Flying Harper's Colours

Previous Liberal governments' use of the luxury planes was among the things Harper used to needle them about when he was opposition leader.

But once he became prime minister, he would use the planes to fly his own family across Canada and to the U.S. for hockey or baseball games or purely partisan events, flights for which the taxpayer was reimbursed, though whether that was done fairly was often in dispute.

Harper either missed the subtle genius of this move, or he's past caring.  I'm leaning towards the former.

There is no official sound bite of Harper admitting that he lost to Justin Trudeau.  That was by Harper's design; he knew any such clip would be played, ad nauseum; you can't spend years decrying an opponent as light weight and not expect that to be thrown in your face when he beats you.

Despite how mean-spirited Harper was to Justin Trudeau, by all appearances Trudeau has been magnanimous in victory, with this last flight just one more example of our new Prime Minister taking the high road.

Though there's nothing written that you can't accomplish two things at once.

Allowing Harper one last flight is, in my opinion, the right thing to do.  It will also be much more painfully obvious of who the adult in the room is if Harper's successor and former caucus maintain the mean-spirited tone of their former leader in spite of such gestures.

Beyond this, though, there was no way to avoid the media's scrutiny of Harper's history with the challengers in light of this last flight.

He was against them until he made solid use of them - much like he did with the Senate.

Harper has always been against excess - and yet here he is, taking one last turn on the taxpayer's dime.  Is this a reflection of Harper as a hypocrite, or has he come, finally, to recognize the importance of such sociological phenomenon as altruism and consideration?

It doesn't matter.  For all Harper's careful avoidance of providing the world a direct quote admitting that he and his bitter politics were beaten by sunny ways, we now have this story, this image to focus on.

One would assume that Harper understands the power of symbolism.  

Anyhoo, we wish him well in retirement - or, as seems to be the case, some time spent as a teacher.

For the rest of us, it's onward and upward.

Harper's Place in Trudeau's Shadow

"But the prime minister’s gold-braid patriotism, like his tax-cutting conservatism and personal support for the death penalty, crystallises the feeling of many that the Harper era has been a rupture with Canadian tradition."

Canadians feeling like Harper has taken Canada astray with a risky social experiment and economic programs that are oblivious to the concerns of chunks of the nation?

Canadians wanting to get back to a more "traditional" version of Canada - you know, like the Just Society?

AND Justin Trudeau being touted as the guy to reverse the centralization of power and resulting corruption - that thrived under Stephen Harper?

Even though Harper had some successes (like 'em or not) under his reign - to the world, PET is still the leader Canada is most associated with?

That has GOT to sting.

Trudeau, Mental Health and the Public Service

Good for Trudeau (text from his letter below).

Sad reality is that a growing number of Canada's public servants don't have job stability or benefits (renewed contracts replacing permanent positions) and for those who do, the culture, accommodations and design of government work is sorely lacking.  The stress, uncertainty, low morale, unclear direction, conflict of what they're supposed to do and what partisan staff pressure them to do is taking a toll.  Presenteeism is rampant, as are prescriptions (and claims) for depression and anxiety medication.  

Mental health issues in the civil service is a big thing.

It's a problem the private sector is twigging on to and, in fits and spurts, taking steps to address. They have realized that saying "get over it" and punishing people with the cognitive equivalent of carpal tunnel syndrome doesn't solve the problem, it only exacerbates it.  If the bottom line dictates better employee support, so be it.

Does it not make sense for government to do the same?  Should government not be leading by example?

Were I team Trudeau, I would talk about this a lot more in the coming weeks (and to a certain Trudeau advisor: I told you this was coming!); it's an issue that impacts Canadians at all levels deeply, ties into the values Trudeau speaks to and highlights the cognitive dissonance in Harper's stance on mental health vs. occupational mental health.

Sad part is, this could and should have been a win for Harper.  That's what happens when you're functionally fixed and unable to adapt though.

Mental Health

Canada is facing a growing mental health crisis; during their lifetimes, one in five Canadians will experience a mental health issue. It is crucial that we foster a welcoming environment for free and frank discussion, and the federal government has a vital leadership role to play in improving mental health support for Canadians. As the country’s largest employer, it must begin by tackling the challenges of mental illness, which account for almost half of its disability claims.

 I was encouraged earlier this year when a Joint Task Force on Mental Health was created by the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the federal Treasury Board. I fully support this type of collaborative process and commit to implementing the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace. Supporting this standard is good for the employee, the workplace, and the employer.

