After a short stint off the headlines, Karla’s back and she’s bigger than ever, baby. A quick recap: she got hired by a guy named Richer LaPointe to work in his hardware store. He claims to be a citizen with a strong sense of public duty who wanted to help Karla integrate with society. This apparently entailed secretly taping conversations with Karla and then going to the media, exposing her whereabouts and accusing her of violating her release conditions. This “half-wit opportunist” (thanks alevo) is currently facing charges of his own (unrelated to Karla) that include sexual assault and breaking and entering, which you would think would diminish his credibility somewhat. But not enough, apparently, to put a damper on the latest spasm of Homolkamania: it’s everywhere. Canada & Karla: Season 2 of our favourite reality show is back and in prime-time.

In the United States, criminals like Karla stay firmly behind bars, often for sentences so long they are ludicrous (like 175 years, for example). Here in Canada, where “life in prison” actually means “15-25 years in prison”, we seem intent on seeing what happens when we have to learn to live with them. It’s like a version of Growing Up Gotti where they let John Gotti out of prison just so they can film the show. “Honey, I’m going out to whack somebody, back later.” “Okay dear, don’t be late for dinner!” [Cue laugh track.]

Canada’s justice system, adept at catching your more run-of-the-mill offenders, just doesn’t seem to know what to do with the really big cases. Liana White is found dead and her husband Michael is swiftly charged with her murder. Twenty, thirty, forty sex trade workers go missing in Vancouver and police are like, “huh? what serial killer?”. Or take the Air India case, where terrorists blew up a flight from Canada in 1985, killing 329 people. Twenty years later, still no successful prosecution of anybody.

Live in an American red state and if someone murders your loved one, you get to watch them fry. Live in Canada, your best bet for revenge are prank calls:

Two popular Quebec radio hosts have interviewed Karla Homolka and her lawyer Sylvie Bordelais in a remarkable prank phone call to be aired today.

CKOI hosts Sebastien Trudel, 24, and Marc-Antoine Audet, 25 — known to their listeners as the “Masked Avengers” — called Bordelais yesterday posing as Quebec’s justice minister and his assistant.

What a gas!

Even our friends over at whereiskarla.com seem a little bewildered:

Karla is in the Montreal general area. Please contact your local authorities for more detailed information. We did not post our updates during the media frenzy. We do not wish to participate in a media style of glamorizing Karla.

“INFORMING THE PUBLIC” claims their website in big bold letters. “Karla is in the Montreal general area.” Fantastic job, guys. Thanks to you, there’s an easy way for us all to stay safe: avoid Montreal. And its general area.

Apparently, anyway:

Canada flexes its muscles in dispute over Arctic wastes

Gunboat diplomacy say what?

At least our wastes are safe.

About a month ago, I had a roaring, beer-fuelled debate at a local pub with several friends. I was in the zone on one of my pet peeve topics, and I think the Carlsberg diluted my message. In the end, I couldn’t convince anyone to see my point of view. Let me try again.

My basic point on multiculturalism has always been that it has been falsely mythologized as a Canadian value. There is scarce data to support any assertion that multiculturalism, as an official policy, or as a lip service, has made Canada a more tolerant society – let alone entrench itself as a core value shared by the nation. I presume there are some tangible benefits to having a national multicultural policy. I know it earmarks a bunch of federal spending for cultural projects in Canada. However, I am wary of arguments that suggest Canadians share multicultural values, and ergo, are more tolerant of ethnic differences.

A few points for clarification: It is worth noting that we do have an immigrant society in Canada (to the extent that Canada has a colonial past and continues to embrace immigration – around 160 000 people a year). As well, it should be said that multiculturalism is a noble principle – I do not presume to be offended by the idea of a tolerant or poly-ethnic society. Lastly, I think we are better off having the space for a dialogue on tolerance, even if it goes nowhere.

My key problem is with multicultural rhetoric. The over inflated claims about Canada being inclusive, a mosaic, or an antithesis to the American melting pot because of multiculturalism – that is all rubbish. Moreover, it is the doublespeak of a Canadian political system that hardly reflects the diversity it claims is so defining of the Canadian experience. It is the uninspiring reason that multiculturalism is not a real tool for change.

