I find that it’s challenging to continue to have major new topics to talk about, and that there is a temptation to simply re-write what I’ve have written before. Today’s offering for your news and entertainment is a combination of smaller scale new items and updates on old ones.

 The Monarchy:

Some of my friends have indicated that, following the death of Queen Elizabeth, they are waiting (more or less gleefully) for Dennis to blow his wig over the fate of the monarchy in Canada. Well, I hate to disappoint, so here goes…

In my article of December 5, 2021, I listed some reasons why we shouldn’t perpetuate the monarchy. For simplicity, I’ll summarize them here:

• There’s nothing admirable about the Windsor family that elevates them above my family or yours, and it’s wrong to put them on a pedestal.
• Monarchy as a system of government is dying.
• The British crown does not represent the populace of this nation, and in fact many Canadians come from places where Britain might well be resented.
• The monarchy costs us money – every visit to Canada by one of those puffed up genetic accidents costs us millions of dollars.
• Giving up on the monarchy would provide us with an opportunity to redefine the authority basis for our government.

I see no reason to back away from those positions. So, now let us reflect a little on what we do now that Charles is king.

First, there is, apparently, no need for many political appointees to repeat their oaths of allegiance. The oath is interpreted as being specific to the office of monarch, and not to the personage who resides therein. That will nicely avoid some gag-worthy moments on TV, as we won’t be asked to witness any reaffirmations of loyalty. It’s a pity actually – I think that being asked to swear allegiance to King Charles III might actually have generated some soul searching amongst our leaders, and it might have led to some push for change.

Speaking of change, apparently there is no rush to take the Queen off our coins and replace her with Charles’ noble visage. (Let us give thanks for small mercies.) I caught a statement by one of the speakers on a Power and Politics (CBC) panel who suggested that while we might not be able to abandon the monarchy without constitutional change, we should be able to abandon many of the symbols of monarchy if we so choose. One of those symbols of the monarchy has been the practice of placing the Queen’s face on Canada’s $20 bill, and on all Canadian coins. But there is no rule, or law, or requirement that we do that. So, let’s stop. Rather than King Charles, our currency could feature Terry Fox, Drs Banting and Best, Margaret Atwood, John McRae, Gordon Lightfoot, Vincent Massey…the list of people more deserving than Charles to be on our currency is almost endless.

Do our ships have to be “His Majesty’s Canadian Ship” (HMCS Something)? No, they could be CNS (Canadian Navy Ship) Something. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police could become the Canadian Mounted Peasantry Police. You get the idea – we can stop glorifying the monarchy without fighting through a constitutional change.

Several readers have said to me something “you’ll never get that done in Canada, because we cannot effect a constitutional change like that. Too many provinces will want other changes and we’ll fight and wrangle and never get it done.” Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not. We’ll never know unless we try. 

One suggestion I’ve heard is that we should have a national referendum on whether we should continue the monarchy. Good idea. Let’s do that and find out how people really feel.

If the referendum reveals, as I believe it will, that people don’t care for the monarchy, then let’s have the politicians do some back room negotiating. In the face of a definite referendum result, our provincial and national leaders should be able to agree that we’re going to open up the constitution for the sole and specific and limited purpose of creating a republic. Agree to negotiate a constitutional change on which all provinces and the Federal Government are likely to agree, and get on with it.

The other thing that people have said to me is “Ok, the monarchy doesn’t do much for us, but it doesn’t hurt us much and it would cause too much trouble to fix it now.” That’s a somewhat valid point. Why bother? Why not just admit that we’re stuck with a generally harmless anachronism and deal with the more pressing issues facing the country, like the Ukraine crisis, inflation, and the continuing Covid pandemic? I confess that I don’t have an overwhelmingly positive reason why we need to make this change right now. But I think now is a good a time as any, and perhaps the best time because the death of Queen Elizabeth signals a time to query our devotion to the monarchy. There will never be times when the government of the day doesn’t have other high priority issues. 

I think my answer to why we should push it into our government agenda is a collection of intangibles. First, we exist in the international community as a cast-off of the British Empire. We’re a junior partner in a Commonwealth headed by the UK. Do we really want to be seen as the junior partner in that or any alliance? Second, I think our standing in trading nations like India and South Africa and other colonial victims would be stronger if we asserted that we were not associated with the ancient predator. And third, I think that large fraction of our citizenry which owes no allegiance to the monarchy would be more comfortable in a clearly independent and self-directed Canada.

