Native Government Folly

A long time ago, when I was a young lawyer, I blindly supported the entrenchment of a "bill" or "charter" of rights into Canada's constitution. I could not understand why certain public figures, such as Allan Blakeney, former NDP premier of Saskatchewan, opposed the idea. Now, almost 25 years and many court decisions later, his wisdom has become paintfully clear. Not only have we seen the rampant development of judicial activism, whereby the prejudices and predelictions of a few unelected and socially remote judges have usurped the law-making power of legislatures and parliament, but the abdication of that power by cowardly and ignorant politicians happily ignoring painfull decisions by leaving them to the courts. The cases are legion, from the most recent creation of the right to marriage to state-paid financial rewards, such as pension rights, for homosexuals, to creating and expanding entitlements of all sorts to native Indians.

Canada has become a society of interest groups claiming entitlement to one "right" or another, meaning one set of "benefits" or another, resulting in a "culture of entitlement". This means that interest groups' desires are constantly elevated to the lofty realm of "rights", yet no corresponding obligations or duties are ever associated with those rights. This is most evident in regard to native land claims and demands for sovereignty. Most of the settlements and agreements establishing payments of money or allocations of lands, and particularly those creating some form of native government, do not include any obligation on natives to husband and develop their resources and emerge into some form of financial independence. In the great Liberal vision we hapless, and unconsulted, taxpayers will remain forever bound to bear the burden of maintaining native bureaucracies and governments.

The Tlicho Land Claims and Self Government Act, about to be entrenched beyond hope of change into our Constitution, is the latest example of this vision. That Act, amazingly, fetters part of Canada's sovereign right to enter into international treaties that might affect the Tlicho natives. It also gives them the right to ignore the Charter of Rights by entrenching racist policies in the governance of the new region. The Tlicho Agremement is not a "full and final" settlement, nor is anything said about the natives' obligations to pay income tax and to pay for their own governance and services. All of this will be automatically entrenched in the Constitution.

Such a stupid agreement will only serve to encourage future claims of equal or greater benefit to other native groups and which will be more and more onerous for future taxpayers. This represents Canada's "Culture of Entitlement" gone wild. Who is to blame for this? Primarily the Liberals and their supporters, and, ultimately, the Canadian electorate, who either approve of such policies or are too ignorant and apathetic to oppose them.

More On Ukraine

The evidence keeps piling up. Now the Ukrainian Supreme Court has just vindicated Yuschenko and his supporters, finding that there was ample evidence of electoral fraud sufficient to invalidate the presidential election. It may be that there might be a new vote taken before Christmas, providing that the electoral machinery can be put into action by then.

Diane Francis, in Saturday's National Post, reported an interview with a Canadian businessman operating an oil exploration business in Crimea, wherein Taras Soltys states that as an election observer he saw election fraud, including people voting who gave non-existent addresses. He can also attest to political corruption severely hampering his business. He claims his business tried to regain drilling and production licenses after some of its oil field licenses were abruptly and inexplicably cancelled without justification, but was turned down, despite having won court cases against trumped up tax charges brought by the local government authorities. Other local insiders, including a son-in-law of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, were granted licenses in nearby areas. They offered to split the revenues if his company put up the money and equipment for new drilling. He turned them down, convinced he never see any money. He likened Ukraine to a banana republic. Mr. Soltys may be forced by the corrupt policies to abandon his efforts and leave Ukraine.

More and more information is emerging to explain the roots of the divisions within the country.

Interestingly, the heavy industries and mining operations in the eastern Ukraine are not competitive in a global economy. Many of the oligarchs who own them gained their wealth and power at least partially as a result of sweetheart deals with local and central politicians. Although they pay their workers, who often work in dangerous, filthy and freezing conditions, poor wages, the workers consider themselves fortunate to have such jobs and income. This explains, in part, why they support Kuchma and Yanukovich. Apparently when Yuschenko was prime minister in 2000 and 2001 he closed some of the mines in the region as part of a national restructuring policy, depriving miners of incomes for a considerable time. Ukraine's miners are not very different from Canada's farmers and unionized workers whose plants have been closed or threatened with closure because of hard times or economic restructuring. They all want subsidies and handouts.

On the other hand, many people in the eastern Ukraine, believe that their opportunities for economic prosperity would increase if they were able to establish economic relations and ties with Europe, enabling them to participate in the global economy.

Ukraine - Almost A Basket Case

The electoral mess in Ukraine is obviously a reflection of the economic and political state of a country which has not been able to move very far away from its sorry state under the heel of the Soviet Union. As in Russia, much of its movement towards the creation of a new economy is based on criminal or semi-criminal organizations, similar to the amassing of private wealth by the 19th century robber barons in countries like the U.S. and Canada. The leading figures in government have either been part of these organizations or dependent on them. In Ukraine the wealthy entrepreneurs who also wield political power are called "oligarchs". These are the people whose "friends" made a strong and effective effort to derail the electoral wishes of most of the citizenry, through threats, firings and other forms of intimidation of students, civil servants, army rank and file and any other groups that they could get at, and through using "absentee ballots" to permit their goons to stuff ballot boxes by multiple voting. It is interesting that in the industrialized and heavily ethnic-Russian east side of Ukraine many union members acted as goons and hooligans in support of the pro-Russian candidate Yanukovitch and his mentor, the outgoing-president. Yanukovitch is a twice-convicted criminal and Kuchma has been accused of some involvement in the death of a journalist who reported unfavourably about his government and its corruption.

The ordinary people, who are poor and near desparation, yearn for betterment, and look to democratic elections as at least one way to improve their lots. It was heartening, in the few days prior to the October 31st presidential election, to see the enthusiasm of the local election officials and the voters, who mastered a rather extensive set of laws and procedures, and then put them into effect in conducting what was, in most locations, an honest and effective election. This can be contrasted with some of the stumbling and uncertainties that accompanied the parliamentary election just two years ago.

The main "opposition" challenger, Yuschenko, while no "man of the people", personified two things - 1. opposition to the corrupt Kuchma regime; and 2. support for stronger ties with Europe - and for those reasons he had almost overwhelming support from the western side of Ukraine, the economy ofwhich is more agriculturally based, and which identifies more with Europe than with Russia.

Anu visitor to Ukraine who ventures into the agricultural countryside cannot fail to be impressed with two things: 1. the rich potential of its landbase for surplus food production; and 2. the equally dismal state of its productive capacity. The Soviet-created collective farms have not given way to more productive forms of organization, the workers on the farms are increasingly elderly and incapable of moving forward (many of the young people have left for the cities), and much of what is produced rots in the fields. As well, there is little storage capacity or ability to move large crops to market. Forms of land ownership, financing of ownership and of infrastructure, as well as of equipment acquisition, have not been developed so as to enable a transition from collective farming to other, more effective ways. Old attitudes, fostered by dependence on political decision making, did not educate people so as to enable them to exercise initiative and independence. Not much is being done to overcome these problems. In the rural areas people live in conditions equivalent to those in some third-world countries. I was warned not to get to close to any nuclear power facilities because their state of repair and maintenance was poor and another Chernobyl could happen at any time.

Such facts as these help to explain why the Ukrainian people were ready to demonstrate for days in Kyiv in order to force a new election.