What to do about terrorism?

There are many blogs from left, right, and center condemning today's bombing in London. This is surely something that everyone in the Canadian blogosphere joins in condemning.

There are differing ideas about what should be done in response. There will inevitably be calls for military action--though the inevitable question is how to pick the target and the unfortunate possibility that some military actions will only become a recruiting tool for the enemy. So, too, police actions. Some will call for action to remove 'the causes of terrorism'. But what are those? Supposing that the ideology behind this recent outrage was caused by a lack of freedom, democracy, or any other good strikes me as extraordinarily naive. The one course we can agree on is to denounce it. But words are insufficient, and since part of the terrorist strategy is to seek publicity, terrorists are likely to believe that the harsher the condemnation, the better.

The sad fact of terrorism is that, like being in quicksand, almost anything that we do will make it worse. Yes, let us improve internal security. Yes, let us strengthen our intelligence and arrest those whom we can catch. And, yes, destroy the infrastructure where we can. But the best revenge, as they say, is living well.

More on our flag

The last few days have seen several discussions about Canada's flag and its origins, largely in response to recent Conservative complaints that our current flag has an especially Liberal heritage.

When we're having this discussion, it is worth looking at an important influence, the flag of the Royal Military College.


This places the college's coat of arms on a white background between red bars. From the Royal Military College site:

The design of the RMC flag proved to be instrumental to the final selection of the Canadian flag in 1965. In fact, the former RMC Dean of Arts, Deputy Director of the Army Historical Section and author of the book The Story of Canada's Flag (Ryerson, 1965), the late George F.G. Stanley, writes that during the great flag debate in 1965, he suggested that the design of the RMC flag be used as the new National flag, substituting the College crest for the styled red maple leaf. From his idea came the flag we know today.

Church clamp down a two-edged sword

The Catholic church, as has been fairly widely reported (see, e.g., here), has begun to punish MPs who had voted for same-sex marriage and against Catholic doctrine.

Many bloggers have commented on this. Those who supported ssm were appalled; those who were opposed, enthused. My view is that the RCs (and other churches) are free to use the whip on their members if they like. But I think they would be wiser not to. There is a potential back-lash here that I think they should be wary of. It was not long ago that JFK had an uphill argument to make in trying to convince protestant America that although a Catholic he did not take marching orders from the pope. Now, the church seems to be saying that all Catholic politicians should do precisely this. But does this mean that we have to begin scrutinizing Catholic politicians more closely than others in order to find out whether they are going to impose church doctrine concerning abortion, divorce, birth control, etc., on the rest of the country? If that process begins, I can only assume that it will work to the detriment of the Church.

Canada-haters, honest critics, and separatists

Over at BlogsCanada, Jim Elve calls on the right to quash Canada-haters, pointing to the collection of comments collected by Peace, Order, and Good Government. The discussion continues, and several commentators point out that many of the anti-Canada posts are not anti-Canada per se, but critical of various aspects of our character and polity, an act that need not be interpreted as anti-patriotic.

The 'smoking (shot)-gun' for the charges of Canada-haters come from comments to several entries in the Western Standard's blog (here and here). I choose several examples that I think illustrate different attitudes. First,

"In short, a Canadian Liberal is a liar, a thief, a bigot, and narcissist, but accuse others of the same. A Canadian conservative is an honest, hardworking person who just wants to make a living and provide for their family."

This post gives us no grounds to complain about anti-Canadianism. This is merely a piece of partisan polemic asserting the virtue of its political soul-mates and the vices of its opponents. This is not anti-Canada, but anti-Liberal. Compare this to

"I'm ashamed to be Canadian. Ashamed of our refusal to assist others, whether it be in the fight against terrorism or our fake committments to the tsunami relief. Our refusal to reform the UN but to instead be an intimate part of its corruption. I'm ashamed of our consistent smug superiority, our condescension to others and our utter ignorance of the hard realities of the world."

Again, I don't think this is necessarily the post of a Canada-hater. Instead, it is someone who is disappointed in a series of political decisions that Canada's government has made over the last decade or so. My third case, however, is something different.

"No one can detest Canada more than I. It's racism, fascism and apartheid are all too obvious. The sooner Alberta leaves this putrid dictatorship, the better off our people will be."

Here, of course, is a Canada-hater: he self-identifies. Nothing could be clearer.

The calls made by Jim Elve, POGGE, and (I'm sure) others that conservative bloggers to quash anti-Canadianism misses the mark. The problem is not so much anti-Canadianism but separatism, and a tendency of conservative commentators to try to use the rise of separatism for their own political ends.

[Edited and revised]

The new flag debate

Over at BlogsCanada, Scott Tribe points out the recent anti-flag stance being increasingly taken by some Conservatives. Ezra Levant, for example, has denounced our current flag as 'Liberal':

Canada Day replaced Dominion Day the way the Liberal-red Pearson Pennant replaced the Red Ensign

Scott quite correctly points out the weird a-historicity of this. The Maple Leaf had been a symbol of Canada long before it was made our flag. Look at the accompanying picture of the war medal awarded to participants in repelling the Fenian raids in 1866. There is nothing very remarkable about the medal--with Queen Victoria on the obverse, a flag of victory on the reverse. But look at the field. What's that? Maple leaves. Indeed, this is the only thing about this medal that iconigraphically identifies it as 'Canadian'.

The same point could be made from the cap badge from World War I to the left. What is Canadian here? Again, it is the maple leaf. And here the maple leaf has taken over the whole medal. Clearly, then, the maple leaf was regarded as a national symbol long before it became our flag in 1965.

Where, then, did Ezra and his kind get the idea that Canada's maple leaf is a Liberal flag? 

It presumably comes from the image to the right: the Liberal Party logo, which has been made to look like the Canadian flag.

In doing this, the Liberals have wrapped themselves in the flag, so to speak. But they are hardly alone in this. To the right is the logo of the Liberal Party in Australia.  There is a flag buried there.

Or Bush-Cheney in the last American election.  Again, note the flag theme.



There is nothing exceptional, then, in a political party associating themselves with national symbols, including the flag. What is exceptional is the petulant rejection of those symbols out of a misguided partisan pique.

Tipping points

I've been trying to broaden my blog reading recently, seeking out worthwhile Conservative and Libertarian posters to include in my blogroll.

Today I found quite an interesting post by N=1 on his/her tipping-point, a highly eloquent discussion of the choices that face socially liberal Conservatives. Do, please, go read the whole thing, a particularly quotable bit is this:

Harper and the CPC appear to be opposing SSM with a tenacity, a ferocity, that they reserve for absolutely nothing else. Not health care, property rights, war, trade, separatism, terrorism... nothing. It is easy to conclude that fighting an inevitably losing battle against allowing gay Canadians to wed one another must be the single most important thing in the CPC platform. We hear from the CPC nothing but compromise on the issues that will actually affect my personal life: compromise on taxes, compromise on medicare, compromise on fatty foods for Heaven's sake. But on a matter which will not directly affect me at all, the CPC is ready (aye, ready!) to Fight To The Death. It has become readily apparent to me that the CPC doesn't actually care about my issues at all. They evidently care about the issues of those who don't much like gay people, and who don't think homosexuality is normal. But I like gay people--at least, I like them as much as straight people, which is to say I like them as much as I like any individual. And I think homosexuality is normal--at least, it's as "normal" as any type of human predilection in which no-one is injured and in which all participants engage willingly. I accept that for millions of Canadian Christians, Jews, and Muslims, homosexuality is considered evil. They're wrong, and I no longer wish to associate with a party that acts as if it agrees with these Canadians.

The question that comes to mind, however, is why does this tipping point for N=1 come now? I hesitate to offer an explanation for someone I don't know. But it strikes me that the passage of C-38 may be the important fact. That the leader of a Conservative party might oppose changing the definition of marriage should not cause us much surprise--even if we disagree with him. But now that the law is passed, ssm is the new status quo, and Harper's promise to repeal it becomes not a conservative gesture but a radical one. The leverage has changed, and many Canadians who were neutral or tepid about ssm will very soon discover that they have tipped over into accepting it.

No Comment

Norquay quits

Ottawa — Stephen Harper's communications team will be stripped to the bone after two key members announced they will leave their posts. Their departures follow those of two other senior PR staffers who quit in recent weeks.

Geoff Norquay, the affable and accessible director of communications, and Yaroslav Baran, the strategic communications director, announced Wednesday that this would be the last day.

"I've decided for personal reasons to move on. I'm not going to discuss those reasons," said Mr. Norquay.

Comuzzi should be praised, not criticized, for resigning

Many have no doubt already noticed the story that Joe Comuzzi has resigned his cabinet post rather than voting for same-sex marriage (see here).

I have not much engaged with the question of the ssm on this site, but I doubt if many will be surprised that I disagree with Comuzzi over ssm. Nevertheless, I think Comuzzi has done the right thing. As many have pointed out before, more free votes for parliamentarians would be a good thing. But in our system of government, cabinet solidarity is important: any government bill is by its nature a bill that cabinet has accepted collective responsibility to promote. If a cabinet minister disagrees with a bill to the extent that he cannot support it, he should resign.

