Ontario passes law to fix election dates

My first thought upon discovery of the news was that this is good news - just a little more time and the feds will follow suite, heeding the prophets in the parl who speak for the end of arbitrary election dates. And it has the favor of the plebs too. Popular support for fixed election dates have risen from 54% in 2000 to 81% in 2004.

But as the article by Don Dessord points out, fixed-elections dates challenge the fundamental principle of responsible government in Canada. As an essential feature of the American Congressional system which relies on the principle of the separation and balance of powers, fixed-election can be confused perhaps as importable into Canada to help level the field for fair competition.

But features of responsible government that would be compromised by fixed-election dates would include votes of non-confidence and the role of the Governor General.

So why is the notion of fixed elections appealing? I think Dessord has a good answer and some interesting suggestions:

I believe what the public really objects to is not the fact that election calls are unpredictable, but that the party in power holds an unfair advantage and some elections are not fair contests. Therefore, measures that improve the competitive nature of elections would go a long way towards alleviating public dissatisfaction.

There are many ways to do this, though a full discussion is beyond the scope of this paper. Some form of proportional representation, for example, would help. So would allowing more free votes in Parliament. More free votes might convince citizens their MPs matter, and so they might think elections matter more too. There are many other problems with our parliamentary system that need to be addressed as well, as people like Donald Savoie have so well identified. But the convolutions necessary to fix election dates strike me as requiring far too much effort for far too little improvement, and may very well make things much worse.

'He's homeless, just forget it.'

This is what Christine Wellstead was told yesterday in Vancouver when she asked for help to quench the flames of a homeless man on fire. I wonder what Christine Wellstead's opinion about immigrants are. CanWest has details...

Teachers versus Priests

Like the State versus the Church in attrocities committed against humanity, the Church seems to be the one that gets more flack. While people will question the idea of the Church and perhaps calling it fundamentally into question, the idea of the State seems to carry on quite fine. At least this is my perception.

I wonder what one would find if one were to compare attitudes towards priests in child abuse cases to teachers in child abuse cases?

Refreshments, like beer and popcorn... and victory dancing

"Don't give people $25 a day to blow on beer and popcorn." said Scott Reid, the communications director for Paul Martin, in response to Stephen Harper's proposed "choice in child care" plan which would have parents receive about $25 a week for children under 6.

As Stephen Taylor points out, Scott Reid buys a lot of "refreshments" with tax dollars from establishments that specialize in booze. Here is just the beginning of the list posted on Taylor's site and populated with public information available from the Privy Council Office.

Scott Reid's hospitality expenses for 2005 (Jan 1 - Jun 15)...

New Year's "Dinner meeting" at D'Arcy McGee's: $22.71
January 3rd "Dinner Meeting" at Heart & Crown: $33.13
January 10th "Dinner Meeting" at Lieutenant's Pump: $33.10
February 1st "Dinner Meeting" at The Works: $53.00
February 4th "Dinner Meeting" at Royal Oak: $93.70
February 8th "Dinner Meeting" at Brixton's British Pub: $28.39
cont'd...

Perhaps Scott Reid doesn't trust parents, because he doesn't trust himself.

And now someone's spotted that one of these expenses listed as a "Dinner meeting to discuss media briefing" at Suite 34, a bar lounge in Ottawa, on May 19 2005 was the same day the budget vote passed, the same week when Belinda Stronach crossed the aisle, and the same night that she and Tim Murphy, the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff could be found dancing atop a speaker at... Suite 34. The The Toronto Star has the details for that evening. Scott Reid appears to have been the only person to have claimed that evening as an expense (see 1).

Worth investigation:

1. Did anyone else expense the evening?
2. What are Canadian attitudes towards the expenses claimed by government officials? What are the norms in other countries?
   
3. Do Canadians trust themselves and do they believe that the government should trust the people?
   

The significance:

1. If there isn't much reaction to Mr Reid's comments about parents, I may form the opinion that Canadians either do not care for the extra $25, think the government would spend it better than themselves, apathetic towards those with small children, and/or that Canadians have a tendency to believe that the government is more trustworthy than families.
2. The triumphalism of people who barely just win a vote of confidence is fascinating. Almost as if it is the last days on earth. Like the night Al Gore after conceding the 2000 election "stomped and gyrated" past the midnight hour, the image of the sweat showing through his shirt spurs on my contemplation of the end and the dance. As I imagine what Stronach and Murphy dance on the speakers and Reid looks on, I wonder if in their minds tonight was the future.