If the referendum which has been suggested was held and it was luke-warm either for or against the monarchy, then the government would be well advised to table the issue as being unimportant. If, however, a solid chunk of the country said “lets’ do it”, then the government should get on with negotiating a process.

One of the suggestions made to me is that although Britain was a ruthless colonial ruler, the invaded lands benefited from the imposition of a tradition of law and the development of parliamentary democracies. Shree Pradkar refutes this argument in an article on the Toronto Star (No I do Not Mourn the Queen, Toronto Star, Sept 14 2022).  She discusses a quote from Tucker Carlson, that luminary of Fox News: “When the British pulled out of India they left behind an entire civilization, a language, a legal system, schools, churches and public buildings, all of which are still in use today,” he said this week, extolling British benignity. Ms. Pradkar dismisses that suggestion out of hand.  “As if all of those things did not exist before the British set foot on the land. Yes, churches, too. Christianity has existed in India since 52 AD, as a one-second Google search shows.” She goes on to say “many so-called centrists, the supposed not-crazies, believe colonialism at least modernized, if not civilized already ancient and sophisticated civilizations. Indeed, many among the colonized themselves affect a fondness for what was essentially an era of looting. After all, colonization could not have been carried out without the help of insiders. The colonizer-colonized relationship is neither linear nor a love/hate binary.”

Her point, a valid one I think, is that the imposition of British rule of law on a country like India which already had rules and rulers and laws and lawyers was unnecessary and offers little justification for why that country would feel beholden to Great Britain today. Include Canada in that category.

General Dany Fortin

 We have been treated this week to salacious reporting about the trial of General Dany Fortin for his alleged sexual assault of a military college classmate more than 30 years ago. The classmate testified that Fortin sexually assaulted her, and that she subsequently told her roommate and her former boyfriend. Both the roommate and the former boyfriend denied, in their sworn testimony, any recollection of those conversations. No physical evidence of the assault has survived the passage of time.

General Fortin has testified that he did nothing of the sort.

I make no representation for General Fortin’s guilt or innocence. From what little I’ve seen reported there is not enough evidence for me to have a solid opinion on his actual guilt or innocence.

I do however, have an opinion on the trial and the justice system. Let’s take gender and sex out of this equation. Let us hypothesize that a male military college classmate recounts a 30-year old recollection of seeing Dany Fortin stealing the Crown Jewels. Let us suppose that there is no further corroboration of that story, and it comes down to “yes, you did” vs “no, I didn’t” which is what the Fortin trial seems to be. Would charges be laid? Would that thing ever get to trial? 

Well, why did it come to trial? General Fortin has initiated legal proceedings “challenging the government’s decision to publicly terminate his secondment in May to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).” In those proceedings, the government has filed hand-written notes by the Acting Chief of Defence Staff, Lt-Gen Wayne Eyre. The context is that Fortin was in an extremely public job at the time he was accused. He was in charge of the logistics for rolling out Covid vaccines across Canada. He was an employee of the military, but was seconded to the Dept of Health. Would it be possible for Fortin to continue in that high-profile role while he stood accused of sexual misconduct?

According to a CBC story on this subject, General Eyre’s notes suggest that he, Eyres, found himself in an impossible situation. His notes showed that “ the “DM” — which in bureaucratic parlance usually means deputy minister — mentioned “political pressure” and that the government “could fall,” though the context of those remarks is unclear…..in his notes, Eyre refers to the clerk of the Privy Council as having spoken to Health Minister Patty Hajdu four times and notes “Min H insulating/protect herself.” Another note says “Min H … reaction – protect herself” and that she “doesn’t want to create a narrative.” It also said she “understands” the complainant’s “perspective,” according to the notes. 

So, there you have it. Dany Fortin was thrown under the bus because the accuser’s allegation placed the Minister of Health in an awkward position and because she “understood the complainant’s perspective.” Fortin’s lawyer summarized it nicely when she wrote “It is clear from the documents disclosed today that the decision-makers were more concerned about the political optics of Major General Fortin’s situation than about ensuring a fair process free of political interference”. Having decided that Fortin should be dismissed, and having done so in a very public fashion, the Federal government then passed the case along to the Quebec prosecutor’s office. 

What was the Quebec prosecutor’s office to do?  If they failed to press charges after the man was tried by the Federal Dept of Health and found guilty in the media, they would look unsupportive of the complainant at a time when there was a flood of sexual misconduct allegations within Canada’s military. So, they too, were in a tough spot. But sadly, neither the Federal government nor the Quebec prosecutor’s office had the balls to take the high road. Fortin was sacrificed to political expediency.

