Archive for the The Chairman’s Corner Category

NATION BUILDING ON THE FLY

Who speaks for the disenfranchised?  In an era that is rightfully and finally turning its attention to reconciliation, this is a question that North American society is grappling with on a regular basis.  As a general rule, the often unsatisfactory but intellectually correct answer lies in the existing modes of political representation.  States are governed in accordance with a Constitution which defines the terms under which the governed agree to be bound by the terms of whatever authority has been created to make decisions on behalf of the collective, be that a democracy, monarchy or autocracy.  Those terms can and usually do include provisions under which the Constitution itself can be updated, but it is also almost always the case that the terms under which the rules can be changed are fairly onerous, as we can see from the American challenges in introducing gun control legislation in a country that constitutionalized the right to bear arms.

So Constitutions are marvelous things.  They document the terms under which a population has agreed to form a state, and they provide minimum guarantees of rights and processes that immigrants can evaluate in their decision to seek to join such a state.  So everyone has been provided for, right?  Not quite.  The US has a large population that are the descendants of people who did not make an even remotely voluntary decision to subscribe to the Constitution.  They were brought to the country on slave ships, and never had any say in the subsequent adoption of the Constitution that never even recognized them as individuals to whom the benefits of that document accrued until the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment to the Constitution following the end of the bloodiest Civil War in the history of the world.  Since that time, all African-Americans, including those descended from former slaves have struggled to find a truly representative voice in the political system that they neither had a role in creating nor provided their consent in joining.

As difficult as that experience has been and continues to be, Canada finds itself with an even more difficult integrative exercise.  By the time of the Civil War, no American slave had been born outside of the US and the institution of slavery.  They had accordingly never participated in an alternative collective governance model that even purported to be consensual or under which they had agreed to the imposition of restrictions on personal liberty in exchange for collective benefits.  That was and is not true of Canada’s Indigenous population.  Those populations lived in functioning communities that had their own unique and long established governance models.  Colonial powers purported to honour their status as individual nations by using treaties, not conquest, to establish the terms under which each would assert sovereignty over land and people.  However unreasonable or incomplete those treaty bargains may have been, there is no escaping the central fact that Colonial governments never purported to entirely extinguish the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples.  Ignore, subvert and denigrate certainly, but never extinguish.

So Canada finds itself in an interesting position in this era of reconciliation, particularly as it relates to resource development.  Canadian courts have imposed upon commercial interests the obligation to consult with First Nations with respect to the development of lands in which they have an historical connection.  But who speaks for such nations?  In the recent case of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline, TC Energy, the developer of the new pipeline, has not only consulted with but obtained the consent of the elected band councils of each of the clans of the Wet’suwet’en nation of Northern BC to the proposed development.  Nonetheless TC Energy finds itself effectively hamstrung by protests and blockades on the proposed site led by the hereditary chiefs of many of those same clans.

Asked to assess the legitimacy of each of these purported representatives of these Indigenous populations, it is a fair guess that most Canadians would favour the elected representatives.  But those elected councils derive their authority not from a Constitution consented to by the governed but from a governance model imposed under the terms of the Indian Act by representatives of those that hope to do business with the governed.  Are they more representative than hereditary chiefs?  Maybe, probably, but that is for the governed to decide.

What this really says is that each First Nation needs a Constitution that creates a mechanism through which their participation in consultations can be governed.  This exercise in nation building cannot be led by even the most well-meaning of non-Indigenous advisers and allies.  Fortunately, the recent eruption of reconciliation initiatives has revealed that there is no shortage of Indigenous leadership with expertise and interest in this sort of project.  To capitalize on the opportunities for truly inclusive economic development presented by this era of consultative reconciliation, this process has to begin yesterday.

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

Canada has found itself, reluctantly, in the midst of a major diplomatic row with China.  Acting in accordance with its extradition treaty obligations, Canada arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou as she was connecting to another flight at Vancouver Airport.  After 11 days in detention, she has received bail, but not before, in a remarkable coincidence, Michael Kovrig, a Canadian citizen and former diplomat and current Senior Advisor to an international NGO, has disappeared in Beijing.  Chinese officials have not confirmed his arrest but have cryptically observed that the NGO for which he works is not registered in China and therefore any activity on its behalf would be illegal.

So what is this all about?  It seems that the US Justice Department has determined that HSBC cleared transactions through the US banking system that included proceeds from sales of cell phones to Iranian interests in contravention of the recently re-imposed US trade sanctions.  That the US takes this sort of breach seriously is evidenced (sort of) by the severe economic sanctions placed upon another Chinese technology company, ZTE, in the context of similar activity a year ago.  I say sort of because in the end ZTE was rescued from extinction by President Trump in the context of a softening of Chinese positions in the still-ongoing trade war with the US.

So what do HSBC’s breaches have to do with Meng Wanzhou?  It sounds like the transactions that gave rise to the breach by HSBC were conducted by Skycom, a Hong Kong-based entity doing business with Iranian interests.  Meng Wanzhou was at one time on the board of Skycom, but not at the time of the impugned sales transactions.  However, it is alleged that Meng Wanzhou made representations to HSBC and other banks operating in the US that Huawei was not related to Skycom, and it is these fraudulent representations that give rise to the extradition request from the US.  As a strictly factual matter, things look bad for Meng Wanzhou; journalists have already discovered that Skycom’s registered office shares an address with Huawei’s Hong Kong office and that Skycom’s e-mail addresses are on Huawei’s internet domain.

