The Shotgun
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Meanwhile in Wildrose Country...
Tax cuts for large corporations doesn't sound like a winning slogan for a new party. But they do things differently out in Alberta.
The top level of the royalty rates for conventional oil and gas must come back down, Ms. Smith added. On natural gas, the top-level rates should once again be around 30%, rather than the 50% they were increased to under the new royalty framework.
Here is the party's press release on the issue.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 18, 2010 at 06:45 AM
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Revenge is a Dish Best Served Chilled?
So what's Ezra up to now? Glad you asked. He and a certain Richard Warman are, hmmm, involved in certain legal disputes:
In an affidavit supporting his request for disclosure, Mr. Levant said Mr. Warman's "focus on my political views, and [his] express concern for the political reputation of non-parties to this lawsuit, such as Mr. Warman's former employer, the [Canadian Human Rights Commission], demonstrates my contention that his lawsuit is indeed a 'SLAPP' suit -- Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation -- designed to 'chill' public discussion of these issues."
Mr. Levant's writing, including the 2009 book Shakedown, has focused on the controversies of human rights law, especially Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prohibits online messages that are "likely to expose" identifiable groups to "hatred or contempt."
Ezra comments briefly here.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 18, 2010 at 06:43 AM
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Throw the Bums Out
I'll try not to take this personally Bill:
Progressive Conservative member of the Legislature says he thinks Toronto should become its own province.
Bill Murdoch, member for Bruce-Grey-Owen-Sound, made the radical pitch at a meeting of the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture.
He said rural Ontario is fighting a losing battle against "a Toronto mentality," adding that Toronto decision-makers ignore rural voices.
Mel Lastman, bless his self-promoting soul, suggested this idea back in the 1980s. The idea then was to free Toronto from rule by the "hicks" i.e. the Rest of Ontario. Bill Murdoch, representing the "hicks," wants to free Ontario from rule by Toronto. The problem isn't that the Imperial Capital lords it over the rest of the province, nothing personal we do it over the rest of the country too, it's that the "Toronto mentality" is really a big government mentality. The city's electorate certainly leans to the left politically. A Toronto-less Ontario would lean to the right, certainly to Mr Murdoch's party's advantage. Yet the problem isn't Toronto, it's that so much of life in rural Ontario is run from Toronto. That your bank branch manager reports, ultimately, to some Bay Street ensconced suit is at best an irritant. That your livelihood depends on what some Queen's Park paper-pusher decides is something else entirely. A provincial government that defended property rights, maintained a well run OPP and left the ordinary rural Ontarians to their own devices, would be unlikely to fuel discontent in the heartland. Bill Murdoch is very good at attracting attention, he certainly got the eye of the Speaker during the Fall session, and the idea is of course a stunt. It's not that the idea wouldn't be popular, it's that no one thinks it would actually happen.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 18, 2010 at 06:42 AM
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Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Poll question: Should Marc Emery be handed over to the U.S.?
Yesterday, we covered the story of three MPs (Conservative, Liberal and NDP) who presented petitions to the House on Monday in favour of keeping Marc Emery in Canada.
Emery, libertarian publisher and cannabis activist, is facing a five-year stint in a U.S. federal penitentiary for selling viable marijuana seeds to Americans. A Canadian court handed down a $200 fine to a marijuana seed seller convicted of selling millions of marijuana seeds.
The CBC asked their readers this "Question of the Day": "Should Marc Emery be handed over to the U.S.?" The results were fairly surprising. Fully 92 per cent of respondents (1680 votes) said "No," with 7 per cent (132) answering "Yes," and less than 1 per cent (16 votes) saying "Not sure."
Since CBC readers are likely to differ from Western Standard readers, we thought we'd ask the same question, to see what the difference would be. Here it is:
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on March 17, 2010 at 12:33 PM
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Iggy Madness
Just say Grit:
"If I had to tell you as a parent or as someone who has spent his whole life working with young people, the last darn thing I want you to be doing is smoking marijuana," the federal Liberal leader said.
"I want you to be out there digging a well, digging a ditch, getting a job, raising a family ... doing stuff, instead of parking your life on the end of a marijuana cigarette."
Digging a well? Digging a ditch? He then goes onto encourage students to strive for a post-secondary education. I know they don't have a course in ditch digging at U of T, and Harvard would consider a course on digging as way too heteronormative. Maybe York has something: My Shovel, Myself: New Feminist Approaches to Sewer line Maintenance? Talking extemporaneously isn't easy, and when you're Leader of the Opposition you do that a lot. They might be willing drag out the old teleprompter for the Prime Minister, or one of his higher ranking minions, but Iggy is just a job applicant. He can make do with whatever passes across his Ivy League educated brain at the moment. If you give anyone enough time they'll say something stupid. Being a politician, and therefore forbidden from saying anything intelligent or controversial, Iggy has got to confine himself to platitudes. It's only a matter of time before you run out of bland inoffensive things to bore the kiddies to sleep with.
You can hear poor Iggy thinking: Baking a pie? No, the feminists will have my head for that one, so will the anti-Americans. How many hockey references can I cram into this thing before it gets annoying? What's left? Digging! Academics dig to find the truth! We as a nation must dig our way out of the fiscal mess the Harper government has left! Digging wells brings water, everyone loves water. Wait, do they? Better check with Warren, just in case I'm speaking at the North Manitoban Anti-Water Association Convention next week.
"We can't afford to be provincial. We can't afford to be small. We've got to engage with the world. The world needs Canada to solve conflicts, to give advice, to dig wells, to build schools, to help people. We (also) need more people coming into Canada."
So we need to send people out of Canada, and bring more people into Canada? Maybe he'll get a revolving door installed at customs. The digging wells and building schools bit sounds great, everyone loves digging and schools. Heck, Iggy's fertile brain must have made the next logical step, creating a network of schools in the Third World to teach digging! Those poor foreigners being unable to figure out how to dig their own holes. Indeed before the Liberal Party invented the hole, sometime in the 1960s I believe, we all just spent our time staring at the ground wondering if there was someway of moving this stuff out of our way. The teaching foreigners to dig holes meme dovetails neatly with the don't do drugs schtick. They both sound kind and compassionate, yet manifest the same paternalistic mentality. Foreigners aren't smart enough to dig their own holes, and ordinary Canadians aren't bright enough to figure out what to put in their own bodies. Luckily Lord Iggy is here to help, Ditch Digging Professor to the world.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 17, 2010 at 05:50 AM
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Conservative Government Acts Conservatively
Like a broken clock:
Ottawa is preparing new measures that may soon allow foreign companies to buy small Canadian wireless players, part of the Harper government's ongoing attempts to deregulate the country's telecommunications sector.
In its budget last week, the federal government said it would open the satellite sector to greater investment from non-Canadians. But Industry Minister Tony Clement said he still has broader ambitions for reducing barriers to foreign investment in telecom. This could include allowing outside investors to acquire small players in Canada's wireless sector.
“That is one of the possibilities, but not the only possibility,” he said.
The progress is admitedly slow but it is a positive step. Canadian industry has lived inside an economic hothouse since the days of Macdonald's National Policy. Forcing Corporate Canada into the bracing winds of international competition will be as painful as it is necessary. Having consoled themselves with gouging - and since there is little practical alternative gouging is the right word - Canadian consumers for decades, they won't leave the hothouse without a fight.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 17, 2010 at 05:49 AM
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Free Read
Read free or die:
For most Canadians, choosing to go to an Indigo in a mall versus going to an Indigo a few blocks away isn’t a choice at all. On the Internet, Indigo faces limited competition. Amazon offers amazon.com and amazon.ca as an alternative, but Amazon’s business expansion capacity is limited in Canada by federal protectionist rules that prohibit it from actually owning and operating its own distribution system. Now Amazon wants to expand its Canadian operation, much to the chagrin of Canada’s smaller bookstores.
