REASSESSING THE OPTIMISM

The U.S. Vice-President, Joe Biden, offered a bleak assessment just a few days ago in a public statement about last year's Presidential elections: "We inherited a mess!"

His statement, timed with a recent sharp decline - [The sharpest ever second to third quarter (annual) drop for an elected President] - in "Job Performance" statistics for Barack Obama, caused me to reflect about the joyous optimism I sensed a year ago driving through 20% of the contiguous States just a few days after that election.

In a blog post then - "ROAD STORY (Part 1)" (November 7/08) - I wrote of my impressions after the first of three days travelling south; from a surprising greeting at the Canada-U.S. border crossing at Hill Island, New York; to complete strangers sharing their optimism at highway rest stops. Has one year made such a difference?

In about 72 hours, I will be on that journey once more through the nine States of the American Atlantic seaboard crossing from New York into Pennsylvania; through Maryland, West Virgina, Virginia, then North and South Carolina and Georgia before reaching my winter destination in central Florida.

Just this week Canada's new Ambassador, Gary Doer, presented his credentials to the American Head of State. Mr. Doer faces several challenges: He must convince the Americans to ease-up on the threat occasioned by their isolationist economic policies; somehow he must offer workable solutions to bridge over the "hardening" of our shared border; and he must resist pressure on Canada to extend our combat commitments in the Afghanistan War. Doer's challenges though are just small "blips" on the increasingly complicated and complex American agenda.

Crucially important and relevant mid-term Congressional elections are now less than one year hence and, as witnessed by this week's surprising elections of independent Governors in New Jersey and Virginia, President Obama is facing potential significant losses in both of the Legislative Houses which are now controlled by the Democrats. Canada's role may be insignificant, but the Afghanistan War effort looms large in the minds of Americans sick of two wars begun more than eight years ago. Though significantly watered down to appease critics; the President's health care agenda is being stymied at every step. The national debt of the United-States, now well in excess of $10-Trillion, has essentially mortgaged America's future beyond the end of this century...if not till the end of time.

Void of effective political opposition from the Republican party; ultra-conservative media critics and commentators have filled the vacuum and have been relentless in their personal attacks on the President, his policies and his administration.

Gauging and reassessing America's new political reality after the renewed sense of optimism which swept the country a year ago this week will make for an interesting educational journey. It may even challenge my notions about human dynamics. I am anxious to find out once I begin driving south later this weekend. Stay tuned!

EVERY ONE FOR HIMSELF: INDICTING LAME GOVERNMENT

When Government rates "Failure" in its ability to respond adequately to a manufactured crisis of its own making; it behooves everyone to plan their personal well being.

This is not an argument of support for the "survivalist movement", some of whom are still waiting for the ill-effects of Y2K: another media fueled manufactured crisis...I digress! But, the fiasco which is the H1N1 Swine-flu immunization response on both sides of our international border speaks volumes about political expediency over poor (well at least inadequate) planning.

Government's political masters seek the glare of media spotlights whenever crisis strike, more frequently than not with promises to learn from the experience. The current ill-conceived, poorly planned, and badly executed response to the "swine-flu" panic suggests otherwise. Little wonder that despite all the mea-culpa(s), promises and commitments southern Louisiana and Mississippi still haven't recovered from "Katrina"...or that here in eastern Ontario and western Quebec the many lessons from the "Ice Storm of 1998" have fallen on deft ears.

It is surely not for the failure of opportunities to practice the lessons learned: In the former example, several south Florida communities still have not recovered from Hurricane Wilma which occurred just over a year after Katrina. In Ontario after "states of emergency" in 75 communities during the ice storm overwhelmed provincial authorities, the government invested millions of dollars to revamp, reorganize, improve the emergency response measures. It subsequently honed, tested and tweaked every aspect of the response with plans for an H1N5, Avian Flu outbreak (Another manufactured crisis); the up-shot of which are the current line-ups, frustrations, frayed patience and shortages. Pity the day a real crisis breaks-out.

