things aren’t going so great, it will rise.  The thing is, people who stumbled into the NDP fold looking for change in 2011 are increasingly shifting their support back to the Liberals, who emerged from a disastrous period in which they contemplated merging with the NDP.  With a young, charismatic leader, powerful political organizing machine and polls that say they are making headway across the country, Harper knows his greatest threat lies not with the Official Opposition, but with the party he decimated two year ago.  

But Stephen Harper doesn’t have much to worry about.  The Liberals’ upswing has generally been fuelled by NDP voters who are returning to the party they fled in droves.  The recent BOC economic outlook for the next two years was more optimistic than even Mr. Flaherty’s own prediction, and if they hold true, Canada is in a position to return to be back in the black by 2015, which is the current target, and an election year.  Jim Flaherty has said he is contemplating introducing income splitting should he eliminate the deficit on schedule.  Although this would cost roughly $1.5 billion, implementing something so politically popular going into an election would make it toxic for any party to try and repeal it.

The NDP rode a wave of discontent to (almost) the top.  And now that same wave will bring them back down to earth.  In an attempt to keep the voters they wooed in 2011, they dropped the most overtly socialist sections of their party manifesto, moving to the centre left, traditionally Liberal territory.  People who vote centre-left would much rather trust the party that’s been doing it for over a century, especially now that it’s found its mojo again.  Bloc voters, generally very leftist (explains the absence of a Conservative Party provincially and general scarcity of Conservative MPs from the province) and a significant chunk of the seats they lost in the last election should return.  Combined with a lack of anything that would compel the populace to vote NDP, there isn’t really anywhere for them to go except down.  FIPA notwithstanding, the Conservatives generally have pulled the right strings with regards to foreign policy, and when there is some unforced error that does come to light, the NDP sound like a bunch of whining teenagers, content to complain and just point blame instead of working towards a genuine solution, something that should be the hallmark of any opposition party.