Canadian Polemic

And you thought gas was already expensive? According to the Globe and Mail, two stations in Stratford, Ontario opened on Tuesday charging $2.24 a litre, although their prices dropped later in the day to under $1. Just after 3PM EDT, a station in Barrie, Ontario was reportedly charging $1.99. Other service stations in that southern Ontario city were charging less.

Now, I understand that gas prices are going to go up, and I understand that recent damage to refineries in the Gulf is going to have an impact. But I think that there certainly is some possibility of gouging, particularly when you have prices doubling overnight to over $2 and then plummetting back down again later in the day. This is getting ridiculous, really. It's time for the federal government (or the provinces, if Ottawa won't do it) to get involved and figure out what's going on. Some will argue that Ottawa should be spending its time on other things, but really, anything is an improvement from months of insults about the sponsorship programme. And it has to be admitted that these gas price fluctuations are getting out of hand. Let's have some leadership from Ottawa on national energy needs and on gas prices.

The words 'never again' are central to the vocabulary of modern political leaders when they speak of genocide. However, as we all know, those words never quite ring true. It does keep happening again. The Holocaust. Cambodia. Bosnia. Rwanda. Srebrenica. Kosovo. Darfur. Samantha Power, who is a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, has recently released a book called A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide that carefully examines the history of genocide in the 20th century.

The book's conclusion does not so much propose new arguments as for why genocide continues to happen, but lays out a strong, powerful, unassailable case in favour of the notion that major powers have had all of the information necessary but have lacked the willpower to stop genocide. The book offers a great look into the US State Department, examining the role of dissenters within that organization, putting together a comprehensive picture of policy development, and also looks at Presidential involvement. It also examines the history of fighting genocide in the world, stretching back to roughly 1917, when the Armenian genocide was taking place. The fact that genocide is today an internationally-punishable crime is thanks mostly to a Polish Jew named Raphael Lemkin, who fought to have the word (his invention)included in international legalese.

All in all, it's a fascinating read that devastates very comprehensively the claim that the major powers simply didn't know about genocide while it was in progress. Power proves very clearly that it was the willpower from top officials that was lacking. It's a particularly useful read in the wake of the UN's recent acceptance of the notion that the world has a 'responsibility to protect', offering a good overview of the history of genocide in the 20th century.

So, the Democrats have blown it again:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid announced his opposition to Chief Justice-nominee John Roberts on Tuesday, voicing doubts about Roberts' commitment to civil rights and accusing the Bush administration of stonewalling requests for documents that might shed light on his views. (CNN.com)

No, no, no. I understand that John Roberts isn't the kind of justice that the Democrats would have nominated, but simply because they disagree isn't any reason to vote against him, in my view. Mr Roberts didn't tell us as much as we might have liked in his nomination hearings, but I'm rather convinced that he's not an ideologue and will not seek to impose his personal views on the nation from the bench. He's a very talented and knowledgeable lawyer, and the Senate should confirm him without delay. Mr Reid should have endorsed Mr Roberts on those grounds - it would have been better for the Democratic Party and for the United States.

UPDATE: The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, has announced that he'll support the confirmation of John Roberts. Democrats John Kerry and Edward Kennedy have announced their opposition to the confirmation. It's their loss, I suppose.

Put 200 informed, thoughtful, international students in a room with a controversial Israeli diplomat, and let the intellectual firefight begin. That's what's going to happen next Monday here at Pearson College, when such a man comes here to speak to us (presumably) about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In the interests of avoiding outside protesters, I'll keep his name to myself for now, but I think it should definitely be interesting.

It's likely, as I've mentioned, that he'll be very one-sided, but I think it should provide a great opportunity to ask some challenging questions. I've already spoken to my Palestinian roommate about it, and I know that he's a little concerned. But I'm confident that if we can keep emotions relatively at bay and be respectful, it should be great. I'm convinced that it's important in any context to listen to other points of view, as skewed or as biased as they might be. Then, it's important to challenge those biases and seek objectivity. Particularly in such a scenario as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I'm looking forward to hearing how an Israeli official sees the situation, and particularly how he will react to thoughtful and pointed questions from students from such places as Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and all over the world. It should be quite a good discussion. I will, of course, post a rundown of the event next Monday for your reading pleasure.

Well, most of the world's newspapers have been fairly uniform in their views on the UN's recent summit on reforming that institution - headline after headline describes the summit as a failure, describing the failure of the world's leaders to achieve anything substantive. 'UN meeting falls short of larger goals', says the Globe and Mail. CNN.com aruges that the UN's reform agenda was 'watered down'. All of these statements are true. In many regards, the summit failed.

The final summit document did not endorse the creation of a more-powerful Human Rights Council.

The final summit document did not come to an acceptable international definition of terrorism.

The final summit document did not deal with Security Council reform.

But while we need to recognize these failings and work to improve our performance in the future, it is also critical that we recognize the successes that were achieved at the UN summit. U.S. President George W Bush, who has not previously shown very much interest in the longevity of the UN, delivered a speech that demonstrated a new commitment to making the UN work. The summit doubled the budget of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, and also committed another $50-billion towards development. The summit supported a Canadian-led notion known as R2P, or the responsibility to protect, the principle that the international community has a responsibility to intervene in situations of genocide or ethnic cleansing. And finally, the summit endorsed the creation of a new Peacebuilding Commission, to help rebuild nation-states recovering from war or insurgency. I rather suspect that Canada will have a large role to play in terms of that new body.

So while it is important to continue to shoot for a bulked-up Human Rights Council, a reformed Security Council, a greater commitment to development and a definition of terrorism, let's not forget that the reforms undertaken at the summit this week are significant, and they are a step in the right direction. At least we're on the right path.