Liberals must accept blame for sub death (Canada)

Liberals must accept blame for subs:

They refuse to spend money on the military, and then wonder why equipment fails

The Edmonton Journal - Page: A18 - Lorne Gunter
Sun 10 Oct 2004

In Arthur Miller's 1947 play, All My Sons, industrialist Joe Keller knowingly ships defective aircraft pistons to the U.S. military. During the Second World War, the pistons are installed in planes that crash, killing 22 pilots, including Keller's son Larry. Three years later, as his mind crumbles under the guilt, Keller sobs "they were all my sons."

In light of all the recent deaths of Canadian servicemen in faulty subs, under-armoured patrol vehicles and decrepit, old helicopters, I wonder if any member of the Liberal government is as tortured as Joe Keller by the cabinet's decade-long plot to choke off funding to our military?

Tragically, I suspect Liberal ministers sleep well at night, comforted by rationalizations like the one offered by Sheila Copps in the National Post on Friday.

Copps claimed the Liberal Cabinet didn't want to buy the HMCS Chicoutimi, the used submarine that caught fire on her "maiden" voyage this week, taking the life of one of her officers.

Cabinet, according to Copps, turned down the purchase from the British of the Chicoutimi and her three dented and rusting sister subs, not once, but three times over six years.

Copps, ever the stalwart sniffer-outer of wasteful spending (ha!), even insisted that she had asked the minister of defence on the third go-round, "If these submarines are such a good deal, why have they been sitting on the market for years with no takers?"

No, no, no; don't blame us, Copps argued in the Post, "it was the military that begged the government to purchase these duds." Blame "the men and women in uniform."

Let's follow this logic for a second: If a child is obese because his parents can't resist his constant entreaties for candy and ice cream, are we to assume then that the child's fatness is his own fault for having begged?

Under the Copps theory of responsible government, one would have to conclude, "yes."

Say that senior military commanders in the Canadian Forces did, in fact, "beg" cabinet for these subs. Who is it who ultimately gave approval for the purchase? Not the commodores and colonels; it was cabinet. It was Sheila Copps and her colleagues.

Even if the chief of the defence staff and the admiral in charge of our navy pleaded and pleaded with Cabinet, the ultimate decision to buy the subs, and, under our style of government, the ultimate accountability for buying them. rests squarely and solely with Cabinet.

Moreover, the military brass does not come before Cabinet directly to argue its case for buying subs or planes or tanks, and so on. As Copps admitted, "It took three (consecutive defence) ministers to convince a skeptical Cabinet to buy used submarines."

The requests to buy the subs were made by Liberal politicians to their cabinet colleagues, not by uniformed officers.

The commanders may have been pressuring the minister of defence to buy the vessels, but Cabinet and Cabinet alone gave the approval, based on a pitch from a minister within the Cabinet.

Last year, Liberal Senator Serge Joyal authored a paper claiming that Canadian voters do not elect the government. Elections are about "choosing those who hold the government responsible." The governor-general selects the real government -- the Cabinet -- based on election results. And members of the House of Commons are only in Ottawa to hold that government to account, not to be the nation's government themselves.

This may clash with your notion of democracy, in which the people are the ultimate power and their elected representatives -- not Cabinet -- are the government. But Joyal's view is dominant among academics, judges and those in control in Ottawa.

That being the case. Copps's prevarications are doubly outraging. They amount to saying, "We, the Cabinet, have all the power, but bear none of the responsibility when things go wrong."

On the contrary, if the Cabinet IS the government, then pressure from generals or not, Copps and her colleagues bear ALL the responsibility for the sub purchase.

Moreover, I doubt Canada's senior commanders "begged" for these four clunkers from Honest Nigel's Used Boat Shop. I suspect they resigned themselves to the fact that they would never get the anti-military Liberal Cabinet -- ever -- to buy decent subs, so they kept pushing for these subs because they realized they were the best ones they would ever get. Cabinet finally gave the green light once the subs were so decrepit that the Brits offered to give them to us for just the cost of refitting them.