Behavioural Insights and the Niqab ban

Let's be clear - Harper did not tacitly say that he would tell his young daughter that women don't have the right to cover their faces, if that's what they so choose.  What he did say was this: 

In this, he makes a fair point.  Women should not have to cover their faces.  Women should be free to wear what they want, without forced impositions.  No man has the right to tell a woman that she cannot show her face.  No man has the right to tell a woman she cannot show a bit of flesh, if that's what she chooses.

Like this woman, for instance:

Trudeau had the right to take his picture with this woman, just as Harper did not.  Although Harper is running for public office to represent all Canadians, he's under no obligation to have his picture taken with anyone he doesn't want to. 

If Harper is uncomfortable being around topless women, he's under no obligation to do so.  Lucky for him, there aren't that many topless women kicking around, or he might end up being in their presence whether he chooses to or not.  Heck, if all women went around topless - as is their right - Harper might have pictures of himself taken with bouncing breasts everywhere he went, unless he decided to cloister himself in his office more than he already does.

It's okay that nudity makes Harper uncomfortable, just as it's okay and even understandable that some women aren't comfortable going topless in public, or showing their décolletage in general. 

Although he has the right to go around topless, if he so desired, Harper is under no obligation to, just because he can.  He's under no obligation to prove a point about his masculinity in the way, say, Vladimir Putin does.

Harper has the right to go topless, but not the responsibility to go topless.  It's not just about freedom of expression, it's about personal comfort and safety as well.

And we all know Harper's big on safety and security, right?

Harper probably would tell his daughter to respect her body; he may even opine that dressing suggestively could draw untoward attention that could put her at risk, or at the very least emotional discomfort.

What happens, though, if she goes out in public wearing regular, non-revealing clothes and gets cat-called anyway?

If he hasn't seen this video, I would recommend Harper give it a gander.

As a man known for avoiding situations that provide uncomfortable attention (like public meet-and-greets or media scrums), I'm sure Harper can empathize with this woman and, by correlation, all women.

Because this kind of untoward attention happens all the time.  Just because they are women.

Unlike Harper, women can't simply avoid public life to escape this kind of untoward attention. Ideally cat-calling, staring, etc, would simply stop happening, but that is unfortunately not realistic. 

So what can they do?

Do women have the right to cover their bodies - to dress conservatively, as it were - to avoid undesirable attention?

Of course, the woman above didn't go out of her way to dress provocatively; she did quite the opposite just to prove a point.  Some men are going to seize on what they can get to oggle; some will purposefully poke at women they feel are "teasing" them by covering up.

As the picture to the right demonstrates, you can dress conservatively and still show beauty to the world.  That shouldn't be a bad thing, but if it garners you undesired attention, you might opt to cover up further.

By the same token, it's not uncommon for people who don't want untoward attention to wear hoods that bury their faces; this provides the advantage of shutting the world out as well as keeping your face from being stared at.

It's a sad truth that young black males face an uncomfortable level of scrutiny just for being black and in public.  They can have done nothing wrong; they don't even need to be walking with "swagger" - they can simply be going about their lives and still get suspicious looks based on nothing other than the colour of their skin.

Is there much difference between choosing to wear a hoodie to block out unwanted and undeserved stares and wearing a niqab for the same purpose?

If so - where is it?

When you are constantly agitating on fears and threats and security of the state, it's easy to lose track of what safety and security means at the individual level.  In his personal and political narrative about troubles at shores, Harper is neglecting the personal freedoms and personal security of "those people" in Canadian society who are still marginalized by old stock Canadians for their ethnicity or gender.

Covering one's face isn't automatically a sign that someone has something to hide, any more than being a woman means you want to be cat-called or being a black man means you're about to steal something.

That's one side of the coin.

Veils can also be used to titillating effect; they can be a demonstration of power.  The woman behind the veil has the power to show what she wants, and force others to earn or wait to see more.  In the dance of the seven veils, the slow tease removal of the veils is erotic by design; instead of being a symbol of male suppression of women, the veil becomes a tool by which women impose their power on men.

Whether a woman chooses to bare her breasts because she can or as an expression of personal power, or if a woman chooses to cover her face for the same reasons, is it not  masculine oppression to deny her the right to dress and express as she pleases?

Let's give Harper the benefit of the doubt and assume that the whole niqab-thing isn't just a distraction from Canada's faltering economy/dwindling reputation on the global stage/Duffy scandals/etc.  Let's assume this is something he actually feels strongly about.