Fortin may be guilty. If there is corroborative testimony about this in the next few days, I’ll hang my head and acknowledge that I jumped to a conclusion before the thing was done. But on the face of it, there is no case here. If this thing goes the way I expect, and he is acquitted for lack of evidence, I hope he sues the prosecuting agency for all he’s worth. I hope he is successful in his suit against his former employers for unjust dismissal, given that he was fired before trial, and I hope he gets well paid for his efforts.

Now that the sordid details of the complainant’s testimony have been splashed across the news pages, the trial has been adjourned until November 5^th. It’s not clear to me if more evidence is expected or if that will be the date on which the judge provides a decision. Would you like to make a bet on how a “Not Guilty” verdict will be played in the press if it happens? Will there be a concerted effort to undo the damage that has been done by the trial? No, I thought not.

Regardless of outcome, this trial has ruined General Fortin’s reputation and cost him his job. The governments shouldn’t have done that. An allegation is one thing. Evidence is another, and in the total absence of corroborative evidence, it’s a disgrace that this thing was brought to trial.

Undoubtedly the complainant’s accusation should have been investigated. But the complainant doesn’t have a God-given right to her day in court. The defendant goes to court with a presumption of innocence. The presumption of innocence means that evidence – not just an allegation – is required to prove him guilty. If there wasn’t solid evidence that constituted a viable case that might reasonably have been expected to secure a conviction, then charges should not have been filed and the case should never have come to court. I think the whole thing stinks.

Vladimir Putin 

The news today is full of stuff from Putin’s latest speech and actions. He is enacting laws to allow him to force some 300,000 Russians into the military, and to punish those who attempt to avoid that military service. I find it encouraging that, as reported in the Economist, “Prices for flights out of Russia have skyrocketed, with many selling out” as young Russians try to flee that service. In his latest speech, he affirms that an attack by Ukraine on the disputed territories will be seen as an attack on Mother Russia thus setting up his pretext for upgrading the action from a special military action to a war. He has also reiterated his claim that he will use nuclear weapons to defend Russia, including those disputed “breakaway republics”. And he promises to run referenda in those areas to affirm his position that he is simply liberating Russians from enslavement in Ukraine.

When this mess began, I supported the NATO position that they would not send NATO troops to Ukraine because they could not risk the madman’s response and trigger a nuclear war. (My wife, who believes that you stop a bully in the schoolyard by punching him in the nose, occasionally reminds me of her disgust with that position.) Putin’s latest threat is a little more pointed, since he now threatens to use tactical nuclear weapons in response to any significant Ukrainian advance as opposed to it being a response to NATO intervention. So, what would we do if Putin uses nuclear weapons?

The Union of Concerned Scientists, in an article on tactical nuclear weapons reported that “A Princeton University simulation of a US-Russian conflict that begins with the use of a tactical nuclear weapon predicts rapid escalation that would leave more than 90 million people dead and injured.” Let me repeat that – could leave more than 90 million people dead or injured. The response to a nuclear attack inside Ukraine is a momentous decision.

I don’t think we could do nothing. We’d need to prevent the use of that weapon from being successful for Putin. If he wins that way once, he has a blueprint for doing whatever the heck he wants, doesn’t he?

I also don’t think that the use of a limited tactical nuclear weapon should automatically provoke us to send a similar missile his way, because that leads to the aforementioned 90 million casualty escalation.

I think perhaps the best response would be to flood Ukraine with conventionally equipped NATO troops and inform Mr. Putin that this war must end, that it must end now, and that a repeated use of a nuclear weapon that kills NATO soldiers in Ukraine will be cause for a declaration of war. Putting some of our troops at risk is a better bet than putting 90 million people at risk by responding with a nuclear attack. Perhaps the use of a tactical weapon would be the point at which we would be forced to call the bluff by putting boots on the ground.

My prescription for Ukraine remains largely unchanged. I think the UN has to get more involved. They should:

• Kick Russia off the Security Council. An aggressor nation has no right to serve on the leadership of an organization dedicated to preservation of peace.
• Conduct genuine and believable referenda in the disputed territories.
• Establish UN backed borders.
• Establish a huge and generous resettlement fund to put citizens on whichever side of the border they want to be on. It’s costing NATO countries a fortune to help Ukraine prosecute the war. We shouldn’t object to using similar sums to bring the war to an end.

Donald Trump

My prescription for Donald Trump also remains largely unchanged, but it’s illegal under Canadian law. I’m likely to return to this subject in a future article.

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Keep the conversation lively – tell me what you agree with, and especially what you disagree with.