Because if Canadians bought their Dan Brown from an American owned store, it would be the end of Canadian culture. Book companies, like other for-profit businesses, don't particular care what books they sell, so long as they sell. If Margaret Atwood's latest doorstop - her books are also useful as armour plating - is what the bibliophiles demand, it shall be sold. Canadian culture is in no danger of dying if Canadians want it to survive. They simply vote with their pocketbooks. The argument that Canadian culture needs to be defended by the government, lest we be swamped by the emanations of the American behemoth, rests on an impressive bit of condescension. The ordinary Canadian isn't wise or patriotic enough to buy Canadian culture, so he needs to be forced to support it.
To that end, the government appoints itself as guardian, and through its financial support, as definer of culture. If Publius wrote tomes about how lesbian basket-weavers have battled the patriarchy, while battling the Canadian elements, he'd have a fair shot of getting a government grant. Stupidly he churns out blog posts about reducing government. Sigh. You can't always pay the rent while denouncing rent seeking. CanCon is really just old fashioned paternalism with a maple leaf slapped on the side. We're from the government and we're here to tell how to be Canadian, whether you like it or not.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 17, 2010 at 05:47 AM
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Harper on Marijuana
Lots of to do was made about there being a marijuana question on the list of questions Stephen Harper would answer in his “YouTube interview.” Personally I don’t find that shocking at all, and I am a little bit amused by the moderator’s apologetic tone. Really this is an issue that affects more Canadians than the seal hunt. So it is not surprising that Canadians care about it.
Here is the question:
A majority of Canadians, when polled, say they believe marijuana should be legal for adults, just like alcohol. Why don’t you end the war on drugs and focus on violent criminals?
Here is the 600 word answer with my comments placed in brackets (I also added paragraphs to improve readability):
Well, it’s a good question. I’m not sure I’ve seen this particular poll. There are different polls on this subject that show different things (but they consistently show high support of legalization), but you know, I have to say young children, I guess they’re now…Ben and Rachel are now getting pretty close to 14 and 11, but maybe they’re not that young, but they are at the age where, you know, they will increasingly come into contact with drug use (so wouldn’t it be nice if marijuana stores would refuse to sell it to them because they fear losing their license?), and I guess as a parent, you know, this is the last thing I want to see for my kids or anyone else’s children (how about adults, what gives you the right to make the choice for them?).
You know, I understand that people defend the use of drugs, but that said, I don’t think…I think I’ve been very fortunate to live a drug-free life (good for you but who really cares?), and I don’t meet many people who’ve led a drug-free life who regret it. Met a lot of people who haven’t, who’ve regretted it (I’ve met a lot of people who have and don’t. This is all really irrelevant). So this is something that we want to encourage obviously for our children, for everybody’s children (You can encourage children not to take drugs and still have it legal. Such as the way that many families encourage their children not to smoke cigarettes).
Now, I also want people to understand what we’re really talking about here when we’re talking about the drug trade. You know, when people say focus on violent crime instead of drugs, and yeah, you know, there’s lots of crimes a lot worse than, you know, casual use of marijuana. But when people are buying from the drug trade, they are not buying from their neighbour (depends on your neighbourhood really). They are buying from international cartels that are involved in unimaginable violence and intimidation and social disaster and catastrophe all across the world (Kind of reminds me of alcohol prohibition, how did that turn out when it was ended?). All across the world. You know, and I just wish people would understand that, and not just on drugs. Even when people buy, you know, an illegal carton of cigarettes and they avoid tax, that they really understand the kind of criminal networks that they are supporting, and the damage they do (so by legalizing you take it out of the hands of violent criminals).
Now, you know, I know some people say if you just legalized it, you know, you’d get the money and all would be well (huh?). But I think that rests on the assumption that somehow drugs are bad because they’re illegal. The reason drugs…it’s not that. The reason drugs are illegal is because they are bad (so is cheating on your wife, should we make that illegal too?). And even if these things were legalized, I can predict with a lot of confidence that these would never be respectable businesses run by respectable people (Yes because once booze was made legal no respectable business would touch it. There are absolutely no bases to make this claim). Because the very nature of the dependency they create (like booze), the damage they create (like booze), the social upheaval and catastrophe they create (like booze), particularly in third world countries (huh?)…I mean, you look now, you look at Latin America, some of the countries to the south of us, and the damage the drug trade is doing (wait did we just change topics here? I thought that we were talking about marijuana. Since when does Canada import marijuana from Latin America?), not just to people’s lives as drug users. Look at the violence it’s creating in neighbourhoods (just like booze when it was illegal. Are you starting to see a pattern here?), the destruction of social systems (like booze), of families (like booze), of governmental institutions (Huh?), the corruption of police forces (does he mean criminals corrupt the police? Sort of like how the mafia corrupted the police during alcohol prohibition?).
I mean, these are terrible, terrible organizations (I agree, see above for solution), and while I know people, you know, have different views, I must admit myself sometimes I’m frustrated by how little impact governments have been able to have on the drug trade internationally (you mean government is powerless, wow I’m shocked). But we should not fool ourselves into thinking that if we somehow stopped trying to deal with it, it would suddenly turn into a nice, wholesome industry (the way that booze did). It will never be that (the way that booze isn’t?). And I think we all need to understand that, and we all need to make sure our kids understand, not just that our kids…hopefully not just understand the damage drugs can do to them (like booze), but they understand as well the wider social disaster they are contributing to if they, through use of their money, fund organizations that produce and deliver elicit narcotics (which would stop happening if it was made legal).
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 17, 2010 at 04:55 AM
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Harper on Mandatory Minimums
A few days ago a CP article reported that the government of Canada is ignoring taxpayer research that shows that mandatory minimums do not work. This issue was brought up in Prime Minister Harper’s recent “YouTube interview.”
This question is from Chris in Waterloo, and he writes, “Since research has shown that mandatory minimum sentencing does not deter future crime, what makes you as the Prime Minister believe this is still an effective way of persecuting criminals?”
Harper responds that a majority of Canadians support mandatory minimums, which really has little to do with the question. If a majority of Canadians think that gravity is a myth, we still won’t be able to fly. He then goes on to say that the current system is broken. This still does not answer the question. Even if the current system is broken, why replace a broken system with something that is likely to be also broken?
He then says this:
But
we do think it’s very important that the criminal justice system send a
strong message that such behaviour is not acceptable, and that it be
appropriately punished, and that those who engage in such behaviour
understand what the likelihood of punishment actually is.
This
does not so much ignore the question as it ignores the premise of the
question. The point is that evidence from across the world has shown
that mandatory minimums do not work to deter criminals. To then say
that it represents a ‘strong message’ is foolish; if it was a ‘strong
message’ then criminals would be deterred.
The Prime Minister ends his answer with this statement:
I think…I’m not an expert in this area, but I think the evidence suggests it isn’t the length of the punishment that matters; it’s the certainty of the punishment. And if there’s no certainty you’ll be punished, then no possible penalty will matter. So that’s why we think it’s important to actually have a minimum penalty for serious crimes.
I agree that certainty of punishment is a good theoretical goal. The problem is that this goal is impossible. Criminals do not always get caught. If they are caught there is not always sufficient evidence to convict. This means that every criminal knows he has a chance to get away with it. Mandatory minimums do nothing to change the perception and the reality that often crime does in fact pay.
Mr. Harper did not really address the question of why policy is not being evidence driven. He had an opportunity to refute the evidence or even reject the premise of the question (as he did in an earlier question regarding the seal hunt). He did neither of these things. I leave you to speculate why.
