The case of First Nations University of Canada is certainly sad, but timely. Sad, in that it’s another example of liberal hopes gone horribly awry. Timely, in that it’s yet another indication of how Ottawa intends to get serious about how it spends money.

To sum up the news story: both the Saskatchewan and federal governments have pulled more than $12 million in funding from FNUC: $5.2 million from Regina, $7.5 million from Ottawa. That’s over half of the university’s funding, and unless you’re planning on running a post-secondary institution on an austerity scheme, the double-whammy effectively kills FNUC for 2010-11.

The reason? Extended problems with the university’s governance. You’ll note that in neither Globe nor Star-Phoenix story, no Opposition politician, provincial or federal, is being quoted on the story. And that’s because the governance problems are so systemic, so far gone, and so well known, that no politician with any sense would be willing to argue with either government’s decision.

Of course, that’s not going to stop some vested interests from trying a weak protest:

“I can’t find the words to describe how stunned I am at what the federal government has done and how destructive I think it is and how almost vengeful it is to do this after FSIN has taken action,” said the [Canadian Association of University Teachers]’s executive director James Turk.

“They had five years to put pressure on the FSIN [Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, which oversees FNUC] … and then they choose to do it afterwards when the problem looks like it’s on a road to a solution,” said Turk, who also encouraged the provincial government to put back its funding now that FSIN has taken steps to address the governance issues.

What Mr. Turk seems to have forgotten: FSIN weren’t supposed to need pressure from governments in order to fix their problems. In fact they shouldn’t have needed five years. But instead, they insisted on playing their petty politics with the university board, secure in their belief that there was no way that either government would cut their funding, and risk accusations that they refused to help young aboriginals escape the poverty trap.

And of course, this belief blinded them to developments around them. Things like other education institutions catering to a First Nations audience, that didn’t have the same governance problems. Things like mainstream colleges and universities offering special entry programs for First Nations and Inuit students. And things like a changing Aboriginal demographic that was less interested in the politics of the reserve system.

These things made an institution like FNUC less and less special, until the two major levels of government became bold enough to see it as simply another funding project, and one that was becoming an expensive boondoggle. You can see this in one little detail:

The federal government said the $7.3 million that would have been allocated to the university for the 2010-11 fiscal year will remain within the government’s Indian student support program, and will be available for proposals that do not include operational funding.

It’s a given practice among bureaucrats, faced with the threat of budget cuts, to assert that their particular program or project is the only or best way to solve Problem X, whatever X may be. These days, though, it seems that neither Regina nor Ottawa are buying that reasoning.

And perhaps that’s the main takeaway from the FNUC situation: that governments in a post-recession period are finally getting serious about pulling the plug on certain spending initiatives that no longer merit the budgets they’re used to. Think your pet project’s federal funding is protected? You might want to check your books again.

By way of a followup from yesterday’s poll, we have a CTV interview with the Waffle, in which he (surprise!) states which Olympic sports he thinks he’s good at:

To be frank, I wouldn’t fancy my chances in any sport. But one sport I identify with a lot – because I still think I could kind of do it – is curling. It’s a fantastic team sport. But I think I will leave it to the people who actually know how to do this. It is the game I associate with a bit, especially the skip. It’s the leadership and the precision and the quiet. My wife is listening to this conversation and says I ought to have said ice dancing. So there you go.

Interesting story from this week’s Hill Times. You can sometimes get the impression, from reading too much Jane Taber or Andrew Coyne, that the Prime Minister’s Office is some super-heavy-breathing, light-saber-wielding overlord who can break ministerial budgets — and, by extension, dissenting public servants — with a wave of a finger.

However, when you look at the PMO’s budgets over a period of time, says the Times, a different story emerges:

The budget of the PMO has grown steadily from $2.2-million in 1975 to $8.1-million in 2008-2009, according to the Public Accounts of Canada, where all the government expenditures are recorded by Treasury Board. When adjusted for inflation, however, it appears that annual PMO budgets have remained relatively constant in the range of $7-million to $10-million over this 34-year period.

