Writers Can Get Caught in Web

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By Jason Menard

Dave, Dave, Dave. You broke two of the cardinal rules of the Information Age: Don’t do anything that you’re not willing to stand behind for years to come; and just because everyone CAN blog, doesn’t mean everyone SHOULD blog.

Too often people think that a strike of the delete key is enough to erase one’s activities from the electronic world. Some think that their thoughts and actions can simply get lost in the vastness of the Internet world — unfortunately, we’ve seen time and time again that nothing is every truly gone.

Dave Burghardt, son of former Liberal MP Jack and a now-former campaign worker for Glen Pearson’s Liberal bid for the London North-Centre riding, is suffering the political fallout from blogging. And while he’s apologized for his self-professed indiscretions and ill-chosen words, the fact is that if he wasn’t going to stand behind what he wrote in the first place, he never should have committed his thoughts to ink – or cyber ink as the case may be.

Simply put, everyone and their mother can blog, but that doesn’t mean everyone should. Most people can write a sentence, but that doesn’t mean they’re qualified to write for a newspaper, does it? So why should the standard be any less on-line? There are a very few responsible bloggers who take their craft seriously. There are a number of quality reporters and opinion columnist who ascribe to the basic tenets of journalism. They provide fair and balanced reports, or informed commentary, based on facts. They avoid libelous situations and stand by their actions.

Then there are the stream-of-conscious bloggers who feel their life story is fodder for the masses. For these people, their self-inflated view that their life is of interest to all generally runs out of gas. These blogs get abandoned once the novelty – or notoriety – wears off.

But these are innocent, mindless blogs. Fluff, as you would have it. Unfortunately, there is a segment of our society who believes in the anonymity of the Internet. They believe that their effects posting – either behind their own name, or through a pseudonym — only exists in Cyberspace and can’t be traced back to their every day lives. But, as Burghardt has discovered, these things can come back to bite you – hard.

It’s a safe assumption to say that nothing is every permanently deleted on the Internet. I’m sure there are ways known to people who are smarter than I am, but for the most part it’s safe to say that anything that ventures into the World Wide Web can be retrieved for years to come. And that’s not a bad thing.

Bloggers need to treat their forum with the same respect that people who write for publications do. They need to understand that their text will have the same permanency that someone who is dealing in newsprint and ink has. In fact, in some cases, those who write on the Web have a longer reach and more permanence than those who write for local publications. While an article that exists only in print may be kept in an archive, only to be discovered when someone blows off the dust from the storage box, those pieces that appear on the Internet can be searched for by people all around the world, in real time, whenever they choose.

Articles can be copied and posted on others’ Web sites. They can be linked to or mirrored. They can be quoted, referenced, or acknowledged on literally thousands of other sites without the original author’s knowledge or permission.

So it’s clear that a simple delete of the files just won’t cut it.

Blogging is still in its infancy. And, in fact, many of those with an on-line presence who deal in the creation of opinions pieces avoid labelling themselves with the term Blogger due to its negative connotations. However, as this forum of expression continues to grow, so too will the understanding that one must stand behind each and every comment one makes.

On-line or in print, a responsible opinion writer will adhere to strict journalistic principles of truth and fact-checking. The writer should be aware of libel issues and avoid writing anything that could be considered to contravene the laws of this country. And that takes research, understanding, and knowledge. Most importantly, you have to realize that your commentary today can resonate for years to come. I am proud to say that I stand behind each and every piece I’ve written over the past decade – and I can do so in confidence because I’ve taken extreme care to write what I believe, based on facts, knowledge, and opinion.

One’s opinion may change over time – which is the natural effect of growing older. But if you’re going to venture into the world of on-line commentary, make sure that you understand its permanency. If you want to write hate literature, or any other sort of commentary that you feel may affect you negatively in the future, then be smart about it and use pencil and paper – or maybe even an Etch-a-Sketch. That way, when you erase it, it’s permanent.

