In this week’s Hill Times: on death and dying

Some of us aren’t enthusiastic about assisted dying. Although, in the case of the Senate, we will happily make an exception, and assist. 

The Senate – that undemocratic, unaccountable, unwanted monstrosity that has affixed itself to the side of Parliament like a ermine-garbed parasite – is in the news again. And, yet again, it is for all the wrong reasons. 

Late last week, Senators took it upon themselves to gut the Trudeau government’s Bill C-14. They had no mandate to do so, they had no authority to do so. But they did so, just the same. 

The Senators’ concerns are irrelevant, just like they are. To debate the merits of their changes is to accord them a modicum of legitimacy. We shouldn’t do it. 

C-14 has had a troubled history, true. For the comparatively-new Liberal government, it has been the Flying Dutchman of legislation – never yet making it to shore, and a portent of bad luck for all who come near it. 

C-14 was the cause of Justin Trudeau’s terrible night, when he manhandled a Conservative and elbowed a New Democrat. C-14 was the reason the Liberals initially sought to give themselves extraordinary powers in the Commons, with the innocuous-sounding Motion Six – and then the reason they thereafter beat a hasty retreat, and frantically withdrawing the aforementioned Motion Six. (Looking autocratic and weak, all in the same session. Hard to do.)

C-14 was the cause of acrimonious splits in caucus, and deep division within the broader Grit family. C-14 was definitive proof, too, that the government could not seem to manage its legislative affairs – or meet a Supreme Court deadline. 

And, now, C-14 has become the payback platform for assorted Senators: the Conservative ones, who have been waiting for an opportunity to rain all over Trudeau’s honeymoon. And the Liberal ones – the ones that Trudeau kicked out of his caucus without warning – to teach him a lesson, and to exact sweet revenge. 

Like we say: C-14 has been the cause of more trouble than it probably is worth. 

There is a theory, of course, that Machiavellian Grits foresaw all of this difficulty, and wanted C-14 to run ashore. It was the plan all along, say some. As with the abortion legislative void, nothing was better than something. 

Don’t believe it, not for a moment. Trudeau would not do what he did – and his government would not risk all that it risked – for mere show. It was no Parliamentary pantomime. The government wanted to meet the high court’s absurdly-short deadline, and it did all that it could to hasten the Bill’s passage. It was authentic. 

The Senate, lacking both authenticity and wisdom, ended any hope of that. So now what?

The C-14 rush was probably as unseemly as it was unnecessary. Doctors have been quietly practicing euthanasia in Canada for many, many years. I say that as the son of a doctor – one who was sometimes asked to do it, and one who was awarded the Order of Canada for his writings about it. 

The government’s haste was also a waste – of energy. The Senators (Conservatives, former Liberals, and Liberals who refuse to acknowledge that they are Liberals) were always going to scupper C-14. Any fool could see that. They weren’t interested in sober second thought. Their objective was to cause trouble, and cause trouble they did. 

The objections some of us had to this Bill remain. Who decides, exactly, who should die? What is terminal? If we’ve yet to define life, how can we say for certain when life lacks value? Isn’t euthanizing the mentally ill what that moustachioed Bavarian fellow did? Is there any better oxymoron that a “mature minor?” 

And so on. 

Justin Trudeau’s C-14 was a sincere, well-meaning and carefully-crafted compromise. It was also profoundly unlucky. 

It’s time to try again – this time, one hopes, without the bad luck, the divisions, the Parliamentary brinkmanship and the flying elbows. 

Oh, and the Senate. We could do without that, too. But, like death – assisted or otherwise – we are unlikely to be rid of its foul presence anytime soon.


Stairway to Litigation

In high school in Calgary, I detested Led Zep.  I particularly detested Stairway to Heaven,’ that staple of every high school sock hop.  I was a punk, you see.

‘Stairway to Heaven’ was a great way to dance up close with Karen Lux, however, so I kept quiet.  Page and Plant made zillions.  The world rolled on.

Many years later, we are learning that something was perhaps amiss.  Did Led Zep truly steal the riff for their most famous song?  Someone feels that they did – in respect of the unlikeliest song you could imagine – and has taken them to court over it.

Listen in, and decide for yourself, here.

In the meantime, Karen Lux, where are you now – and will you let your kids slow-dance to ‘Stairway to Heaven’?

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Killings in the Philippines, and more killings in Florida

The facts are wholly different, of course: in the former case, two Canadians – Robert Hall over the weekend, and John Ridsdel last month – were held hostage, and later beheaded, by an Islamic terror cell in the Phillippines when ransom was not paid.

In the latter case, many Americans – we don’t have all of their names yet – were held hostage, and/or shot to death, by an Islamic terrorist in Orlando, Florida.

The response of the Canadian government to Orlando was empathetic and appropriate: “We grieve with our friends in the US & stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ2 community after today’s terror attack,” the Prime Minister tweeted.

The government’s rhetorical response in the Ridsdel case was similar: “I am outraged by the news that a Canadian citizen, held hostage in the Philippines since Sept. 21, 2015, has been killed at the hands of his captors. Canada condemns without reservation the brutality of the hostage takers and this unnecessary death,” Trudeau said at a cabinet retreat in Alberta. Also appropriate.

If we are all honest with ourselves, however, the deaths of Ridsdel and Hall – unlike the deaths in Orlando – are no shock at all.  For many months, the federal government not only was refusing to communicate with their captors – they also seemed to be aggressively going out of their way to advertise their inflexibility to the world. See here and here and (especially) here.

Is paying ransom to terrorists desirable? No. The main argument against it, of course, is that it finances terror, and facilitates more killings and kidnappings. That’s obvious.

But here’s the thing: whether it’s Conservative or Liberal, the federal government routinely refuses to negotiate with terrorists – until it doesWhat the federal government says, and what it does, are usually quite different.  

Anyway: I’m completely torn on this.  What do you think? No negotiations, ever? Negotiations, but in secret?  Negotiate in the open?

(For what it is worth, there is an important historical precedent, here: during the FLQ crisis, Trudeau’s father permitted some negotiations to take place with the terrorists.  The end result was the release of James Cross – and the death of Pierre Laporte.)