Thus, I would argue, Comuzzi should be praised for what he has done, not criticized. (Of course, I might feel differently about this if ssm were to lose by a vote because of this.)

KMG: Accentuate the Contradictions

Over at the Ambler, Kevin Michael Grace eviscerates Harper in his Accentuate the Contradictions, which includes what I think is the best paragraph I've seen summarizing the contradictions:

Back on May 19, the Conservatives got the confidence motion the Liberals had long denied them. They stood shoulder to shoulder with the Bloc Québécois that day and lost by a single vote. Five weeks later, the Liberals faced another confidence vote, again precipitated by the desire the Conservatives share (or shared) with the Bloc to force an election. This time they came up five votes short, after falling victim to the same "counting problem" that brought down Joe Clark's Conservative government in 1980. Instead of sacking his House leadership, Stephen Harper decided to blame the Bloc for forcing a vote he'd demanded repeatedly.

"When push comes to shove, the Liberals will make any deal with anybody," Harper said after the vote. "And it doesn't matter whether it's with the socialists or with the separatists or any bunch of crooks they can find. That's how they govern the country."

The problem with Harper's math

As many have already noted, Steven Harper stuck his foot in it this afternoon by suggesting that the law that is about to grant marriage rights to gays is somehow less valid because it is being supported by the Bloc (see here). As it is, the vote will probably be 166-142 (see here). Let's look at the breakdown.

	FOR	AGAINST
ROC	101	132
Quebec (Bloc)	47	7
Quebec (Liberal)	18	3
Total	166	142

If the Bloc were not voting, he points out, ssm-marriage would not pass. But if the Bloc did not exist, there would be other MPs in their place, and given that support for ssm-marriage is higher in Quebec than in any other province, we can assume that these notional MPs would have voted not much differently than the Bloc did.

And this, of course, is the other irony. Many of the Bloc are old Tories--part of the Mulroney coalition that went so disastrously wrong. If the Bloc did not exist, the Conservative vote on ssm would not be so one-sided. Indeed, it probably would more closely reflect the division in the country as a whole. But that itself is a problem. Most polls on this legislation suggest that Canadians are split 50-50 on the law. The Conservatives are 95-3.

Hypocrisy, thy name is politics!

I'm not quite sure what to make of this story:

OTTAWA (CP) - Conservative Leader Stephen Harper says most Canadians won't think the same-sex marriage law is legitimate because it will only pass with support from the separatist Bloc Quebecois. The bill legalizing same-sex marriage is set to pass in the Commons this week.

The other three parties in the Commons jumped on Harper's remarks. Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe says his party has as much legitimacy as the Tories in Parliament, and that it's called democracy. NDP Leader Jack Layton says the Conservative leader's latest outburst is further proof of why his party's popularity is in decline. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler says the Bloc is a legitimate party in Parliament.

What is going on in this guy's head? Sure, many of us wish that the BQ didn't exist. But as long as it does, and as long as Bloquistes have seats in Parliament, they will have a role in making our laws. That doesn't impact the validity of those laws.

(And for those who follow such things: Harper didn't seem to think that BQ votes were any less valid when it came to voting for his non-confidence motions. But this is surely the politicians disease--condemn today what you embraced yesterday. Hypocrisy, they name is politics.)

Harper appeals to socially conservative immigrants

Over at The Amazing Wonderdog, Skippy notes that Harper's choice to be in Toronto on Pride weekend, but avoid the parade and instead went to a Muslim convention where he spoke in defence of traditional marriage.

For the newsstory, see here):

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper told a Muslim convention in Mississauga that the Liberals are in league with the NDP and Bloc Québécois to erase the traditional concept of marriage.

"You believe, I believe, most Canadians believe that the traditional institution of marriage should be recognized and respected in law," Mr. Harper said. "Unfortunately, the Liberal government doesn't believe this. It is working with their allies in the NDP and the separatists to attack these beliefs and to abolish the traditional institution of marriage."

This makes some strategic sense: the ssm-marriage issue at least theoretically provided Harper with the opportunity of improving their share of the immigrant vote in Ontario.

But all signs are this hasn't worked. Why? In the comments to Skippy's post, Greg of Sinister Thoughts makes a perspicacious observation:

Harper got a polite reception [at the Muslim convention] but his message was not overwhelmingly endorsed. In fact the crowd seemed to have agreed more with Joe Volpe's message of group rights and tolerance.

And here, I suspect, is the rub. A country that will give equal rights to homosexuals is a country where every minority has a chance at equal rights. If we refuse to tolerate gays--a member of any other minority might ask--whose rights will be compromised next?

In addition, I think that this dynamic has special resonance in the post-9/11 world. There was an anti-Muslim backlash following September 11th, and many Muslims were made to feel insecure about their place here. This insecurity, I suspect, decreases any desire on their part to undermine the rights of others.

Tories in no hurry to vote on same-sex bill

The G&M (see the link above) reports that many Conservatives will want to speak against the same-sex marriage bill, the idea being to stretch out the process as much as possible. Neither the Liberals or the NDP seem keen on cutting-off the debate or forcing an immediate vote. So it'll be a long, hot couple weeks for MPs.

Update. A slightly different emphasis this morning in the Globe (see here): fewer Conservatives will speak against the bill than did at second reading.

Did a Conservative nominee call Layton a Nazi?

For those who missed it, the Conservative nominee in Edmonton-Centre (which is currently represented by Anne McLellan), Laurie Hawn has a blog in which he shares his thoughts on life and politics. Most of what he says is the sort of stuff that one would expect. His party's positions are advanced, those of the other parties criticized. That is only to be expected, and I think this new phenomenon of creating direct access to politicians is a good thing.

In a recent entry, A Conflict of Hypocrisies, Mr. Hawn accuses Jack Layton of hypocrisy:

Okay everyone, hands up all who think that the Duty National Socialist Leader, Jack Layton, would put himself at the back of the queue if he (or his wife) needed an MRI. I didn't think so.

This is, of course, a cheap shot. I have no idea what I would do in such circumstances, much less Mr. Layton. But politics is full of cheap shots. One might fire back that it is hypocritical to condemn others for doing something that you yourself advocate. But once we start that style of argument, we'd pretty quickly all be convicted of hypocrisy on some score.

So, what is the problem with this post? Hawn calls Jack Layton "the Duty National Socialist Leader". The National Socialists, in case you missed high school history and never watched the History Channel, were Hitler's party, and National Socialism his philosophy. The shortened form of 'National Socialist' is Nazi.

Admittedly, we have to put up with a lot of name calling in Canadian politics. We have recently heard a cabinet minister likened the conservative party to the Klu Klux Klan (he apologized); we've also heard the Liberal party likened to fictional serial killer, Hannibal Lector. But calling someone a Nazi--for failing some strange hypothetical hypocrisy test--is a new low.

Update. Mr. Hawn responds:

For the benefit of those who get their exercise jumping to conclusions and making leaps of logic, please allow me to clarify something from my blog "A Conflict of Hypocrisies". I refered to Jack Layton as the Duty National Socialist Leader. For those who like to "exercise", that meant that I was calling Jack Layton a Nazi, and that I was disrespecting all those who died at Hitler's hands.

Please settle down and park your misplaced indignation. "National" refers to Canada and "Socialist" refers to a political philosophy. Period. Dot. Stop. In no way did I intend those words to mean anything else. I'm sorry if capital letters confused some people. I have de-capitalized the description of Jack and changed the word "Duty" to "Canada's" to help them out.

For those who lectured me on history and defending democracy, back off. I spent more than thirty years and buried more than forty friends defending your right to yell at me. I hope that you enjoyed it, even though you are way off base. Now get back to work or go to the gym for some real exercise.

Update2 Here is my exchange with Mr. Hawn in his comments. As far as I'm concerned, this ends the matter.

buckets said...
Mr. Hawn, thank-you for your clarification. It seems to me, however, that you should be more careful with your choice of words in the future. How, really, could you have expect people to interpret your words in any other way? National Socialism is a historical phenomenon; it only means one thing. The NDP/CCF have been called socialists since the thirties; they've been a national party the whole time. But in my recollection no one has ever called them National Socialists. Why? Because those words, when put together, mean more than the sum of the parts.

Laurie Hawn said...
Point taken, buckets. Thanks.

Dryden on SSM and the dangers of passionate certainty

Flash Point Canada links to Ken Dryden's piece, Why I support gay marriage bill, in the Toronto Star.

Dryden has always had a gift of using 100 words where 20 would do, as this piece shows. Much is worth repeating, but especially interesting, I think, is this paragraph:

In the midst of this heated debate, it is hard not to be swayed, usually in the reverse direction, by the words and tone of the advocates who scream their certainty, who tell the rest of us that we surely must be stupid or at least depraved if we aren't as certain as they are. It's okay to be 60-40 or 70-30 on this. As the debate more and more attempts to polarize us, it is important to know that on one side of the question or the other most of us have more in common than it seems. It is important to know, because it will help us immensely to get along again when all this is done.

