Edmonton women fined $632 for passing stopped police car

The grace period for the two month old legislation in the province of Alberta that requires drivers to slow down when passing emergency vehicles, tow trucks with flashing lights, or when passing through construction zones has expired.

An Alberta woman discovered the new law when she was fined $632 for passing an unmarked cop car that had pulled over a speeding vehicle. She was driving under the posted speed limit, but over double the limit required by the new legislation. CBC Edmonton has the report.

Observations:

1. This may actually be the best way to run a marketing campaign for new laws. Fine people, let it hit the media, and then have a judge reduce the fine (eliminate it altogether for the lady - I hope).
   
   
2. As for this new law reducing injuries in the case of pulled over cars. I wonder if demanding by law for cars to reduce their speed to 60km/h on Albertan highways of posted limits of 110km/h will not actually cause greater danger to drivers than the previous situation did for police officers.

Kinsella: NDP and Conservative war rooms "so superior" to Liberal's

"On all of the key war room indicators - speed, accuracy, volume, resulting media coverage - the Grit effort is pitiful," says war room vet Warren Kinsella.

Ontario seeks more powers for premier

Ontario community safety minister, Monte Kwinter, is framing his Bill 56 as a precautionary measure in lieu of a potential influenza pandemic.

By way of amending the Emergency Management Act, the Employment Standards Act, and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, Bill 56 would grant the Premier administrative powers over any district or municipality together with the power to restrict popular moblity, force labour for the premier, close any institutions (including businesses and hospitals), remove private property, and freeze prices of goods.

A state of emergency has several time limits, the provincial cabinet can extend it for 14 days after 14 days have expired and the provincial legislature can extend it after that for another period of time.

Emergency powers and planning for health oriented disasters (in which this Bill is framed, but not to which the Bill is limited) is a dreadfully important task to undertake by local and provincial governments. The experience of New Orleans cannot be over emphasised nor the experience of the 2003 blackout in Ontario ignored.

First, is it necessarily prudent to suppose that the highest level of government in a province is necessarily the most compotent at dealing with a disaster? Can they respond or coordinate a response more effectively than a municipality, or even a non-governmental organization? Giving the premier power to do what is necessary is one thing, that they would be the most efficient and effective at "immediate action to prevent, reduce or mitigate a danger of major proportions" is quite another and should be qualified with this Bill.

Secondly, giving the premier emergency powers over muncipalities could hand the principles that govern a response over to partisan politics. We see this currently happening in New Orleans where, the Washington Post reports, the "nation's response to Katrina is cleaving the public down partisan lines as a domestic issue." In addition to the question "how could this be prevented" it also related to my third point.

Thirdly, centralizing power in a response to a disaster would rather than unify the population at the ground, the people against the disaster, it would have people unload a sense of personal responsibility upon the provincial government of whom they would wait orders. A spokesperson officially representing electrical engineers in Ontario says that during the 2003 power outage his people volunteered to help out in the crisis, they did not need a law to force them to work (reported in a Canoe article). Rather than being inspired by disaster to volunteerism, labourers would be threatened by law.

Governor General Jean's New Year address

Anyone get a chance to watch GG Jean's New Year address?

The computer generated opening of national symbols, the crystal clear, mellow voice providing distinct pronunciation, together with the inspirational music that fulfills the nationalistic ambience - it all reminds me of the Bible on DVD I got for Christmas from a new relative.

I'm glad Canadians have not constitutionally stressed that questionable idea that religion can actually be separated from the state.

Ah, the good old days, when everyone hated the media but had no other news source

Someone at the Ottawa, Citizen is bitter that blogs are ruining their sport.

News stories regularly quote bloggers commenting on the latest political issue -- not just famous bloggers, or those involved in the game, but ordinary guys with blogs, sometimes even anonymous guys making postings on other peoples' blogs. If these ordinary guys were shouting on the street corner, their views would go unmarked...

People we will never hear of again, some of them anonymous or pseudonymous, got their vicious little ideas into the paper. If they had written letters to the editor and tried to use a pen name, the letters would not have been printed.

...

A decade ago, the most inconsequential opinions and events regularly become news because they were on the Internet. The Internet was new to us then, and everything about it was exciting. So now are the views of Mike from Mississauga and his cousins in cyberspace. It is less a question of what is said than how it is said.

'Bloody hell, who let the plebs into the club?'

As with anything new, there will probably be a maturation process that would take place with the discovery of blogs as a medium of the active populace in deliberating issues or even setting the agenda toward a nation's elections.

I wonder how unique the Canadian electorate is in their use of the blog?