*Update*
Here's a video clip of this portion of the interview:
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 17, 2010 at 04:23 AM
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Conservative, Liberal, and NDP MPs present petitions against the extradition of Marc Emery
Yesterday, MPs Scott Reid (Conservative), Libby Davies (NDP), and Ujjal Dosanjh (Liberal) presented 12,000 petition signatures to the House of Commons insisting that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson should not sign a U.S. extradition request of libertarian publisher and cannabis activist Marc Emery.
Emery, dubbed the "Prince of Pot" by U.S. media, is facing five years in the U.S. on charges related to his selling marijuana seeds to U.S. citizens.
Scott Reid emphasized the fact that, in Canada, judges have consistently ruled that a justified penalty for selling marijuana seeds is a $200 fine. The same crime could result in a sentence of up to life in prison. The extradition treaty with the U.S. includes a provision that refers to punishments that would "shock the conscience" of the average Canadian as a valid, legal reason to refuse an extradition request.
Reid said that it is within the prerogative of the justice minister to "refuse to surrender a person when that surrender could involve unjust or undue or oppressive actions by the country to which he is being extradited."
Reid also emphasized the fact that Health Canada, a government agency, urged Canadians with permission to use medical marijuana, to purchase seeds from Marc Emery if they found government marijuana to be of insufficient quality.
Libby Davies, meanwhile, added that extraditing Emery appears to be in tension with our sovereignty. "People don't understand why Marc Emery should be extradited," she said in the House. "He was never prosecuted in Canada for these crimes, and I think people see it as a question of Canadian sovereignty."
Ujjal Dosanjh echoed the sentiments of Reid and Davies, adding that, in his opinion, there was "inherent unfairness" in the process that might result in Emery being extradited to the U.S.
Here is a video of the three MPs putting forward the petitions:
For more, see the Ottawa Sun's coverage, the National Post's coverage, Cannabis Culture's coverage, or do a Google News search for "Marc Emery."
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on March 16, 2010 at 03:34 PM
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CTF supports Liberal proposal to end 10 per centers
The sign of a truly nonpartisan organization is the willingness to support good ideas regardless of what party they come from. The Canadian Taxpayer Federation has demonstrated that they are nonpartisan by supporting the Liberal proposal to end the 10 per centers.
This should be a no brainer for anyone who supports smaller government, or even for those that don’t. It is difficult to argue that the Canadian people benefit from spending $30 million on party political propaganda. All parties have abused this system that was originally designed for constituency communication. All parties would look good if they come together and cleanse themselves of this program.
So I join with the CTF and call upon MPs of all political parties to support the end of the 10 per centers.
In a blog post a couple of days ago I said that small-c conservative activists should spend their energy in nonpartisan organizations. Thanks to the CTF for demonstrating why I wrote this. It is in organizations like the CTF that good ideas can be promoted regardless of whose idea it is.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 16, 2010 at 11:11 AM
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Ready to Ignite
Imagine pouring a tanker truck worth of gasoline into a swimming pool. Now imagine throwing a lighted match into the pool. The difference between that analogy, and our current monetary situation, is that no one has thrown in the lighted match yet. Prof. Palmer of the UWO explains:
But with all the potential liquidity that is out there, the current situation is most likely an unstable equilibrium. As people regain even a smidgeon of confidence, and/or as people come to experience higher interest rates, and/or as people come to expect higher rates of inflation, we will not want to hold such humongous money balances.
And as we start converting our monetary assets into other assets, velocity will increase and so will aggregate demand. As Siklos and many others have warned, with all the liquidity already in the system, a rapidly increasing velocity will unleash gi-normous inflationary pressures in the next year or so.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 16, 2010 at 07:29 AM
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National Post Condemns Random Breathalyzer Tests
As a follow up to this earlier Shotgun post. The NP's editorial board is not enthused by a trial ballon floated last week, calling for granting police the power to conduct random breathalyzer tests on drivers.
If the current approach to impaired driving wasn’t working, there would at least be a public safety argument to make for taking the government’s power to intrude on basic liberties further. But drunk driving rates have dropped significantly over the past decades. Traffic Injury Research Foundation statistics show there were 1,296 alcohol-related deaths in Canada in 1995; in 2006 there were 907 — a 30% drop in just a decade.
Very drunk drivers remain the biggest problem: Among fatally injured drivers with alcohol in their system, almost 60% tested at more than twice the legal limit. Happily, the very drunk are the easiest for police to spot on the roads, and that’s precisely where they should focus their efforts. If the law is to change in order to deal with a small number of incorrigible repeat offenders, it should be through ever-stiffer sentences, not by further eroding the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 16, 2010 at 07:17 AM
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The Compassionate State - Part 2
We concluded the first part of this two part series by summarizing the claims of socialized health care's defenders. While this post is written with the Canadian system in mind, and the author is aware that defenders of socialized care are not homogenous in outlook and approach, the goal is to provide a basic philosophic summary of the system's defenders. Their argument being, briefly, that socialized health care is morally superior system to an essentially market based system. This second part seeks to analyze this claim of moral superiority.
I have omitted arguments as to the efficiency and efficacy of socialized health care. There are certainly those who put forward the claims that socialized care is more economically efficient that a market system, and that its outcomes are superior. I have not dealt with these claims for reasons of practicality. Aside from die hard socialists, and victims of Canadian public education, few now take seriously the claim that a government system is more efficient, or efficacious, that a market based system. The reams of historical data, from the Eastern Bloc command economies, to the nationalized industries of Britain, have borne out the material failings of non-market based systems of resource allocation. The degree of aversion to market principles is the degree of those systems failure to materially provide for their participants.
While their failure was predicted by market economists, notably Mises as early as the 1920s, the proof has been borne out in the history of the last ninety years. To those who object to my characterizations, I can only direct them to the economic and historical literature on the topic. My contention, therefore, is that socialized health care is ultimately a moral proposition. Solely as a matter of practical efficiency, providing quality care to the overwhelming majority of the population, the weight of evidence goes to supporting a market approach. Even the current American system, a hodgepodge of highly regulate private companies, and three large state services (Medicare, Medicaid and provisions for serving and veteran military personnel), still provides quality care to the overwhelming majority of Americans. Whatever the validity of the claim that forty-five million Americans do not have health care insurance - this figure includes the very rich, illegal aliens, those between jobs and those in their twenties who choose not to purchase health care - it must be evaluated within the context of a nation of over three-hundred million.
The repeated legislative failures of the current American administration, whose party controls both houses of the Congress, suggests there is no crying desire for a socialized system. Instead the proposed expansions of government interference in the health care market have provoked a fierce backlash, notably in the form of the Tea Party. The proponents of health care "reform" claim a desperate need for their type of reform, yet despite every political advantage they have failed to convince the critical mass of the American electorate of their plans. The alleged victims of the current system are not reaching for the lifesaver of socialized, or quasi-socialized, health care. It is something defenders of Canadian Medicare should have the honesty of conceding, rather than dismissing resistance as the product of mysterious "corporate lobbyists" and all powerful radio talk show hosts.
-----------------Continue reading "The Compassionate State - Part 2"
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 16, 2010 at 05:54 AM
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Monday, March 15, 2010
The Firewall Letter
Just because it is fun to reprint things that Mr. Harper has said in the past:
Dear Premier Klein:
During and since the recent federal election, we have been among a large number of Albertans discussing the future of our province. We are not dismayed by the outcome of the election so much as by the strategy employed by the current federal government to secure its re-election. In our view, the Chretien government undertook a series of attacks not merely designed to defeat its partisan opponents, but to marginalize Alberta and Albertans within Canada’s political system.
One well-documented incident was the attack against Alberta’s health care system. To your credit, you vehemently protested the unprecedented attack ads that the federal government launched against Alberta’s policies – policies the Prime Minister had previously found no fault with.