If that's the case, it stands to reason that Harper has let his personal feelings, personal values and personal fears dictate what constitutes freedom for women.  It's a bit of government forcing its way into the garments of the individual.

Which is the kind of oppression our freedom and personal choice-loving PM should stand against.

After all, if it's not a man's place to tell a woman she must cover her face, it would stand to reason it isn't a man's place to tell her she can't cover her face, either.

The day may come where Harper's young daughter makes clothing choices that he does not approve of - to wear a veil, or to show a little bit of skin.

The real test of his values will be what he says in that moment.  

Let's hope he remembers which Canada he lives in.

If Stephen Harper Were a Game of Thrones Character...

"It's an ethic of 'I am willing to burn the house down so I an down the lot,' explains Mike Casey, a veteran Democratic communications consultant based out of Virginia.  "Stephen Harper is willing to burn the house down to own the lot.  'I will bring a gun to a knife fight.  You can call foul while you're lying bleeding on the floor' - that is the kind of ethic.

Some might say he's Twyin Lannister, but I don't think that fits.  Twyin was more about the brand than Harper has ever been.

No, if I were to peg Harper as one guy from Westeros, it'd be this one.

Trouble at our shores?  Eco-terrorists, niqab, etc?  Harper creates fights and then positions himself as the only one who can keep us safe from conflict.  He divides and conquers with abandon, attempting to create and live by his own rules along the way (everything from cutting off the media to committee disruption manuals."

As his own messes grow, his tactics and pressure become more severe - because that's what it takes to keep winning.  

And the climb, don't you know, is everything.  Regardless of the fall.

How about the other guys?  Who would you peg the other leaders as?

Muzzling Canadian Scientists, Public Servants and Everyone Else:

Sympathy for Stephen Harper

 

 

The bill is about “threats to the security of Canada,” which include but are not limited to: interfering with the ability of the Canadian government to maintain economic or fiscal stability; espionage; interference with critical infrastructure; terrorism; and doing anything in Canada that undermines the security of another state.

 

(“Lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression” are exempted from being threats to the security of Canada. But how well do governments define those things in times of “great evil”?)

 

What happens when government policy threatens the security of Canadians - like, say veterans, or aboriginals, or racialized youth?  What happens when targeted groups stand up for themselves in protest, possibly blocking highways and the like to ensure they have an impact and are heard?

 

Such acts of self-advocacy certainly interfere with the government's ability to maintain stability.  But then, so was a singular dependence on oil, but that's off-message.

 

This is the message:

 

On Friday, Mr. Harper – intoning that “a great evil has been descending over our world” – tabled his new anti-terrorism act.

 

A great evil is indeed descending over our world.  It's nothing new.  In fact, we know exactly what this evil looks like.

 

Wonder whether Harper likes the Rolling Stones?

 

 
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste

Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste
 

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name

But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

 

Tell me baby, what's my name
I tell you one time, you're to blame

 

Harper's Enemy

 

The very fact that the Prime Minister’s Office would use the term “enemy” in an email or a briefing book speaks to a certain intolerance of free expression by the highest political office in the land.

 

Enemy.  The person you want to defeat in battle, or at the very least, not be defeated by.

 

Harper has a pat approach to his enemies - silence them, attack them hard, face them with as little profile as possible.

 

You don't need to know who they are - just what roles they fill.  You certainly don't want them knowing you.  And that, truly, is the only thing they want - to take you down and replace you or see you replaced with one of their own.

 

Which works well for Harper, since he believes he's smarter than all his foes anyway.

 

Unfortunately.

 

 

They do a lot of strategy in political war rooms, but at the end of day, those rooms are overflowing with men of peace.  Every decision has a partisan motive; the end goal is narrowly tied to their fortunes and, as such, their scope remains equally limited.

 

Look behind you; that's always where the man of peace tries to stay, dirk in hand.

 

As we face an increasingly conflicted world and become drawn into these conflicts - and draw them into ourselves - it is unfortunate that there are so few men of war among our leaders.

 

As Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper has played the game, nudged and broken rules and done a decent job of reshaping the country into one he's more comfortable facing each morning.  Those who would seize his throne from him have each been in defeated in turn.  

 

It's long since been about more than just the ideology.

 

Harper has shorted his country in countless ways, leaving us ill-equipped, unprepared by resource or collective conscience for what is to come.  Our democracy is sick at a time when it will face it's greatest challenge.

 

Yet the PM doesn't see this - he can't see this. 

 

Because Stephen Harper has never once in his life truly understood, nor loved, his greatest enemy.

 

Himself.  

