Categories for Feature

Comments (0)

People involved with politics make good actors, someone once said.

But do actors make for good politicians?

Yes and no. When we Canadians get asked a question like that, we immediately think about one Justin Pierre James Trudeau, PC, MP.

Canada’s prime minister did a lot acting, as the Conservative Party never tires of reminding us. And Trudeau was indeed an actor.

He even has his own IMDB page, where we are informed that Trudeau was the star of a film called — ironically, given what he and we have been preoccupied with, lately — The Great War. In that 2007 CBC mini-series, Trudeau portrayed Talbot Papineau, a soldier.

The similarities between Papineau and Trudeau are rather striking. Just like Trudeau, Papineau had an English mother from far away — and his father was French, and involved in politics, and the leader of a political party. Just like Trudeau, Papineau was effortlessly bilingual, and studied at McGill University in Montreal.

But there the similarities end. Papineau enlisted, and was killed during shelling at the Battle of Passchendaele, near Ypres, Belgium. He was a true Canadian military hero.

Trudeau never enlisted, never fought in a war, and — as most of our NATO allies now grimly note — has presided over a historic hollowing-out of the Canadian military.

Until a couple weeks ago, Trudeau wasn’t much of an actor. He was, as a female friend once observed, the national yoga instructor — all breathy and moist, all tone but never content. Stretch, Canada. Stretch.

And then, the war happened.

I believe that Trudeau, and the world, changed on the evening of Feb. 24, 2022. On that evening, a day after fascist leader Vladimir Putin invaded, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy appeared before European leaders via a flickering video link.

As the Europeans sat in suits and ties in a well-appointed Brussels boardroom, Zelenskyy seemed to be in a bunker somewhere in Ukraine, wearing stubble and his ubiquitous military-green T-shirt.

“This may be the last time you see me alive,” Zelenskyy said, and renewed his plea for more weapons and sanctions.

The New York Times takes it from there: “When the leaders emerged from the room, they were visibly shaken. Some described Zelenskyy’s appearance as a catalyst and a game-changer.”

It was. Within hours, the Europeans — and the Canadians, and the Americans, and much of the world — froze the personal accounts of Putin and his cabal, and expelled Russia from the global banking system. The civilized world came together, spurred into action by the powerful words of one man.

Was Zelenskyy’s appearance a performance? An act? Perhaps. Maybe. Like Trudeau, he used to be an actor, something Putin’s Satanic propaganda machine never tired of reminding us. He was on the Ukrainian version of Dancing With The Stars, wearing fringe and hot pink. He was the voice of Paddington Bear, in the Ukrainian version of that children’s film. He did stand-up comedy.

And now? Well, now, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy isn’t just the leader of Ukraine. He is the leader of the free world, basically. With his for-the-ages refusal to leave his homeland — “I don’t need a ride, I need more ammunition,” he told the Americans who offered him safe passage out of Ukraine — he has won the hearts and minds of all of us who cherish democracy and decency.

Did Trudeau witness Zelenskyy’s appearance, his performance, on the night of Feb. 24? Perhaps. Maybe. He certainly would have heard all about it, by now.

And, as with so many others, I believe it has changed him. Gone is the glib, smirking yoga instructor. In its place, a serious, sober leader. For once.

Is Justin Trudeau an actor? Of course he is. So is everyone in politics.

And being an attentive understudy to Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy?

There are worse roles.

— Warren Kinsella was special assistant to Jean Chretien.

Comments (3)

Comments (5)

Do you think Vladimir Putin spies on his employees?

Of course he does. He’s literally a former KGB spy. And Putin has established a vast surveillance infrastructure in Russia — which he uses to squash dissent and crush his critics.

Being spied on by your superiors is never, ever good — in Russia or anywhere else. But is it against the law in Canada?

The answer may surprise you: Not so much.

Now, in Ontario, Labour Minister Monte McNaughton has initiated a raft of legislation to foster a better employer-employee relationship. Among McNaughton’s changes: A worker’s bill of rights, to prevent bosses from imposing on workers’ personal time — and a ban of non-compete clauses, which have the effect of trapping employees hoping to find a new job.

