My final post for 2009 is not going to be some kind of look back at the year-in-Parliament, or a look a head to the year-that-will-be, because frankly my psychic powers don’t lie in that particular prognosticating direction.

Rather, it’s to relay Her Excellency’s New Year’s address. The video is here, but for the sake of text, here it is:

Dear friends,
The time has come for us to take a last look at the year that has ended and to wish one another our best for the New Year.
The economic disaster that threw the whole planet into turmoil in 2009 revealed the pressing need to strengthen the bonds of solidarity that unite us.
I believe that the financial crisis we have gone through together is also—and mainly—a crisis of values that urgently requires an ethic of sharing.
Everywhere I travelled this past year—from the Arctic to Acadia, from Europe to Central America—young people, women and men told me in no uncertain terms that they wanted a world that focused more on solidarity, a world that was fairer, more ecological and more peaceful.
I also very often had the impression that my journey was taking me on a path towards peace and reconciliation.
Here, in Canada, we have chosen to embrace the luminous promise of the truth and address the dark and painful chapter of Aboriginal residential schools, rather than push it from our minds.
For over a century, thousands of Aboriginal children were torn from their families, from their communities, from their culture, and subjected to forced assimilation and abuse.
Because of this, all of us were collectively dispossessed of the ancestral languages and cultures that are our deepest roots in this continent.
Over the next five years, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission will travel across the country, and I sincerely hope that you—Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike—will come out in great numbers to take part in this rendezvous with history.
It is Canada’s desire to seek the truth and to make amends that makes it a symbol of hope for so many people around the world.
It is a hope that begins in each of us and is propagated by each of our actions, here at home and abroad like in Kandahar, where our soldiers are facing innumerable dangers in the name of justice and freedom.
Hope for a better world, which we are building on a daily basis in each of our communities, in thousands of ways, by breaking down the solitudes that still—and far too often— separate us from one another.
It is in this spirit that we are preparing to bring Olympism to Canada in 2010, by welcoming the entire world to Vancouver to make the Olympic and Paralympic Games not only a unique opportunity to excel, but also a wonderful celebration of friendship.
My husband, Jean-Daniel, our daughter Marie-Éden and I would like to offer all of you our best wishes for peace, prosperity and happiness.

And with that, I’ll wish all my readers a happy New Year, and I’ll see you in 2010.

It’s official – Harper made a call to Her Excellency yesterday, and she once again allowed him to push the reset button on Parliament for no discernable reason. Parliament is now prorogued until March 3rd. Time enough for the Harper government to stand on every single podium they can at the Olympics, try and hope a little of that gold lustre rubs off on them, and really, really hope that the whole Afghan detainee issue will just go away.

Uh huh. But what’s really messed up is that it took the Clerk of the House to actually confirm that Parliament was prorogued, and that the Prime Minister’s spokesperson couldn’t even do so – even though he distributed helpful talking points to justify it. Said spokesperson also studiously avoided answering whether he would answering whether the government would appoint a new chair to the Military Police Complaints Commission so that they can finish their own investigation into the Afghan detainee issue. But hey, you know, that’s “old news” that Parliament shouldn’t be focusing on. Or something like that.

I could express my own particular outrage at how this is one more example of a Prime Minister turning ever the more into a monarch in the way he’s circumventing Parliament and undermining our very system of responsible government and democracy. But Andrew Coyne over at Maclean’s did it so much better than I ever could, and so I urge you to read this quick post. And once you’re done, urge your MPs to follow Coyne’s advice and meet anyway – even if Harper and company bar the doors.

And elsewhere today, Her Excellency also announced 57 new appointees to the Order of Canada. A cursory glance shows me that out gay NAC artistic director Peter Hinton has been promoted to Officer in the Order, so congrats to him.

Remember a few months ago, at that big climate change summit in Bangkok, how the delegates from a bunch of developing nations all walked out, en mass, during a presentation by the Canadian delegate? And how our Environment Minister said that it was over-exaggerated, and that no walkout really happened, and so on? Well, as it turns out, it did happen after all. The delegate who was there said so, despite the Environment Minister telling the rest of us back in Canada that he said otherwise. In other words, Jim Prentice, once again, told a deliberate untruth to the Canadian public it took this long for him to get called out on it – when it’s far from everyone’s mind.

And yet, this is just one more piece in the pattern. Look at the way this government responded to the allegations brought forward by Richard Colvin on Afghan detainees being exposed to torture – it was to deny, obfuscate, and smear. And yet the Canadian public is apparently just shrugging, and moving along. Seriously? And even now that the media is finally starting to call them out on it, people are just shrugging, not caring that the Prime Minister is ignoring the will of Parliament, undermining our system of democracy, and acting like a monarch. I seriously have to wonder what it will take for people to wake up and stop shrugging it off.