If you choose to write things that you feel will cause you embarrassment in the future, resist the lure of positing on-line. After all, if you play with fire, you’re likely to get burned. Ask Dave Burghardt about that.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Headless Liberals Could Return Sooner Than Expected

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By Jason Menard

If Canadians are willing to throw their support behind a rudderless ship, can you imagine what will happen when the Liberals finally choose a leader to guide it into the next election?

Listen, we all know what dogs do to polls, but the latest one from Sun Media-SES Research is interesting that the top-driven, Stephen Harper-led Conservative Party now finds itself in a neck-and-neck struggle with the headless, directionless, confused Liberal Party of Canada in the hearts and minds of the voters. With a slim 34 per cent to 32 per cent advantage (which is wiped out thanks to statistical variation), the Conservatives may find that their stay at the helm of Canada may be brief.

The thing the Conservatives have going against them is that they represent only a small minority of Canadians. Most Canucks are socially left-wing, fiscally conservative, and looking for a party that’s willing to take progressive action on soft causes, like social growth and the environment. They also want a party that’s going to balance the books and ensure that the coffers are filled for the future.

Frustratingly enough for Elizabeth May, the Green Party seems to embody most of those ideals – it’s just too few Canadians are willing to seriously consider handing her party the keys to the country. Green policy may be solid in theory, but practically several Canadians hear Green and think Rhino. That’s not a good combination.

But when you look at the national support for Liberal (centre-left), NDP (left), Green (centre-left), and Bloc (get beyond the whole separation thing and you’ll find a big, squishy, socially conscious core), and it’s easy to see that the majority of Canadians don’t consider themselves small c conservative.

While Stephen Harper was able to benefit from Liberal disenchantment and a split left-of-centre vote, it appears this brief taste of Conservative governance has sent a few Canadians running back to the comfort of their social safety net – the left-wing parties.

When people think of Canadians, they think of tolerance, social consciousness, and environmental concern. And these are hardly the hallmarks of the Tories. Rightly or wrongly, many Canadians view the Conservatives as being nothing more than the Republican Party-lite. They see a party willing to cut literacy programs and spend more on military.

So just when everyone was writing off the Liberals as dead in the water for the foreseeable future, here comes the opportunity they’ve been looking for. And that makes the upcoming leadership convention, to be held in Montreal between Nov. 28 and Dec. 2, even more important to the future of the party – and this country as a whole.

Essentially, the delegates flocking to Montreal have an opportunity to elect the Prime Minister in Waiting. Canadians from coast to coast are looking for a party that reflects their values – but they want one that they can believe in. There’s a reason why the Liberal Party of Canada had a stranglehold on Canadian politics for years – and that’s because they represented a palatable compromise for voters from Newfoundland to B.C.

They were the party that would show compassion where it was needed, but still make decisions with the bottom line in mind. When that trust was breached with the sponsorship scandal and various other Liberal missteps, Canadians were left without a place to go.

Hence the minority Conservative government. For some reason in this country we’re not willing to hand the reins over to someone other than the Tories or the Grits. Many-a-time the comment of “well, I like the NDP, but I don’t think they can actually run the country,” has been uttered.

So with Canadians unwilling to embrace the NDP and Green in anything more than a secondary or advocacy capacity, it falls to the Liberals to be the standard bearer for the majority of Canadians. But will the voters agree that the Grits have suffered enough for their transgressions? Will they believe that an adequate lesson has been learned since the last election?

The new leader, whomever it may be, must take the opportunity to position the party as the Liberal party of old. One would think that would favour the Michael Ignatieffs or the Bob Raes who are coming in as relative outsiders, but regardless of who is chosen, they will have to commit to a new dawn of Liberal politics.

Getting back to the basics: fiscal responsibility and a social conscience. It’s a winning recipe for the Liberal Party of Canada and the political environment is ripe for a return to power. After all, when Canadians are willing to cast their ballots for a rudderless ship, imagine what would happen if that vessel was captained by someone with a clear vision and an appreciation of the best that the past has to offer.

Majority rules may come sooner than we all think!

