Sunday Poem: We Are Becoming Disco

We are becoming disco
nnected with every new app
With all the fruits in ‘frisco
silicon valley’s software trap
the future of poetry
is wholly crap.

Sunday Poem: One Car Two Car Three Car Four

One car is

Two cars ares

Three cars worse.

 

Time To Redraft A Nafta

Auto parts, pots, aluminum, and steel
Beef, barley, beggars, and MBAs
All, all part of the deal
Leaving me sad with financial malaise.
As negotiators negote and negoo
They work on levels beyond me, beyond you
They profess an air of fairest trade
But, but, it just ain’t true.
Sitting at tables opposite and opulent
They plot how to gain an advantage monopulent
You’d think they were trading apples or horses
As they shelter and shield secret discourses.
This is the nature of the creature NAFTA
Trade Agreement—will we redraft a?

Canada’s Nutty Notwithstanding Clause

       “Petty dictators love the Notwithstanding Clause, because they are able to make bad law, have it declared bad law, and then ignore that it is bad law.”

In 1982, Canada made a law that allows both provincial and federal governments to circumvent the rule of law. Great idea!

And then, they made that law the supreme law of the land, part of our constitution. Another smashing idea.

Why have laws in the first place?

Is the idea of law to control or conscript people? Or perhaps, to limit abuses by governments?

The Notwithstanding Clause(s. 33) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms makes all Canadian law meaningless. It allows basic human rights to be abused by nefarious, or even well-intentioned, legislators. Is that what we want in Canada?

It is not what I want.

Decades ago, I contested a municipal law in court, claiming that it violated the Charter(amongst other reasons.) The judge overseeing the case did not uphold the Charter claim. I concluded that people in authority often like the power they possess and are hell-bent to prevent citizens from claiming their rights under the law.

Aside from not siding with me, the presiding judge, in what can only be described as retribution, ordered me to pay maximum court costs for my intransigence of seeking a remedy under the Charter. Delightful.

There was no need to have a Notwithstanding clause in my case, as the judiciary acted perfunctorily on behalf of legislators.

Before we fast-forward to 2018, we only need to look at previous behaviours of the Quebec government. Here in Quebec, political leaders truly like the Notwithstanding clause. They have invoked it and during the current election campaign party leaders proudly boast that they would invoke it if their discriminatory laws were ruled unconstitutional.

Petty dictators love the Notwithstanding Clause, because they are able to make bad law, have it declared bad law, and then ignore that it is bad law.

How wonderful. Not!

The citizens of this nation are not slaves without rights. Yet, the existing Charter subverts the rights that are duly articulated in the Charter. It is pathetic really.

Immigrants and refugees come to Canada in the hope they might be able to prosper through the enjoyment and practice of their rights. And many do. However, heavy-handed governments across the breadth of our land like to keep us peons in their place. And the peons may be long-time citizens. It matters little whether one is a newcomer or a multi-generational Canadian. Power corrupts.

And the Notwithstanding Clause allows no remedy for citizens whose rights have been stripped away.

Because of the Notwithstanding Clause we are all Smith-Out-Of-Luck.

It is like buying a car without any warranty. Buyer beware.

And citizen, be aware that Charter Rights are not written in stone. Nor are they often recognized by the judiciary. On occasion, by the benevolence of nine, ermine-skinned robe-wearing justices, rights are granted reluctantly.

However, the costs of launching a challenge, and persisting against governments funded by the public purse, makes it hardly worth the fight. We know this.

Government not only can reverse the highest court in the land, but they make the rules of court so onerous that standing up for one’s rights is next to impossible. The rules are slanted against.

And government persists in making it difficult. They take sweet pleasure in knowing that their authority can rarely be challenged. It is sickening.

We have laboured far too long under the thumb of incompetent, often careless, self-serving legislators.

By taking away the only avenue of recourse to right a wrong, our provincial and federal legislators have failed us. Notwithstanding the latest efforts by Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government in Ontario, all Canadians are denied legal remedies when the rule of law can be tossed aside like a toothpick.

-30-

Sunday Poem: State Of The Union

Today my ink cartridge ran dry …………………..

It was in the middle of printing an anonymous …………………..

Op/Ed for The New York Times— …………………..

For the record  …………………..

This is a Fake Poem

 

 

 

Sunday Poem: Let’s Face It

Let’s Face It

There are poets more skilled than I

Who own a more developed ear

Who sing melodious from the mouth

Did they study Shakespeare, who knows?