However, while your protest was necessary and appreciated by Albertans, we believe that it is not enough to respond only with protests. If the government in Ottawa concludes that Alberta is a soft target, we will be subjected to much worse than dishonest television ads. The Prime Minister has already signalled as much by announcing his so called “tough love” campaign for the West. We believe the time has come for Albertans to take greater charge of our own future. This means resuming control of the powers that we possess under the constitution of Canada but that we have allowed the federal government to exercise. Intelligent use of these powers will help Alberta build a prosperous future in spite of a misguided and increasingly hostile government in Ottawa.
Under the heading of the “Alberta Agenda,” we propose that our province move forward on the following fronts:
• Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan to create an Alberta Pension Plan offering the same benefits at lower cost while giving Alberta control over the investment fund. Pensions are a provincial responsibility under section 94A of the Constitution Act. 1867; and the legislation setting up the Canada Pension Plan permits a province to run its own plan, as Quebec has done from the beginning. If Quebec can do it, why not Alberta?
• Collect our own revenue from personal income tax, as we already do for corporate income tax. Now that your government has made the historic innovation of the single-rate personal income tax, there is no reason to have Ottawa collect our revenue. Any incremental cost of collecting our own personal income tax would be far outweighed by the policy flexibility that Alberta would gain, as Quebec’s experience has shown.
• Start preparing now to let the contract with the RCMP run out in 2012 and create an Alberta Provincial Police Force. Alberta is a major province. Like the other major provinces of Ontario and Quebec, we should have our own provincial police force. We have no doubt that Alberta can run a more efficient and effective police force than Ottawa can – one that will not be misused as a laboratory for experiments in social engineering.
• Resume provincial responsibility for health-care policy. If Ottawa objects to provincial policy, fight in the courts. If we lose, we can afford the financial penalties that Ottawa may try to impose under the Canada Health Act. Albertans deserve better than the long waiting periods and technological backwardness that are rapidly coming to characterize Canadian medicine. Alberta should also argue that each province should raise its own revenue for health care – i.e., replace Canada Health and Social Transfer cash with tax points as Quebec has argued for many years. Poorer provinces would continue to rely on Equalization to ensure they have adequate revenues.
• Use section 88 of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Quebec Secession Reference to force Senate reform back onto the national agenda. Our reading of that decision is that the federal government and other provinces must seriously consider a proposal for constitutional reform endorsed by “a clear majority on a clear question” in a provincial referendum. You acted decisively once before to hold a senatorial election. Now is the time to drive the issue further.
All of these steps can be taken using the constitutional powers that Alberta now possesses. In addition, we believe it is imperative for you to take all possible political and legal measures to reduce the financial drain on Alberta caused by Canada’s tax-and-transfer system. The most recent Alberta Treasury estimates are that Albertans transfer $2,600 per capita annually to other Canadians, for a total outflow from our province approaching $8 billion a year. The same federal politicians who accuse us of not sharing their “Canadian values” have no compunction about appropriating our Canadian dollars to buy votes elsewhere in the country.
Mr. Premier, we acknowledge the constructive reforms that your government made in the 1990s balancing the budget, paying down the provincial debt, privatizing government services, getting Albertans off welfare and into jobs, introducing a single-rate tax, pulling government out of the business of subsidizing business, and many other beneficial changes. But no government can rest on its laurels. An economic slowdown, and perhaps even recession, threatens North America, the government in Ottawa will be tempted to take advantage of Alberta’s prosperity, to redistribute income from Alberta to residents of other provinces in order to keep itself in power. It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.
Once Alberta’s position is secured, only our imagination will limit the prospects for extending the reform agenda that your government undertook eight years ago. To cite only a few examples, lower taxes will unleash the energies of the private sector, easing conditions for Charter Schools will help individual freedom and improve public education, and greater use of the referendum and initiative will bring Albertans into closer touch with their own government.
The precondition for the success of this Alberta Agenda is the exercise of all our legitimate provincial jurisdictions under the constitution of Canada. Starting to act now will secure the future for all Albertans.
Sincerely yours,
Stephen HARPER, President, National Citizens’ Coalition;
Tom FLANAGAN, professor of political science and former Director of Research, Reform
Party of Canada;
Ted MORTON, professor of political science and Alberta Senator-elect;
Rainer KNOPFF, professor of political science;
Andrew CROOKS, chairman, Canadian Taxpayers Federation;
Ken BOESSENKOOL, former policy adviser to Stockwell Day, Treasurer of Alberta.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 15, 2010 at 04:23 PM
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An Englishman's Walking Stick
I recall Sherlock Holmes having to use his to defend himself against the odd villain. The next step in escalation was Watson's trusty revolver. Hand guns being banned in the Mother of the Free now, the elderly are having to resort to their NHS walking sticks:
Kevin Garwood, 61, has developed lessons in self defence using the NHS walking stick for people over 50 to help them to stand up to yobs and drunks.
The course is based on martial arts from around the world that use the sabre, bayonet and staff, which have been adapted specifically for stick users with limited mobility.
Typical moves include throws, takedowns and 'neck hooks' which use the crook of the stick for locks and strangleholds as well as gentle exercises using the 3ft long canes.
We congratulate Mr Garwood for his improvisational skills. Knowing modern England I suspect some obscure Whitehall department is already preparing charges against him. The right of self defense, weakened by handgun bans, has been steadily worn away by the police charging victims who defend themselves.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 15, 2010 at 07:38 AM
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The Compassionate State - Part 1
We're from the government...
Suffering from brain cancer, Kent Pankow was literally forced to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for lifesaving surgery — at a cost to family and friends of $106,000 — after the health-care system in Alberta left him hanging in bureaucratic limbo for 16 crucial days, his tumour meanwhile migrating to an unreachable part of the brain, while it dithered over his case file, ultimately deciding he was not surgery worthy.
As most of you, I was solemnly taught in school that Canada's Medicare system meant that, unlike in the United States, no one would go broke because they were sick, and no one would go without treatment for lack of funds. For decades the Canadian media has broadcast stories about Americans going broke trying to pay exorbitant health care bills, or those denied care due to poverty. Those cases are exceptional, just as Kent Pankow's case. As the article goes onto explain, the medication Kent needed to survive is covered by AHIP (Alberta Health Insurance Plan) for most forms of cancer, just not his. He simply slipped through the cracks. As many Americans do when their private coverage is cancelled, or a condition falls within a policy's exemptions. Extremes, however, do not define a system. The existence of slums do not demonstrate the failure of capitalism any more than mansions its success. A health care system, simply put, allocates resources for the provision of health care. Any system requires a bureaucracy (or bureaucracies) in order to function, however large or small. Bureaucracies allocate resources through directive and the enforcement of procedures, so much spent here and for these purposes alone. Private sector ones, in this sense, are no different from public ones. The difference between the two is the mechanism of accountability between its end users and the actors within the system: Democratic accountability versus market accountability. In effect, who rules the rulers of the system.
Very few people can afford to pay large sums out of pocket for medical treatment. For routine examinations this is less of a concern, most can afford these charges and those who cannot are covered by wealth transfers schemes (private or state financed). For catastrophic conditions they must rely on a third party to meet their needs, for the overwhelming majority this will be insurance. In America the health insurance system is mostly private, albeit highly regulated. In Canada the health insurance system is mostly state controlled, albeit with a growing private element. Some will bristle at the description of Canadian Medicare, the state socialized system, as "insurance." Strictly speaking that is correct, the Medicare system would fail to meet any actuarial standard as an insurance policy, despite the fact that its provincial administration is described as insurance i.e. Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan (OHIP). The system, however, is understood by the general public as a sort of insurance.