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Matsuzaka Deal Shows Money Trumps Brains

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By Jason Menard

When teams show that they have more money than brains, is it any wonder why people can’t relate to the sport of baseball anymore? This is especially true when the cost of that lunacy ends up being paid by the average fan.

The latest example of finances getting in the way of synapses firing normally is the decision of the Boston Red Sox to throw away $51.1 million in a bid to sign Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. Mind you, that’s essentially a $51.1 million transfer fee – that doesn’t even include the player’s actual salary.

Now, Boston only has to pay the Seibu Lions, Matsuzaka’s home team, should the American League club and the player come to an agreement on terms on a contract. But $51.1 million is ridiculous and it marks an investment that can never yield an adequate return.

I don’t care if Matsuzaka is Cy Young, Satchel Paige, and Roger Clemens all rolled up into one, no pitcher is worth an outlay of over $50 million. Last I checked, baseball is a team game, and Matsuzaka will only pitch once every five games at most. His impact, while noteworthy, will never be able to match the expectations that this initial financial outlay demands. In the end, Matsuzaka runs the very real risk of being weighed down by his expectations – and it’s hard to throw an effective fastball with that much weight on your shoulders.

The biggest problem with this outrageous fee is the cost it exacts on the game as a whole. Baseball has long been plagued by a deep divide between the haves and the have nots. Unlike football, basketball, and now even hockey, there are a significant number of teams that begin the season fully aware that they’re not going to be able to compete. And for every Minnesota dream team that comes up, there are dozens of Yankees, Red Sox, and Cardinals to stomp them down. In most sports, hope springs eternal in the off-season. In baseball, the off-season simply is the prelude to a dénoument that begins the moment after that first pitch is thrown.

Close to home, the Toronto Blue Jays enter this season begging their corporate overlords to loosen the purse strings a bit to increase the budget into the $90-95 million range. And here we have the Red Sox committing $50+ million just for the right to negotiate with a player? Forgive fans for not leaping off the baseball bandwagon.

And this type of insanity isn’t restricted to baseball. Soccer is also known for its financial lunacy. In 2001, Real Madrid paid Juventus a record 45.62 million pounds for the rights to Zinedine Zidane. Not content with that acquisition, that same year, they also bought the rights to Luis Figo from Barcelona for 38.7 million pounds. The next year they acquired the rights to Brazilian star Ronaldo for 28.49 million pounds.

Even our beloved hockey isn’t immune to this type of activity. Transfer agreements with the various European leagues are in place to compensate teams for the loss of players to National Hockey League Clubs. But lately there’s been a significant amount of friction between the Russian league and the NHL, as the Russians are looking for soccer-type transfer fees for the rights to their players.

Transfer fees have their place. They compensate players and leagues for losing players. And this money is then able to go back into the system to help develop the next generation of stars. Unfortunately, where the system falls down is when it gets so exorbitant that only a select few have the means and the wherewithal to compete for players.

This lunacy on its own wouldn’t be so bad. Sports aren’t about a huggy-feely commune working together so everyone’s sitting around the rink singing Kumbaya. It’s a competitive environment and the goal of any game is to win. However, the cost of a team aggressively approaching player acquisition is inevitably paid for by the average fan. Through increased ticket prices, increased concession prices, and other ancillary charges, the average person is forced to bear the burden of the owner’s folly.

So in the end, you’re left with one small group of fans bearing the financial cost of these high-priced signings and one larger group of fans who are well aware that their team can’t compete on or off the field with these deep-pocketed clubs. And how is that good for the game in the end?

Maybe Matsuzaka’s going to be worth every single penny the Red Sox eventually pay him. I hope he is, because he’s caught in a very high-stakes game here not of his own design. Unfortunately, he and the fans who support his team are the ones who are going to feel pinch caused by this deal.

It doesn’t matter if this pinch comes in the form of increased pressure on the player, or increased financial burden for the fan. Either way, it ends up hurting everyone involved.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

A Missed Opportunity for Political Reform

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By Jason Menard

That’s it?