On Tolerance, Crime and Immigration in Canada as compared with Japan

According to a new CP report, Canada will rank 43rd in a count of countries that have female representatives as a percentage of the elected representatives. Under 21 percent of parliament is expected to be female after the upcoming elections. That puts Canada behind Ethiopia. Not to say that Canada has anything over Ethiopia, but Canadians do seem to pride themselves in thinking they live in the most equitable place on the planet.

This news relates to the previous post, in which my colleague raises a provocative, yet valid question. Is there a relationship between immigration and violent crime in a country? A question he ties back into a thought on the broader theme of tolerance and the cult that follows it and keeps it sacred.

The number 43 challenges those who think god is in the precious box. My colleague says tolerance hinders the proper assessment of problems, which for him evidently begin by conducting a more comprehensive census. The number 43, however, suggests tolerance is nothing.

As for the relationship of crime to immigration, Japan makes for an interesting comparison to Canada. First, there are critics of the close relationship between the police and the media and their reporting of violent crime (see: 1, 2 - 'the crime of crime reporting' in Japan). While there is evidence to support the argument that aliens tend to comprise much of the crime (see 3), in the context of the media-police relationship this may make the criminals as much as the victims of domestic policy on immigrants as the victims are victims.

Second, Japanese intolerance only gives it short-term security in a globalized world. The Japanese workforce is shrinking and the number of people that will need to be employed to service the grey market increasing. By 2030, there is predicted to be 2 people in the workforce per retiree in the country with the population heading back under the 100 million mark from 127 million people (see 4, 5). And while awareness of the problem has drawn attention to immigration, the reality of a backlash against foreigners is considered very possible (see 6).

The complaint against Japan culminates in drawing out a similarity between it and Canada and not so much in contrasting the two. Both share in their lack of tolerance - though certainly not to the same extent, but emphasizing similarities in intolerance may help Canadians ask hard questions of themselves rather than point the finger at immigrants.

And though women may not be tolerated (or encouraged or want to be) in parliament, and though the Prime Minister goes for banning handguns over listening to the affected (see 7), and though separatism is still alive and well despite what the new Gov Gen says in her investiture speech; almost 80 percent of Canadians like immigrants (see 8) and that's a warm feeling for an immigrant like myself. Tolerance isn't the problem. A shallow tolerance is. Tolerance deepened through greater personal and collective introspection and hospitality is worth pursuing. There's even security in it.

Did the finance minister's office leak information?

Evidence suggests that Finance minister Ralph Goodale's office did leak information hours before an announcement to cut taxes on stock dividends, Wednesday November 23rd at 6pm.

While Goodale said to CTV "There was no specific advance notice whatsoever" -

1. trading of dividend paying stocks increased more than usual that day and prices rose sharply reports the CBC;
   
2. people were talking about an announcement that day, mentioning specifics, and used similar language to the language that the Finance minister used before the announcement was made - CTV found evidence earlier in the day of postings on stockhouse.ca of an announcement to "even the playing field" and "to make a more level playing field" specifically mentioning taxation on stock-dividends. Goodale's statement that evening: "We're going to help to level up the playing field as between corporations and trusts and we're going to be doing that by ending double taxation on dividends."
3. at the very least, some people knew an announcement was going to be made - the associate executive director of Canada's Association for the Fifty Plus, William Gleberzon, told CTV "The day [the Finance Minister's office] made the announcement they phoned us and said something is going to be said."

The significance of a leak, if a leak happened:

1. potentially not as significant as the opposition makes it out to be, because it would appear that Goodale had said an announcement for something would come before a vote of non-confidence and also the leak may not have come from the top of his office.
2. it would, however, continue to build the case against the government's ability to be accountable.

Worth further investigation:

1. How is the RCMP and Market Regulation Services investigation going?
   
2. and who were the three brokers that did the most of the trading during that period of time and what are the relationships between them, their clients and members of Goodale's office.
   

Picking a University President - A Survey's Advice.

The Chronicle of Higher Education put out results and an analysis of a survey three days from now entitled, Leaders' Views About Higher Education, Their Jobs, and Their Lives.

One particular quote stood out as I reflected on the presidential picking process that is currently underway at the university I attended.

It "is critical for governing boards and others inside universities," wrote a male president at a private doctoral-level institution, "to remember that the life of a president is one of solitude in a crowd, and to take care that the person in the job is well supported both in her or his personal and professional life."