Taxpayers pay higher taxes and in return they get "free" health care. This has been described as a sort of "social contract" between the electorate and the state. The tax system being progressive, some pay into the system more than others, but the basic principle is of a sort of quid pro quo. You pay what you can, and in turn get what you "need." Case in point, OHIP covers only those resident in Ontario for three months who are Canadian citizens, or qualified immigrants. It even encourages those moving into the province to get temporary private insurance (which is not illegal for those not covered by OHIP, or for uncovered services). In other words it is not a charity open to all, it has restrictions placed on access based on residency. Since it is virtually impossible to reside into Ontario without paying into the provincial coffers, there is quid pro quo, albeit with the notable qualification that one is forced to participate at both ends. It's not really insurance and it's not really a trade, but it is seen and accepted as such by most.
Why should the state be tasked with the insurance function, i.e. the financing of health care? The following is my summation of the intellectual position of socialized health care's defenders. Debates over health care focus mostly on technical minutiae or crude stereotypes. Empirical data is obviously vital, all data however is evaluated within an intellectual framework - from whence that framework emerges is beyond the purview of this post. The fate of Kent Pankow is a tragedy. Evaluated out of context it is meaningless beyond that of a personal tragedy. The defenders of the system will excuse it as a rare exception to an otherwise well functioning system. The broader phenomenon of long wait times for certain procedures as either a sign of underfunding, or a necessary trade-off for a system which strives for universal access. Critics will use the Pankow case as an example of government bungling, suggestive of a deeper crisis within the system.
Continue reading "The Compassionate State - Part 1"
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 15, 2010 at 07:33 AM
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Sunday, March 14, 2010
Harper and the conservative movement
John Ibbitson writes an interesting column about the Conservative Party base. He points out that most Canadians are more ‘right wing’ than we would traditionally consider ourselves. This country has a long proud history of supporting personal responsibility and individual liberty. That tradition has not been wiped out and forms the back bone of the conservative movement.
But this is not really what caught my eye about the column. It was what was said at the very end the perked my interest:
Mr. Gafuik doubts the anthem flap is likely to estrange the Prime Minister from his base. After all, he says, Stephen Harper “came up on the movement side of conservative politics,” as an early adopter of the Reform Party and the onetime head of the National Citizens Coalition. Stephen Harper “is one of our own.”
But the Prime Minister needs to remember where he came from. The Stephen Harper of old would never have tried to change the wording of O Canada . And if someone else had tried, he'd have got on the phone.
This underlines two features of Stephen Harper’s leadership of the Conservative Party. The first is the bank of trust and credibility that he has built up over the years. There are many people who will, despite the ongoing evidence, give Mr. Harper the benefit of the doubt. I think the “one of our own” line truly demonstrates how many in the conservative movement (note small c) views Mr. Harper.
The second feature is the dedicated manner in which Mr. Harper has endeavoured to burn away that trust and credibility. Between the largest budgets in history and banning certain kinds of light bulbs, he has become the very thing that he once attacked. Mr. Ibbitson is right; ten years ago the most committed critic of Mr. Harper’s policies would have been Mr. Harper. The man has basically turned his back on everything that he stood for when he was President of the NCC.
The best hope for any conservative activist is to ignore the Conservative Party. They should put their energy and time into organizations like the Manning Centre or the Canadian Constitution Foundation. It is in those organizations that the ideas of the conservative movement are still alive; the same ideas that are now dead in the Harper government.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 14, 2010 at 10:32 AM
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Gerry Nicholls and the NCC
Gerry Nicholls feels slighted by the Manning Centre. On Friday the Manning Centre gave the National Citizens Coalition an award for being leaders in the conservative movement. Mr.Nicholls had spent 20 years of his life building that organization. He was at one point the Vice-President and public face of the NCC. Yet he was not informed, included, or acknowledged along side the award.
Mr. Nicholls' story is famous among conservatives. If you haven't heard it you can buy the book "Loyal to the Core." But I'll give you the one line synopsis: He was fired for criticizing Stephen Harper for not acting like a conservative, which was sort of the stated mission of the NCC.
Personally I don't think Mr.
Nicholls should feel slighted. Personally I wouldn't want to be
publicly connected to an organization that produces videos as crappy as
this one:
Really the NCC is no longer a force to be reckoned with. They are a club for cheerleaders with no principles or direction. In it's heyday politicians may have groaned at the name NCC. But now they would smile and shake their heads. Rarely has an organization lost its way as thoroughly as the NCC.
Frankly, Gerry Nicholls should be happy he got out before he was contaminated by association.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 14, 2010 at 07:12 AM
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Friday, March 12, 2010
Restraint
Posted by Kalim Kassam on March 12, 2010 at 03:59 PM
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Cross party support for Prince of Pot
MPs from the 3 national parties are going to submit petitions that are calling for marijuana activist Marc Emery not to be extradited to the United States.
Conservative Party: Scott Reid
Liberal Party: Ujjal Dosanjh
New Democratic Party: Libby Davies
In an interview Mr. Dosanjh said that this was a non-partisan issue, and he’s right. But it is also an issue that goes beyond the Emery case. It goes to the heart of the sort of society that we want to live in. Do we want to live in a society where people can make their own choices as long as they do not hurt others? Or do we want to live in a society where those choices are taken away from us?
Marc Emery is not perfect, but he is a man that has always opted for the first option. More than that, he has fought his whole life for that option. I hope that the government of Canada listens to Canadians and refuse to send Mr. Emery to a dangerous high security prison for a crime with no victims.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 12, 2010 at 06:31 AM
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Black Coffee
Coffee, Tea or Freedom?
Fed up with government gridlock, but put off by the flavor of the Tea Party, people in cities across the country are offering an alternative: the Coffee Party.
The slogan is “Wake Up and Stand Up.” The mission statement declares that the federal government is “not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges we face as Americans.”
Has there ever been a political movement that began with the phrase "expression of our collective will" that didn't end up subverting individual rights? The Tea Party has been faulted for being a populist uprising with a soupcon of genuine pro-freedom ideas. This is perhaps a bit harsh. The Tea Party was born of a revulsion against the interventionist ambitions of the Obama administration. Its grassroots nature has turned up the usual crank suspects, yet the movement is still broadly anti-government and has attracted some quality people. People who are sincerely, and with some success, trying to block further encroachments on American liberty by the current administration. On the whole the party can be best described as a semi-articulate mass moving in about the right direction. In recent weeks a counter-protest movement has emerged, the logically enough named Coffee Party.
Going by their website, the party exists as little more than that at the moment, the Coffee Party seems to be just an expression of frustration that the federal government is "paralyzed." It offers few specific ideas, approaches or policies. Just a hazy commitment to "democracy." Its About page also includes boiler plate denunciations of corporate lobbyists, the all purpose devils of the modern political world. While not explicitly supporting the policies of the Obama administration, they place much emphasis on the "obstructionist" and "fear" tactics of some politicians. No prizes for guessing which party those politicians overwhelming belong to. They are in effect middle-of-the-roaders attempting to counter the influence of the Tea Party, while trying to project an image of civic minded citizens just wanting to make the system work. The rambling introductory video, made by the site's founder, talks at some length about the importance of diversity, and how some people are afraid of change. Translated into normal speak: Shut up you mouth breathing, wife beating, racist hick libertarians / conservatives. Big government bitter by any other name.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 12, 2010 at 06:29 AM
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Don't Let It Go
Thomas Sowell defends American health care:
The quality of the medical care itself is not the problem. Few — if any — countries can match American medical training or medical technology, or the development of life-saving pharmaceutical drugs in the United States. Most countries with government-controlled medical care cannot come close to matching how fast an American can get medical treatment, particularly from specialists.
Political hype is no reason to throw all that away. In fact, policies based on political hype over the years are what have gotten us into what is most wrong with medical care today — namely, the way it is paid for.
Insurance companies or the government pay directly for most of the costs of most medical treatment in the United States. That is virtually a guarantee that more people will demand more medical treatment than they would if they were paying directly out of their own pockets, instead of paying indirectly in premiums and taxes.