Harpernian Irony

 

 

Before heading abroad to join extremist groups such as Islamic State, some Canadians have been stopping first in northern Alberta to earn money to finance their terrorist activities, the chief of the Edmonton Police Service says.

 

“You can go up to Fort McMurray ... you’re relatively anonymous, you’re in one of those work camps and you can make a hockey sack of money in a very, very short period of time,” said Rob Knecht.

 

Let's be clear, folks, there are only two things that matter - the economy and security.  We can easily secure the economy by reducing taxation and therefore government services (and making sure people understand this through massively expensive marketing campaigns) on the one hand while focusing all our attention the extraction and export of natural resources, especially oil.  What can go wrong with that?

 

The next issue, those perilious troubles lapping at our shores and scurrilous rabble-rousers and sociology-commiters on our own soil.  They must be stopped by extreme security measures, increased monitoring of private engagement and of course, tougher penalties.  And if we happen to get some information that may prove useful (at least politically) through torture, oh well, eh?  It's like those missing aboriginal women; it's their own fault for getting mixed up in such things as being a native woman or being a man with a name like Maher Arar. 

 

The Harper government has curtailed the free flow of information, the basis of intellectual thought.  They have provoked strong emotions with their rhetoric and actions for political convenience.  They have increased security that by the very nature of the system they're strengthening targets minorities unfairly, resulting in an imbalance in civil liberties.

 

Oh yeah, and the putting of all eggs in the oil basket isn't working out quite the way they'd planned, is it?  So much for being history's actors.

 

This is master strategist Stephen Harper at his best; his approach to government is fostering a disruption of social cohesion that fosters the very kind of internal risks he wants to fight against.  All that may be intentional, depending on how cynical he is.  But to tout oil as the only economic solution that matters when all evidence has pointed to the contrary, and now the reality is proving the point?

 

They say Harper is a man with a sense of humour.  Hopefully, he appreciates the humour in all of this.

Investment and Social Impact: The Garden of Innovation

 

"Founder Henry Chong started the company Revelo Electric which specializes in electric bikes for urban settings. His idea, which started as an undergraduate thesis project has come a long way."

Technically speaking, an undergraduate thesis isn't R&D.  It isn't market research. Yet how many start-ups are emerging from ideas or needs first explored in academic settings?

Then there's Figure 1, which is a brilliant idea that bridges the gap between professional peers communicating relevant information and end-user privacy/info security.  I won't go into the massive growth potential of this App here.

How many innovative, problem-solving and potentially massively profitable enterprises have emerged from non-product oriented processes?  A ton.  Meanwhile, the money governments are pouring into financial incentives to nudge traditional private-sector players to be innovative isn't having much impact.

Also, the increased pressure on what used to be Not-For-Profits to be financially stable on their own (through sales, not grants) isn't making organizations more lean, it's denigrating services.  Pure science as a profit-focused tool?  All we're ending up with is less science and fewer idea opportunities.

 This is a good thing for the survival-of-the-fittest mentality of our current government - they feel that this shrinking of the pool increases the financial viability of what actually emerges.  But where beyond talking-points is the evidence to support this?  Where are the metrics?

There are none.  It's an ideological perspective as removed from reality as the idea of communism.

You can't motivate innovation with financial pressure.  It doesn't work; neurobiology and evidence from countless studies prove it doesn't work.  Instead, what financial carrots and sticks do is encourage more "fake it 'til you make" it hustlers who talk the talk, but tend not to provide metrics of distance covered for it.

So why do we have a government with access to massive amounts of data and professional support actually impeding the sort of innovative success that any economy should want?  Why, instead of heeding the data, is this government stifling its collection and undermining it's presentation?

It's not particularly rational, is it?

And that's the point.  When you know you're right and endlessly confident in your righteousness, anything that disagrees with you feels wrong.   When you're impatient for wins, the objective becomes the removal from your path of that which feels like an impediment to victory.

Even knowledge.

There is a world of difference between wanting economic success and wanting power.   If you see money and wealth as the conduit to personal power, then getting lots of money fast becomes the objective.  Iterative development, learning, exploration, etc. become frills, time wasters.  All that matters is the low-hanging fruit.

Innovation isn't about the low-hanging fruit; it's about figuring out how to reach the higher-up fruit.  Or teaching yourself to garden.

We're trying to solve the wrong problem.  And so long as we KEEP trying to solve the wrong problem, we're going to keep falling short of the mark.

But not the guys like Henry Chong.  They're not in it for them; they're in it for what they can do.  What we can do.