All in all, Progressive Conservative PM Brian Mulroney—who had a love of shoes and was known change his shirt multiple times per day—ran the most expensive PMOs since 1975, spending between $8.8-million and almost $12-million per year in inflation adjusted dollars. Former Liberal PM Jean Chrétien and current Prime Minister Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.), meanwhile, are comparably parsimonious, keeping their PMO budgets within the range of $7-million to $8-million in adjusted dollars.

Bear in mind that a good new car, in 1975, would cost about $7500 CDN, whereas the equivalent would be $35 grand in today’s money. That’s the effect of inflation over a 35-year period, even when said inflation was under control after the seventies were over.

These figures reinforce the argument that Stephen Harper’s control over government isn’t something new; rather, he’s had the same level of control that Chrétien enjoyed. Perhaps it’s the fact that Harper’s not a big-L Liberal wielding the power that seems to have his critics miffed:

Tim Murphy, who served as chief of staff in the Paul Martin PMO, said that while the budget of the Harper PMO is not that different than its predecessors, its modus operandi certainly is.

“I think it’s a mistake to draw a direct correlation between the number of staff and its influence, power or degree of centralization,” he said. “I would argue we see now an unprecedented centralization of power, and it doesn’t necessarily mean they are spending more, but what is evident is that not a lot happens that doesn’t go through the centre.”

He said the degree of control a prime minister wishes to exercise is at his discretion, adding that “we tried not to have everything come through us.”

And we pretty much know how that particular PMO strategy worked in the long run, don’t we? In any case, the article’s a worthy read.

Tim Powers’s question about the Waffle’s favourite sport is a perfectly legitimate one. After all, a favourite sport tells us quite a bit about somebody’s personality.

After all, Stephen Harper’s favourite sport is hockey; he’s made no secret of it. But when he talks about it, he does so more as a fan than as a practitioner; a typical hockey dad, you might say. Do we know anything similar about Ignatieff?

Is there any clue, for example, in the New York Times article that Iggy wrote, which was published this weekend?

Well, a couple of things are pretty obvious. First, we know that he’s not really paying any more than casual attention to the Olympics, because if you notice, he doesn’t name a sport or athlete to pay attention to. He mentions snowboarding and curling as examples of sports that use technology to advance, and speed skating to poke fun at Stephen Colbert. But he makes no mention of Jasey Jay Anderson or Caroline Calve or Nick Baumgartner (snowboarding athletes), Cheryl Bernard, Adam Enright or Kristie Moore (curling), or even Anastasia Bucksis or Mathieu Giroux (speed skating).

Second, the sports that he names tend to highlight individual skillsets. This is unlike hockey, pairs figure skating or bobsleigh, which requires a team effort. In Canada, we tend to pay more attention to hockey, because the NHL schedule affects who gets on the team, and figure skating, because of (a) the costumes and (b) the judging. But the Waffle is still in the habit of trying not to offend anyone, which makes both hockey and figure skating off-limits.

And then there’s this passage:

The question is how individual athletes in the Canadian men’s, women’s and Paralympic teams manage the pressure of all our pent-up national expectation. That is finally what makes the Games uniquely compelling. The real drama is not the battle between countries as much as each individual competitor’s battle with himself or herself. Nations can pitch the Olympics as a battle between nations, but the spectators know this is a very human, very individual drama.

Everyone recognizes this sort of writing. It’s what educated people do when they try to make themselves sound profound without actually saying anything and therefore proving their own ignorance. But his emphasis on “individual” and “drama” is quite suggestive.

Because which Olympic sport tends to emphasize both individualism and drama, for an educated man whose primary source of information is media?

Well . . . think Chariots of Fire. Think The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

Exactly. I’d suggest that the Waffle’s self-defining sport is running. After all, when it’s time to get out of town (or Oxford, or Harvard, or Toronto, or whatever), it’s a pretty good skill set to have. But perhaps you’d like a guess at it.