McNaughton’s ministry has won accolades from labour organizations — one of which, full disclosure, my firm represents — for his efforts to protect workers from intrusive and/or bullying bosses.

But what about Canada-wide? Are workers currently protected from being spied on by their employers, online and off?

If Liberal MP Michael Coteau has his way, they will be.

Coteau represents a Toronto-area riding. He’s also been a senior minister at the provincial level under past Liberal governments. And Coteau is this week bringing forward a legislative package to prevent employers from spying on their workers, anywhere in Canada.

“I’m doing this because there has been a huge growth in employer monitoring of employees who work from home — and there are virtually no protections for employees, no rules for employee consent, no rules about data storage.” says Coteau.

“Is your boss spying on you at home? As creepy as it sounds, it is happening more and more. Over the past two years there has been a massive growth in employee monitoring software and no one is talking about this. I think we need to do something about it.”

Privacy rules across Canada are a patchwork of laws and regulations — many of which never anticipated the sort of software that companies can now use to monitor employees after-hours. Over the course of pandemic, Coteau says, “there’s been a huge increase in employer surveillance of employees who work from home, and without privacy protections or consent.”

“Surveillance technology,” as it’s sometimes called, isn’t anything new. Workers at warehouses or those who do so-called gig work have long been the targets of high-tech that is welded to track their whereabouts, and what they are doing.

But, in the past two years, such technology has become more and more sophisticated — and more and more intrusive, says Coteau. As a Ryerson University Leadership Lab report said last year, “digital technologies played a critical role in connecting employers with employees beyond the physical workplace and into employees’ homes (during the COVID-19 pandemic).” The problem, however, is that the new software didn’t just allow employees to work remotely. “It also enabled employers to track, monitor and analyze workers,” said the report’s authors.

So, if your iPhone can access sensitive work documents when you’re at home, your boss may also be able to see what’s on your phone — or tablet, or desktop computer. Remote access sometimes works two ways, giving you access to work stuff. But it may also be giving your boss full access to what you are doing after-hours.

Coteau has support from MPs across the political spectrum. And he intends to bring forward his package next week.

Says the MP: “I’ll be working with my colleagues in the House — and other legislators and key opinion leaders across Canada — to bring forward a comprehensive package, including a Private Members’ Bill, to address the issue.”

“Should your boss be able to turn your camera on and watch you at home without your knowledge? I say no way!”

Us, too. We don’t need Vladimir Putin’s approach to privacy.

In Canada, or anywhere.

— Kinsella is a lawyer and has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Calgary

Comments (0)

Vladimir Putin is a fascist.

He’s a war criminal. He’s a thug. He’s a murderer.

But he’s also losing his war against Ukraine. He’s already lost, in fact.

Ten reasons:

1. NATO. More than anything else, perhaps, the Russian dictator wanted to stop Ukraine’s admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO was weakened during the chaotic Donald Trump era — and Putin wanted to keep it that way. Instead, his attack on Ukraine has unified NATO like never before.

2. CHINA. Putin’s closest superpower ally has been China. He didn’t start his illicit war until the Beijing Olympics were over — and he was counting on China’s tacit support while he waged war. But China has clearly been stunned by world reaction, and has been decidedly unhelpful to Putin at the United Nations and elsewhere. Putin needed China’s unquestioning support. He doesn’t have it.

3. EU. Until now, the European Union has been European, perhaps, but not so united. Since the commencement of war in Ukraine, however, the EU has acted swiftly, decisively and as a common front — and, for the first time, provided arms to a nation under attack. Like NATO, the EU is united and stronger like never before — because Putin underestimated both.

4. SWISS. The Swiss are known for cheese and banking — with holes in the former, but none in the latter. For the first time in history, however, the notoriously secretive Swiss banking system has abandoned neutrality and frozen millions held in personal accounts belonging to Putin and his cabal. That was a move neither Putin nor his regime ever expected.

5. RUSSIANS. Thousands of Russians have taken to the streets, across Putin’s fiefdom, to loudly and defiantly oppose his war. They have done so at great risk to themselves and to their families — and hundreds have been imprisoned for doing so. Meanwhile, even some of the most ardent Putin loyalists — the oligarchs he made rich, and vice-versa — have started to openly oppose the war, too.