Since people who staff either insurance-company bureaucracies or government bureaucracies have to be paid, this is not bringing down the cost of medical care, but adding to it.
The whole piece is worth a read, if only as a recap of pro-market reform ideas in U.S.health care. There is little in the way of a debate on health care in Canada, because no politician and few public intellectuals are willing to hazard such a contest. Most Canadians are satisfied with their health care, largely because they have grown up under the current system and are accustomed to its inefficiencies. Shortages and waiting lines are shrugged off as a trade off for having "free" health care. While Medicare is often used as a smug point of superiority over the United States, its existence is dependent on its American counterpart. The American system functions not only as safety valve for Medicare, but also the main source of medical innovation. In many ways we're free riding off the quasi-market system which still exists in the United States. A socialized American health care system would be a disaster for Canada and the rest of the world. The engine of modern medicine would be crippled.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 12, 2010 at 06:26 AM
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Thursday, March 11, 2010
The 94% Solution
If your job was to manage an asset and, over the period of your supervision, that asset lost 94% of its value, you'd probably be looking for work right now. But that's not how government works. It's definitely not how the Bank of Canada works:
When you get to the Bank of Canada’s Web site, it says “We are Canada’s central bank. We work to preserve the value of money by keeping inflation low and stable.” Do a little search on the same Web site, however, and you discover that since the Bank started its operations in 1935, the dollar has lost about 94% of its value. A basket of goods and services that cost $100 in 1935 would cost $1600 today. That’s some preservation!
Counterfeiting is understandably illegal and punishable by law. But central bankers do it all the time, the only difference being that they have a legal stick — their dollars are the only permitted legal tender — and they deploy a huge propaganda machine to force us to accept their funny money.
Spot price of gold can be found here.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 11, 2010 at 07:09 AM
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Harper government wants full-blown police state
The Harper regime is putting forward a proposal to make it easier for police to conduct random, suspicionless searches of people's person by introducing legislation that would make it legal for police to randomly stop and compel drivers to submit to breathalyzer tests.
Under this legislation, police would not need to observe the typical behaviour of say, swerving around the road, driving outside the lines, or driving abnormally slowly. No, they'll be able to just pull you over at random, and demand you submit to a breathalyzer test.
It goes without saying that this appears to be unconstitutional -- sections 7 through 9 of the Charter would seem to preclude such legislation.
7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.
9. Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.
This hasn't stopped MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) from cheering loudly for expanded police powers -- including the right to randomly stop people without any prior suspicion. But I already knew MADD is well, mad.
Which isn't to say their heart isn't in the right place. But when you look at the policies they push for, it's not like you get the sense they really care much about things like due process, rights against unreasonable search and seizure, and all that good stuff.
Then again, conservatives don't much care about these things either when it comes to fighting terrorism.
And then again, many leftists don't care much about these things when it comes to fighting hate and discrimination.
As the experience of random, suspicionless immigration checkpoints in the US has shown, police do not limit their random stops to the purported mandate. They use the initial mandate as an excuse to look for other legal violations like: narcotics, outstanding warrants, expired driver's licenses, etc.
What is supposedly an extraordinary police measure to fight an extraordinary problem, turns simply into a catch-all solution for police to throw out a net and screen people for a multitude of legal violations. Not unlike the police checkpoints throughout authoritarian states.
Defenders of these policies throw up their arms when people like me, compare the policies they advocate with those of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia by pointing out they seek to catch drug dealers, illegal immigrants, and drunk drivers. Not political dissidents, Jews, and other targeted groups. In this sense, they have a point. But it doesn't escape the crux of the matter, which is that they are, in fact advocating for the same powers that these evil regimes had, in order to promote their own version of virtue, no matter how objectively virtuous everyone may think it is.
The presumption of innocence is a core facet of our concept of justice. This is why we have all these restrictions on police. Random searches of people, without suspicion is a violation of this precept. It is for all intents and purposes, a presumption of guilt. Because, if you presume someone is innocent, you'd have no reason to search them now would you? And that's the problem.
As conservatives in this country mock the nanny state that the United Kingdom has become, they are hell-bent on diluting our protections from it. They want to water down our rights, give police more power to enforce the law, requiring we all give up our right to privacy, or right against unreasonable search and seizure, and ultimately our right to be presumed innocent. Hell, they think anyone accused of terrorism should be able to be held indefinitely, without charge.
Only a fool would not recognize the opportunity for the nanny state to metastasize in an environment where government policing power is unchecked.
Unfortunately, they view due process rights as a cute, high-minded value, and nothing more.
When it comes to fighting terrorism, drugs and drunk driving, due process rights are doing nothing but stand in the way of protecting the public from these threats. So the ends justifying the means, these rights need to be limited and/or disposed of. We don't need protection from the police, of course. In statist conservative thought, the police need more rights than the average citizen to be the harbingers of virtue. Which makes them not all that different from the rulers of Saudi Arabia or Iran. They're only different by matter of degree.
Sure, they're not advocating for religious police on the streets. But like the Saudis and Iranians, they don't think people have any natural right against being randomly stopped by agents of the state, either. They agree the state represents a type of authority that people should submit to and obey. The authoritarian tendency runs deep within their veins, even if they infection is not as advanced as it is in the non-Western world.
We are lucky to have a Supreme Court Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin, who is decidedly on the side of liberty. However, with all three major parties in this country nipping at the ankles of our legal rights, the future is uncertain.
Posted by Mike Brock on March 11, 2010 at 06:46 AM
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The Hypnotist and the Scottish Politicians
You are getting fleeced, you are getting fleeced...
Leaked documents from Skills Development Scotland (SDS) blamed a “lack of coordination” and claimed the problem was “prevalent” across the country.
But Mr Gray said told MSPs at First Minitser’s Questions that SDS was spending £20,000 to “fly in hypnotist Paul McKenna to give 260 unemployed youngsters a pep talk.”
“Apparently he will be handing out signed copies of his best sellers – ‘Instant Confidence’, ‘I can make you rich’ and of course the classic ‘I can make you thin’,” he said.
“Is this really the First Minister’s strategy to help the young unemployed? What is Paul McKenna going to do - hypnotise them into believing they’ve got a job?
Heck, it's as good as any other unemployment strategy. While such boondoggles attract headlines, they are as useful as any other piece of Keynesian stimulus. Roads to nowhere, job training for obsolete jobs and pep talks for unemployed - and likely given their education - unemployable youth.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 11, 2010 at 06:40 AM
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Revisiting wafergate: the political scandal that wasn't
Last spring, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff stood in front of Canadians and issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Stephen Harper: unless the government passed meaningful Employment Insurance (EI) reforms, the Liberals would force election-weary Canadians back to the polls. Of course the Conservatives never passed any EI reforms and Ignatieff never defeated the government.
This did not, however, stop Ignatieff and his cronies from trying to discredit the prime minister through some underhanded political moves. On July 8, 2009, Canada was rocked by a political scandal. Harper was caught on camera at a Catholic funeral taking a communion wafer, but the camera did not capture whether or not he put it in his mouth. The circus freak-show that people lovingly refer to as the mainstream media quickly jumped on the bandwagon of what would come to be known as Wafergate.
“IT'S A SCANDAL,” screamed a headline in Saint John's Telegraph-Journal. “At least one anonymous priest alleged Harper insulted Catholics by putting the host in his pocket,” said CBC reporter Rosemary Barton who proceeded to show the video to streeters and record their phony outrage for the 10 P.M. newscast.