Shared multicultural values in Canada are at best a campaign slogan, and at worst a falsely ascribed national mythology. The brainchild of the Trudeau era, multiculturalism has been a lingering part of the Canadian political lexicon for a long time. I’m still not sure what it means. Rather, it has become a watered down term that politicians evoke in order to create a false sense of Canadian unity. This is due, in part, to the long legacy of Liberal Party power in Canada, and this Party’s effort to enforce their own policies as naturally shared Canadian values.

I am blown away by politicians who stand with a straight face and say how inclusive and tolerant of difference Canadians are, and how we are blankly “multicultural.” The term is flung around without any care. I find it a bit sophomoric.

Polling data released in the Globe today shows that 7 out of 10 Canadians (in a sample group of 1000) were in favour of abandoning the current “mosaic” approach to multiculturalism that has long been a defining feature of the nation’s identity. This group responded positively to the statement: “Immigrants should be encouraged to integrate and become part of the broader society rather than maintaining their ethnic identity and cultural differences.”

This following a year (2004) when the top four source countries for immigration were China, India, Philippines, and Pakistan – hardly your garden variety of assimilable newcomers.

The same data shows an overwhelming Canadian preference for European immigrants, citing a further expectation that these immigrants would contribute more to Canadian society than non-European immigrants.

It should be pointed out that this data is similar to the situation all the way back to the end of WW2, and into the era of the post-industrial value shift that characterized the 1970s. A majority of Canadians preferred European immigrants then, and they still do now. A majority of Canadians believed in assimilation then, and they still do now.

So my question is: if multiculturalism is such a defining feature of contemporary Canada – why has it failed to change Canadian attitudes towards non-European immigrants; and why, in an era when most new immigrants are non-European, do a majority of Canadians still prefer assimilation?

Multicultural indeed. Face it – it looks better as a campaign slogan!

Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary of Defense, isn’t pleased with Iran. Apparently, weapons from Iran have been found in Iraq. The weapons are “clearly” and “unambiguously” from Iran, although he did not describe them or say how many have been found during his press conference yesterday.

Iran is being “unhelpful”, according to Rumsfeld: “That’s a big border and it’s notably unhelpful for the Iranians to be allowing weapons of those types to cross the border.”

This isn’t just a problem for Iraq, in Rumsfeld’s words:

It’s a problem for the Iraqi government. It’s a problem for the coalition forces. It’s a problem for the international community. And ultimately it’s a problem for Iran.

This past weekend, two more people were killed in shootings in Toronto, the latest in a wave of gun violence that threatens Toronto’s reputation as one of the safest cities in North America. The shootings are attributed to gang violence and enabled by the proliferation of handguns that are being smuggled across the Canada-US border. Premier McGuinty: “I phoned (Toronto Police Chief Bill) Blair last week when this flared up and he told me that easily half of the guns on Toronto streets come from south of the border.”

Mr. Rumsfeld, this is a problem for Toronto. It’s a problem for Canada. And ultimately it’s a problem for the United States. So please solve that problem for us. Or shut the heck up about Iran.

******

It would be negatively nationalistic of me to point out that when it comes to illegal smuggling, America’s biggest problem is Canadian marijuana, designed to make you happy, dopey and hungry, while Canada’s biggest problem is American handguns, designed to kill people. So I won’t.

I want to pen my support for the next Governor General. I want to tell her that her work is important, and I also want to tell her why. More than that, I want to tell her detractors to take note, because they are prone to simple arguments, and I think they often miss the point when they dismiss the need for a Governor General.

Her role is rooted in the past and future of this nation, and in many ways she is helping to hold these realms together. Let me tell you why that’s a good thing.

I’m not a nostalgic person, but there is a simple fact that is irrevocable for all Canadians. We all share the burden of this nation’s history as much as we share the burden of its future. As new Canadians, or those having lived here for several generations, we are attached to the lived reality of Canada past and Canada future. Take a moment to think about that … the notion of a living history. That is how I am approaching this topic.

Our nation cannot sever ties to the colonial past; rather it is our burden to reform and reshape our colonial dimensions – to make them relevant for the present. This is the process of Canada’s living history. I call it a burden, because it often is, but it is also a unique opportunity; and one I believe is emblematic in the changing faces of the Governor General. Her role should be to remind us that our country is a work in progress – to remind us that traditions, which cease to adapt, will become irrelevant. Does Michaëlle Jean’s appointment live up to these expectations? I would argue yes, but to do so I’ll have to deal with the detractors (against the role of Governor General and of Ms. Jean).

