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Several lifetimes ago, when this writer was a Chief of Staff in Jean Chretien’s government – and when the Reform Party was a political force to be reckoned with – stuff started to fall out of the sky.

Well, not the sky, actually. Centre Block’s Peace Tower, to be precise.

Bricks and mortar and other stuff was crumbling and falling onto the ground below. Our bureaucrats had to place some brightly-painted construction hoarding on the ground level, to keep tourists from getting a souvenir they’d never forget. But there was clearly a problem that needed to be addressed.

The bureaucrats, as bureaucrats do, came up with a modernizing solution that would involve the expenditure of several million dollars. Anticipating the reaction of the government-hating Reform Party, I was opposed. The Minister in question, David Dingwall, was in favour. He said something to me I will never forget.

“Warren,” said Dingwall, in that Cape Breton lilt of his, “these buildings do not belong to us. They belong to the people. We are going to do this, and there will be not a peep of protest.”

Dingwall was right, and I was wrong. We went ahead with remediation efforts, and nary a peep was heard from the Reformers, or anyone else.

This tale came to mind, recently, as the Rest of Canada has watched official Ottawa tear itself to shreds over the planned modern addition to the Chateau Laurier. It’s not nice, but this writer has found the sturm und drang rather amusing. It perfectly describes Ottawa, in a way: a bunch of people going apoplectic (a) about change, and about (b) something that doesn’t actually belong to them.

Because, you know, the Chateau Laurier doesn’t belong to the government. Lots of government people spend taxpayer money there, naturally, but they don’t own it.

They sure are acting like they do, however. They don’t want the Chateau Laurier’s owners to make an addition to the hotel that looks different than the way the hotel does now.

Their arguments, in the main, seem to be that the Chateau Laurier looks old, so whatever is attached to it has to look old, too. But is that true?

Well, no. As I type this, I am in Toronto, half a block from the Royal Ontario Museum. It’s an incredible building. Its main structure is more than one hundred years old. On the North side, however, the ROM added an explosion of angular glass and metal, one that aroused a lot of controversy when it was proposed. They added that structure about a decade ago, and the architects call it a deconstructivist crystalline-form structure. It’s beautiful. It has won lots of awards.

If you take a minute and think about it, this sort of thing happens a lot, these days. Architects are coming up with way to fuse modern with traditional right across the country, for both private and public buildings. Among other things, it’s a way of preserving historic buildings while making space for modern buildings which are cleaner, safer and more environmental.

Tradition and modernity aren’t inconsistent. If done right, they’re quite complementary. In a country as old as ours – but in a country that is growing as ours is, by leaps and bounds – it is a way to preserve aspects of the past without being bound to the past. It is a way of embracing modern building methods which are frankly far superior to the ways things were done a Century ago.

Now, if you only like old stuff, you don’t like modern design. Modern design is sleek and clean and avoids fluff. People who like old buildings like fluff. Old buildings are often full of it. The Chateau Laurier has the pretensions of a castle, and with all that implies. It needs to be less pretentious.

The debate raging over the privately-owned Chateau Laurier neatly defines Official Ottawa. It recalls the perpetual 24 Sussex debate. The Prime Minister’s Official Residence is generally regarded as a drafty, windy old barn. No one has been living there for years. But Official Ottawa agonizes about it endlessly, deliberating over whether to tear it down or spend the treasury on it. The opted for the latter.

Ottawa, stop embracing the past. Stop celebrating fluff. Consider the possibilities of 2019 and beyond.

Oh, and this: it’s not your building. If you want to keep it the way it is, buy it.

But use your own money for once, please.

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That’s a headline that ran in the Sun, nearly a generation ago. It changed political history.

Remember Lyn McLeod? I do. McLeod was the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party in the mid-1990s. In the months leading up to the 1995 election, McLeod had a massive lead in every opinion poll. NDP Premier Bob Rae’s government was despised; P.C. leader Mike Harris was mostly unknown.

One fateful day, McLeod talked to a reporter on proposed legislation that would change the definition of domestic violence – and the penalties for it.

One penalty for abusing one’s spouse, she said, should be the abuser’s eviction from the family home. Hard to argue with that, perhaps.

But then the reporter asked McLeod if  domestic violence included “verbal abuse.” It did, she said. Yes.

The next day, the headline in the Toronto Sun was this: “Shout at spouse, lose your house.”

Almost immediately, the Ontario Liberals started to slide in the polls. Mike Harris would go on to win a big majority. And a close friend, and a senior advisor to McLeod, later told me: “Yell at the spouse, lose the house,” he said. “That’s why we lost.”

Which brings us to this, the former Bill C-46:

The law that destroyed the Ontario Liberals was a proposed law. This one now is law.