6. SWIFT. The expulsion of Russian banks from SWIFT, the nervous system that joins financial institutions around the globe, has crippled the Russian economy, and rendered the ruble virtually worthless. Without SWIFT, Russia cannot conduct trade with the rest of the world.

7. TRUMP. Putin could always count on Donald Trump, and the Trump Republicans, to offer unqualified support. Trump, in fact, even paid tribute to Putin’s “genius” in a recent speech — and was stunned by the massive backlash it caused. Since then, Trump and his Republicans have been walking back their fealty to the Russian leader, and condemning his war in Ukraine.

8. CANADA ET AL. Little Canada and other nations who lack superpower clout have been punching above their weight during this illegal war. Canada, in particular, has sent Ukraine fighting troops for training, shipped lethal weapons, initiated the calls for Russia’s expulsion from the global financial system, and this week pushed for the prosecution of Putin as a war criminal. Whatever their many faults, PM Justin Trudeau and his cabinet have done exceptionally well since the war began.

9. WEATHER. Writer John Mraz returned from Ukraine this week. On my Kinsellacast podcast, Mraz said that unseasonably warm temperatures have hurt Putin’s military. Russian heavy artillery has been confined to roadways because the ground is too soft and muddy — thereby making that artillery an easy target for Ukrainian military.

10. UKRAINIANS. More than anything else, Putin was counting on Ukrainians to put up little or no defence — as was the case when he annexed Crimea in 2014. That hasn’t happened. The Ukrainian military, and Ukrainian people, have fought with a ferocity that all of us will be speaking about for generations. Their bravery and strength has been astonishing, and an inspiration for the world. So too their leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

In the end, Putin may take Ukraine, but he will not hold it. He will never hold it.

Because all of the world are now united against him — and united in support of the Ukrainian people.

— Warren Kinsella was special assistant to Prime Minister Jean Chretien

Comments (11)

Comments (3)

At the risk of sounding indelicate, I had to ask: Where’s the body?

It’s an awkward question, to be sure. It makes people uncomfortable, when you demand to see human remains. But not a few folks were asking it over the weekend, just the same.

On Friday night, Fox News — and too many others — reported that an elderly female protester had been trampled to death by mounted police in Ottawa. Sara A. Carter, a longtime Fox News personality, tweeted this: “Reports are the woman trampled by a Canadian horse patrol just died at the hospital.”

That’s a word-for-word quote. Fourteen thousand people retweeted it, including Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Fifteen thousand people “liked” it.

Except, well, no. The woman — happily — didn’t die. No one died, in fact. (And Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, properly, is investigating what happened to the woman.)

Carter later had to issue a complete retraction and apology. The acting chief of the Ottawa Police Service was restrained, and called the trampled-to-death report “misinformation.” The rest of us would have another name for it: Bullshit.

Last weekend, combined police forces came together, from Vancouver to the SAQ police in Quebec. They were efficient, professional and restrained. There was, as my Sun colleague Brian Lilley stated many times, no instances of police brutality. Whatsoever.

But that didn’t stop the the fibbers, fabulists and fabricators — on both sides of the ideological divide — from attempting to peddle, um, horse hooey. In Ottawa, along with protesters and trucks, there was quite a lot of horse manure to be seen. (Horses, too.)

Take (please) one of the head honchos at Rebel News, which I personally regard as neither rebels (in the traditional sense) nor news (in any sense). He tweeted this about the woman-trampled-to-death incident: “Trudeau orders mounted police to charge the crowd of unarmed civilians.”

Let’s look at that, shall we? There are big problems with it.

For starters, the two starting words are flat-out false. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whatever else his powers, does not have the power to “order” police to do anything. Also: The protesters were warned the horses were advancing, multiple times. If that’s a “charge,” it’s not a very good one.

And “unarmed civilians?” Really? Does that make the victim more victim-ish? Perhaps the “rebel” could have also tweeted that the woman in question — who, again, is quite alive — also goes to church every morning, and donates all of her wages to orphanages. And has a halo.

Anyway. The B.S. wasn’t just coming from the so-called right side of the ideological spectrum. It was coming from the so-called left side, too.