A few things about prostate cancer, from The Canadian Cancer Society:

• It’s the most commonly found cancer among Canadian men.
• Risk factors include advanced age, a family history of cancer, and African ancestry. Diet may also be a risk factor, but the jury’s still out on the relationship.
• Certain tests can detect prostate cancer early, but it’s not absolutely guaranteed.
• One’s called DRE or digital rectal examination, which is a polite way of saying that the doctor sticks a finger up yours. If the doctor feels lumps or other irregularities in a place that’s supposed to be smooth, there may be a problem.
• Another test is called PSA or prostate specific antigen, which is a chemical detected by a simple blood test. Elevated levels of PSA may mean there’s a problem. It’s not an absolute guaranteed test because PSA tends to rise naturally as a man ages. Most doctors will do both tests, check for signs and symptoms, and have a biopsy and ultrasound test done, before declaring a big C.
• The signs and symptoms of prostate cancer include frequent and urgent-feeling urination, difficulty controlling urination, pain during urination, blood in the urine, painful ejaculation, and a sense that you haven’t completely done the job yet.
• The symptoms can also be produced by an enlarged prostate, which is not cancer but can still be a problem.
• In the early stages, a prostate tumour is merely observed, to see if it will grow bigger. If its condition changes, there are four methods for treatment: surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and hormonal therapy.
• Common side effects for treatment include incontinence, impotence and infertility.

In many ways, Jack Layton is very lucky. It sounds very much like they found the cancer during its early stage, and judging from the schedule he intends to keep, it doesn’t sound like he needs surgery. He may have to delegate a few more duties, but otherwise I expect he’ll come through this in pretty good shape.

A couple of points to consider, on the Waffle’s “new” stance on abortion.

First, what the National Post is reporting may be only part of the story. The other part is this news release from the Liberal Party, in which they call for continued funding for reproductive rights groups. (Incidentally, it’s not like the group in the press release, the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, is going to collapse in the event of a complete cut in federal funding; according to its latest annual report, half of its revenues come from private, tax-receiptable donations anyway.)

In all likelihood, Iggy’s marching orders were to play up this abortion funding thing (which would seem to be popular among the Liberal base), he heard second- or third-hand about the PM’s new stance on maternal and child health, and he tried to link the two. The result is the bizarre “position” of trying to include abortion funding in international initiatives on maternal/child health.

The second point is perhaps more important: the stance itself — continued funding of abortion-rights organizations, international program connection or no — doesn’t really matter, in terms of Michael Ignatieff’s leadership skills. Its merits are arguable, but that’s actually a good thing: it means that the Waffle’s position is one that’s refreshingly controversial. It may piss off the pro-life folks, but then a lot of them aren’t really big-L Liberal supporters anyway.

The real point that matters is this: can the Waffle be pushed off it?

That’s a perfectly legitimate, fair question. Time after time, Iffy has been forced or otherwise coerced into abandoning any political position that has even the slightest whiff of an ability to polarize the traditional, middle-of-the-road Liberal vote. What, I’d ask the Librano brain trust, makes you think this position will be any different?

And yes, there will be pressure on Iffy to amend or abandon this stance. Pressure from MP candidates whose constituencies include a high degree of social conservatives. Pressure from fiscal restrainers who regard any sort of NGO funding as a waste of funds. Pressure from party insiders who worry that the press like controversy better than they like real policy.

Of course, the real concern is this: a real possibility that modifying the stance now will be taken as a sign of weakness, an indication that Iggy truly is the shallow dilletante that the Tories have shown the people.

Think the Waffle won’t change his mind on this one? I wouldn’t want to bet the farm on his firmness here.

When it comes to politics, it’s tempting to think that the green lobby can be either ingenuous, or just plain stupid. After all, whenever they have a chance to make their case, they almost always wind up saying the same thing: hike taxes on polluters, go after the oil industry, and generally make everyone’s life miserable by taking away their cars.

Well, it looks very much like it’s starting to percolate very slowly into their brains that their strategy isn’t working. I offer as evidence these statements of frustration, as documented by this week’s Hill Times:

“As an environmental movement, we have resources and people and time and we have to prioritize,” said Marlo Raynolds, the executive director at the Pembina Institute. “It is questionable how valuable those meetings are when you have no tangible action.”

“If they were interested, they would actually listen sometimes,” said John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club. “They’ve basically put themselves in their own bunker and are telling us what the solutions are.”