Watching images of the long line-ups at immunization clinics in the United-States and Canada somewhat reminds me of long lines of third world refugees seeking shelter from some outbreak of war, pestilence and drought. Perhaps we're better clothed but that seems about the only difference. Can battalions of U.N. Peacekeepers be far behind with airborne food drops? On thing is for sure: Unlike the Great Ice Storm our military, which is presently mired in the politically expedient Afghan imbroglio, is unlikely to offer anything more than a tepid response.

WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

In my birth province of New Brunswick, opposition politicians are demanding an immediate recall of the Legislative Assembly to get to the bottom of rampant rumours that the provincial power utility, NB Power, is about to be sold to Quebec.

Ministers of the Liberal Government of Premier Shawn Graham have been coy about confirming the tenure of current negotiations involving the future of the utility. The province of New Brunswick has owned NB Power since 1920. An announcement today by U.S. President Barack Obama in central Florida may have unwittingly shed some unexpected light on the matter.

The government of New Brunswick and its electric power utility have substantial debts. NB Power's share is a reported $3-billion. Refurbishing the Point Lepreau Nuclear generator is 16-months behind schedule. The cost is now estimated at $1.6 billion and Atomic Energy Of Canada, the contractor doing the work, estimates the generator will not be back on line until 2011. Meantime, fossil fuels to power replacement generators are costing the New Brunswick utility an additional $1-million per day.

President Obama's announcement in Arcadia, Florida of American Federal Government grants totalling about $3.5 billion dollars, and $4.7 billion in private investments to develop a "smarter, stronger, and more secure electric grid" appears to confirm claims by industry experts that Hydro-Quebec has strategic motives in a bid to acquire NB Power.

The neighbouring State of Maine has preliminary approval and an application for US stimulus dollars to build an "Energy Corridor" from the New Brunswick border to the State of Massachusetts. The United States already dwarfs its home province as Hydro-Quebec's biggest market. Last month, the Premier of Newfoundland accused the Quebec utility of trying to prevent a new competitor, the proposed hydroelectric stations of the Lower Churchill River in Labrador, from having access to US markets.

Since the 1960's cheap Labrador power has been sold to Quebec, and then exported at substantial profits into the United-States by Hydro-Quebec. Since it can't arrange transmission through Quebec for its new Churchill River dams; Newfoundland wants to build transmission lines under the Gulf of St. Lawrence, through Nova Scotia and then New Brunswick into Maine's "Energy Corridor". Lest I digress, excess power generated in New Brunswick (primarily at Point Lepreau), as well as oil and natural gas from Irving owned facilities in Saint John are also ear-marked for the same corridor and into the New England market.

Get the picture: If Hydro-Quebec can prevent its chief competitor for the U.S. electricity market - Power generated from the Lower Churchill River in Newfoundland and Labrador - from accessing the Americans...that's perfect for the Quebec utility. It maintains an iron-clad monopoly on the power flowing south into Mr. Obama's modernized renewable "smart power" grid courtesy of the State of Maine's "Energy Corridor" built with U.S. stimulus dollars.

Any offer on the table from cash and energy rich Hydro-Quebec may be too tempting for New Brunswick to pass-up. With the right negotiations the province could ensure its future need for cheap power; retire a substantial portion of the provincial debt; and get out from under the constant financial burden of servicing NB Power, including the Point Lepreau cost overruns.

Since 1967 when (many believe) the late Premier Joey Smallwood negotiated away Newfoundland's birthright in Churchill Falls to Hydro-Quebec; Canada's youngest province has been waiting for an opportunity to right this..."immense and unconscionable windfall". It seems that politicians in New Brunswick may be holding that outcome in their hands.

FOCUSSED ON THE INEVITABLE...

Nothing quite focuses the mind I suppose as declaring a National Emergency as President Obama did early this weekend over growing H1N1 pandemic fears in the United States.

Mr. Obama surely has faced his share of serious concerns and challenges since the election almost one year ago. Some issues just simply because that is what happens when one is elected to the planet's most powerful political position. Others; perhaps because the previous American Presidential Administration was so bereft of compassion, moral fortitude, ethical compass and goodwill that Obama's election created near impossible expectations.