The New York Times, which is usually considered one of the best newspapers in the world (after the one you now happily grip in your hands), had this as an actual headline on page 11 of their Sunday edition: “Police in Ottawa Arrest Truckers at Gunpoint as They Clear Downtown.”

The Times got it wildly, dramatically wrong. None of the 191 people arrested in Ottawa — not a single solitary one of them — was arrested at gunpoint. Zero, zippo, zilch.

The lede was even worse: “Canadian police officers advanced on demonstrators at gunpoint.”

Well, no. The police had guns, yes. Police usually do. But those guns were holstered. And whatever you think about the assembled anti-vaxxer folks in Ottawa — and this writer doesn’t think much of them — none of them needed to be arrested “at gunpoint.” Most went quietly.

Many inquiries and commissions are soon to take place, examining how the Ottawa occupation happened, and how to avoid it from happening again. They will go on for months and years.

There needs to be a review into some of the media coverage, too. Because some of the media — on the left and the right — got it wrong.

Very, very wrong.

— Warren Kinsella has taught media law and legal journalism at the University of Calgary and Carleton University.

Comments (9)

Comments (5)

The rule of law.

It’s a phrase we hear a lot in times like these. It’s tossed around like confetti, I think, until it becomes as trivial as confetti.

But those four little words are so, so important. And they, deserve definition — now more than ever.

The four words aren’t new, and nor are the principles that they embody.  Aristotle, no less, wrote centuries ago in his Politics that “It is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens.”

The law.

The law must apply equally to all, prince or pauper.  History is full of stories of princes who met unhappy ends — marched to the gallows or the guillotine — because they favoured an unequal form of justice.  One that favoured them.  One that placed them above the law.

The ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese.  Islam.  Christianity.  Judaism.  All advocated that the law — God’s, or humankind’s — needed to apply to all, without fear or favour.

But the rule of law does not only guarantee the equal application of laws.  The rule of law is at the centre of democracy itself.

All of our forms of governance — legislatures, courts, cabinets — derive their legitimacy from the rule of law. When they lose that, the centre will not hold.  Governments, and all of the institutions of government, will wash away, like sand on a beach. History has shown us that many times, too.

Without the rule of law, we do not have true equality and true justice.  Without equality and justice, we cease to be a democracy.

People always think democracy is durable and eternal, like a rock, but that’s a lie.  Democracies like Canada’s are always held together by gossamer and angel’s wings.  It doesn’t take much to upend them.

And, now, we are seeing that in so-called real time, even though it doesn’t feel real.  It doesn’t feel much like Canada anymore, either.

Swastikas being waved around, with impunity, at our very church of government, the House of Commons.  Thugs and drunks urinating on our War Memorial.  Soup kitchens being robbed.  Buildings full of sleeping people being set afire, or handcuffed shut.  Citizens being threatened for simply wearing a mask.  An entire city being occupied and held hostage.

And, down in Windsor, children being used as human shields, which is what is usually done by those who have ceased to be human.  In Coutts, Alberta, a group apprehended with body armour and guns and ammunition – and a machete.

Because, you know, nothing says “freedom-loving patriot” like a machete.

Have we lost the rule of law in Canada?  Not yet, but it feels close.

So, another definition that is debated, often, is this one: what is terrorism?

The word gets thrown about quite a bit, for the obvious reasons.  In debate, it’s a powerful political weapon. But, in its essence, terrorism simply means using force to achieve political ends.

The Ottawa and Windsor and Coutts truckers — and I hesitate always to call them truckers, because most truckers are vaccinated and hard-working and decent — are like terrorists, to me.

Proof of that is found in what the RCMP stopped from getting to the border in Coutts.  Proof of that is found in why police haven’t raided the Ottawa blockade yet – because the place is reportedly chock-a-block with weapons.

The rule of law has not yet caught the last train out of Canada for some other place.  But it is close — and proof of that, too, is found in the main editorial of no less than the New York Times on Sunday.  “Effective leadership,” editorialized the Times about Canada, must never permit anyone to “compromise the rule of law.”

The rule of law is democracy’s soul.  Terrorism, unchecked, can kill it.

The government was right to invoke the Emergencies Act.

Too much is at stake, and history is watching what we do next.

Kinsella has been an adjunct professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law

Comments (35)

Comments (3)