Coffee with Mark Towhey

TORONTO — Has the sun set on Canada’s Parliament? For years, Canadians have agreed the nation’s Senate was obsolete. Some want it overhauled, others want it abolished outright. That no one could agree on how to fix it has resulted in its languishing, unchanged, for decades. With the recent false furor over proroguing of Parliament, however, Coffee is left wondering if it may just be time to abolish Parliament altogether.

What value does Parliament add?

What do we need from Parliament? We need a body that passes laws. But, there’s no reason for that body to be a large building with 308 expensive Members of Parliament sitting in it… plus a smaller chamber with even more expensive, unelected Senators. Fact is, MPs vote the way their party leaders tell them to. So, all but the party leaders could be eliminated.

1. Debating important issues. Every democracy should have a public forum where the nation’s leaders debate the most important issues of the day, exploring every aspect of critical challenges and forming cogent, informed and wise decisions. But that isn’t what Parliament does.

Parliament is a place where members make serial speeches. People take turns standing up and reading out speeches that others have written for them. No one listens to the speeches because, most of the time, few people are even present. Those that are, are busy reviewing the notes the party leader’s speechwriting hacks have written and preparing for their turn in the spotlight.

Occasionally, members are told to stand up, sit down, thump their chests, bang their desks, applaud, cat call or call the other side names. That about sums up Parliament. If there is anywhere that issues or legislation receives informed consideration and review… it’s not here.

2. Committees. If not in the House of Commons, then maybe thought happens in Committee? In theory, committees are where smaller, better informed, all-party groups of Parliamentarians gather to give sticky issues a detailed thrice-over with a fine-tuned comb. Fat chance.

Committees embody all of the worst attributes of Parliament, writ small. No one listens. Facts need not enter the discussion. All the talking points are scripted by speechwriters who likely know less about the issues at hand than the politician whose job it is to passionately deliver them.

3. Question Period In theory, Question Period is the time when opposition parties hold government accountable: ministers must stand up and answer questions posed publicly in the House of Commons. In practice, Question Period is a Parliamentary anachronism much-loved by people who have party membership or press cards in their wallets. The rest of Canada could not possibly care less.

The reality of QP is this: No minister ever answers a question posed to them. There are two principal reasons for this. First, they don’t listen to the questions — not their job, you see. Their job is to read out pre-scripted rhetorical word bombs (ideally with sarcastic grin) produced by invisible scriptwriters who long to hear their ironic one-liners repeated on the evening news. Second, there are no questions in Question Period. In actuality, the opposing parties use their time to launch long-winded, self-serving rhetorical soundbites at the government written by their own wannabe screenwriters in the backrooms.

4. Passing laws. OK… got me there! There is no other body in the land that can create federal laws, so we need some semblance of Parliament. But we certainly don’t need to fill it with 308 superfluous politicians! Only the Party Leaders play a role in decision making, so why couldn’t we axe the rest of them?

Perhaps we should buy a mini-bus instead

Here’s a thought: What if Canadians voted directly for national party leaders who would each be allocated a number of votes proportional to the number of ballots they received? They could then get together and make decisions over slow-roasted chicken at Swiss Chalet. Maybe they could bash around ideas and pass laws with a show of thumbs over a tray of double-doubles and a box of Tim Bits at Tim Hortons.

It would be the same people driving the bus, to exactly the same place, but would use a fraction of the gas and take practically no time at all.

TORONTO — This just in! Almost a month and a half after the mysterious car crash that heralded the “demise” of the world’s greatest athlete, Tiger Woods is still richer than everyone I’ve ever met put together.

We now return you to your regular net surfing that is already in progress.

And, for those who must know: Black(ish). Never could get the hot/cold laundry thing figured out.

TORONTO – Common sense is sorely lacking in the media hoopla and political response to the latest failed attempt to bring down a civil airliner. Perhaps it’s time to look dispassionately at the challenge and identify some potential responses that might help.

Christmas Day Recap

For those of you living on Mars: On December 25, a Nigerian man boarded a U.S. airliner flying from Amsterdam to Detroit and attempted to ignite explosives he had stashed in his underwear. They didn’t explode. Instead, he received serious burns to his nether regions. His attempt was successful, however, at igniting a multi-billion dollar response from the western world.