Lawyers like me have been warning, for months, that this change is wildly unconstitutional. It’s legislative overreach. And it’s a political suicide note, too.

But it’s the law of the land. It gives police the power to demand you submit to a breathalyzer, even they don’t have a reasonable suspicion you’re impaired. Even if you aren’t behind the wheel.

When this change was being considered, legal experts warned that a Canadian who drives home, sober, and then consumes some alcohol could register a fail on the breathalyzer – even though they didn’t drive while drunk. And that’s in fact what happened to a B.C. woman: she was by the pool at her sister’s place, having a drink, when the RCMP arrived and demanded a breath sample.

She lost her licence and her vehicle. Ultimately, she defeated the impairment charge on a technicality – but not before spending thousands on legal fees.

The media are already calling this a “police state” law. That it’s “an inexcusable violation of an individual’s Charter rights, and an invitation to police harassment of visible minorities“. Hell, even the CBC is calling it “unnecessary police power.”

Make no mistake: this issue – coming in the Summer before an election – is potentially lethal for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives, I am told, are now preparing to do to Trudeau what Mike Harris and a Toronto Sun headline did to Lyn McLeod.

“Have a drink, wind up in the clink”: may not be as deadly as that long-ago Sun headline. But it may do the trick.

UPDATE: Oh, look. Shortly after the above post went up, something interesting happened. I’d say they are nervous, wouldn’t you?

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Want to save the planet? Amend the Constitution.

In the United States, such an amendment has been sought since 1996.   Here’s what it says: “The natural resources of the nation are the heritage of present and future generations.  The right of each person to clean and healthful air and water, and to the protection of the other natural resources of the nation, shall not be abridged by any person.”

That sort of statement exists in the state constitutions in Hawaii, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Montana.  But it hasn’t happened yet at the U.S. federal level.

Same in Canada.  In our constitutional rights document, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, there are all manner of protections.  Section two says that all Canadians have the fundamental freedoms of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression and “freedom of the press and other media of communication.”  It also declares that peaceable assembly and association are fundamental freedoms.

Sections three, four and five proclaim and protect democratic rights.  Six gives us mobility rights within Canada, and the right to a livelihood.  Section seven asserts our right to “life, liberty and security of the person.”  Eight protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures; nine protects us against arbitrary detention or imprisonment.  Ten to 14 describe our rights when we are arrested or facing trial.

And section 15, importantly, constitutionalizes the notion that Canadians have “the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination” – meaning no discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.  There are quite a few sections about language rights after that.  Section 25: aboriginal rights.  Section 27: multiculturalism.  Section 28: gender equality.

But nothing – nothing – about the environment.  When you consider, say, that mobility rights don’t matter so much when your part of Canada is on fire, or under water, that’s a critical lapse.  When there’s no air left to breathe, equality rights tend to take a back seat.

It can be argued, and has been, that section seven’s “life, liberty and security of the person” includes the environment.  In about 20 countries around the world, in fact, constitutional court challenges are presently taking place, in which plaintiffs are arguing that life, liberty and personal security are being infringed by inadequate, or non-existent, environmental protections.  

Last November in Quebec, a group called Environnment Jeunesse started a class action in Quebec Superior Court, seeking $340 million in damages – $100 per young person in the class.  The young Quebecois are arguing that the section seven rights of young Canadians were being violated because the federal government hasn’t done enough about climate change. 

Because, you know, it hasn’t.  

The Justin Trudeau government talks a good environmental game, of course.  With much fanfare, it recently insisted that it will ban single-use plastics.  And then, just a few days later, Trudeau is photographed by his own office – In Quebec! At a lunch with a group of young people, the aforementioned plaintiffs! – sitting at a conference table where plastic cutlery was in plain view.

The Conservatives have an environmental plan, too, but it has been attacked by its former leader, Kim Campbell.  The New Democrats have tabled something called “Power to Change: A new deal for climate action and good jobs.”  It says it’ll meet its targets before other parties say they’ll meet theirs.  But everyone knows the federal NDP will be unlikely to form government anytime soon.

The Green Party, as its very name suggests, is arguably the most serious about avoiding environmental calamity.  That is partly why Elizabeth May’s party has rocketed ahead of the NDP to take third place in recent polls – and why liberals and Liberals (like this writer) have donated to them, and plan to vote and work for them.

The Green Party’s environmental plan is the one that deserves the greatest scrutiny, because – if, as recent polls also suggest, a minority government is almost inevitable – it is the one now most likely to be implemented.  Elizabeth May will be the most powerful person in Canada, in effect, because she will hold the balance of power in late 2019 and beyond.

