Good Sunday Morning!
Yes, ten days until Christmas! Hoping you are not racing through crowded malls for pointless stuff no one needs but instead connecting with loved ones with homemade gifts and something delicious in the oven.Tuesday I will be serving a Christmas meal at one of the most amazing outreach shelters I know, Our Place in Victoria. Instead of wasting money on parking while running endless errands, consider donating to their work.
And some good news! From very distant places – Damascus to Victoria, sharing good news.
Starting with closer to home and a ground-breaking agreement between BC Greens and the NDP! Just announced on Friday. Details can be found in this link (including full text of the agreement.)
From BC Greens news release: “The BC Green Caucus has entered a four-year agreement with the BC New Democratic Government, reviewable annually. This deal secures Green support for confidence and supply in exchange for advancing Green initiatives on healthcare, housing, renter support, homelessness, transit, climate, forestry, tax and legislative reform.” Exciting details include the following:
- Work on proportional representation, putting electoral reform back on the agenda
- Health care progress based on BC Green platform for community health centres
- Mental health supports
- Protecting old growth forests like Fairy Creek
- Improved transit for under-served areas
- Enhanced climate action
And BC Greens secured the right to hold government to account and be effective opposition in the legislature. Thanks so much to the extraordinary BC Green team, Leader Sonia Furstenau, and MLAs Rob Botterell and Jeremy Valeriote. After the Ottawa gridlock, Groundhog Day-like last two months in Ottawa, what a breath of fresh air!
The other astonishing good news was the sudden collapse of the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. We celebrated it in parliament with a unanimous consent declaration that the dictator and butcher was gone and we hoped for the best future for the beleaguered people of Syria (or some such mutually agreed upon pablum). But we did not reflect on Canada’s betrayal of those same people. Obscurity Awaits Bashar al Assad in Moscow.
I have a very strong sense of Canada’s role in eroding the emerging doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P)”. R2P promised to be a way for nations around the world to intervene in other nation’s internal affairs if it was to save lives — protecting people from violent repression from their own government. In much the same way that it used to be the case that no one would help a battered and abused wife, with domestic violence seen to be private business, despots killing their own people was seen as an internal matter. When Ghaddafi was killing Libyans, the new doctrine was put to the test. The UN security council agreed that NATO could intervene through a coalition of countries prepared to work together to protect the civilians of Libya. The concept of “R2P” was put to the test. But all too quickly, the US and Canada shifted from R2P to regime change. I tried to stop it. While the Harper administration recognized the ragtag elements of opposition to Gaddafi as the new government, I argued with then foreign minister John Baird that that group included former Al-Qaeda fighters. Baird said words to the effect of, “we may not know exactly who they are, but we can be sure they are not worse than Gaddafi.” Famous last words as the removal of Gaddafi led to his warehouses of armaments flooding into the hands of what would emerge as a new threat, ISIS, and other weapons ended up killing innocents in Mali. All of this left Libya a failed state. One of my most memorable moments over my years in parliament was to be the only MP to vote against the bombing of Libya instead of moving to peace talks, the placement of peacekeepers to guard those warehouses and a peaceful transition, arrest and trial of Gaddafi and so on. After over three hundred MPs stood to vote yea, and the Speaker called for all voting nay, I have never felt more isolated than standing alone.
Years later, retired General and forever hero Romeo Dallaire commented on that catastrophic decision.
And when the people of Syria needed R2P, it was blocked in the UN Security Council as Putin pointed out that the Libya experience proved R2P was a Trojan Horse for regime change. The tragedy of hundreds of thousands of Syrians losing their lives to that murderous regime haunts me.
Many, like Pierre Poilievre, will argue Canada has no role in helping Syria now. Convenient and morally bankrupt. We have a moral obligation to help Syria rebuild and to embrace a democratic society built on the rule of law. We cannot wash our hands of the crisis. The departure of Bashar Al Assad for exile in Russia is good news, still, all too easily Syria could descend into more violence. We must sign up for the rebuilding of a safe and viable country.
One last sharing for this morning, back to the infernal Trans Mountain pipeline and the $21 million to shut down Burnaby’s criticism of TMX. This was my debate on Wednesday night, plus the link to the great tank farm fire explainer from Bob Bossin, only one in a hundred bears bite. I cannot find the updated video. But even though nearly eight years old, it remains a very strong and accurate case against the expanded tank farm.
I am heading back to Ottawa after church this morning. fall economic Statement on Monday, and yes, serving dinner at Our Place on Tuesday. What a world! Thank heavens for all of you!!!
Please – if you can — help us out so the Green Party of Canada can close out 2024 with a big bank account as we face a 2025 election.
Much love!!!
And in the words of Dickens’ little Tiny Tim, “God bless us everyone!”
Elizabeth
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