Now the fact that these two damning facts were so quickly discoverable by mere journalists suggest that whatever deception Meng Wanzhou may have subjected HSBC to, they might in fact be guilty of a certain laxity in their own independent due diligence.  Furthermore, it is hard to understand how the reality of Huawei’s effective ownership of Skycom could have excused any alleged breach by HSBC in clearing transactions effected in breach of the US sanctions on Iran.  One could even speculate that the far more practically relevant fact underlying Meng Wanzhou’s arrest is not these alleged misrepresentations or her role as CFO of Huawei, but rather the fact that she is the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei with a history as replete with achievements within the Communist Party and Chinese military as it is with business triumphs.

But never mind that for now.  The US has until January 9th to clear up these gaps in support of their extradition demand.  In the meantime, Meng Wanzhou will suffer in one or both of her Vancouver mansions with the indignity of an electronic ankle bracelet while President Trump presses whatever leverage he can out of this affront in the context of his increasingly fraught trade negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping.  Smart money says the resolution of the trade dispute will be happily concluded by January 9th, Meng Wanzhou will have a pleasant holiday in her one-time home city of Vancouver and will in the New Year return to China and to Huawei with nothing more than a little ankle chafing.

Let’s hope the whole experience is as transparent, pleasant and quickly resolved for Mr Kovrig.  Somehow I doubt it will be.

Merry Christmas!

RHETORICAL QUESTIONS

“Why do you support Fascists?”

That was the question you asked me when our eyes met outside Roy Thomson Hall on the evening of November 2nd.  We had both been standing in the cold for over two hours, I to get past the security checks before going inside to attend the Munk Debate between former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and former Bush speechwriter David Frum on the topic of the future of Populism versus Liberalism as the overarching ideology animating the future of Western politics and you to voice your opposition to those who would give a platform to the ideology that has emboldened the supporters of Donald Trump and many other Far Right populist movements in both Western and Emerging democracies.

You asked me a question, and a reasonable one.  After two hours of chanted insults, it was actually rather welcome.  Given that we were now in the slowest moving portion of the line just prior to entrance, and at the point at which the margin between the barricade holding back the protestors and the line was the narrowest, I both wanted to answer and felt you deserved an answer.

What I wanted to say was that I do not support Fascists, nor do I support those that knowingly curry favour with Fascists for political ends.  I can tell you that in the debate that I did eventually get in to see, Steve Bannon denied the former but conceded the latter.  That he added that he would also gladly curry the favour of the fervently anti-globalist branch of Bernie Sanders supporters did not persuade me that his expedient tolerance of Nazi-inspired White Supremacists was harmless.

If I was there in support of anyone, it was in support of David Frum, and I admit my support was at least 50% personal as opposed to political.  You see, David Frum and I were classmates in a small Toronto high school, and while we might not have then or since been the closest of friends, I have respect for his intellect and decency even if we disagree politically (interestingly, in high school his politics would have been too Left for my liking, and as an adult too Right for my extreme centrist inclinations).  Yes, he does claim authorship for the “Axis of Evil” speech and he did support the Iraq War for which it served as the cri du couer, but despite the horrible chain of events that that misguided policy initiated, it was sadly the product of very traditional US foreign policy and not the first spasms of American Fascism.

But maybe I am taking your question too literally.  Maybe you are asking why I would support a debate between an arguable Fascist and an arguable Neo Con.  Is that really what constitutes the breadth of the political spectrum for comfortable white males these days, you might ask?  Fair question, and despite the ability to fall back on my high school relationship with David Frum, I thought about that as well.  Although a debate between Elizabeth Warren and Steve Bannon would undeniably be a fairer representation of the chasm of American political discourse these days, it would be certain to be one in which there would be much heat and no light, with those in the critical centre of the political spectrum left feeling abandoned.  The rise of the Populist Right is too worrisome to be left to the hilarious polemics of Bill Maher panel.  Seeing the ideology of the Populists rejected by the Neo Cons should be both telling and comforting.  The fire that burns so hot on the extreme Right burns out before it even reaches the middle.  And on that score, both you and I should take comfort from the result of the debate.  Even a crowd of Toronto’s finest Fascists (including noted Nazi firebrand Rick Mercer) rejected Bannon’s projection of a Populist future 72 – 28 % both before and after the debate.

But perhaps by “support” you meant financial support.  At a hundred Canadian dollars a ticket, the event undoubtedly put a few American dollars in Steve Bannon’s pocket.  But from what I read, Steve doesn’t need the money, and besides, according to Wikipedia, Bannon owns a slice of Seinfeld residuals that he received in his prior life as a Hollywood producer.  If true, the energy invested in denouncing the Munk Debate appearance fee might have been better directed to a boycott of Seinfeld reruns.

I guess there was a lot I would have wanted to say, and I doubt we would have had time to exchange views on all of that.  But then again, we never even started to exchange views.  When I moved toward you to answer, you yelled “F*** off, Nazi” and gave me a double middle finger salute.

I guess the question was rhetorical.