May’s plan calls for modernizing the national electricity grid; creating trades jobs by retrofitting every building in Canada; ending all imports of foreign oil, and using only Canadian fossil fuels; and pushing adaptation measures to protect agriculture, fishing and forestry from climate change.  It’s not bad.

To achieve it, or part of it, more than a minority Parliament is needed.  We also need a national consensus, one that can’t be diluted by lobbyists, self-interest, and the vagaries of election results.  If recent events have shown us anything, it is that there is a paradox at the epicentre of Canadian politics: we all care about the environment, but we all lack the means or the will to do something meaningful about it.

The Constitution, as Environnment Jeunesse has already figured out, is the way to address that.  If we are serious about saving our part of the planet – and polls suggests that an overwhelming majority of Canadians, from cost to rising coast, are – then let’s constitutionalize our collective desire.

Every other right and freedom is protected in there.  Why not the right to an environment, too?

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Why do political people love dogs?

Because we do, we do. Proof is at hand.

MacKenzie King’s personal legacy – characterized, as it was, by his avid spiritualism, his byzantine diaries, and his nighttime strolls down certain streets the Market – is not without controversy. A debate rages, even now, about whether Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister was a political genius or a certifiable nut job.

But about one part of King’s private life there can be no dispute: his love of his three Irish Terriers, all of whom he named Pat.

Pat, Pat and Pat. (Among other things, it reduces monogramming costs.)

Alliteratively, King called the Irish Terriers “red, racy and rectangular,” and they sort of were. King, being a man who was always distant from his fellow man (and woman, except for those ones he ran into in the Market at night), was closest to Pat. The dog went everywhere with him. He trusted it more than he trusted any human, save and except his beloved mother. (Who, along with the departed Pats, he attempted to commune with in seances.)

Here is what he write in his diaries about the Pats. It is something that any politico could write about their dog, too.

“[Pat is] a God-sent little angel in the guise of a dog, my dear little saviour,” King wrote. “[He is perfect because he] asks only to be near your and to share in a companionship of pure trust.”

And that is why every political dog is beloved by their political human: trust. They listen, they do not talk back, and they keep secrets secret.

After taking office in 1957, Dief the Chief ordered his staff to come up with a name for the dog he was given by a fan. He wanted to call it “Tory,” but his staff were worried that the pup would become fodder for editorial cartoonists. So he was named Happy instead.

Like King, whom he deeply despised, Dief was singularly unimaginative about dog names. Thus, there was more than one Diefenbaker dog named Happy. Happy the Second was not a terrier, but he was a terror, often disappearing from the Conservative leader’s office. Dief’s driver would then be dispatched to find Happy II, and he always did. “My dog has the ancestry and the distinguished pedigree, but no training at all,” said Canada’s thirteenth Prime Minister, who could have been also describing Canada’s twenty-third Prime Minister.

Stephen Harper was a big fan of cats, by the way, which tells you all that you need to know. He also had a chinchilla named Charlie, which is partially redeeming, but not entirely.

Did Pierre Trudeau like dogs? Did he have one? Was he almost certainly a cat person, like that Harper fellow? History does not record the truth. His son Justin, however, has a Portuguese water dog, who is neither Portgguese nor made of water. His name is Kenzie.

When he arrived at the Prime Ministerial homestead in 2016, that hard-ass hard-news outlet, The Huffington Post, headlined the resulting story: “Justin Trudeau Dog: The Prime Minister’s Family Got Even Cuter! Meet the prime minister’s newest family member!”

In a tough and unforgiving report, the HuffPo wrote: “Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke some very big news for his family: they got a puppy! Along with an adorable photo of two-year-old Hadrien playing with the new dog, Trudeau tweeted: “#tbt to the little one meeting our newest arrival a few months ago. Say hello to Kenzie.”

Kenzie, we note, hasn’t been much seen in public since 2016. In this way, he is like electoral reform, a balanced budget, federal-provincial harmony, and reconciliation with indigenous peoples.

Why all this talk about politicos and dogs, you ask? Simple: one of mine – the beautiful, sweet and perfect Daisy, after whom I named my company – slipped away last week. I have been shattered ever since. I miss that dog, a lot.

Why do we political types love them so? Because, as King, and Dief, and others knew too well, politics is a business you do not enter to make friends. It is nasty, brutish and usually shorter than expected.

But at the end of a long day of treachery and back-stabbing, nothing repairs the political heart better than those brown eyes, and that wet nose, asking for nothing but love.

Rest easy, Daisy. Meet your new friends, Pat and Happy and all the others.

You all have secrets to share.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the “Papineau Youth Council,” whatever that is.  One of his fart-catchers took a photo (of course).

I and and a panel of experts have closely studied this photograph.  It shocked us.

There are a number of problems revealed in it.  Vote now on the ones you consider most serious.

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