Mr. Raynolds said he and fellow environmentalists think the endless consultations are simply pro forma meetings, and do not indicate the government is actually interested in crafting a climate change policy.

“This really is a case where we’ve had four years, three ministers, and literally absolutely nothing on climate policy,” he said. “It just seems more like ragging the puck instead of deciding to go for a goal of any kind at all.”

That last bit is actually an interesting point. One of the caveats about the public service, that we sometimes forget, is never to mistake lethargy for actual strategy. But, given the pro-business bent of the Harper government, this could very well be a strategy: namely, frustrate the greenies by doing nothing, until they get off their current page and offer something that’s actually implementable.

And perhaps that’s a good thing all round. Stunts like shoving pies into ministers’ faces isn’t a new strategy, it’s just frustration expressed unacceptably. What with the IPCC controversies expanding, it’s becoming obvious that nobody’s bothering to be persuaded by the green arguments anymore, and therefore the eco-mentalists have three options: (1) abandon the field altogether, (2) find a new green topic to educate the people on, or (3) continue to flog this AGW equine corpse, and sink to the point where their credibility gets to a level that’s even lower than that of the Flat Earth Society.

Most of us would hope they’d pick option one, while the “pure” scientific side would go for option 2. Alas, I suspect that since most of the eco-mentalists are driven by their own egos’ interpretations of the public good, they’ll opt for number 3.

You may think it’s slightly ridiculous to pay 35 bucks just for the opportunity to buy some plastic kitchenware. Normally, I’d agree — but what if said opportunity were attached to a stage show?

Dixie’s Tupperware Party, which finishes its run in Mississauga tonight, is a one-person stage show that’s also a gen-you-wine, show-off-the-burping-lid Tupperware party. I saw a story about it in the National Post earlier in the week and thought it looked like a fun thing.

And it was. Dixie, as played by creator Kris Andersson, is what you’d get if Dame Edna Everidge was reborn as a Trailer Park Boy. It takes a great deal of exuberance to get people to believe in the reality of a panto onstage, and Dixie’s got it in spades. Exactly the level you need if you’re going to persuade an audience of strangers to buy kitchenware whose equivalents can be found at Zellers.

It also takes a heck of a talent for quick thinking and improvisation to work with a live audience. Incident: Dixie was showing off a container for keeping vegetables in the fridge, which is supposed to make them last longer by keeping moisture in check. “And you know what the biggest ingredient in salads is?”

A couple of audience members, having jumped the gun on the question and thinking about the biggest problem with keeping salad in the fridge, shouted out, “Water!”

“Lettuce,” corrected Dixie. She then surveyed the audience with a rebuking look that said volumes about the intelligence level of Torontonians. “I’ve never heard of a water salad before, ” she finally mused, before resuming her spiel.

After that, it was a bit more believable that an audience member named Lawrence wasn’t a plant. I swear, I had a hard time believing that a guy would not be able to operate a simple can opener, even under instructions from a fictional character, unless he was a deliberate plant. But since the guy’s from Toronto, well now . . .

I suppose what I like about this is the acknowledgement that salesmanship is in fact a form of theatre, when you get down to it. This is a legitimate Tupperware party, complete with catalogues and order forms, and according to the New York Times, Andersson’s stage show puts him among the top three Tupperware sellers in the States. The show also contains a few anecdotal facts about both Earl Tupper (who created the product) and Brownie Wise (who invented the Tupperware party). as well as a few smacks on Internet shopping; the reason Dixie’s website doesn’t do Tupperware marketing (unlike her competition) is because you can’t really get mass audience participation on the Net. Something to think about.

I’m not sure when Andersson/Longate is planning the next Tupperware tour, but I’d say it wouldn’t be out of place in Nepean’s Centrepointe Theatre. It’s a performance that’s definitely worth seeing.

True, the source seems to be a trial balloon, and true, a lot of Congressmen — Democrats as well as Republicans — are going to muddy the waters a lot on this. But if this story is true, then Barack Obama will deserve to be — and most likely become — a one-term president.

Why? Because you cannot expect to kill a dream of the American people — a return to the moon — and not expect political consequences. Even if the economic and governance arguments make sense.