A second observation is the importance placed on the president's duty to balance the budget. I had told quite a number of people in the past that I thought a person who sees this as their most important duty, could do the job best. Even a "mission-oriented" school like Trinity Western University could do with someone who secretly sees his daily grind to consist of dealing with financial issues - being conscious of how his idea of the university is affecting his work and subsequently making a conscious effort to interpret it to and synthesize it with the visions and the needs of faculty and students.

What's the "end" to the "ends justify means" strategy of RCMP?

Public safety, deterrence, restitution, and rehabilitation. I think those were the four purposes of the Canadian criminal justice system that we talked about in high school law class.

The RCMP "Mr. Big" strategy, has been running since 1997 and is beginning to gain the attention of the public.

Ian Mulgrew, yesterday published an article in the Vancouver Sun arguing that the strategy is "anathema to our judicial history." Despite what he thinks, the RCMP and the Supreme Court seem to think that saying "fuck" a whole bunch of times and playing bad in the presence of a suspect is to be endorsed.

I'd like to be really open to the idea of this strategy and would like to further study it. My preliminary thoughts, written in response to Mulgrew's article was published today in the Sun, cannot see how this helps anything but public safety.

RE: So-called 'Mr. Big' confessions bad situation

Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment makes a great critique of the RCMP's 'Mr. Big' confessions. The novel would inquire into the principles behind the pragmatics. The RCMP may consider it an "ends to justify the means" strategy, but what exactly is the end? Crime is a social construction. The novel illustrates this by showing how anyone can be convicted of murder through enticements similar to that used by the RCMP. The novel also shows how far removed accruing a confession from the real murderer can be from the purposes of deterrence, restitution and rehabilitation. For progress to be made here, I infer from the novel, the consciousness of the suspect ought to be affirmed and personal development to self-realization of guilt encouraged. Perhaps immediate public safety and job satisfaction are served by 'Mr. Big' confessions, but is that all we want?

Student of law gets web-award for being greatest theologian

Pro-life rids world of dictators

Where have all the criminals gone? argues quite well that abortion cuts crime.

But to support that fact, the authors take a look at the Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and argue that it was his pro-life policy that was his undoing. It was the kids who were likely slated for an abortion, they argue, that executed Ceausescu 23 years later.

Therefore, because a dictator's pro-life policy killed that same dictator, abortion should be legalized as it helps to cut down on violent crime... like dictator killing.

Abortion cuts crime, but pro-life cuts dictatorships?

A Christian's duty to vote for the dictator?

Even within the pseudo-democracy of Zimbabwe where a less dictatorial opposition could potentialy be elected in to power, this man of faith finds it his duty to vote for Mugabe.

"I encourage them to read their lessons from the Bible, for that will give them the strength to continue.

And I tell them stories about how I fought in the liberation struggle. I feel the young have forgotten how Zanu-PF brought us our freedom.

I teach them that in African culture, we respect our elders.

For this reason, I explain, I could never support the opposition for I remember what our president has won for us, even if I don't agree with everything he's done since."

- from From BBC Online.

Who is responsible for this?

One boy was kept in a chicken coop, and parasites ate out his eye. Another was found living in a toilet pit. One was accused of being a witch after his parents died of Aids - he is HIV-positive too.

BBC Online has posted a report on Angolan children who are victims of exorcisms and religiously and medically excused maltreatment.

Who is to blame for this atrocity?
> religion?
> the state?
> a western sensitivity towards non western views?
> me or you?

The Pill... for Men.

Researchers at the University of Kansas are testing a number of different chemicals on men to see which one could potentialy be produced into an oral contraceptive.

The complexity of the research would not appear to be great and therefore raises the question: why has this not been done sooner? Even the 8 million dollars that's going towards this research would seem to pale in comparison to the 30 million that had been invested into producing a female oral contraceptive.

When rationalists used to wait on gravity

From a review on Andrew Janiak's new collection of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophical writings:

How is gravity, key to the entire achievement of the Principia, to be understood? Leibniz charged that it was an occult quality, occult in the sense that it purported to explain but did not explain, at least as Leibniz understood that term. To attribute a "dormitive virtue" to a particular substance (to recall Voltaire's later taunt), does not explain how the powder (sic?) acts as its does.

[Newton] had discovered, to his own satisfaction and to that of his followers, a complex form of agency that linked pendulum to moon, to planet, to comet. Admittedly, the manner in which it operated was mysterious. But he had been able to weave a tight mathematical web that made the action of gravity entirely predictable, both as the power to attract and the capacity to be attracted, the same measure applying to each.