Now Conservative MP John Cummins of B.C. has discovered that the Liberals have given our Coast Guard approval to buy a hovercraft from the British that, like the subs, has been in mothballs for a decade.

Cummins claims the former ferry is ill-suited to coastal search-and-rescue in high seas, has dubious engines and lacks a front bow ramp "essential to medical evacuations" and needed by rescue divers "to get back on board the hovercraft."

How long before this inadequate vessel capsizes in rough winter waters off Vancouver Island and the Sheila Copps's of this country blame the disaster on the Coast Guard itself?

Lorne Gunter

Columnist/Editorial Writer, National Post

Columnist, Edmonton Journal

They spent their money on sex change operations instead of equipment. My mandatory reply to any Canadian Military posting:

Copyright 1998 Micromedia Limited
Canadian Business and Current Affairs
Copyright 1998 United Western Communications Ltd.
Alberta Report

September 14, 1998

SECTION: v.25(39) S 14'98 pg 34-35; ISSN: 0225-0519

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4303175

LENGTH: 736 words

HEADLINE: The military's changing face: a soldier gets a free sex change, despite an inadequate army medical budget

BODY:
Over the last 20 years, the Canadian Forces have been bogged down in a continuous and enormous battle. So far, it has not involved any bloodshed: it is a battle fought from behind desks, between those who want to remodel the army for political purposes and those who believe that combat-readiness should be paramount. The political warriors scored perhaps their most resounding victory on September 1, when the Department of National Defence confirmed that it had approved a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation for a soldier.

The individual at the centre of the furore is still unnamed, but sources indicate that "he" is a sergeant who services computers at the Tunney's Pasture government complex in Ottawa. The staff at Tunney's Pasture observe casual Fridays, replacing military uniforms with relaxed clothing. The gender-confused sergeant apparently gave a new meaning to "casual Friday" and declared his orientation by arriving for work in women's clothing: on one Friday, according to a military insider, he sported a lavender pantsuit.

The Canadian Press reported September 1 that the sergeant's request for a sex-change was the first in the history of the Canadian military. DND spokesman Elaine McArdle says, however, that past requests for sex reassignment have been considered and rejected. Earlier applicants, according to Ms. McArdle, were unable to provide the review committee with sufficient evidence that they suffered a gender-identity disorder.

In this case, the decision to proceed with surgery was made after doctors performed thorough physical and mental examinations and concluded that the surgery would be in the soldier's best interest. "It would have been difficult to deny him when the province would pay," says Ms. McArdle, referring to the fact that provincial healthcare systems will pay for sex reassignment under certain circumstances.

"They just finished getting a scathing report on the poor care that the injured get, and now they come up with sex-change operations," fumes Leon Benoit, the Reform Party's deputy defence critic and a member of the Commons' Standing Committee on Defence and Veterans Affairs (SCODVA). Mr. Benoit is upset that DND uses a comparison with provincial healthcare in justifying the sur-gery, when basic military medical care is not up to pro-vincial standards. SCODVA studies and an internal military study have shown that many military families face extreme economic need and that soldiers injured in the line of duty do not receive ad-equate care. The sex-change operation will cost between $10,000 and $20,000.

"The priorities of the military are convoluted," says Scott Taylor, editor of Esprit de Corps magazine. "Soldiers from Bosnia who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other injuries are not getting proper support, but meanwhile they are taking on other functions."

The department itself does not seem particularly proud of the decision, which was made by assistant deputy defence minister and Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire. Despite the commitment to "openness" which was supposed to follow the convoluted Somalia scandal, military spokesmen denied in March that a sex-change was under consideration. In the ensuing months, questions from the press generated a blizzard of evasions and double-talk, and although the surgery was approved in July, the military did not own up until last week, when proof of the order for surgery was leaked to the press.