Peter Van Loan and John Baird want you to know that they’re on the case after this whole attempted terrorist bombing of an airline. Except, of course, that we have a limited ability to share intelligence about terror suspects. Hmm – you’d think that in this era of terrorism paranoia, this would be a higher priority for various countries.

The CBC’s Kady O’Malley takes a look at the way the Senate numbers are stacking up right now, given that Harper is expected to name five new Conservatives to the Upper Chamber after two more Senators retire on January 2nd.

The Toronto Star takes a look back at the case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, who has largely disappeared from sight now that she’s returned to Canada. And while I still think that Foreign Affairs was in the wrong on this, there are a few interesting contradictions creeping into this story that may well see the light of day when she takes the government to court for damages after her ordeal.

And oh, look – Malawi arrested a “newly-wed” (but only symbolically) gay couple for “gross indecency.” While this is isn’t unexpected given the rampant homophobia that Africa seems to be experiencing, one has to wonder why Madonna isn’t saying something, given that she seems to have taken such an interest in Malawi. Unless of course that interest is simply to adopt children from there.

I’ve been spending the past couple of days going through the past few issues of The Hill Times that I’d fallen behind on reading, and I came across an article on those ten percenters, and the top 40 MPs’ printing costs. As a great change from last year, 38 of the top 40 were all Conservatives. The only exceptions were numbers 10 (NDP MP Olivia Chow) and number 40 (Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal). And Chow will argue up and down about the usefulness of ten percenters, and sure they’re partisan, but hey, that’s politics.

Chow isn’t wrong – politics is partisan, and it can serve a useful function. It’s supposed to be a subsidised way for MPs to keep in touch with their constituents, or to communicate with people who aren’t in a riding they hold who might not otherwise hear from their party. So far, so good, right?  But the question always becomes where the line gets drawn. Is it appropriate for Chow to take her party’s anti-HST battle to these ten percenters? (Especially when it’s really a provincial decision?) Perhaps, but I’d say it’s a bit on that line. But some of the hyper-partisan, mean-spirited ten percenters that torque or misrepresent issues the party sending them wants to try to campaign on? Or ones that misrepresent the position taken by that riding’s MP? Not so cool.

(I might also add that MPs sending ten percenters about municipal or provincial issues when it’s outside of their scope as a federal MP are also vexing to me, but maybe that’s just me).

The thing is, as much as MPs are wailing and gnashing their teeth over these mean-spirited ten percenters, nobody wants to give them up completely, and I don’t believe them when they say it’s because it’s an important communications tool. Rather, I’m quite certain the real reason is that they’re also an important data-mining tool for parties. Remember that these ten percenters have reply spaces – with free postage – to answer some kind of a biased survey question (and you’re lucky if you get a choice rather than just a “yes!” check box). Those replies go to each party’s research bureau, which compiles them in a voter database, that they can then use to build demographic data on the riding, and to know whether those who reply support them or not. Why wouldn’t they want to give that up?

No doubt this issue will continue to come up in the New Year – especially as those questions of prima facia breaches of privilege brought up by the likes of Irwin Cotler still exist (given that he was smeared by ten percenters inferring he was anti-Semitic, even though he’s Jewish and an internationally respected human rights lawyer). But I don’t expect any real limits to be placed on them.

Elsewhere, the PMO is sending out mean memos mocking Michael Ignatieff – because that’s a prime use of their resources (as opposed to, oh, the party office).

The Canadian policy of paying Afghans for the damage our operations cause their property is the best counter-insurgency policy out there, it seems.

And a gay wedding in Argentina is Latin America’s first same-sex marriage. Apparently it’s catching…

With the holidays now behind us, I thought we could take a quick look back at the holiday messages sent out by the political leaders. The Prime Minister managed to talk about the upcoming G8 and G20 meetings as well as the Olympics, and he didn’t close with a “God bless” or any variety for a change.

There was nothing from Ignatieff, but here’s Jack Layton, and Elizabeth May’s very inclusive message on video.

In her Christmas message, the Queen called 2009 a “difficult year,” and spoke of the sacrifices made by the troops in Afghanistan. Most of all, she spoke about the Commonwealth, and how it is a force for community across the world, especially among young people. Funny how this contrasts greatly with the “Is the Commonwealth still relevant?” articles that cropped up around the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting that happened in Trinidad and Tobago this autumn. Most of all, she feels that the Commonwealth is the face of the future – a family of nations that transcends race, language and religion – and something that we Canadians can definitely feel a part of.

Her Excellency didn’t have a holiday message, but she did post the photo chosen for her holiday cards, taken during a trip to Nunavut.

(gg.ca photo)

If you missed it, here's my interview with gay Liberal MP Rob Oliphant's husband, Marco Fiola. Oliphant and Fiola were my “dates” at this year's Press Gallery dinner.

And after taking credit for defunding KAIROS for their supposedly anti-Semitic stance, Jason Kenney is now backing off that claim and saying that wasn’t the reason, and he had no part to play in it. Uh huh, sure. I believe you.