What we're talking about when we talk about "rule of law"

As every good Canuck knows, nobody does rule of law rulier or lawier than we do. Look up "rule of law" in the encyclopedia and there's a picture of a little beaver waving the Maple Leaf.

That's us!

"Rule of law" has become a get-out-of-jail-free card for those who make our laws and rules.

Wanna slap Meng Wanzhou in the slammer for a couple years to disabuse the Yellow Peril of their fantasies about 5G dominance? Rule of law! We had no choice!

A jerk-off US hedge-fund titan loots Sears Canada for billions and leaves 16,000 Canadian pensioners in the lurch? Rule of law! We had no choice!

Another US hedge-fund titan adds billions to the value of CP Rail by killing over five thousand excellent Canadian working class jobs. We are so grateful we thank Bill Ackman for making this Canadian icon more efficient, and gift him a couple of billions as a token of our gratitude.

We had no choice... rule of law!

But nothing throws into relief our attachment to rule of law quite like the Wet'suwet'en debacle. At least we've cleared up one of the great mysteries of this rule-of-law juggernaut.

When we talk about rule of law, we talk about the rule of White Man's Law.

Yup, all of Justin's vacuous twaddle about reconciliation and mutual respect and nation-to-nation dialogue is going down the shitter even as I type these words.

Now he's asking  our FN neighbours, living with the legacy of 400 years of betrayal and broken promises, to be patient. At least he's being even-handed; that's also what he's asking of the non-natives who have been inconvenienced by the rail blockade for a couple weeks.

We are, after all, a fair and just nation, governed by the rule of law...

Trudeau plays oil cowboys against Indians

I don't know who does page layout at the Globe and Mail these days. Maybe that's a function that's been out-sourced to some sweatshop in India by now. For "efficiencies," of course...

Regardless, I often get the impression that whoever it is has a more nuanced appreciation of current events than the nabobs who make the big calls at the Globe.

Take the front page of Report on Business today, for example. Note the clever juxtaposing of two stories re: Canada's fossil fuel dependency. You've got Brent Jang's story on Coastal GasLink above the fold, and Jeffrey Jones' story about orphan wells right under it.

Jang's story is all about the colonists running rough-shod over the natives. Sure, you people had your "hereditary Chiefs" and all, but fuck that, you're gonna be democratic now, so we'll only deal with the democratically elected Chiefs.

Apparently most of the elected Chiefs recognized by the Colonists are all in for the Colonist's plans to push pipelines through unceded native territory. What a surprise!

That's the end of "nation to nation" dialogue in my book.

Then Jones has a story about orphan wells. That's what's left when a well's got nothing left to give. Sometimes they get orphaned before they even gave anything! Other times they're orphaned after giving their owners millions of barrels of oil.

When the well is done giving, the entrepreneurs who own it fob it off to some undercapitalised fringe outfit that milks the last few millions out of it and walks away, leaving the cleanup to guess who?

Meanwhile, our government, in the spirit of reconciliation, has effectively criminalized any Wet'suwet'en resistance against pipelines pushed through unceded native territory.


That's just wrong.