The fact that the information was leaked speaks to the dissension within the Canadian Forces. "For the junior and middle-rank officers, it takes a lot of courage to release this information to the public," says Mr. Taylor. "There is a fight between loyalty and integrity. They have to choose between their loyalty to the institution and the people in charge. Truth, duty and valour are not upheld, so they break off."

Robert McNoughton, a 55-year-old former artilleryman, first heard the news on September 2 as he relaxed with a beer at the Canadian Legion branch in Edmonton's Norwood district. After a moment of disbelief, he had this to say: "These last 10 years it's getting to be a farce. An army is to defend your country. It's not a game. It's not a matter of want. You commit yourself...It's a matter of pride in your country. This makes the Canadian army a laughingstock."

JOURNAL-CODE: 0502 LOAD-DATE: July 01, 1999

"Personally, I'm all ready to pass the U.S. citzenship test with flying colors but I can't imagine why America would want 9 - or more realistically 3 or 4 based upon population - additional likely pretty much solidly Democrat-voting States?"

Oil!!! The USA imports 60% of it from Canada. Also, I don't see Saskatchawan, Alberta, and Manitoba going Democrat. B.C. is probably a toss up, Ontario would be hard-core Dem along with PEI and the Newfies.

Overall, it would be a good deal for both. Canadians would get a much more representative government, the First Peoples would get better protections under US law than they get under Canadian law. The US would be able to resolve the porous border and US industries could partner up with their Canadian fellows to exploit the vast resources of the Canadian Shield.

".... and you're right. America would have to universally replace "mom's apple pie" with crack cocaine to ever seriously consider accepting Quebec with all its language - and especially attitudinal - problems!"

My preference would be for Quebec to go independent instead of switching from being a drain on Canada to being a drain on the USA. In a merge with the USA the Quebecers would lose their special rights such as the rest of the country having to be biligual while they extinguish English in their midst - the US Supreme Court would never let that fly. Quebec would find themselves on the sh!t end of the stick if their arrogance surfaced in the US Senate. The House may handle them better, but the Senate would censure and eject just about any of the extant Quebecers for their arrogance and blatant racism.

"... I don't see Saskatchawan, Alberta, and Manitoba going Democrat. B.C. is probably a toss up, Ontario would be hardcore Dem along with PEI and the Newfies."

First, please accept that one of my fondest desires is to live long enough to die under the protection of the magnificent United States Constitution. And, if not me, at least my children.

As for your analysis, we can agree on Quebec and on the vast majority of Albertan having their heads screwed on right and on BC being a toss-up. Like California, BC is very politically polarized and its residents tend to either be conservatives or some of the most vile socialists in the nation.

However, you're unfortunately wrong about Manitoba and Saskatchawan which both habitually elect NDP socialist governments. Plus, Ontario, minus Toronto, is also a toss-up. Please appreciate:
Only Alberta and Ontario contribute more financially to Canada than they receive in return and, with this the case, have had enough of Ottawa's imposed socialism.
With a population of over 3 million, Toronto is North America's fifth largest urban area. It's smaller only than NYC, Chicago, LA and Houston and more populous than many U.S. States. It home to over ten percent of Canada's otherwise very remotely scattered population and wields the undue influence of being its de facto media and financial capitol. It's also accepts the vast majority of the, primarily third world, immigration entering the country. For these reasons and more, it attracts left-wing vermin, including radical gays and feminists, like no other city in North America. In the 60's and 70's it was inundated with thousands mainly well-educated and upwardly mobile U.S. draft dodgers and military deserters; many of whom remain and have now risen to positions of influence. In short, the seven million or so Ontarians living outside of Toronto are considerably more conservative-minded.

The four Atlantic provinces are largely a joke. Even lumped together, they have a smaller combined population than Toronto. They've been propped up financially by Alberta and Ontario for generations and most of their citizens with any ambition and (or) an honest aversion to regularly accepting public assistance left long ago. Maritimers habitually vote for the Party, usually the Liberals, offering the largest most handouts although, of late, the NDP's (an openly socialist party) has been steadily growing in the region.

I've got to stop being so honest or America will never invade - LOL!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.