 

See, you don't buy innovation, you nurture it.  Supporting innovation is more like growing a garden than building a tower.

 And the people really interested in strengthening our economy are ignoring the Stephen Harpers of the world and spending time with the Henry Chongs.  Some are even funding them, turning Corporate Social Responsibility into R&D, merging social innovation and user-generate content.

 Something to think about.

 

 

 

Emperors Don't Follow Laws

 

 

Mr. Perrin said the government’s biggest concern from its year of overwhelming defeats will be that its agenda is grinding to a halt. If that agenda “continues to be unravelled by the courts, it’s actually not governing the way that it wants to. It’s also politically quite embarrassing, and if people begin to think that the government is not understanding what the law is, and it’s not able to govern effectively, that becomes a very serious concern.”

 

I know I'm not the only one who feels far too many members of the Harper government (both elected and non-elected) feel that, because they are top dogs, they rest above the law.  They make them for other people and are held to a different standard, one they themselves set.  It's reminiscent of Karl Rove:

 

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality... We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

 

Call me sensationalist, if you feel the urge.  I can point to many, many sources of evidence to support my argument.  They can all be summed up in one line:

 

"We'll go over the heads of the members of Parliament; go over the head, frankly, of the Governor General; to right to the Canadian people." 

 

A government committed to democratic engagement recognizes that Parliament, a free press and independent courts are fundamental pillars of a democratic system.  Such a government, when faced with repeated opposition to their approach, would self-reflect a bit and consider if they need to change the way they operate.

 

This isn't how Harper's government has ever operated.  Faced with opposition, they don't compromise; they double-down, attack, do whatever they can to get their opponents to back down so that they may win. 

 

Lina Keene they could can; not-for-profits they can defund; they get more ink that Carol Todd, so reframing her positions to fit their narrative and then shutting her out is easy.  The media can be side-stepped, and has been. 

 

And yet the Supreme Court has been doggedly defiant of the Conservative Empire.  This is problematic, because opposition to their agenda, in their eyes, makes them look weak. 

 

The courts, however, aren't so easily suppressed or manipulated.  At least, not yet.

 

And that should be of serious concern to all of us.

Stephen Harper's Integrity: A Reflection

 

Harper came to power promising to do things differently than the Liberals of the Ad Sponsorship era. The base expected a new integrity reflecting the best conservative values — integrity, frugality and respect for Canadians. Instead, Canadians have been fed a steady dose of behaviour out of the prime minister’s own office that redefines unethical — and, in some cases, verges on the criminal.

 

The Harper machine has been hell-bent on two interconnected things:

 

1) Stay in power

2) Destroy the Liberals

 

Destroying the Liberals was as much about near-autocratic control as anything else.  When you're only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when you're only objective is wins, everything starts to look like a race.

 

Governance isn't a race.  It's not about last man standing, the victor getting the spoils and the ends justifying the means.  It's about leadership, organization, sustainability.

 

Harper will have his place in history as lasting long, but leaving very little in his wake.  It'll be up to others to rebuild the brand he has painted into a corner through his reliance on black-and-white imagery.

 

When it becomes about winning, not achieving, you've lost.

 

It's not just Harper.  We're seeing a slow movement away from organizations that have put individual or organizational gain before commitment to community - it's as true of voters as it is of new Ello users.  Such is the nature of the market that where there's demand, supply emerges.

 

There is much still in flux and those used to the economic model of the last century rest confident that all this "put the people and planet before profit and power" stuff is a passing fad that can't gain traction, because you need profit and power for that.

 

Do you need integrity if you've got money and power?  Can't you just fake it if that's the fluff the market thinks they want?

 

That's been Stephen Harper's play.  How's that worked out for him?

 

Maybe a subsequent leader can reset his party; maybe Harper himself will land a cushy job on some boards and live prosperously to the end of his days.  Possible, it'll never occur to him that he let slip each and every value he once convinced himself mattered in his question for position and longevity.

 

But maybe not.  Regardless, what Harper leaves behind - his legacy - his written not by his intent, but by his actions.

 

Integrity matters.  Ultimately, it's all that gets left behind.

Deconstructing Harper

What should be clear, then, is that Harper's seemingly bizarre vendetta against sociology is actually an ideological attempt to prevent Canadian society from being able to identify, and tackle, its structural injustices.

Yep!  It's nice to see people catching up.

The important thing to realize in this, though, is that Harper isn't trying to prevent the identification and management of structural injustices, per se - that paints him in the light of a moutstache-twirling villain.  As convenient as this dehumanized frame is for those who don't like his politics (or are in the business of attacking partisan foes), it fails to understand the man and shed light on better ways to engage with and persuade him.