This puts its finger on something important. That it is not merely arguments that sway people, but their tone, too. There are many people who are uncomfortable with gay unions of any kind; there are many who would prefer to create some kind of separate-but-equal civil unions for gays. But I suspect that come the next election, most of these people will decide not to vote for anti-ssm candidates. Why? Someone who is 60-40 against ssm will be less comfortable with a 100-0 anti-ssm candidate than a 60-40 pro-ssm. There is something about the passionate certainty of a black-and-white world that alienates those who see more shades of gray in the world.

In that moment of humiliation, the last vestiges of civility remain

In the G&M, Ibbitson reports (google link, here) on one of the few moments of decency to be heard in Ottawa recently:

Stephen Harper approached Paul Martin and the two spoke briefly. Then they went their separate ways.

What did the Conservative Leader say in that moment of humiliation? Did he offer a quiet, deadly vow of revenge, or a stiff-upper-lipped word of congratulations on a contest fairly won? The mind races.

Sadly, reality was more prosaic. Mr. Harper was asking a favour: It being midnight, no more commercial flights were leaving Ottawa that day for Edmonton or Calgary. But Conservative MP Lee Richardson was scheduled to tour flood-damaged areas in Alberta yesterday, as was Mr. Martin, who was flying out on the government jet. Mr. Harper wanted to know whether Mr. Richardson could hitch a ride. Of course, the Prime Minister replied.

Better to be dishonest than out-manouevred?

Just to add another point about why it is that the Conservatives were so upset at being out-manouevred Thursday night.

An awful lot of it has to do with Stephen Harper and his strengths and weaknesses. Many have mentioned that he is a bit too aloof and cerebrial to succeed in politics. Maybe true, maybe not. But one thing that commentators allow is that Harper is a good tactician and strategist.

I think part of the reason that the Conservative MPs blew up the other night is that they have been bested on what they had thought was their leader's strong suit. Tactically, the Liberals snookered the PCs. But probably strategically now, too. There may be fireworks about same-sex marriage in Parliament, but from this point forward being strongly anti-ssm will be an increasingly losing position as ssm locks itself into being the Canadian status quo.

For the PCs it is the equivalent of losing a very close hand in poker over one misplayed card. They not only lost the hand, but it did enough damage to their capital that it will be an uphill struggle from here.

Dancing with whackos

Politblogo (here and here) engages with crypto-separatist the Monarchist, dissecting the latter's argument and exposing its logical missteps and rhetorical excesses. For those who missed it, the Monarchist argued that because Ontario has not (to judge from recent polls) abandoned the Liberals despite their obvious failings, 'the West' has reached a 'tipping point' that will lead it into separatism.

Now I suspect that all progressive and non-partisan bloggers are highly grateful to Politblogo for undertaking this unpleasant task. But are western separatists our problem? Shouldn't the argument about separatism be taking place among Conservatives? It is, after all, the failure of the Conservative Party that is motivating the Monarchist's outrage. He seems to think that he can work for the Conservatives and advocate separatism at the same time. (He is a member of Blogging Tories, who seem to have no problem having him in their number.) So, too, members of the CPC Caucus. When asked about separatism recently, MP Myron Thomson said : "I reserve my opinion till later". Over at FreeDominion, a site that describes itself as "the voice of principled conservatism" and is populated by conservative activists, a poll asking "do you support Western separatism" had 42% year, 24% no, and 28% "if the Liberals win the next election" (here). Rather than coddle separatists, the CPC should be expelling them and denouncing them.

How many social conservatives does it take to change a light-bulb?

Only one. But while he's doing it, the others pray that the rest of us will see the light!

Just kidding. Let's try it again. How many social conservatives are there in Parliament, in the CPC, and/or the country? And how many will there be following the coming election?

In several earlier threads we tried looked at MPs' voting records. There are at least fifty Conservatives in Parliament whose voting has been perfect from the perspective of the Campaign Life Coalition, a prolife advocacy group; there are about a dozen Liberals. There are ten or so socons who can be identified among CPC nominees and more no doubt in the future. But not all these will be elected, and some of them are replacing retiring MPs who might be socons.

So how many are we talking about? After the dust settles after the following election there will probably be roughly 75 socon MPs, or about 25% of Parliament. Is that too many? Perhaps for some. But I suspect that something in the order of 25% of Canada's population hold similar views. So my guess is that there is not much to see here.

Socons flex their muscle

Towards the end of the Toronto Star article on tensions within the Conservative party is this little tidbit:

[Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College] also made no apologies for Defend Marriage's political activism. The coalition and its members have signalled they will run independent candidates to oppose a trio of Tory MPs who voted for the government's marriage bill.

At the very least this shows that the Conservative Party and Defend Marriage are not coterminous.

Conservative MPs with perfect socon records

Campaign Life (a pro-life group) keeps the voting records of all MPs on the issues that matter to them--legislation about marriage, abortion, and stem cell research (see here). Here are the current Conservative MPs who have 'perfect' records:

1. Abbott, Jim (Kootenay—Columbia)
2. Ablonczy, Diane (Calgary-Nose Hill)
3. Anders, Rob (Calgary West)
4. Anderson, David (Cypress Hills – Grasslands)
5. Benoit, Leon (Lakeland)
6. Breitkreuz, Garry (Yorkton-Melville)
7. Casson, Rick (Lethbridge)
8. *Chatters, David (Westlock-St. Paul)
9. Cummins, John (Delta- Richmond East)
10. Day, Stockwell (Okanagan-Coquihalla)
11. Doyle, Norman (St. John’s North)
12. *Duncan, John (Vancouver Island North)
13. Epp, Ken (Edmonton-Sherwood Park)
14. Fitzpatrick, Brian (Prince Albert)
15. Forseth, Paul (New Westminster-Coquitlam)
16. Gallant, Cheryl (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke)
17. Goldring, Peter (Edmonton Centre-East)
18. Gouk, Jim (Southern Interior)
19. Grewal, Gurmant (Newton-North Delta)
20. Hanger, Art (Calgary Northeast)
21. Harper, Stephen (Calgary Southwest)
22. Harris, Richard (Cariboo Prince George)
23. Hearn, Loyola (St. John’s South)
24. Hill, Jay (Prince George-Peace River)
25. Hilstrom, Howard (Selkirk-Interlake)
26. Hinton, Betty (Kamloops, Thompson )
27. Johnston, Dale (Wetaskiwin)
28. Kenney, Jason (Calgary Southeast)
29. Lunn, Gary (Saanich-Gulf Islands)
30. Lunney, James (Nanaimo-Alberni)
31. Merrifield, Rob (Yellowhead)
32. Mills, Bob (Red Deer)
33. Obhrai, Deepak (Calgary East)
34. Pallister, Brian (Portage-Lisgar)
35. Penson, Charlie (Peace River)
36. Rajotte, James (Edmonton Leduc)
37. Reid, Scott (Lanark-Carleton)
38. *Reynolds, John (Vancouver-Sunshine Coast)
39. Ritz, Gerry (Battlefords-Lloydminster)
40. Schellenberger, Gary (Perth-Middlesex)
41. *Schmidt, Werner (Kelowna)
42. Skelton, Carol (Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar)
43. Solberg, Monte (Medicine Hat)
44. Sorenson, Kevin (Crowfoot)
45. *Stinson, Darrel (N. Okanagan-Shuswap)
46. Strahl, Chuck (Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon)
47. Thompson, Greg (St. Croix-Bellisle)
48. Thompson, Myron (Wild Rose)
49. Toews, Vic (Provencher)
50. Vellacott, Maurice (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin)
51. *White, Randy (Abbotsford)
52. Williams, John (Edmonton - St. Albert)
53. Yelich, Lynne (Blackstrap)

Liberal MPs with perfect socon voting records

Campaign Life (a pro-life group) keeps the voting records of all MPs on the issues that matter to them--legislation about marriage, abortion, and stem cell research (see here). Here are the current Liberal MPs who have 'perfect' records:

1. Matthews, Bill (Random-Burin-St. George’s)
2. Bonin, Raymond (Nickel Belt)
3. Karygiannis, Jim (Scarborough-Agincourt)
4. Longfield, Judi (Whitby-Oshawa)
5. McTeague, Dan (Pickering-Scarb East)
6. O’Brien, Pat (London-Fanshawe)
7. Savoy, Andy (Tobique-Mactaquac)
8. Steckle, Paul (Huron-Bruce)
9. Szabo, Paul (Mississauga South)
10. Ur, Rose-Marie (Middlesex -Kent-Lambton)
11. Wappel, Tom (Scarborough Southwest)
12. Gallaway, Roger (Sarnia-Lambton)
13. MacAulay, Lawrence (Cardigan)
14. Wilfert, Bryon (Richmond Hill)
15. Cannis John (Scarborough Centre)
16. Chamberlain, Brenda (Guelph)
17. Malhi, Gurbax (Bramalea-Gore-Malton)
18. McKay, John (Scarborough Guildwood)

Do socon nominees matter?

Over at Flash Point Canada an important question is raised: so what?

These people are right out front with their beliefs that I find abhorrent, it's not hidden. They oppose same-sex marriage. They oppose pro-choice causes. That's fine, I know it, everyone will know if an election comes.

FPC is raising in the context of the alleged hidden agenda of the CPC and points out that here are people whose agenda is clearly not hidden. I agree with this completely ... almost.

But there is another point here that needs to be raised. The Reform party changed conservative politics in many important ways. One of them was an emphasis on freely-voting MPs, an emphasis that was taken over by the Alliance and now the Conservative Party. Does the party have a hidden agenda on (say) abortion? Not at all. The party's position is quite clear. It has no position. Its MPs can vote freely.

Having freely-voting MPs puts an additional burden on us voters, since we do not merely have to look at the party platform and leadership when we make our decisions. We now also have to look at the personal positions of the MPs, something that Canadians have not had to do previously. Otherwise we run the risk--at least in theory--that the next parliament has (say) an anti-abortion majority, even though abortion itself did not come up during the election.

So, who are these socons? and is there any threat that their influence in Parliament might grow larger than that in the population as a whole?

Which Conservative MPs are not socons

A problem that has arisen in our count of socons within different parties within parliament is one of definition--who counts as a socon? With some, the identification is fairly easy, since they self-identify. Kevin Serviss, for example, is a Pentecostal minister and his acceptance speech at the Sudbury nomination meeted was greeted with cries of 'amen', 'that's right!', etc. (see here).

Campaign Life has published a record of parliamentary votes about the issues that they care about (here), and someone whose voting record is perfectly in accordance with Campaign Life's preferences is at least a possible socon.

It might be better, however, to remove those MPs whose record is not 'perfect'. Here are the Conservatives who in one way or another disappointed Campaign Life:

1. Gerald Keddy, South Shore; voted for C-250 to include sexual orientation under hate speech; voted against M-83 to study the necessity of abortion; recently has voted for same-sex marriage


2. Peter Mackay, Central Nova; voted for C-250; voted against M-83; voted for C-13 on reproductive technologies


3. Loyola Hearn, St. John's South; voted for C-250


4. James Moore, Port Moody-etc.; voted against M-83 (and recently for ssm)


5. Bill Casey, North Nova.; voted against M-83


6. Rahim Jaffer, Edmonton-Strathcona.; voted against M-83


7. Inky Mark, Dauphin-etc.; voted against M-83


8. Jim Prentice, Calgary-Centre.; (voted for ssm)

These Conservatives, we can perhaps assume, aren't socons. (Or can we? Hearn is disqualified for voting for C-250, which made hate-speech towards homosexuals illegal. But one might believe that homosexuality is morally wrong--a socon position--and still support such a law.)

(We shouldn't assume, however, that all the rest are. More on this later.)

How many evangelical-swallows make up a takeover-spring?

Yesterday's G&M articles (archived here and for the google link, try here) raise the question of whether CPC nominations are being captured by evangelical activists. A few examples are cited. But as several commentators have noted, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with evangelicals participating in politics, or in them organizing their own community politically. They are merely doing what many ethnic communities have been doing in urban centers for decades.

Is it a question of proportion? I'm sure many people would express dismay if every successful Conservative nominee were closely associated with groups like the 'Equipping Christians for the Public Square Centre', 'Focus on the Family', or the 'Defend Marriage Coalition'. Or even if it were 50% or even 33%.

But, frankly, so far something less than a dozen such nominees have been identified (here), and not all of these necessarily belong in a list of evangelical activists. (I have my doubts about Weston, for example.) So far, I suspect, there is no clear pattern. Some nominations are being won by evangelical 'machines'; in other ridings where evangelicals had carried the CPC-flag in recent elections (Meneer in London; Penell in Burlington), this year's nominees are coming from the 'mainstream'.

So, although I think this phenomenon bears watching, I don't think there is anything of concern yet.

[edited for clarity: Sat 12:16 pm]

Who is a socon, anyway?

As you probably know, we've been constructing a running list of socon nominees. I've spent the last day or two trying to construct a similar list of MPs. But who counts?

A method that I've always subscribed to is to let someone else do the work. The good people over at the Campaign Life Coalition track voting of Parliamentarians on the issues that they care about--abortion, gay marriage, reproductive technology.

They list there five bills of recent years that are important to them.

• The 1999 Definition of Marriage Vote.


• The 2003 Definition of Marriage Vote.


• Bill C-250 adding ‘sexual orientation’ to hate crime.


• Motion M-83 asking for study on medical necessity of abortion.


• Bill C-13 Reproductive technologies bill.

One would assume, I think, that anyone who would vote in keeping with the directive of the Campaign Life Coalition should count as a social conservative. (Of course, we should update the lists with those who have voted against same-sex marriage.)

Running list of so-con nominees

The story in the Globe & Mail about the success of social conservative activists in winning battles for Conservative nominations raises some interesting issues. The first point, of course, is that everyone should agree that so-cons are perfectly within their rights to organize politically. By the same token, of course, others are free to express concern about their influence and to decide whether or not to support them or their party.

It would be worth knowing how many ridings are affected. So this post will keep a running list, with references.

1. Andrew House in Halifax


2. Rakesh Khosla in Halifax West


3. Paul Francis in Sackville-Eastern Shore


4. Darrel Reid in Richmond (past president of Focus on the Family, Canada). On his nomination and its aftermath, see here and here


5. Cindy Silver in North Vancouver (Legal Consultant (Public Policy) for Focus on the Family Canada)


6. Marc Dalton in New Westminster-Burnaby (former pastor of a community church in Burnaby)


7. Kevin Serviss in Sudbury (pentecostal preacher) here and here


8. Ron Cannan in Kelowna


9. Rondo Thomas in Ajax (VP of Canada Christian College)


10. David Sweet in Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough (founding president of Promise Keepers Canada)


11. Harold Albrecht in Kitchner-Conestoga (pastor of Pathway Community Church in Kitcher and organizer of anti-ssm-marriage rallies [here])

[Note: this post was originally posted at Buckets of Grewal. I decided, however, that Buckets should focus exclusively on the Grewal Affair. Several of the out-takes from that site are now here.]

Simpson (G&M): Why Stephen Harper is going to lose more sleep

By JEFFREY SIMPSON
Friday, May 27, 2005 Page A19

John Weston, federal Conservative candidate in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast, has a bone to pick.

A recent column described his law firm as a "Christian law firm." It ascribed that description to the firm's website. These were wrong assertions. The firm's website makes no such reference.

Apology offered. The confusion arose, in the haste of writing, from articles that Mr. Weston had written that were posted on the Christian Legal Fellowship website -- articles he has since asked to be withdrawn from the site.

In one, Mr. Weston described the process of forming a "Christian law firm," including avoiding the use of the term in marketing in case "the label 'Christian' might backfire by embarrassing the Kingdom of God . . . and drive away clients who might be turned off or mystified by the spiritual connection."

His firm, Mr. Weston explains in an article, is distinguished from "other great firms where I have worked" by the "regularity and informality of prayer practised by the partners." Would everyone feel comfortable working in such surroundings? Mr. Weston says "we brought in the Christian head of a Christian development organization [who] suggested that hiring interviews could include allusion to the practices of professionals at the workplace such as prayer."

How Mr. Weston practises law is his own business and that of his partners. He's a Harvard graduate, after all. But he is a Conservative Party candidate, and his public religiosity illustrates a trend that is popping up elsewhere in Canada -- candidates from, or associated with, Christian faith movements or churches are winning more Conservative nominations than ever.

The result must be to give these religious conservatives at least greater influence in a party that already has several handfuls of such men and women in the parliamentary caucus. Their candidacies pose a difficult political challenge for Stephen Harper, who must give some solace to these conservatives on a few issues without appearing to be beholden to them.

Little could be more politically lethal for the party's chances of forming a national government than the perception that religious conservatives have disproportionate influence. But this sort of candidate has won nominations or is already a Conservative MP, so they cannot be utterly ignored.

Four such candidates, including Mr. Weston, recently won nominations in British Columbia's Lower Mainland. In Nova Scotia, three candidates with Christian affiliations have been nominated. And some are showing up as nomination winners in Ontario. The new candidates are interesting because they are not from traditional bedrock conservative rural areas, but from urban centres.

David Sweet, for example, is back as Conservative candidate in the Hamilton-area riding of Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale. He won a sharply contested nomination there before the last election; this time, it was by acclamation. When he sought the nomination the first time, his website underscored his six-year presidency of the Canadian chapter of Promise Keepers. This time, his website says only that he headed a "national non-profit organization." Promise Keepers, a huge and growing movement in the United States, describes its vision "to challenge Canadian men to discover the incredible life quest that God has for them as revealed by Christ and the Holy Scriptures."

In Ajax-Pickering, Rondo Thomas just won a contested nomination for the Conservatives. He's an official with the Canada Christian College.

In Nova Scotia, the three nominated candidates with published Christian links -- including Paul Francis, a minister in Lower Sackville -- insisted that the links had nothing to do with their nominations.

Maybe, but at a rally three weeks ago organized by the Annapolis Valley Fellowship, the roughly 700 attendees were encouraged to back the three in their nomination fights. According to a report in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, an information sheet circulated at the meeting stated: "We need strong Christian, pro-family people to become members of Parliament from our area to represent us in Ottawa."

The specific issue that animates these candidates and other social conservatives is gay marriage and, more broadly, what they see as an assault on the traditional family. They are furiously opposed to same-sex marriage on moral, religious and family grounds. Ultimately, they will discover that the only legal way to reverse gay marriage is using the notwithstanding clause in the Constitution. Mr. Harper must know this perfectly well, but he won't risk saying so.

In the last election, a handful of social conservative MPs blurted out comments that the Liberals seized on with telling effect. This time, Mr. Harper will have more of these candidates to worry about.

jsimpson@globeandmail.ca

Dec. 9, 2004: The Nation (Pakistan): Fake degrees proliferate

The Nation (Pakistan)
December 9, 2004 Thursday
SECTION: Nationwide International News

LENGTH: 1021 words

HEADLINE: ARTICLE: A dime a dozen

DATELINE: DEC 09

BODY:
BY WAJAHAT LATIF - The generations, which went through college and university in the 50s and 60s will recall that education used to be a simple and straightforward matter. The first serious examination in a student's life was matriculation, at the end of ten years of school, normally at age 15. I studied in a high school affiliated to the University of Punjab. The University conducted the examinations in spring and the results were announced in summer and the college term began in the autumn. If you were not the failing type, it took four years for graduation and another two for MA. Any hanky panky in postgraduate research was unthinkable either for those who enrolled or those who supervised. And as a rule, both were intellectually exceptional. For that reason not many people enrolled for a Ph.D.

All that has changed. Unaccredited and fake institutions are multiplying. According to some reports, hundreds if not thousands of such outfits are dishing out fake degrees and making money all over the world. USA, and the UK are no exception.

Nor, indeed, is Pakistan. In Pakistan, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, an unaccredited Ph.D. degree can be had for $7,500 from American Branch of Preston University. Preston is accredited to the World Association of Universities and Colleges formed to accredit dubious institutions like the American World University. But WAUC itself is not recognised by the US Department of Education as an accreditation service.

Some weeks ago, a newspaper simultaneously carried the story of a raid on a degree depot in Sialkot, and an advertisement of a Washington International University, located in a shopping mall in America. WIU has a website and claims to give any degree in one year. The section on "accelerated degree program" states: "Revolutionary learning method: Core curriculum is bypassed to concentrate on new developments and trends in your field of study. There are no exams to pass. Book reports and research papers will be required as evidence of mastery of the subject matter".

Britain too has a problem of fake academic outfits. But recently, cases of a fake neurosurgeon and a nuclear safety engineer forced Her Majesty's Government to act. According to a report, the British Department of Education and Skills has referred these institutions to the Companies House, the regulatory body for the use of business names. The term 'University' is protected under the British law.

Dr Isa Daudpota, a Physicist working on a project in Comstech who chanced upon the problem of fake degrees in the higher academia some time back, and some parents, have been highlighting the issue in the press. As a result, the HEC has cautioned parents through newspaper ads to be careful against fake educational institutions and degrees. But no regulatory or coercive action has so far been taken to put such institutions out of business.Daudpota alleges that the National University of Modern Languages had awarded two Ph.D. in six months soon after obtaining a charter from the University Grants Commission on 29 May 2000. Before this date, NUML was the National Institute of Modern languages affiliated to Quaid-e-Azam University. The two PhDs were awarded to two Professors of English in NUML. The third PhD, Dr Daudpota says, was given in similar haste, to the Chairman UGC, which is now the Higher Education Commission. The three theses are available with the HEC but not the NUML, which is strange.If the work on the three theses started before NIML became a University, their outline of research required approval by the Board of Advanced Study and Research of QAU, of which NIML was an affiliated institute prior to May 2000. It appears that no reference to any NIML thesis exists at QAU. I find the above unbelievable. Scandals in education have been around for some years, but that they involve higher education is quite disturbing. PhD are being sold a dime a dozen! In a seminar held in the Sustainable Development Policy Institute on 'Quality of Higher Education; Accountability Questioned' last week, I was shocked to listen to Dr Daudpota and the concerns his presentation raised. Another distinguished member of the QAU reinforced what he said. The HEC rep made an articulate case for the Commission but did not really address the issue. One got the impression that the HEC did not have the power to stop what was going on. Although the consensus in the seminar was that there was no accountability in the academia, and it seemed clear that we were talking about fraud, deception, forgery and corruption etc., yet no one seemed really interested in making a formal complaint to the police or the NAB. According to Daudpota, he had kept the HEC informed of findings as he investigated deeper into his chance discovery, in the belief that the HEC would be able to act and arrest the rot in the higher education system. It appears that the only action that the HEC has taken so far is to put him on notice for termination of contract! Obviously, this is an urgent matter, causing all kinds of rumor. The Ministry of Education and the HEC should take it up at the earliest, go into Daudpota's allegations and put speculations at rest. What they can do is to form an international committee of eminent scholars who should go into the larger question of fake educational institutions and degrees, but immediately and specifically examine the theses that Dr Daudpota has identified, to determine their merit and make recommendations. None of them seems to have been a whole time student. Did they attend any classes or lectures? Who was supervising the research? Was any fieldwork undertaken? What was the quantity and quality of the data collected? What was the quality of analysis? Was the work original and did it meet PhD standards? These are some of the questions the committee will be faced with. In the meanwhile, Daudpota should retain his job because terminating his contract at this stage, before a proper enquiry, can be understood as bias. Depending on the result of the enquiry, either he goes home or some other heads begin to roll.

Chronicle for Higher Education report on dubious doctorates

From the issue dated June 25, 2004

DEGREES OF SUSPICION
Psst. Wanna Buy a Ph.D.?

Some professors have dubious doctorates, other professors sell them, and colleges often look the other way

By THOMAS BARTLETT and SCOTT SMALLWOOD

It was a revelation rich in irony: A member of a college accreditation board holds a Ph.D. from a "university" that sells doctorates to anyone with $1,500. This year The Chronicle reported that Michael Davis, a member of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, received his doctorate from Saint Regis University, which claims recognition from the government of war-torn Liberia and requires little, if any, academic work. He has since been booted from the board.

Most people in higher education probably dismissed the news as a laughable aberration. Regrettable and embarrassing, but nothing more.

It turns out there are plenty of others like Mr. Davis, at all levels of higher education: A wrestling coach in Wisconsin. A librarian in Texas. An assistant dean at a Baptist university. Not to mention dozens of professors who hold degrees from unaccredited colleges, some of which require nothing more than a credit-card number and a mailing address.

And those are just the ones who can be found in the nooks and crannies of the Internet. Their true numbers are anybody's guess, although considering that unaccredited institutions rake in hundreds of millions of dollars each year, it's safe to say the problem isn't small.

Perhaps even more worrisome than the professors who "earn" degrees from such institutions are the professors who run them. For example, two professors at accredited colleges in New York State each operate an offshore university that awards an array of degrees, including doctorates. Neither operation comes close to meeting the standards of its accredited counterparts in the United States.

Academe has become home to a flourishing underground market in degrees -- and judging by the reaction of some administrators, legitimate colleges often don't seem to care, or at least not enough to thoroughly check the backgrounds of their professors. "That the people who hold these degrees make excuses doesn't surprise me," says David Linkletter, a program specialist with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. "That institutions defend them does."

While experts on diploma mills -- broadly defined as unaccredited institutions that require students to do little or no work to earn degrees -- warn of the damage they do to the integrity of higher education, many satisfied customers say they get their money's worth. "Just the ability to put Ph.D. behind my name is what I was looking for," says Wayne J. del Corral, who teaches finance part time at Tulane University. "It'll make things a lot easier with respect to submitting papers to journals and so forth."

He also appreciates that his diploma from Lacrosse University looks so real. "The seal is very nice," he says.

Institutionalizing a Fraud

Valdosta State University's Web site lists an assistant professor of management as "Dr. Jack Malehorn."

What the Web site doesn't say, and what students and colleagues probably don't know, is that Mr. Malehorn's Ph.D. is from Shelbourne University.

Shelbourne does not exist. It never existed. It claimed to be based in Ireland, but actually was one of more than a dozen names used by an international diploma-mill company that sold degrees, beginning in the mid-1990s, for $500 to $2,500, according to an investigation last year by the Federal Trade Commission. The company, based in Romania, sent millions of unsolicited e-mail messages around the world, promising recipients that they could receive degrees without doing any academic work. Along with the diplomas, the company also provided fake transcripts and phony letters of recommendation.

When contacted by The Chronicle, Mr. Malehorn at first denies that his Ph.D. is from Shelbourne, even though his résumé says it is. "No, no, I'm sorry," he says. "I wish I could help you."

After further inquiries, Mr. Malehorn acknowledges that his doctorate is, in fact, from Shelbourne. He also contends that he did actual academic work to obtain it. "It was all through an Internet connection," he says. "My dissertation certainly seemed legitimate."

His boss doesn't think so. Kenneth L. Stanley, dean of the College of Business Administration, says he knew before hiring Mr. Malehorn that he had a fake Ph.D. "Hell, we knew it was worthless," says Mr. Stanley. "Give us a break!"

But he hired Mr. Malehorn anyway because, according to the dean, it's not uncommon for professors, or even top administrators, to have bogus credentials. "I've dealt with provosts with degrees from mail-order institutions here in the United States," Mr. Stanley says. (He declines to name any of those provosts or their institutions.)

What's important, he argues, is that Valdosta State does not recognize the degree, nor was it a factor in the decision to hire Mr. Malehorn. "If Jack had come here and we had hired him thinking, 'Oh, well, he's doctorally qualified,' and we're claiming that qualification, then we're idiots and he's wrong," says Mr. Stanley.

Contrary to the dean's insistence, however, it appears that Valdosta State does consider the degree valid. Why else would the professor be referred to as "Dr." in the bulletin that announced his hiring in 2002? Why else would he be listed as "Dr." in the university's telephone directory and on the management department's Web site? And why else would he be allowed to call himself "Dr. Jack Malehorn, Ph.D." when he contributes articles to the Journal of Business Forecasting?

When all that is brought to Mr. Stanley's attention, he is quiet for several seconds. "It's a little embarrassing," he admits. He recalls referring to Mr. Malehorn as "Dr." on several occasions, including in front of students. "I guess, you know, we're guilty of institutionalizing a fraud," says Mr. Stanley.

The dean pledges that references to Mr. Malehorn's Ph.D. will be deleted from official university material. Six weeks later, the management department's Web page still calls him "Dr."

For Love or Money?

On the Web site of Mercy College, in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., Benjamin B. Weisman, a professor of business, lists an honorary doctorate from the International University for Graduate Studies. The degree is there alongside his master's and Ph.D. from New York University.

Founded in 1979, International University is located in the Caribbean nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. The university has four administrators and no faculty members, according to its Web site. It awards 11 graduate degrees, including doctorates in psychology, nursing science, and education. Students must complete a five-day residency on the island before receiving their diplomas.

When first questioned about his honorary degree from International University, Mr. Weisman says he can't remember much about the institution, other than that he is pretty sure it is accredited. "I think it's in Saint Kitts," he says. What Mr. Weisman, 68, fails to mention is that he, in fact, owns International University. In a later conversation, after acknowledging that he started and runs the university, he offers a spirited defense of the institution, which he says has been unfairly maligned by some state regulators.

Mr. Weisman says he and a partner started International to help graduate students who have trouble transferring credits from one university to another. International will accept those credits and allow students to complete their degrees. "We act as an umbrella," he says.

No one is admitted to the Ph.D. program who has not completed at least 70 graduate credit hours, according to Mr. Weisman. Nor does the university offer credit for so-called life experience, he says. "There is no way I would prostitute the degree that I give under any circumstances," says Mr. Weisman. "We give no credit for life experience. Zero."

An admissions counselor at International, however, tells a different story. Life experience does count toward a degree, she says. When a caller explains that he has done no doctoral-level work, she assures him that that doesn't have to be a problem. "You'd be surprised what would constitute credit," she says, adding that the caller could receive his Ph.D. in a few months.

When asked about those statements, Mr. Weisman says his employee was new and made a mistake. However, Edward Jackowski, who received a Ph.D. in behavioral management from International University, says his credits were based entirely on life experience. Mr. Jackowski, owner of a fitness company in Manhattan, took no courses and wrote a dissertation on "what motivates people to exercise." He liked the program, he says, because "it didn't take up much time."

Michael Hannigan saw an advertisement for International University in a magazine. An associate professor of social work at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, he had never finished the Ph.D. program in family therapy at Florida State University and was looking for a way to get his degree.

The professor calls International "lightweight" and says he is "used to a bit more rigor in academic things." Still, he believes that his degree from the university is legitimate. "They have the same accreditation as Oxford has," says Mr. Hannigan.

Not quite. According to Dale Gough, director of International Education Services at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, the University of Oxford is recognized by the government of Britain, as are several colleges in the Caribbean. International University is not among them. Mr. Weisman says his institution is accredited by the government of Saint Kitts and Nevis, a recognition that experts like Mr. Gough and Alan Contreras, director of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, a state agency, consider meaningless. After all, the Caribbean nation once accredited a university that doled out degrees for watching I Love Lucy and other sitcoms.

Mr. Weisman says he didn't start International University to make money. But this year he expects it to graduate between 50 and 100 students, each of whom must pay $10,500 in tuition plus $1,500 for food, travel, and lodging. On the basis of those figures, International University should pull in between $500,000 and $1-million this year.

What do Mercy College officials think of Mr. Weisman's Caribbean operation? A college spokesman says the professor, who has tenure, can do whatever he likes as long as it does not interfere with his duties at Mercy. The spokesman notes, however, that the college would not accept transfer credits from International University, because "we do not recognize its accreditation."

Ph.D.'s for Less

Mr. Weisman's former boss at Mercy wouldn't be bothered in the least by his extracurricular activities. That's because Donald Grunewald, a onetime president of Mercy who is now a business professor at Iona College, runs his own unaccredited institution, called Adam Smith University.

Adam Smith's degrees are a bargain compared with International University's. Mr. Grunewald charges $2,500 for a bachelor's and $3,000 for a Ph.D. He declines to say how many students Adam Smith enrolls, only that the number is "very small." The university has no full-time professors, although some faculty members from other institutions sometimes read papers and help students, he says.

Mr. Contreras, the Oregon official, calls Adam Smith "a diploma mill with a long and unattractive history." Over the years it has been based in Hawaii, Louisiana, and South Dakota. Now its home is the ground floor of the girls' hostel at the Methodist Compound in Monrovia, Liberia. The American address is a mailbox in Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific.

All the while, Mr. Grunewald, now 70, has run the university from his home in Connecticut. He calls it a "labor of love" and bristles at the suggestion that it is disreputable. "My idea of a diploma mill is that you send in the money and they send you back a degree," he says. "That's not what we're doing at all. We like to feel that we have integrity. We have been accredited in Liberia."

What that particular accreditation means is unclear. A visit to the Liberian Embassy in Washington sheds little light on the matter. An embassy official, Abdullah Dunbar, doesn't know much about Adam Smith. When asked who can verify the Liberian accreditation, he searches among the papers on his desk and, after a few minutes, produces the name "Isaac B. Roland," who Mr. Dunbar says is in charge of the Ministry of Education, and a telephone number, which turns out to be disconnected. Mr. Dunbar says he has never spoken with Mr. Roland and doesn't know how to contact him.

Founded in 1991, Adam Smith was at one time accredited by the World Association of Universities and Colleges, a private group, unrecognized by the U.S. Department of Education, that has accredited colleges that the State of Oregon lists as diploma mills. Mr. Grunewald later helped found another unrecognized accreditor, the International Association of University and Schools. He says he now considers both of those to have been mistakes that may have sullied Adam Smith's reputation.

In the early 1990s, Adam Smith catered mostly to U.S. military personnel. Today it focuses on students who live in Africa and Asia. Courses generally involve reading a textbook and completing a simple exam, composed mostly of multiple-choice and true-false questions. A Chronicle reporter finished a year's course in English in about an hour. A semester of economics took 15 minutes.

An Iona spokesman says Mr. Grunewald is not violating any college policy by running Adam Smith. But the spokesman emphasizes that Iona does not want to associate itself with Mr. Grunewald's business: "Anything that would link us even in perception would be a problem," the spokesman says. "Clearly there is no tie to Iona, and we wouldn't tolerate it if there were."

Both Mr. Grunewald and Mr. Weisman take pains to separate their day jobs as professors from their moonlighting as operators of offshore universities. Mr. Grunewald does not mention his affiliation with Adam Smith when he writes letters to The Chronicle and other publications. When a caller to International University asks if Mr. Weisman is a professor at any other college, the admissions counselor says he isn't. "Oh, no," she says. "This is his baby."

Minimal Effort

Professors on the receiving end of unaccredited degrees cite many reasons for not attending one of the 3,500 legitimately accredited colleges in the United States.

Mr. del Corral, the Tulane instructor, had completed much of his doctoral work at Louisiana State University but wanted to avoid the hassle of facing a dissertation committee. So he called Lacrosse University, which was based in Louisiana until 2002, when state authorities declined to renew its license. (It is now based in Mississippi.) Lacrosse charges $2,200 for a Ph.D. An admissions counselor told a caller that he could receive a bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees, all in less than a year.

When informed that Mr. del Corral's doctorate is from Lacrosse, his supervisor, Paul A. Spindt, a professor of banking and finance, says he plans to discuss the issue with higher-ups at Tulane. "As a matter of policy, I wouldn't be very happy with people with degrees that are not fully accredited," he says.

Mr. del Corral never met the person at Lacrosse who reviewed his dissertation. He never talked to the person on the telephone. He never sent him an e-mail message. And he never took a single course. When asked if he thinks Lacrosse is a diploma mill, Mr. del Corral says it probably is. On the other hand, he explains, "it gave me what I needed."

Martin S. Roden got what he needed, too, when he attended the now-defunct Kensington University. "Primarily, I was just tired of having to correct students who would call me 'doctor,'" says Mr. Roden, associate dean of engineering at California State University at Los Angeles. He had joined the faculty there in 1968 and had already become a tenured full professor before he got his Kensington degree, in 1982.

Kensington moved from California to Hawaii after a statewide crackdown on unaccredited institutions in the early 1990s. Last year authorities in Hawaii forced Kensington to close and fined its owners $300,000. Mr. Roden calls Kensington "a second-rate, unrecognized place that basically is doing portfolio analysis."

Florida Community College at Jacksonville's Web site lists David Kier's master's degree from Cambridge State University, a spinoff of Columbia State University, which was shut down in 1998 by the FBI. Mr. Kier, an instructor at the community college, says he liked Cambridge State because it was possible to get a degree quickly, without "busting your hump" doing course work. "It was minimal effort," he says.

A spokeswoman says Florida Community College does not recognize his degree, but has no policy on how professors list their academic credentials on the college's Web site.

René A. Drouin, a student-loan official in New Hampshire, came under scrutiny last month when it was revealed that he earned his bachelor's from Kensington and his law degree from LaSalle University (a name that is easily confused with the venerable La Salle University in Philadelphia). The Louisiana institution made $36-million in seven years by offering degrees through the mail. Its owner was later sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud and tax-evasion charges.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Drouin, who is a member of an advisory committee to the U.S. Department of Education, says he had no way to know that the universities he attended were not legitimate. Besides, his spokeswoman says, his degrees didn't help him get hired or promoted. He would have achieved just as much with only a high-school diploma, she says.

The argument that academic credentials don't matter is heard often from administrators and professors who defend unaccredited degrees.

In February it was revealed that Alan Williams, an associate professor of computer science at Southwestern Adventist University, in Keene, Tex., has a Ph.D. from Glencullen University, which is part of the same diploma-mill ring as Shelbourne. A spokeswoman for Southwestern Adventist says a doctorate is not required for the professor's position. Southwestern Adventist initially took no action against Mr. Williams, other than requiring that he stop saying he holds a Ph.D. Subsequently, he was asked to resign, the university's president says.

Other institutions seem not to care if faculty members claim unaccredited degrees. Tom Isbill, an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma, has two degrees, including a Ph.D., from Pacific Southern University, which is on Oregon's diploma-mill list. He says Central Oklahoma doesn't officially recognize the degrees. But the university still allows him to be called "Dr." on the journalism department's Web page.

While some colleges appear indifferent to the academic backgrounds of their professors, even Mr. Grunewald thinks the fuzzy line between diploma mills and real higher education has become a serious problem. "How do you separate the people who want to do this legitimately from the crooks?" wonders the owner of unaccredited Adam Smith University. "Because there are crooks out there."

Section: Special Report
Volume 50, Issue 42, Page A9

Chronicle for Higher Education: Accrediting your own university

DEGREES OF SUSPICION
Maxine Asher Has a Degree for You

Of course her university is accredited. She did it herself.

By THOMAS BARTLETT and SCOTT SMALLWOOD

Los Angeles
In a posh apartment building in the Westwood neighborhood here, a fax machine hums behind the front desk, spitting out pages on distinctive green paper.

No one would guess that it's the hub of American World University, an unaccredited institution with more than 7,000 students around the globe.

Maxine Asher, who lives up on the fourth floor with one of her four secretaries, is its fearless leader. The faxes are essential because Ms. Asher doesn't know how to use a computer. She can't even answer her own e-mail. Instead, secretaries around the country handle various parts of her business, faxing her reports and copies of messages. She issues orders from her apartment, telling her employees what to write.

If American World were all that Ms. Asher ran, she would be an interesting bit player in her industry. But in 1993 she founded the World Association of Universities and Colleges, an accrediting service unrecognized by the U.S. Department of Education, that gives its imprimatur to a host of alternative institutions. Almost every day Columbus University and Lacrosse University, both of which are considered diploma mills by some government regulators, advertise in the back pages of USA Today. In bold type, they tout their accreditation from the association. That makes Ms. Asher a central figure in the shadowy world of unaccredited higher education.

Now in her 70s, she says she is so hampered by fibromyalgia, a painful syndrome, that she struggles to walk down stairs or put on a sweater. But she remains a supremely confident person, and a spitfire when it comes to defending herself against those who would malign her and her university.

She will "swear up and down" that American World, despite having been pushed out of three states, is no diploma mill. The real problem, she contends, is with a system of accreditation and state laws that create prejudice against innovation.

Let American World stand or fall based on what kind of service it provides, not on some government regulation, she says: "If you go to buy a pair of shoes, isn't it up to you to decide where to go and if the quality is good? It's the American way. Why do we keep legislating what people can do in the field of education?"

Strong Vibrations

Maxine Asher bubbles with stories. She recounts her visit to the palace of a Saudi prince who had received a degree from American World. She casually mentions the Christmas gift she once got from Yasir Arafat (it was a model of Bethlehem). But eventually the tales come around to the topic that fascinates her the most: the mythical continent of Atlantis.

"I don't mean to sound like some kind of nut," she says, going on to claim that both "the Jews and the Catholics" are afraid to have the truth revealed because it would conflict with the Bible. "The world is not quite ready to face Atlantis," she says.

The route to her career as a world explorer began in Chicago, where Ms. Asher was born. Her family moved to Southern California, where she earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles. She became a public-school teacher, got married, and had three daughters. She later returned to college, earning a master's degree in ancient history from California State University at Northridge.

That's when the Atlantis bug bit her. In 1973, at age 42, she led a research expedition to search for the legendary civilization off the coast of Spain.

As she told a New York Times reporter at the time: "I simply know we will find it because I am psychic. Oh, God, how strong the vibrations are these days, and I know that the highly civilized people of Atlantis also were very psychic."

That expedition didn't work out as planned. "We got involved in a Communist-Fascist squeeze play for control of Spain," she says.

She dodged murder attempts and a kidnapping, she says: "Somebody wanted to end this whole thing." A screenplay of the story -- she is looking for financing to make a thinly fictionalized account of her Atlantis research -- is chock-full of these adventures, she says. It's such tales that prompted the "female Indiana Jones" label she frequently cites. In the end, Ms. Asher says, she escaped her captors in Spain by jumping from a speeding car.

'Individualized' Instruction

Ms. Asher now looks more like the grandmother she is. Her short blonde hair is thinning and nearly white. She wears bright-red lipstick and nail polish. She moves slowly, looking for something to hold on to even when she steps off a curb.

Even so, she is up at 5 a.m. to telephone her American World University representatives overseas. One recent morning she called Britain, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. Then she responded to e-mail messages until 10 a.m., directing her clutch of four assistants as they answered the 50 to 100 messages a day she gets from prospective students. Much of that work is done from her apartment, but on many afternoons she gets into her white Plymouth Breeze -- the license plate reads ATLANTS -- and drives to her office in the San Fernando Valley, where she puts in another few hours, checking in with answering services and reviewing faxes.

She founded American World to provide distance education that combines American ideas about higher education with Europe's more tutorial model, she says. Ms. Asher holds a doctorate in education from Walden University and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Granada, in Spain, both of which are accredited by government-approved agencies. In the early days she advertised in the International Herald Tribune, struggling to enroll students.

Then she hit on the idea of hiring representatives in various countries for American World, paying them 50 percent of the tuition they brought in. In return, they handle local advertising and other costs. "Fifty percent of something is better than nothing," she says.

According to Ms. Asher, American World now enrolls more than 7,000 students, including about 2,000 in China. In some countries, students attend classes rather than complete the entire program through distance education, she says. Tuition varies with the country, but students in the United States pay $1,800 per degree.

When they apply, students submit transcripts and résumés, and Ms. Asher gives them credits toward their degrees for their life experience. All students complete some type of thesis or dissertation, she says, and papers are graded by "consultant faculty members." Students work in their native languages, and instruction is entirely "individualized," she adds. "If the guy is in Indonesia, I'm not going to ask him to do a paper on Abraham Lincoln."

Her university has had plenty of detractors. Her application for a license in Louisiana was rejected, and state law changes in Iowa and South Dakota prompted her to move the university repeatedly. The company is now based in Mississippi. In Hawaii the state sued her for not stating clearly that American World was not accredited by a recognized accreditor. She lost a $125,000 judgment.

The Hawaii case was simply a silly vendetta, she says, since she never has had a student from Hawaii. Indeed, fewer than 10 percent of her students are from the United States. About 1,000 are in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a couple of hundred are in Germany, and another hundred in South Korea, she says. She just signed up a new foreign representative to handle students in Sudan and Syria.

It was the apparent expectations of all those foreign students that scared away Alanna Shaikh. She was finishing a master's degree in public health and living in Iowa City in 2000 when the employment agency she was working with assigned her to American World as an office temp.

At the time the business was housed in an office building there, sharing space with an H&R Block office and a manicurist. When Ms. Shaikh arrived, she found three desks and a conference room that seemed to be rarely used. She lasted just one day, making photocopies and doing some filing. At first, she says, the operation seemed "pretty sketchy."

Ms. Asher offered to hire her, Ms. Shaikh says, with a job grading papers and running the office: "She told me I just needed to read them and put some marks in the margins. She thought I could do the science papers as well."

Ms. Shaikh says she briefly considered the job offer because the money would have been better than other options presented. But she had noticed the many foreign students who had paid to enroll, including those from India and Pakistan, where her own family came from. At one point, flipping through files, she saw one student who shared her father's name. "That was what got me in the end," she says.

Ms. Asher emphatically denies that American World is anything but a reputable educational institution. As for Ms. Shaikh, she says, "I never heard of this woman."

Lawsuits and articles about unhappy employees may well have stymied some of her work, she acknowledges. On the Internet, stories of problems in Iowa can reach China instantaneously. Yet she plans to soldier on. "You can't stand up to people and say, 'I'm not a crook,'" she says. "All you do is go on and do your best work."

Make Your Own

After starting American World, Ms. Asher faced questions about its standards. "I realized that everybody wanted accreditation, and we couldn't get it from the regionals," she says. "They just weren't doing it."

Ms. Asher found a solution. She created her own accreditor.

She and other organizers sent out letters to 500 universities in 1993, inviting them to a meeting in Zurich to discuss the new accrediting agency. Thirteen showed up and paid $2,000 each, she says, to become members of the World Association of Universities and Colleges.

To join the group, an institution must have a legal license to operate in some state or country, she says. It then pays $1,000 to become a member but must file a separate application and pay an additional $4,000 to become accredited by the association. Each institution produces a "self-study," which includes its history, a list of faculty members, and information about the curriculum.

That report is reviewed by presidents of other member institutions. "If we think the self-study is worthwhile, we generally accredit them," Ms. Asher says. Site visits are made occasionally but are not required. The association now has more than 50 members, 27 of which it has accredited, she says.

Although some member institutions, like Columbus University and Madison University, have been labeled diploma mills by the state of Oregon, Ms. Asher defends her members, saying they generally provide more individual attention than traditional universities do. The real difference, she argues, is that they don't cost as much.

"If I were a businessman and I only needed a Ph.D. to show somebody and put on my wall," she says, "I'm not going to want to pay Harvard $20,000 for their M.B.A. program." (In fact, tuition at the Harvard Business School tops $60,000.)

She is not arguing that some unaccredited institutions are not scams. An institution of higher education should have more than just a mailbox, Ms. Asher says. It should have at least an office where it keeps student and accounting records. Students should stay away from operations offering degrees for $100, or based only on life experience. And they should avoid institutions that don't insist on a thesis for graduate degrees.

But isn't it a conflict that Ms. Asher runs the agency that claims to accredit her own operation? "I think that's a problem," she acknowledges. "I can see why people would be concerned. But again, I don't mean this in an egotistical way. I believe that I'm a very good educator, based on my background and what I've done, and I believe I can capably run both organizations."

She says that she doesn't draw a salary from the association, but that it does pay for some of her expenses. Money is a problem for the group, she says. Some members have quit over the dues, which run $3,500 a year for an accredited institution. The association, which employs a secretary, has several thousand dollars in expenses every month, Ms. Asher says.

Her newest revenue idea is asking students who have already graduated from member institutions to buy a seal for their diplomas "guaranteeing accreditation" of the issuing institution. She says the association will keep a permanent record of the degree and guarantee that students can document their diplomas through the group. The seal costs $50.

Through the association Ms. Asher has met numerous other operators of unaccredited institutions. She jokes that she knows where all the bodies are buried. Name an operator and she's got an opinion: Harry Boyer, a former community-college president who founded Lacrosse University, was a "great educator." She's not as fond of his widow, Colleen, who now runs Lacrosse. The two women had a disagreement over money recently, and Ms. Asher kicked Lacrosse out of the association.

She describes Donald Grunewald, president of Adam Smith University, as a friend, even though he now says being part of the association was a mistake. Ms. Asher, who holds an honorary degree from Mr. Grunewald's university, questions its new accreditation from Liberia. "That's ridiculous," she says. "I don't even know where that is."

'Trust Me'

It is her experience in the degree business that she can offer others.

Late one morning in May, the owner of one of the association's member institutions calls from London. He is having trouble with British authorities. Ms. Asher says she knows what to do:

"Listen to me. Tariq, Tariq. Listen to me now for a minute. I think you need to get licensed this year anyway in Mississippi, and then you should be able to use the name 'university.' That's not a problem. ... If you get an office in Mississippi and you're only operating a branch office in London, then that should be all right."

There's another pause as Ms. Asher listens before interrupting with more advice: "I got another idea. You start a different corporation under a different name, like I have -- International Educators. It doesn't have the word 'university' in it. You register it in London without the word 'university,' but you can still operate. Trust me. I did it myself."

Her colleague apparently remains uncertain. "Listen to me," she says again. "I'm 16 years in the business, and I've had all sorts of things like this happen. I'm telling you I know what to do."

After 10 minutes of back-and-forth, Ms. Asher becomes impatient. She is, after all, a busy woman, with her own university to run, an accrediting agency to manage, and maybe a lost continent to discover. She reminds her protégé that time is money.

"I'm not going any further," she says at last. "I would be glad to do anything in the world for you if you fax me a bank receipt tomorrow."

Section: Special Report
Volume 50, Issue 42, Page A12

Sept. 5. 2003 vigil over gay marriage

The Cambridge Reporter
September 5, 2003 Friday Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A44

HEADLINE: MPs face prayer vigils over gay marriage

Local MPs will be the targets of fervent prayer on Sunday afternoon as opponents of proposed same-sex marriage legislation rally in front of constituency offices.

It's a two-pronged approach, according to Harold Albrecht, pastor of Pathway Community Church, which meets in Brigadoon Public School in Kitchener.

"We're praying and we're taking a public stand," he said. "The two need to go together.

"It's too easy for us to cloister ourselves in our holy huddles."

Albrecht is helping to organize a prayer rally in front of the St. Jacobs constituency office of Waterloo-Wellington MP Lynn Myers. It will be one of more than 150 prayer rallies across the country that have been co-ordinated in part by the Canada Family Action Coalition, a non-denominational Christian group based in Calgary.

So far, prayer rallies are planned outside the offices of more than 150 of the 301 members of Parliament across Canada.

The coalition has been working with other Christian groups -- including REAL Women of Canada and Canada Christian College in Toronto -- to plan the rallies. The coalition is urging opponents of the federal government's intention to legalize same-sex marriage to gather outside the politicians' offices at 3 p.m.

Albrecht said he will be praying for wisdom for government leaders.

"As a believer, I certainly feel that the source of our wisdom is God's Word," he said. "We will be praying that all of our leaders will be open to God's wisdom in this, and not bow to a very small group who currently have a different view.

"I want to make this very clear -- this is not an anti-homosexual rally. We're here to defend and support (heterosexual) marriage.

Albrecht said he believes it's important for family stability to keep marriage heterosexual.

Myers, in an interview Wednesday, said he was invited to the rally in front of his office but had a previous engagement so he won't be able to attend.

However, Myers said, he wasn't distressed by the gathering.

"That's the beauty of democracy," he said. "People have the right to meet and assemble and say what they want or do what they want -- in this case, pray as they see fit, which is very fine by me.

"I just hope it doesn't turn into what happened to my colleague (Kitchener-Waterloo MP) Andrew Telegdi, where it looked like a setup."

During a meeting last week in Waterloo with opponents of two pieces of federal legislation, Telegdi called one of the pastors in attendance a "liar" and stormed out.

Hutton: Alta. should split from Canada and buy nuclear subs

Archived news story:

Canadian Press Newswire
March 25, 2003

Alta. should split from Canada and buy nuclear subs, says separatist group

EDMONTON (CP) _ Nuclear submarines armed with long-range missiles could help Alberta gain international clout if the province were to secede from Canada, says the leader of a fledgling separatist group.

''One of the things that was suggested would be a couple of nuclear submarines moving around the world,'' Bruce Hutton told a news conference Tuesday.

''That makes us a formidable power. With the amount of money we've sent to Ottawa in the last six years, we could have nuclear submarines.''

Hutton, a former Mountie who strongly opposed the national gun registry, said 5,000 signatures are still needed to give his Separation Party of Alberta official status in Alberta. Nonetheless, he is predicting they will win 11 seats in the next provincial election.

Premier Ralph Klein has said he believes Albertans want to remain within the country.

''I strongly feel that Albertans want to be part of Canada and they want to be recognized as part of Canada. I don't think that they want to separate, they simply want their voice to be heard.''

Although there is little desire for separation, Klein has said, his party will hold a panel discussion about it at its annual policy convention this weekend in Red Deer, Alta.