Risk versus Risk

Most important to remember in any discussion of risk management is the fundamental truism: there is no such thing as “zero risk.” In the mad dash to eliminate this new threat from “thong bombs,” we are distorting reality. Politicians are reacting, and pundits are demanding action, as if it was possible to eliminate the risk from air travel. It isn’t.

Life is inherently risky. Air travel, as in any form of travel, is fraught with risks. Whether one dies in an accident caused by a faulty pitot tube, or an explosion caused by a thong bomb, one is equally dead. Effective risk management demands that we not become overly focused on one risk to the exclusion of others.

Stepping further back, there is a risk inherent in trying to make air travel completely safe — especially if that means it’s so restrictive it becomes economically unviable. The 21st Century world runs on air travel. If it becomes too expensive, or too onerous, there will be consequences.

People who don’t fly may choose to drive instead — and the risk of death or injury is orders of magnitude higher on our roads than it is in our skies. Result: more people will die. People who don’t fly can’t travel to distant destinations. Result: many businesses will become untenable, people will lose jobs (first in tourism, travel and hospitality industries, then other industries reliant on global travel) and without jobs, many will not be able to afford healthcare or healthy lifestyles, etc. and some will die.

It’s critically important we take a holistic approach to risk management. We must seek to balance and mitigate the risks not to eliminate them.

Some things that may help

Scanners. New scanners may be a useful tool as long as they increase throughput at airports by reducing screening time. While they may detect some foreign objects under people’s clothes, they will not detect everything and won’t detect internal bombs which are the next likely tactic to be used by terrorists. However, their true value rests in perception. If they make people feel safer, they will mitigate the greater economic risk of air travel avoidance — assuming they can be installed at a reasonable cost.

Profiling. Profiling is distasteful to westerners because it is associated with unethical, ulawful and wrongly discriminatory abuses of power. However, used properly, it is the only effective way to allocate limited security resources to meet a widespread challenge. Recent moves by the Canadian government to introduce this behavioural profiling capability at airports are a step in the right direction. Other forms of profiling can also be very effective as long as the “target profile” is not so broad it is unmanageable. For example, targeting “dark skinned males” or “people who are Islamic” would be a useless profile as it is so broad it would increase not decrease the workload of security forces.

So far, these are measures aimed at reducing the likelihood of an attack. But assessing risk always involves two factors: the Probability of something occurring and the Consequences if it does happen. We cannot focus merely on reducing the probability of an attack.

Seat Assignment. We can’t prevent every attempt, but we can mitigate the impact of those that do occur. The most effective weapons we currently have to do this are the other passengers on the plane. Passengers on the plane prevented the thong bomber from completing his task. Passengers also stopped the shoe bomber and prevented one of the 9/11 teams from reaching its target.

Airlines should allocate seats to ensure able bodied passengers are distributed throughout the aircraft. Media should educate passengers about successful attack prevention and motivate people to take appropriate actions. Informed, motivated and well-positioned passengers may be the best line of defence when an on board attempt occurs.

Now, a controversial proposal: Airlines should not allow large parties of able-bodied men, who are travelling together, to sit together. Terrorists are not stupid. Their tactical response to an increase in passenger action will be to use teams of attackers, seated together, to hold off a passenger revolt while the bomber(s) do their business. By breaking up these groups, this will be harder to do.

Terror-proof aircraft. Modern automobiles are designed to mitigate the effects of collisions when they occur, as they inevitably do. Future airliners should incorporate design features that similarly minimize the impact of onboard attacks. Hardening of cockpit doors is a step in the right direction. Incorporating entirely segregated flight decks may be the next evolution. Research may also identify better ways to seat passengers to reduce the impact of body-borne devices. Sectional aircraft skins may allow explosive forces to vent without causing structural failure in the same way “crumple zones” in cars absorb deadly energy from a collision. Governments and industry should fund research towards making safer, “terror-proof” (more correctly: “terror-resistant”) aircraft.

We know what won’t work

Knee-jerk reactions to eliminate carry-on baggage or passenger movement on airplanes, and ridiculously long and invasive screening procedures, will simply dissuade people from flying and trigger a commensurate increase in non-flying risks that will out weigh any micro-risk mitigation on the aircraft. A complete waste of time.