Stephen Harper isn't trying to be the bad guy.  He does what he does because he genuniely believes his world-view is the right one.  

It isn't - but neither are those with polar opposite views to his.  Think on that for a second - how on earth can you define yourself as the anti-Harper because you commit to shades of grey whereas he doesn't?

Harper thinks that too much government is bad, because government sucks at managing complexity.  He's not wrong on that.

He also thinks that too many social services impede the growth and success of individuals.  It's like teaching a kid to ride a bike - eventually, you need to take off the training wheels and let go, right?  You can't be telling them to brush their teeth and do their homework for the whole of their lives.  

Is carrying debt a good thing?  Are debt payments an allocation of financial resources that could go to other things, like tax cuts to reduce the amount of money being taken away from people and impeding their ability to succeed independently?

This doesn't mean that Stephen Harper isn't disdainful of the general public.  It's not to say he's a deep admirer of the general public, either.  He has his frame and in it, reality is determined by action and actions are committed by go-getters.  He wants more people taking care of their own business and less things that get in the way of that.

Like data, for instance.  He knows, rightly, that data can be skewed one way or another.  Lies, damned lies and statistics, all of that.  The data he disagrees with is clearly wrong or misguided or poorly represented, because it doesn't jive with his world view.

If it was right, wouldn't he feel better about it?  Conversely - the positions taken by his partisan opponents seem so bizarre and even dangerous to him, he can't help but lash out at them and go to whatever lengths he can, having power, to quash both opponent and alternative position.

It's what his opponents would do in his place, isn't it?  It was the other guys who introduced the War Room to Canadian politics, after all.

To crib from Obi-wan Kenobi, everything Harper says and believes makes sense, from a certain point of view.  However, it isn't the whole perspective, which matters.

The man that Stephen Harper is stems from multiple elements including biology, experience, even diet.  His frame doesn't much allow him to accept this, because it implies he's not the super-in-control rational actor he thinks he is.

What's more, considering that others don't share the same basic drives that he does is frightening, because it implies an inability on his part to communicate with a wide swath of his peers, which is an incredibly isolating and humbling thought to have.  In some cases, even debilitative.

Far easier and safer to stick with "we are smart and they are dumb" as a frame, isn't it?  Easier - but not smarter.

Stephen Harper is not the bad guy.  In fact, he ultimately wants the same thing his opponents do - empowered, collaborative individuals that support a healthy society.  The only difference is he sees it as a healthy system that frees individuals to engage in transactional self-interest, reinforcing the stability of the whole.

Harper doesn't want to be confused by an interest-group fed data smog, nor does he want that for everyone else.  He's afraid we're all getting bogged down with too much information and conversation, like a kid with autism, and missing the really important stuff. 

Anything that challenges his point of view, his black-and-white outlook on the world makes him uncomfortable, is wrong and therefore needs to be stopped.  Any moves he takes to make that happen are correct, because 1) he's doing them, and he's a rational actor and 2) it's the way things work, right? Survival of the fittest.

The cognitive dissonance he comes across with this frame is that the competitive people he brings in to help him get ahead - folk like Mike Duffy or Bruce Carson - are bordering (and sometimes crossing the line) into criminality with what they're doing to promote their interests through supporting his brand.

Can he readily admit that the political culture that helped him win or the environment he's nurtured as leader are part of why government fails and big issues remain pervasively unaddressed?  What would that do to his self-narrative and legitimacy?

This is all a lot of complex, unnerving stuff to think about - stuff that, most importantly, makes him feel uncomfortable in that sociology, hugging kind of way.  The fact that it feels so much like an allergen surely implies how harmful it would be to consider that kind of thing.

Like how, say, Rob Ford is unwilling to engaged with Pride activities because of how uncomfortable being around gay people makes him feel.  It's not that he's a bigot, right?  Things that make you feel that uncomfortable must be unnatural - the only alternative is that it's you, not the source of your discomfort, that's got something out of whack.  

The problem is that Harper's cognitive frame shuts out much of what he needs to know in order to do his job effectively.  The irony, of course, is that by undermining government, he is winning by empowering his foes.

Think about it for a second - all the Premiers are coming together and could very well start planning around him.  Once that happens in any significant manner, how much of federal government becomes irrelevant (though, more accurately, replaced with new social infrastructure)?  