All this cloak-and-dagger intrigue? Everything he said about revelations from the back rooms that were going to be brought forth? All he had to say about how so many would not be happy with him on Parliament Hill?

And that’s it?

Former Conservative MP Garth Turner played the media like a rented fiddle and came out with the whopping announcement that he was tearing up his Conservative Party card and sitting as an independent!

OK. So he’s essentially said, you can’t fire me because I quit to Stephen Harper. And then he rattled on about sitting as an independent, how much more he’s been able to do as an independent, and a bunch of other statements, all of which were pleasant and all, but certainly nothing substantive.

The mysterious letters? Nothing more than the inner machinations of a jilted party deciding to turf one of their rowdier members. Sure, the fact that this means that they’re ignoring the will of a significant number of voters in Turner’s riding is noteworthy, but it’s not the first time it’s been done, now, has it?

No, in the end Turner missed out on a grand opportunity. He had a chance, and the forum, to call for real, substantive changes. He had a chance to rally a disenfranchised voting public around him and call for true reform to the Canadian political system. He had a chance to start the ball rolling for a future where MPs actually represent the best interests of their constituents.

And he dropped the ball.

He watered down his remarks, insisting that this was a cross-party issue. He stopped far short of calling out his own party, preferring to lob gentle accusations, the nature of which the public has known for months now.

On the bright side, Turner did announce the launching of a new Web site,www.promiseskept.ca, which at the time of this writing featured an image that looked like it was ripped from an inspirational poster – you know, the ones that say Determination or Focus – along with teaser text hearkening a new dawn for a public voice and political accountability in Canada.

But to what end? What should have been done? And if Turner’s serious about returning representation to the role of Member of Parliament, how should that be mandated?

The solutions aren’t simple and require a dramatic change in the way we look at politics in this country. Party politics are counter-productive and only serve to get parties elected. The system doesn’t actually work for representing the needs of individual groups or regions. You can vote in an MP, but if the will and intent of the riding contravenes that of the Party of which your elected representative is a member then Party trumps voters.

In fact, there’s even a role in politics that encourages this type of counterintuitive representation – the Whip. That’s the little weasel (or muscle, but I prefer to be derogatory when discussing this scourge on the political scene) who keeps the party members “in line.” It is the Whip’s role to let the party peons know what the big boys and girls – oh, sorry… I should have stuck to boys in this Old Boys’ Club… It’s up to the Whip to keep all the party members abreast of the voting preferences of the party leadership and ensure that all the members abide by that directive. And the directive of the voters, who may not agree? Not important to the Whip.

So what’s the solution? Abolishing party politics isn’t the answer. First off, the financial incentives for keeping this style around are too great, and secondly there are times when there is an advantage of having a group of similarly inclined politicians working together on common causes. So the key is to give MPs more freedom – the freedom to vote according to the will of the majority of their constituents.

Please note that I did not say they can vote on their personal beliefs, but rather any decision must be a fair representation of the constituency that the candidate represents. A plebiscite or poll on every question would be far too cumbersome, but there has to be a way for MPs to gauge the will of the people they’re supposed to represent.

The problem with this is that our system still encourages – in fact, is based upon – the notion that plurality of voters are all that’s needed to earn representation. No majority rule here, just more than the other guys. And that results, frequently, in a situation where the constituency is represented by someone for whom a majority of the constituents did not vote. How is that representative? And in that case how can any MP go to Ottawa thinking they represent the will of a constituency?

Is it not time to look at a form of proportional representation, wherein multiple representatives are sent from a region, reflective of how many votes were earned. At its simplest, a region could be large enough for 10 representatives, but instead of a winner-takes-all approach, seats would be allocated by votes. If Party A gets 60 per cent of the votes, they send six representatives. Party B earned 30 per cent and Party C got 10 per cent? Then you end up with 10 seats allocated as follows: six As, three Bs, and one C.