The nay-Sayers say: She’s not elected. She wastes taxpayers’ money. She does nothing useful. She’s been appointed to curry Liberal support. She’s a token appointment.

Let me deal with these comments in stride, and I think I should be able to make my point.

No, she’s not elected. And that’s ok. Appointments provide opportunities that electoral politics do not. Ask yourself: who would fight an election to be Governor General? Not the current appointee that’s for sure. Which strikes me as a unique opportunity for Canada – not a problem. Reforming the appointment of the Governor General to accommodate an electoral scheme may at some point be necessary – remember I said: traditions that cease to adapt become irrelevant – but that’s hardly a reasonable argument for doing away with the Governor General.

She does not waste taxpayers’ money. First of all, the Governor General’s 17 million dollar budget is very modest in comparison to the range of annual government expenditures. Second, this is an investment in promoting Canada and causes for Canadians. It is money well spent because it can be freely attached to projects without a political champion in the party system. Which brings me to my next point.

The Governor General does a lot for Canadians, but the benefits are not the same as those gained from party politics. Her outcomes are not tangible policy outcomes, which has led many to declare her role, and her actions, frivolous or useless. This is a shamefully myopic perspective. There is so much more to the national political landscape than governing. The Governor General is free to act on issues and ideas that are not the favor of electoral (party) politics. Adrienne Clarkson’s trade mission to Northern States in Scandinavia would have never been a strong political proposition – but that’s the point. Does it make it useless? No.

Some have suggested that the appointment process makes the Governor General very much a part of party politics; that her appointment is decided to score political points for the incumbent Prime Minister, and that this makes the successful candidate biased (or presumably an agent of the sponsoring party). Some have even accused that Paul Martin’s recent appointment of a former CBC journalist was, by design, a move to keep the national media ingratiated to the Liberal Party. Or, that by appointing a black, Haitian immigrant, the Prime Minister was actively courting ethnic votes, particularly the Haitian Diaspora of Montreal.

While I can appreciate these efforts to unmask political strategy, and to reread moments in Canadian politics with a partisan lens, let’s not get carried away. These arguments are, at best a singular objection to partisan politics and not the role of the Governor General – I might add they are somewhat naive. (I refuse to waste time here debating patronage, and the appointment system that pervades Canadian politics – yes, pervades – in so many more ways than most are able to acknowledge.) To wage a speculative blow at the significant appointment of someone who does, in fact, personify groups sorely unaccounted for in the House of Commons, is not only naïve, it’s counterintuitive to the reality of Canadian life. Basically, it is to say: “Paul Martin is panhandling for votes, by doing something to empower and inspire a group of Canadians.”

This kind of backwards thinking runs too deep. Recently, articles in the Hill Times called attention to the scarce number of blacks in the House of Commons, Senate, and the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Late last week, when it came time to welcome our new Governor General, the headlines churning forth out of this same Press Gallery declared that Ms. Jean was a political slam-dunk for Paul Martin. They could have said that her appointment was a political slam-dunk for a lot of people. But they didn’t.

It should also be noted that Ms. Jean is part of a mixed race marriage; that she persevered poverty, that she has had a tremendously successful career, and that she is brave enough to have adopted a child from her native Haiti. I suppose Paul Martin will also reap the benefits of these inspiring qualities at the ballot box?

She’s a token appointment – hardly. If you are one of the few out there who is seriously concerned with the Governor General being an appeasement to affirmative action, then you need to give your head a shake. She is not, and never will be, a sufficient replacement for the elected representation of women, blacks, or new Canadians in the House of Commons. She can inspire Canadians, and perhaps remind us that we are evolving too slowly in some respects. As I said, the function of the Governor General is to remind Canadians that our country is a work in progress – and that change is always needed.

In this sense, the Governor General is not an anachronism. Her role is far from obsolete. Although her duties are largely defined in the conventions of parliament (a language that is dead to most Canadians), her relevance is not taken from her official duties to the process of Canadian government. The argument against the need for a Governor General in Canada often misses this point.

Please do something inspiring Ms. Jean, or I may be eating my words.