The same holds true for Corporate Social Responsibility taking on roles previously served by government - isn't that kind of what Harper was going for?  He may have missed the fact that non-government actors would start acting progressively and commit sociology, but he is showing us that the government he dislikes isn't as important as we thought.

Neither, frankly, is the role he has and loves so dearly.

And that's just Harper.  You could equally take any individual politician, or political staffer, or activist and deconstruct them down to their natural and nurtured parts.  Like an archaeological artifact, though, you can't understand what it means without context.

A dead canary is a dead canary, right? It died is what mattered.  You can know all you need to know about the thing because of what it was without confusing or straining yourself with murky context.

Let's say, though, that the canary corpse comes from a coal mine you're working in.  You might want to know what the death of that canary means for you.  If you don't work in the mine, though, do you care? Well, you might if you find dead animals around the entrance to the mine, too.  

The further away you are from a problem the less likely you are to consider it seriously, a fact that isn't necessarily reflective of the impact that problem may have on you.  It's why people with disabilities or of minority status make the best advocates of their peers (and why democracy is all about representation).

As a better example, let's look at Pompeii, or better still, Easter Island.  If you want to go macro, look at the fall of the Roman Empire, or any civilization and consider what the causal factors were and what they mean to you and your circumstances.

It's not simply "the way things are", like natural selection, that individuals fall and societies fail.  There are contextual details, always a combination of internal and internal, that paint the scene.  If you commit sociology, put yourself in the headspace of Others and make efforts to understand what happened, you can avoid similar pitfalls yourself down the road.  

Which is, essentially, what learning is all about.

We know that climate change, for instance, presents some significant risks.  We know that climate change destroyed civilizations, even entire species in the past.  There's no way to be individually resistant to the immediate and after math implications of a massive earth quake or flood, for instance.  You can take out insurance and whatnot, but if the bank gets destroyed?  If the impact is worse than you imagined?  If you suffer the loss of loved ones, a limb and physical resources all at the same time?  It's happened to others - why couldn't it happen here?

The ability to commit sociology allows us to learn from the past and shape the future - not willpower, not toughness.  

Selection of the fittest favours those best able to adapt.  In a social context, adaptation is about learning from the lessons, both positive and negative, of others so as not to have to experience them oneself.

This is all rubbish nonsense spouted by a clear lefty nutjob, ergo the kind of thinking that Stephen Harper (and not a few other human beings) doesn't have time for.  Which is probably why he remains obstinately, willfully oblivious to the corner he's painting himself into.  

Maybe he plans to leave before the going gets bad - he's backed away from problems before, so that's something we could expect from him.  Perhaps he's slowly feeling that sense of being painted into a corner and his obstinance is a fight defense - the kind that led him to prorogue, or attempt a coalition with the Bloc, or to bribe a dying man.

All I'm saying is that the PM's personal interests would probably be better served if he looked around a bit more, empathized with others and started to see the context of his world.

He wouldn't even need to call it sociology.

They didn't invent the term behavioural economics for nothing.

Crime and Sociology

A Canadian reporter has been arrested in Ferguson for asking a question.  It was an uncomfortable question, asked to cops who, for some unknown reason, feel that wearing kakhi military gear makes 'em look bad-ass in urban St. Louis, but I digress.

Was this warranted?  Were the police justified in this act?  Was it a matter of law-and-justice, cops being tough-on-crime - and if not, what was it?

This was a Canadian citizen, doing his job - providing relevant information about troubling foreign circumstances to Canadian audiences.  If a Canadian journalist had been killed in Israel due to a Hamas attack, I'm sure our PM would have some choice words.

How about now?  Or was this guy asking for it, poking his nose where it didn't belong?

Questions I'd love to hear Stephen Harper answer, but know better than to expect him to.  He doesn't share his rationale with us, the plebes - ours is to follow, not question, or risk being left behind.

Team Harper has verily been acting out of the same playbook - reduce media access, pillory opponents, find ways to silence the voices that oppose you, either through direct attacks, cut funding or job termination.

It's a slippery slope, this - when you're world is black and white, you oft miss that moment when you cross the line.

Yet another reason why committing sociology is both good for the soul and good for society.

Stephen Harper: On the Wrong Side of Sociology

Last year, the premiers unanimously agreed an inquiry is necessary.  Selinger said Harper is offside with how Canadians feel about the situation.

"Most Canadians believe vulnerable people of any kind should be protected," he said.

Stephen Harper doesn't think there's ever a good time to commit sociology - especially not when it comes to reverse-engineering criminal activity.  