That's right, she quoted an anonymous priest. Now there are some situations when it is legitimate for journalists to rely on anonymous sources. Woodward and Bernstein famously relied upon an anonymous source who they referred to as “Deep Throat” during their investigation, which uncovered the Watergate scandal. However, Rosemary Barton is no Woodward and Stephen Harper is not Richard Nixon. There are many issues with using anonymous sources, especially if the journalist doesn't investigate the claims that are being made.
“In recent years, as the number of news outlets has grown and news sources have become more sophisticated in the art of press manipulation, confidentiality has shifted from a tool journalists used to coax reluctant whistleblowers into confiding vital information to something quite different—a condition press-savvy sources imposed on journalists before they would even speak to them,” wrote Kovach and Rosenstiel in their book on journalism ethics.
In this case, it turns out the anonymous priest may not have existed at all. It appears as though the CBC used the same source as the Telegraph-Journal, which issued the following apology almost a month later:
“The story stated that a senior Roman Catholic priest in New Brunswick had demanded that the Prime Minister's Office explain what happened to the communion wafer which was handed to Prime Minister Harper during the celebration of communion at the funeral mass.… There was no credible support for these statements of fact at the time this article was published, nor is the Telegraph-Journal aware of any credible support for these statements now.”
Regardless of whether or not the anonymous priest actually exists, it is clear that the CBC completely disregarded the journalistic principle of originality, which suggests that journalists should actually verify the information they receive to see if it's true or not. You know, the kind of thing you might see in a job description for a detective, or maybe even a reporter. Journalists who do not follow this principle will often find themselves printing stories that aren't exactly true and a journalist's first loyalty should be to the truth.
“The people who got it right were those who did their own work, who were careful about it, who followed the basic standards of sourcing and got their information from multiple sources. The people who worried about what was 'out there,' to use the horrible phrase that justifies so many journalistic sins, the people who worried about getting beaten, rather than just trying to do it as well as they could as quickly as they could, they messed up,” said New York Times reporter Michael Oreskes about the media circus surrounding the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
This is the trap the CBC and a number of other Canadian media outlets fell into. Instead of verifying the original newspaper report, they ran with the story and treated it as though it were an actual political scandal. “Now while the paper ran an apology there was no apology from the CBC or anyone else for treating the story as NEWS, not as a sideshow, not as a carnival, not as a oddity on the Internet, but as NEWS, like it really happened, like it was really truthful,” said Charles Adler on his nationally-syndicated talk radio show.
As it turns out, Wafergate wasn't a scandal at all, which brings us back to Ignatieff and his cronies. According to CTV News reporter Robert Fife, it is likely that Liberal Party insiders gave the story to the Telegraph-Journal, which is owned by prominent Liberal supporters. The paper's editor—who later lost her job over the whole affair—published the story without bothering to verify its authenticity. Other media outlets, like the CBC, made the same mistake by not verifying the original newspaper report.
Continue reading "Revisiting wafergate: the political scandal that wasn't"
Posted by Jesse Kline on March 10, 2010 at 01:58 PM
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Nunavut wimpers back against the EU seal skin ban
Nunavut is set to try and ban alcohol products that originate from an EU country. This is in retaliation of the EU ban on seal products. I have a few questions about this:
1. Do they expect this to hurt European producers?
One of the key leverages required to start a proper trade war is that your market has to be desirable for some product of your opponents. I sincerely doubt that the makers of Guinness will miss their Nunavut customers so much that they will pressure the EU Commission to back down on the seal hunt (or is it the Council of Minister’s say? EU policy making is pretty muddled). This retaliation is the equivalent of a mouse spitting into the giant’s mouth right before the giant eats the mouse.
2. What benefits will this bring to the people of Nunavut?
So now along with losing jobs they are going to lose their ability to choice what beer they want to drink. This hardly seems like something that would be good for people. I would imagine they already lack much in product choice.
3. Do they think this will help them with the WTO?
The federal government is already complaining about the seal skin ban. All that Nunavut is doing is giving Canada a weaker negotiation position.
4. Is Nunavut MLA Fred Schell stupid?
This is what he said, “It may not mean a heck of a lot in the end, but I think it will get the message across.”
No Fred, it won’t.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 10, 2010 at 08:58 AM
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Ron Paul on NAFTA
Ron Paul is an openly libertarian politician who supports the concept of free trade. Yet he has been on the record as being against NAFTA. In today’s National Post they are reporting that Ron Paul is part of a movement in Congress to take the United States out of NAFTA. Congressman Paul is allied with protectionists but he is not a protectionist.
He explains his position in this old interview with Lou Dobbs:
There are two issues here.
1. NAFTA is not free trade. And in this I agree completely with Ron Paul. True free trade would require a single sentence “we remove all restrictions and regulation on trade.” It would not require the back breaking document that is the North American Free Trade Agreement. It is, as Congressman Paul says, managed trade not free trade.
I disagree that it would be a good move to get rid of NAFTA at the moment. It is certainly not perfect but it is better in many ways than what existed before and it is better than what is likely to replace it. If Congress would pass a bill with the words I wrote above, then NAFTA can be safely gotten rid of. This, however, seems unlikely.
2. Ron Paul has this idea that NAFTA will lead to a North American Union that is similar to the European Union. This is a gross misconception of what the EU is and what NAFTA is. There is nothing with the sort of power or role of the Commission, the Council of Ministers, or the European Parliament in NAFTA. There is not even a similarity in the range of policy areas that the two organizations handle.
Furthermore the underpinnings of both are completely different. NAFTA came out of the neo-conservatism of the 1980s. The EEC (later EU) came out of the neo-functionalism of the 1950s. These two concepts couldn’t possibly have less to do with each other. It was never a hidden goal of EEC supporters that they wanted to make a united Europe. It was the stated goal to bind together and avoid the horrors of another world war. The idea that there is a legitimate political movement pushing for a united North America is simply unsubstantiated. NAFTA was meant to increase trade and nothing more.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 10, 2010 at 08:32 AM
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Pessimistic that the deficit will go away
I had been encouraged by the news that the government would take steps to stop the growth of the civil service, at least until the deficit was resolved. Yet it seems that my more natural pessimism would have been more appropriate.
Minister Stockwell Day announced earlier this week that they were cutting jobs that mostly did not belong to anyone. 245 salaries that amount to a savings of $1 million wouldn’t even pay for 10% of the increase in the Olympic athlete funding. This is not the sort of cut that is going to save this country from an ever growing burden of debt.
In today’s newspaper it is being reported that the budget for the Privy Council is going to increase by more than $13 million. With a supposed freeze on Ministerial budgets, the Prime Minister’s own civil servants are getting a 21.9% increase.
If the Prime Minister is unable to control spending than how can he expect the same from his Ministers?
At what point does pessimism turn into realism?
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on March 10, 2010 at 07:42 AM
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The Best of Motives, The Worst of Consequences
When people feel before they think:
In interviews, however, two former senior commanders in the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) told the BBC that the vast majority of the money was stolen by rebels to buy weapons for their fight to overthrow the Ethiopian Government.
The claims sparked controversy, not least because one of the rebel leaders implicated was Meles Zenawi, now the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and still a leading recipient of Western aid. Previous allegations have centred on the role of the Government of Mengistu Haile Mariam, which had been accused of stealing aid and diverting food supplies away from rebel areas.
These are just allegations, about events a quarter century ago in a very desperate and politically complex part of the world. Bob Geldof might be entirely correct in dismissing the claim that 95% of the funds were diverted from starving people to gun toting rebels. The figure does seem a touch high. Yet the story has some legs, because it is plausible that something more than a small margin of aid drifted into the wrong hands. One of the perils of private charity is that givers often feel before they think. Compelled by the suffering of the victim, they fail to scrutinize the motives and methods of the charities involved. Even with the best of motives charities are sometimes duped by local conmen, both great and small. Governments are no better, indeed far worse given the track record of the welfare state. Part of the problem with both is that people regard compassion as an unquestionable emotion. You feel sorry or guilty and act to relieve those feelings, rather than trying to think through what is in the best long-term interests of the party you are trying to help. It's easier to feel than think. So much of the problem of helping those who cannot help themselves, is clouded in hazy sentimentality and overweening righteousness.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 10, 2010 at 06:44 AM
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The Son of Jack
Like statist like son. Mike Layton is running for Toronto's City Council:
If elected, Mike Layton would be continuing a family tradition of politics.