It doesn’t matter that NASA has been suffering under years of mismanagement — people don’t care because that story’s been underreported.

It doesn’t matter that an argument can be made that the private sector can do it better — the people know, deep down, that no private enterprise is big enough to afford the resources needed to put people back on the moon. Not Steve Jobs. Not George Lucas. Not Bill Gates. And not even Sir Richard Branson.

And it doesn’t even matter that the eco-mentalists may claim this as a victory, in the belief that what was spent on NASA’s ideas can now be spent on theirs. The eco-dream has never caught on in the big way that Apollo 11 did, 40 years ago.

What matters is the message that Obama would be sending to the American people: we are no longer good enough to go to the moon.

That’s going to hit right in the pride, of which Americans have no shortage. It’s going to shatter the hopes of a lot of prospective young people, fueled by memories of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and who think that, wouldn’t it be a nice idea if we could have that spacefaring technology, today? It’s going to be a disincentive to current engineers, who believed in the idea of spinoff technology and now will be told they won’t have the money to develop it.

Most of all, it will diminish America in the eyes of the world, because no other nation today has the will to harness technology to accomplish a finite, world-changing goal. (China, maybe, in 20 years’ time, but not now.)

Why does this matter? Because the Apollo program was one of the major touchstones of American history, a part of the American mythos that emphasized a “can-do” attitude. Fool around with the mythos, and (as Jimmy Carter found out with his mishandling of Iran) the People will let you know, in no uncertain terms, that you are no longer worthy to lead them.

And this particular mythos is especially powerful because it’s a part of recorded history; not Hollywood, but a historical fact that people living today still remember experiencing. So they know, deep down, that a return to the moon was (and is) always possible — provided nobody tried to slam the door on the idea.

Slamming the door, of course, would be a big mistake, because once something gets stopped, it takes a great deal of energy to get it going again, and the space community the fear, deep down, that the energy was no longer available: that the Idea of the Dream wouldn’t be enough.

In the eyes of its fans, manned space exploration was a legitimate means of expanding humanity’s horizons, getting them to look beyond themselves. That sort of attitude has always been a part of the American persona; it would be a big mistake, on Obama’s part, to try and kill it.

The Star’s Tonda McCharles is reporting on a study, done by the Institute of Wellbeing, saying that there’s a growing disconnect between the Canadian voting public and those who govern. (In case you’re interested, you can find a full copy of the study, in PDF format, here at the Institute’s website.)

Nothing particularly new about that. The paper itself is thoroughly researched (check out the bibliography at the end), but the conclusion reads very much like a government project trying to keep itself going, because its direct recommendations seem to boil down to “more research is required,” i.e. “we’d like more money to do our work.”

Why does this matter? Well, let me direct your attention to the Institute’s Funder’s Alliance page, which lists the institutions from which it gets its funding. Two of them have immediate interest: the Government of Ontario, and the Canadian Council on Learning. The latter is especially important to taxpayers nationwide because it’s the NGO, funded by Ottawa, that’s about to lose a pretty good chunk of its operating budget.

And what about the others?

• Atkinson Charitable Foundation — founded by the same guy who founded the Toronto Star, and apparently the driving force being this Institute, which explains the newspaper’s interest
• RBC Foundation — doesn’t seem to list the Institute in its donations list
• Lawson Foundation — has granted $300,000 to Atkinson, but doesn’t list the Institute on its special grants page
• McConnell Foundation — stopped accepting applications for new grants in 2008. The Institute was formally established in 2009. McConnell may have granted seed money during the founding process

So the Institute of Wellbeing is definitely a creation of Atkinson, which added a list of funders to lend credibility to its claims of non-partisanship. We don’t know how much of the Institute’s budget is covered by which Funder listed — it is a new organization, after all, and they probably haven’t had to do an annual report yet — but we do know that at least one of those funders is about to go under, and another (Ontario) may be under tremendous pressure to reduce its contribution.

But this does sort of illustrate the byzantine money trail that NGOs tend to leave whenever they hunt for cash to continue their no-doubt-noble activities. If there was ever a sector of the economy that deserves closer scrutiny from the taxpayers, then the NGO sector is almost certainly it.