For him, criminal acts are criminal acts; they don't have context, they aren't the result of pre-mitigating factors - they just are.  It's like Vincent from Collateral; it wasn't his pulling the trigger that killed the guy, it was the bullet and the fall.  

No connection whatsoever, see?  There are no venn diagrams in Harper's world.

Harper believes people are rational actors motivated by financial self-interest - except for those who aren't. Considering how statistics suggest that ethnic minorities make up the bulk of prison inmates and social service users, it's a good thing he doesn't make generalizations - he'd end up being one of those guys who thinks Islam is evil or black protesters in Ferguson are animals.

When PM Harper talks tough on crime, reduced regulation for corporations, etc., he's simply trying to create a fully-functioning free-market economy where rational, self-interested actors compete through their labour and pricing to achieve a balance of consumption and cost, supply and demand.

It's a political narrative that helps distinguish him from his foes, but it's also a perspective he is functionally fixed on, unable to waver from.  

Yet his position is full of holes.  Was Mike Duffy a rational actor?  How about Nigel Wright?  Was Kouvalis in the right with misleading phone calls, or Peter MacKay with his political truths?  Is trying to portray your chief rival as a feminine poof a rational and financially-motivated, or is it relying on what his team has identified as social perceptions?  

By theorizing that Canadians don't care about the workings of Parliament, is he suggesting Parliament - the engine of democracy - isn't rational, or in the interests of the people?

Harper is incapable of lateral thinking, incapable of understanding his foe - he's a bully, and that's his ultimate limitation.  The reason he's so adverse to meeting with all the Premiers at once is that in that type of scenario, he's Prime Minister among many rather than the top dog in the room.  Harper needs to be the most authoritative person in the room - he's simply uncomfortable with the notion of peers.

In this, he's like the folk on Wall Street - they figure that power is theirs and the kids they want to hire are in it for the money.  Pay people enough and they'll do whatever; the more you pay, the better the talent you can attract, plus afford to weed out lesser talent.

Thing is, Wall Street is losing the battle for talent and innovation.  The sorts of people they should be attracting are more interested in growth, empowerment and contributing to something of social value than they are in their personal financial interest.  

It makes sense; in an increasingly interconnected world, most of us are seeing quite clearly how connected we all are.  The broader impacts of our action or inaction are more and more clear, meaning that we're getting that to commit sociology is the best way to promote our own self-interest.

Altruism is selfishness that plans ahead, after all.

Yet Harper and Wall Street both seem to think there's a general ignorance among the general public that serves as a natural resource for their consumption.  In practice, both act as though people aren't rational, but rather, easily manipulated.  Both are paying the price as a result.

While other governments are committing sociology - through education programs, through behavioural insights and the like, Canada is an innovation laggard.  While the US military is the biggest North American consumer of Positive Psychology, Team Harper refuse to accept their own findings around mental health and social-emotional resilience.

So focused are they on the notion that they are history's actors, they are willfully blinding themselves to just how quickly they (and as a result, we) are falling behind at social evolution.

In the Knowledge Economy, it's people who think and work in the exact opposite way Harper does that will succeed, attract the best talent, build the strongest brands and have the greatest impact on society. Companies are pursuing more employee-sensitive onboarding practices and becoming more Open with their information at the same time Harper's government is moving to become more closed.  

User-Generated-Content is being encouraged at the same time as all political parties are pushing canned messages.

The truly innovative providers are looking at differing cultures not as threats or irrelevancies, but as idea mines to be tapped for new solutions, services and products.  As we're focused on structural wellness and whole-person health that bridges the work/life divide, First Nation practices ranging from the talking circle to the medicine wheel are being explored.

Meanwhile, Harper's numbers aren't as great as they once were.  Clearly, there's no connection between his fall in popularity and the inability of his party to adapt to the times.  They just need to stick their head in the sand on internal conflicts/systematic issues and keep poking civic fears about the zombie hoard, and they'll come out on top again.  Then they'll have to tweak the rules again to keep those crazy sociology-committers from succeeding under the existing, democratic rules of engagement.

Which brings us neatly back to Sellinger's words.  

From Ferguson to the Middle East to murdered Aboriginal Women and at-risk youth, we are all aware that increasingly closed and top-down governments are fuelling civic unrest and allowing structural issues to exacerbate.  We worry less about seas of troubles then potential domestic collapse.

We want the confidence of knowing our leadership shares our views and is prepared with a vision and a plan to do something about this burning platform.

At this stage in the game, it's almost criminal not to be committing sociology.  Such are the pitfalls of not thinking ahead, I guess.