The pundits do it again and again. I recall years ago in Quebec, for example, there were only three journalists who called an election upset on target — two French Canadians and me. Everyone (except we three) was saying Jean Lesage would win by a reduced majority. But we called Daniel Johnson as a winner — and he won with bells on. The problem for almost all pundits is that they suffer from linear thinking. A dialectal mind can pick up signals that linear minds will see and even speak of but still not understand. But you have to know the signals to make sense of them. For example, I did not know that Dancing Dumont had offered each family $5,000 for their third child. Put up against Charest’s list of unfulfilled promises the $5,000 touched the gullibles in the outback a lot closer to home than $700 million, a figure that is even hard for accountants to wrap their minds around. Had I known this (that’s what I get for not paying closer attention to the running of the reptiles) I would have predicted that Charest would be heading toward the ballot box with a grim grin rather than laughing all the way to the ballot box. Anyway, enough gloating. Before I leave Quebec however, let me put away the silly speculation that Gilles Duceppe may step in to replace Boisclair. Gilles Duceppe has a soft life in Ottawa. He can make all the noise he wants and not have to accept responsibility for anything. There is no way he’ll follow the path of Lucien Rivard and the hard, impossible task of being PQ leader. The work would be too hard, and anyway, it’s a lost cause, Duceppe knows it. Not one of his gang of spoiled colleagues would go into the wilderness in his place. The PQ will collapse and fade into Canadian history. Good riddance to a nuisance that has annoyed us for four decades too long.
But now that we’re back to Ottawa, what holds for Prime Minister Harper? Some may say that Dumont and Harper are cut from the same cloth. But let’s keep in mind that Harper, to his credit is consistent in his ideology. The Firewall is doing his best to shield the Canadian public against the bright glow of his obsessions by tempering what he says, and by keeping the lid on his caucus of loonies, but Dumont is a bird of quiet another feather. He is a pragmatist who burns for political success and he doesn’t care which ideology he embraces. If it suits Dumont, he’ll bang the drum for Harper. If it doesn’t, Harper will have to make do with the hammered Liberals. After all, Dumont kept much of the venom in his crowd from public view. Perhaps this ability alone will be enough to bring them together. Harper must know that the tide is running thin in his favour. He also must know that it’ll soon be running out. He’s carrying a lot of nasty baggage. It may prompt him to dive in and sink or swim before first harvest in late June.
Otherwise, we have a bit of a media theme in this issue. It’s a tough life being a journalist, especially if you pose any threat to those in power. The stories we have today are about what’s happening to journalists offshore. I should say they represent just a little of what’s happening to journalists away from Canada. We’ll do more as resources allow. And we’ll also deal with what happens to journalists in Canada whenever they may stray off the proverbial beaten path.
We also quote two self-made billionaires: the mayor of New York who has sound advice on financial planning and one by my old friend Soros who is stirring the Israeli-U.S. pot.
Slow down. Read True North and avoid being caught in the dark without a flashlight.
Looking forward
Carl Dow
Editor and Publisher