His great-great grand-uncle was a father of confederation, his great-grandfather was a Quebec cabinet minister and his grandfather was a Liberal Party activist and a Progressive Conservative MP and cabinet minister.
Politicians breed politicians. Have any of these people held a real job? For generations?
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 10, 2010 at 06:42 AM
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Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Gnomes of Athens and the Atlas of the Ruhr
It's everybody's fault but ours:
"Unprincipled speculators are making billions every day by betting on a Greek default," said Mr Papandreou, who met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington on Monday.
"That is why Europe and America must say 'enough is enough' to those speculators who only place value on immediate returns, with utter disregard for the consequences on the larger economic system - not to mention the human consequences of lost jobs, foreclosed homes, and decimated pensions," he added.
Strangely the Canadian dollar seems untroubled by speculators. Perhaps speculators as a class just really like Canadians? We are a lovely bunch after all. Or might speculation on Greek debt have something to do with Greece's finances looking like a dog's breakfast? Blaming the money markets is a time honoured tradition. For much of the 20th century the British government, for reasons of national prestige, tried to prop up the value of the pound sterling versus the US dollar. Trying to maintain a pre-World War One valuation, when Britain was a net creditor, well into the 1930s, by which time it was a net debtor. The change in status meant that instead of receiving dividend and interest payments from abroad, the British were now paying vast sums to finance their war debt, mostly to Americans.
This change in money flows placed a strong downward pressure on the pound, which the Treasury was obliged to prop up through purchasing, and the quasi-private Bank of England by keeping interest rates unusually high. The game could be sustained for only so long before either the Treasury ran out of money, or the Bank was forced to lower rates for domestic reasons. As a result periodic devaluations continued until the early 1970s, with the collapse of Bretton Woods. During one of the perennial sterling crises of the 1950s, the then Shadow Chancellor, Harold Wilson, quipped: "it was the end of an era, and all the financiers, all the little gnomes in Zürich and other financial centres, had begun to make their dispensations in regard to sterling." The "gnomes of Zürich" became all purpose villains for British officialdom then on. It was never the country's shoddy finances, its outdated industries or high tax rates, it was always the evil speculators. It was a politically useful bit of scapegoating.
Few people understand what speculators do, except that it involves lots of math and they make lots of money, without producing anything of obvious tangible value. Speculation, however, is vital to a modern economy. By spotting arbitrage opportunities speculators help keep markets efficient. They are constantly testing to see if something is truly worth the current market price. In effect, they are keeping everyone honest and on their toes, a sort of checks and balance system for large and highly liquid markets. Whether it's bond market vigilantes in the 1980s, George Soros forcing the pound out of the ERM in 1992, or today Greek debt being discounted like month old feta, it's an important part of keeping a market economy healthy. In many ways global financial markets are the only real check on the power of large national governments, their electorates benefiting greatly by spending their children's inheritance. The Greeks are being taken to task for their fiscal incontinence, and like schoolchildren they are blaming their teacher for the punishment they are about to receive. In one sense, however, the Greeks are not completely to blame for their actions.
They have been given license to misbehave for decades, along with the other PIGS economies, by the ultimate financiers of the European project, Germany. Just as Quebec's over generous welfare state is subsidized by Ontario and Alberta, so the hyper productive German worker has underwritten the profligacy of southern Europe. The success of both Canada's equalization programs, and the EUs literally innumerable wealth transfer schemes, rested upon moral blackmail. In the case of Quebec it was blaming English Canada for its relative backwardness up until the 1960s, and the subsequent threats of declaring independence. For Germany the situation is more obvious and painful, the guilt of two World Wars and the Holocaust. The 1940s may seem like ancient history to North Americans, but Europeans have long memories, especially when they're trying to extort money out someone else:
Mr Pangalos made the remarks during a wide-ranging BBC interview about Greece's financial difficulties.
"They [the Nazis] took away the Greek gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back," he said.
Germany has rejected the allegations, describing them as "not helpful".
Germany has been one of the harshest critics of Greece since it announced that its budget deficit was four times the eurozone limits.
Yeap. The Nazis stole a lot of stuff from a lot of people, but after three generations even the less resourceful among us are capable of muddling through, without going on the international dole. The Germans are understandably miffed. Even Teutonic patience has a limit and being blamed for the sins of not only your fathers, but your great-grandfathers as well, looks less like asking for justice and more like glorified mooching. If Europe is going to end its sclerosis it will have to be Germany that acts, the rest of the continent benefiting too much from the status quo. The German Atlas needs to shrug. Telling the Greeks where to go with their junk bonds, and decades old guilt trips, would be a wunderbar start.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 9, 2010 at 07:42 AM
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Crying for Government
The greatest obstacle defenders of capitalism come up against is not the statist ideas which dominate the schools and media, or even the hypocritical antics of so-called conservatives (see Harper, Stephen), but the cowardice of actual businessmen. I'm not sure if it was Lenin or Hitler who remarked that businessmen can't see past their own cash registers. It was easily the most prescient thing either of those butchers ever said. Case in point. About a decade ago defenders of the free market were standing up for Microsoft, the then victim of an anti-trust prosecution over the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. Now guess who is complaining about Google's "anti-competitive" behaviour?
Microsoft already has helped convince U.S. regulators that Google would break antitrust laws in two proposed deals: a search advertising partnership with Yahoo that was scrapped in 2008 and a digital books settlement that still needs federal court approval. Yahoo also lobbied regulators to oppose the agreement that would give Google the electronic rights to millions of hard-to-find books.
Ciao, an online shopping comparison service owned by Microsoft, has filed an antitrust complaint against Google in Europe. Regulators there say they are looking into those allegations and similar ones made by two other sites, Foundem and ejustice.fr.
One small bit of kudos goes to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz:
"I am actually not interested in government intervention in anything," Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz told reporters during a Tuesday lunch to celebrate the company's 15th anniversary. "I think for the most part markets work. I don't wish antitrust on anyone."
Sister, it looks like you're in a minority.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 9, 2010 at 05:31 AM
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“When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
Another reason to like Daniel Hannan. He quotes from one of my favourite films, the brilliantly written The Lion in Winter:
The second reason has to do with amour propre. Gordon Brown will mainly be remembered, Callaghan-like, for having missed his chance. Almost regardless of what he now does, history will recall him as a scaredy-cat, a big girl’s blouse, a feartie. With only a few weeks left in Downing Street, there is almost nothing he can do to challenge the verdict. A snap poll is the last chance he has to take the initiative on something.
To repeat, I still think Gordon Brown will lose. But what would he be losing? What could he hope to achieve in five or six additional weeks in office?
Basically Mr Hannan is telling Gordon to die his political death like a man. But Gordon Brown isn't a man, he's an empty suit. The whole premise behind New Labour was to drop a principled approached to government, even if they were horrible socialist principles, and split the difference between Thatcherite small government and Attlee-style big government. Having taken the coward's way his whole political life, his instincts are telling him to die like a coward. Sadly his likely successor is suffering from the same wandering guts syndrome. Davy Cameron, whom Gerald Warner is now mischievously calling a Vichy Tory, is not the stuff of which great ministries are made. Facing the gravest economic and political crisis in a generation, Davy is proposing the status quo with some cosmetic touches.
Posted by PUBLIUS on March 9, 2010 at 05:29 AM
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