Every vote then truly counts. And every voice is represented. Logistically, it would take a lot of time – including re-drawing electoral maps so that our Parliament isn’t suddenly inundated with 10 times as many MPs. But it could be done.

As Turner said today, the current system – specifically party politics — doesn’t work. But what he didn’t do was go far enough. It’s time for a change in the way we’re represented in this country. And we need to ensure that every vote counts.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Misplaced Call for Restraint

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By Jason Menard

Some lawyers need to obtain a sense of perspective before they start throwing around accusations – after all, the bigger the glass house, the more shards can come crashing down. And, in the case of a St. Thomas man charged with sexually assaulting his child, this so-called lack of restraint may help to prevent similar episodes from occurring.

Bob Upsdell, the lawyer for a St. Thomas man who has been charged with sexually assaulting his own child live on the Internet – an act which allegedly was witnessed and acted upon by an undercover officer – is tossing the word restraint a little too loosely when it comes to castigating the police for releasing information about the trial.

Restraint? Restraint? Perhaps, if the claims are true, his client should have shown a little more restraint when it came to abusing his own offspring. Instead of chastising police and superciliously stating that they need to “restrain their need for validation of the work they do,” perhaps this lawyer should realize that he’s dealing with a client that allegedly should have shown more restraint in his need to validate his need for sexual gratification by fondling his own child.

When treading through filth like this, one must tread lightly. Upsdell instead has jumped in with both feet – and now those feet are lodged firmly in his mouth.

As repugnant as the charges may be, everyone is entitled to a fair trial. But the nature of this crime – allegedly willfully violating the parent/child trust for sexual gratification – is so abhorrent that the normal rules of decorum need to be thrown out. When one has seemingly shown so little regard for one’s humanity, it’s hard to take a position of moral superiority, but that’s what Upsdell has done.

Yet Upsdell is simply trying to protect the rights of his client. As any good lawyer should, he has his client’s best interests at heart. And in an attempt to ensure a fair trial, he’s well within his right to argue that police comments have the potential for tainting the jury pool. But knowing public sentiment for the crime his client has been literally seen doing, he should have come out in a less accusatory tone.

In the end, all Upsdell has created is more animosity for his client. I would think that one’s hard-pressed to find someone who sympathizes with his client’s plight. In fact, I would think the only reason that people are in agreement with the generalities of Upsdell’s argument. If all the reports are true, then it’s safe to say that no one wants to see the accused go free. As such, the general public are just as invested in making sure that all the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed.

Sympathy for his client is in short supply, and appealing for that is a wasted effort. However, appearing conciliatory and co-operative will help ensure that public image only stays at the repugnant level. Actions like this only move it closer to the abhorrent category.

The fact of the matter is that you’re never going to find a virgin jury pool — and, honestly, do we really want to have a group of people who are so removed from the news and realities of the world that they are unaware of this case deciding the fate of anyone, anywhere?

All you can hope for is that a jury of this man’s peers – and thankfully that doesn’t mean a pool of other alleged sub-human child molesters – will be able to execute their responsibility with all the respect and attention it deserves. We don’t live in a vacuum, so the reality is that we have to trust that people are able to separate speculation, emotion, and hearsay from the cold, blunt facts.

The jury pool’s already been tainted by Upsdell’s client’s alleged actions. If true, he has no one to blame but himself for that. And when you’ve shown a complete disregard for the rules and regulations of our society – and, in fact, the very essence of human decency – then taking a stand based on human rights is one that’s not based on the firmest of footing.

Could the police have shown a little more restraint in releasing the evidence? Maybe. But I, for one, am happy that their actions may help to prevent actions like this in the future. Knowing that there are police acting undercover in chat rooms and watching the going’s-on may give just one person pause to reconsider his or her actions. It’s not going to solve all the problems. And if the Net becomes too unsafe, people who are of the mind to commit these atrocious crimes will simply find another venue.

But if only one child has been saved from just one incident of molestation, then I for one applaud the police’s lack of restraint. If only Upsdell’s client practiced the same standard of restraint that his lawyer expects of others.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved