NOTEBOOK: Of Canadian elections and a rogue publisher

NOTEBOOK: Of Canadian elections and a rogue publisher

AT THE TIME of this writing, it looks like Canada will have another Conservative minority government under the steely watch of Stephen Harper. Which means more of the same. The same right-wing economic and political policies skewed to favor big corporations and banks over the poor and working classes including the vast majority of immigrant population and foreign temporary workers.

I attended a National Ethnic Press Council roundtable a week before the Oct. 14 elections where Liberal leader Stephane Dion was the speaker. I asked two questions: 1. Would you sign the UN Convention for the Protection of the Rights and Welfare of Migrant Workers? His answer: Yes, if there are no technicalities involved. 2. What would you do to help foreign temporary workers? His reply: I will fast track their becoming Canadians.

If Dion were to be the next Prime Minister, we could hold him to his words. But that may not be happening soon. We’re stuck with Harper who was next to impossible to meet during the campaign because he was just not accessible except to top editors of the dailies or to CBC’s Peter Mansbridge.

Besides, it’s apparent that the main plank of the Conservative program on labor is to pack the country with foreign temporary workers (translation: cheap labor) without labor rights and benefits and send them back to their home countries when they’re no longer needed.

But let’s see what happens next after the dust has settled in this election. For sure, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois will be bickering intensely against one another while the Tories will have more power to implement their Bush-inspired agenda. It was a sad spectacle to watch NDP’s Jack Layton and Liberal’s Dion during the campaign attacking each other with passion as if either was the main target of the opposition. What they achieved was worse (for them) than the pre-election power equation in Parliament: more seats for the Conservatives.

This looks like a reverse of what’s happening in the U.S. where Democratic candidate Barack Obama is much favored by the polls than the Republican John McCain. I can’t wait to see, though, how a Harper-Obama chemistry would look like. A supposedly liberal-leaning U.S. superpower leader meeting with a Canadian version of ex-prez Bush. Would Obama really work for pulling out U.S. troops from Iraq while Harper would tend to send more Canadian troops to Afghanistan?

For sure, a second, stronger minority government for Harper would give him more reason to rule like a majority. That’s what he said.

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On page five of this issue there is an open letter of appeal to GTA outlets of Filipino newspapers to help in preventing the theft of bundles of newspapers. The suspect is a publisher of another paper.

We in the local community media know who this person is. It’s been reported that he (or his delivery person) was seen by a storeowner pick up a bundle of another newspaper and brought it to he only knows where, most likely the garbage.

In one instance, a storeowner specifically asked this guy not to pick up a bundle of newspapers. When the storeowner turned her back to him, he nevertheless carted away with the bundle.

Obviously, his intention was get rid of his perceived competition’s publications so these would appear to have less circulation than his paper’s.

I am reminded of the days when the Marcos regime bought bundles of the newspapers We Forum, Malaya, and other anti-dictatorship publications in Manila in the early 80s when the so-called mosquito press started to irritate Marcos.

But that was suppression of dissent and press freedom. The struggle then was in the political realm. What we have here locally is motivated purely by profit. And it is nothing less than low life.
According to another Filipino editor, while he was in a restaurant with colleagues, he witnessed how within minutes of delivery, a bundle of newspapers disappeared and on its spot appeared a bundle of this guy’s paper.

What do we do to stop this nefarious practice of a person occupying a prestigious position in our community. Do we need to expose him in print? Do we need to call the police? Maybe if he apologized to us and commit to mend his ways, there will be no need for this.