TORONTO – Just before 10 AM this morning, CFRB radio host Bill Carroll broke the news that John Tory will not be running for mayor of Toronto. This is a dark day for Toronto. Tory was the best hope for a leader with the intellect, integrity and energy to turn this city around.

The field is now wide open. Can George Smitherman make the grade?

And, of course, this will stoke rumours Tory may be appointed to the Senate in the next few days.

NORTH POLE — Merry Christmas to everyone, and best wishes for a peaceful day and year for all.

Our hearts and prayers are with our troops overseas, their families at home, my friends around the world and the family, whom I do not know, two blocks away whose home burned tonight.

God bless.

TORONTO – The January issue of Golf Digest is on the newstands now and it is a fine illustration of the perils of magazine publishing and its long lead times. The cover story (illustrated above) is 10 tips Obama can take from Tiger. Ahem, as they say in the biz.

“Ahem,” of course, being the Latin word for “oops!”

A Mulligan is not required

I expect the editors at Golf Digest would gladly take a Mulligan on this issue. However, I think they shouldn’t. The lessons relate to Woods’s golf game — and all remain valid. More interesting, though, is the fact that many of same these lessons could be extracted from golf and applied to his latest marital and public relations troubles — where they would be equally valid.

Consider the following tips, pulled from the Golf Digest article.

Quick Recovery David Owen points to Tiger’s ability to recover quickly after adversity, citing episodes on the links where Woods has blown a gasket, smashed a club, then refocused himself to task and won the round. It will be interesting to see if he can do the same off the course.

Uncompromising Arnold Palmer suggests a key Woods strength is his refusal to compromise on things that matter to him. This seems to be the case as he’s refused to give in to public pressure and staunchly held to his “private life is private” perspective.

Message control Jackie Burke says Woods attributes his paucity of public words to advice from his father who told him “…when asked a question, I have control of the answer.” As much as many in the schadenfreude gallery would like him to say more, Woods has picked his words sparingly and carefully and seems unlikely to break his silence any time soon.

Pick up the Jan 2010 issue of Golf Digest yourself to read the rest and draw your own conclusions about the off-links applicability of the tips. Somehow, I doubt the article will top U.S. president Obama’s holiday reading list, however.

TORONTO – Friday’s Globe and Mail carries a front page story by Campbell Clark that presents what I believe is the most credible scenario explaining the disconnect in Canada’s Foreign Affairs ministry on the Afghan detainee issue.

While most other journalists have concentrated on titillating “he said, she said” stories playing up every minuscule difference of opinion as a Watergate scale scandal, Clark delivers a reasoned, and reasonable, explanation for those differences. Kudos to Clark!

TORONTO – Just in case you missed it, dear Coffee readers, Toronto’s lame duck mayor David Miller has launched a class-action slander at the Copenhagen Climate Shindig. Claiming to speak for “all Canadians” he’s announced how “embarrassed” we are to be Canadians. Not to put too fine a point on it, allow me to say: “Dear Mr. Mayor: please, shut the hell up.”

David Miller doesn’t speak for me

Having efficiently transformed Toronto from world-class city into a ghetto slum for neighbouring Mississauga, it seems as if Miller is looking for greener pastures to sully. Apparently, he’s decided to decimate Canada’s image overseas. This super socialist’s work is never done.

Unlike Miller, I’m quite proud to be Canadian. Also unlike Miller, I’ve spent much of the past two years working overseas where, I’m happy to report, Canada’s reputation is doing quite fine, thank you very much. And deservedly so.

Canada is a peaceful, clean, tolerant, safe country that has managed through the latest recession (so far) without the horrific tumbles of our southern neighbours and European friends. Canadians enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, and yet have avoided developing an overbearing national ego that often accompanies success. You know this is a great country when the worst thing a few people can conjure up to slander Canada with is (a) you’re dirty oil is 30 per cent dirtier than my dirty oil and (b) you’re government is covering up the fact that Canadian Forces did nothing wrong in Afghanistan.

Something’s rotten in Denmark

While Miller was manoeuvring to feed his ego with some face time on major media by slandering our nation, rumours emerged today that some form of agreement may emerge from Copenhagen after all.

A key component many are insisting is that “developed” nations (including Canada) should cough up some cash to help “developing” nations clean up their industrial acts. While this sounds reasonable, there are two fatal flaws with this seemingly noble concept: first, developed countries don’t have any cash to spare right now and (b) the list of “developing” countries put forward by many includes far too many “developed” countries.

China is not a “developing” country

Some lists of “developing” countries include the emerging economic powerhouses of the BRIC nations: Brazil, Russia, India and China. Any plan that involves paying a single copper penny of Canadian tax dollars to the government of China to enable it to clean up its act, will be a disaster for all Canadians.

Anyone who’s spent any amount of time outside the western hemisphere in the past two years understands something that is not yet patently obvious to most Canadians: China is a superpower. China is omnipresent throughout Asia and most of Africa. China is, by no measure, a developing country. While millions of Chinese may be trapped in poverty, China has vast wealth to invest in major foreign ventures and a domestic space program with plans to send humans back to the moon.

Given the current economic climate, it is pretty clear Canada would have to borrow any money it might agree to give China to fund it’s greenhouse gas clean up program. Guess who we’d have to borrow it from? That’s right: from China.

Is it just me? Or is that not just plain stupid? Not unlike David Miller’s statement in Copenhagen.

TORONTO – I have remarked in the past that the only thing that makes Pakistan’s incompetent politicians bearable to the average citizen there, is the sure knowledge the democratically elected legislators are entirely irrelevant to real life in the beleaguered nation. The Army runs the country and the Army, by and large, is competent. The disconnected, circus-like comings and goings of elected representatives are largely a sideshow for the amusement of… well, themselves.

How sad it is, then, that I am beginning to think politics in Canada has gone down the same path. Even worse: Canada doesn’t have an Army big enough or sinister enough to run the country while the politicians make fools of themselves.

Completely disconnected from the real world

Over the past number of weeks, I’ve tried a half dozen times to put my frustrations to paper regarding the current “Afghan Detainee” imbroglio that is setting political Ottawa on fire. Not sure if the rest of Canada has even noticed. Try as I might, though, I am unable to express my frustration with the whole process.

This morning, however, I woke up to the sad realization I may have missed the point entirely. Perhaps, I have been too focused on the proverbial trees to realize the whole political forest is a farce.

I’ve noticed it before. I first went to Afghanistan, via Tajikistan, in October 2007 to gain a first-hand perspective of what’s really going on there. I had had enough of the “he said,” “no, he said he said” of Canadian politics. It was difficult to judge from the rhetoric where reality may lie.

What I learned was that reality was irrelevant. No one in Ottawa cared a whit what was really happening in Afghanistan. Rather, each federal party was more interested in “defining their space” on this issue in relation to the other parties. A cruel sort of partisan nepotism rules on even the most important issues — such as running a war.

As government, the Conservatives had to support the war. The Liberals, as the then newish Official Opposition, were de rigeur required to oppose the war — notwithstanding the fact they’d launched Canada into it in the first place. As Canada’s third national party, and its fifth wheel, the NDP faced a quandary: it needed to differentiate itself from both the others so, while it had to oppose the government, it also had to be recognizably different from the Liberals. Thus, the NDP’s policy of “run away! run away!”

In no case was there any evidence that any of the parties had taxed a single neuron to consider what was actually happening in Afghanistan, or how the best interests of Canadians might be served.

The current “Afghan Detainee” issue displays a similar bankruptcy of public interest on the part of federal political leaders. The government plays its role of “didn’t do nothing wrong” with aplomb, while the opposition (this time united by the smell of perceived blood in the water) screams “did so!”

Once again, there is zero evidence on display that any Ottawa politician gives a damn about what really happened, is happening or will happen in Afghanistan. Nor, do any of them seem to care how their rhetoric is affecting the outcome there, or here.

Maybe the apathetic electorate is on to something

I have long lamented the fact many Canadians don’t vote, let alone engage in political activity. In this, I’ve been a believer in Preston Manning’s expression that “politics is not a spectator sport.”

However, maybe I was wrong. Maybe in Canada, as in Pakistan, politics is less sport and more theatre. Perhaps it’s just a tawdry amusement for the well-to-do and idle classes. Maybe federal politics in Canada is meaningless.

If so, I have to wonder: who runs this country anyway?

TORONTO – Was pleased to hear CFRB’s Bill Carroll raise the issue of the City’s new “TTC tax” on condo developers this morning.