The American President appears to have achieved a certain measure of success, likely by applying unprecedented pressure from several directions, to convince the U.S. supported (appointed?) President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai to agree to a second round of Presidential elections. Be that as it may...the NATO military partnership in this sad affair which is the "War in Afghanistan" soon needs to come clean on the extent of the ultimate commitment to engage in this costly losing endeavour.

Here in the Great White North, the country's retired Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, this weekend launched his autobiography "A Soldier First" in which he has once more focused debate on Canada's commitment to the Afghan War. From the very start, Canada's effort has resulted in casualties disproportionate to the size of our engagement. In the new book Hillier may be suggesting some of the responsibility for the ever increasing toll of casualties could be related (to be polite) to the tensions between politicians, the bureaucracy and the military. One thing though seems clear: General Hillier may be charismatic, the military love him... however untimely his legacy may be that he tried and failed to move Canada's Armed Forces from peacemaker and peacekeeper; a role with which Canadians have become familiar, accustomed and comfortable; to a militaristic fighting force which is both foreign and repellent to our modern Canadian psyche.

While they surely are not taking any cues from General Hillier's perspective, nevertheless President Obama's military advisers and leaders in Afghanistan await his decision on whether to commit as many as 40,000 additional troops in a foreign war over which the outcome is at best tenuous. Canada's political leaders are already committed to a complete withdrawal of our fighting commitments by early 2011.

On Afghanistan, General Hillier's autobiography exposes failures, lapses and omissions from the United Nations, NATO, and Canada's political and bureaucratic leaders. Hopefully, if nothing else, it will enhance and further focus debate to ensure our country's total and unequivocal departure from the war as promised by February 2011, regardless of the pressures and suasion others may be contemplating.

Canada may be beholding to the United-States for most of its international standing; but not on this one.

YOU CAN'T DO THAT ON TELEVISION

Those of my generation will recall the Ottawa produced international phenomenon teen television program "You Can't Do That On Television" which, apparently more than 30 years later, is still broadcast in re-run somewhere in the world.

Lest I digress, among many others, the program introduced then 12-year-old, Alanis Morrissette to her first North American audience before she eventually developed into an international music super-star in the 1990's.

The events of the last few days pertaining to the six year old Colorado youngster who will forever be known as "Balloon Boy" for the alleged hoax concocted by his parents and perhaps others (including some in the media), got me to thinking about the evolution of the mass media in the shaping of our North American culture in the Twenty First Century.

Quite unlike in the infancy of what we now call "Reality Television", the blurring of the legitimate lines and demarcations between and amongst "real", "honest", "staged", "promotion" and you may now add "hoax" to the roster have essentially been eliminated. And...the media, a trade with which I was closely associated for well more than 35 years is as much to blame, as is North America's insatiable appetite to be entertained at whatever the cost.

There is a certain nebulosity to abandoning ones journalistic integrity to the slow, cancerous, scandalous and nefarious encroachment of "info-tainment". Last weekend's "Balloon Boy" incident and subsequent revelations in the United States though illustrate the ever sharpening contrast between money spent to fuel a family's desire (for whatever reason) for fame or/and infamy and the legitimate pursuit of truth, or a least a shred of truth, over injustice. One would not have to look very far afield from where National, State and Local authorities of (in last week's case) Colorado likely wasted millions of dollars on Thursday's search and subsequent investigation; to find many other six year old and their families who truly are in need of assistance and sustenance...and about whom the media pays little, if any attention.

This is not just a symptom in the United States, nor is it rare anymore and increasingly anywhere for the media to have abandoned the myth of its sacred role and the obligations with which it was bestowed by the democratic institutions we cherish and are apparently ready and willing to defend to the death.

It seems just a few days ago that I felt the very same way: It was when the Canadian billionaire founder of "Cirque du Soleil" spent as much as $50-million dollars as a tourist on board the International Space Station apparently to promote water-conservation. I wondered then just how far a fortune like that might go to honestly advance the cause of preserving this precious life giving resource if ego and greed had not gotten in the way. Events and stories obviously all too familiar these days. Ones which harm and diminish the ideas and ideals we nurture and promote for those less fortunate than we are in North America.