Leibniz still had one further cogent objection to raise. When Newton spoke, as he often did, of the sun attracting or being attracted by a planet, the only sort of agency left open (it seemed) was that of action at a distance. And this was, by general agreement among philosophers from Aristotle's time onwards, simply inadmissible, as Newton himself indeed felt forced to concede. So the appeal to attraction was worse than mysterious, it could not even in principle succeed.

The only possibility left was some kind of non-mechanical agency, taking the term 'mechanical' in the contact-action sense demanded by the "mechanical" philosophy of the day.

Newton had, in effect, pioneered a new form of explanation, dynamic explanation, with the notion of force as its anchor.

So, if I have this straight historically, forces could not accurately have been described as mechanical in the contact-action sense, therefore the notion of the mechanical had to be expanded to accomodate the spirit of the day that demanded that all things be, in the contact-action sense, rational.

The cost of nostalgia: 40% of EU Budget goes to farmers

According to No End to Subsidies in Sight By Julio Godoy

The EU spends roughly 40 percent of its budget (some 50 billion euros/60 billion dollars) in subsidies for farmers.

The 230 billion dollars in subsidies that OECD countries pay to their farmers -- at a conservative estimate -- is the main bone of contention in the Doha round and in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

A new report to be published by the OECD later this year confirms that most developing countries have long ceased to pay out heavy subsidies to their farmers. The report's preliminary findings, to which IPS had access, underlined that the producer support estimate (PSE) in France and in the United States amounts to 31 and 16, while the Brazilian value is less than 10.

More optimisitcally The Economist acknowledges that progress may occur at the WTO with regards to this issue as long as countries find domestic support for change. But at the national level, the issue isn't as clear.

[For many on the domestic level agricultural subsidies, says the Economist,] provides social benefits not valued by the market: environmental protection, food security and the maintenance of rural communities, for example. The most important (and the least cited) factor, however, may be psychological.

Forging a common vision isn't easy when nostalgia or some sort of "psychological" reason captivates developed countries for the time being. And it isn't just the farmer lobby that is captivated by the scent of cow dung, consumers fancy the homegrown enough to be willing to pay more for it through their taxes.

Since it is not the pocketbook that rules the consumer in their compliance with the farmer lobby, it is more viably their vision of the nation. Yet, at what cost does support for this vision come? It costs the consumer more and it hurts foreign farmers that depend monetarily on agriculture. It is my suspicion, therefore, that this issue will not be addressed unless the nostalgia of nationalism is somehow substituted for a captivating notion of the Next.

Pull down the lines that divide

Today an estimated 10 million or more people reside in the United States without legal documentation [in Canada the number is 120 000]. Increased border enforcement has only succeeded in pushing immigration flows into more remote regions. That has resulted in a tripling of the death rate at the border and, at the same time, a dramatic fall in the rate of apprehension. As a result, the cost to U.S. taxpayers of making one arrest along the border increased from $300 in 1992 to $1,700 in 2002, an increase of 467 percent in just a decade.

Douglas S. Massey from Princeton University, in his article Backfire at the Border, recommends that Congress should build on President Bush’s immigration initiative to enact a temporary visa program that would allow workers from Canada, Mexico, and other countries to work in the United States without restriction for a certain limited time.

Qukkr Dose

Yesterday's Dose newspaper (June 1) had a terrible spree of spelling mistake on the front cover. All the e's mysteriously were k's in their "gay Canadian anthem". I wonder if anyone noticed, or just thought that's how gay folk talk.

BC hospital refuses to treat man in hospital parking lot; told to call 911

Reported by the CBC. Ah, this makes me pretty irate. How in the name of all things good, clean and serene, can this happen? How could the folks at the hospital be so insensitive as to demand the adherence of policy (defunct policy at that) over dealing with a human?

Senator Amidala was right

Am I just missing out? Is everyone enjoying a joke that I'm too naive to get? Hey guys, if it is true, wait up for me!

But if the days are really becoming dimmer and democracy and religious freedom really are being sold out for with a laugh and an applause, then I'm becoming concerned.

Canadians want a democracy, but yet they don't to go to the polls.

Canadians, like Warren Kinsella, want Stephen Harper to hijack the riding nominations process by refusing to sign papers.

He says it "Kills two birds with one stone: gets rid of a bunch of single-issue troublemakers. And gets you Ontario"

On the contrary. I think it kills two other birds: grassroots democracy and religious freedom.

GLOBE&MAIL: Christian activists capturing Tory races

Here we've got a pretty good article with a horrendous introduction:

Christian activists have secured Conservative nominations in clusters of ridings from Vancouver to Halifax -- a political penetration that has occurred even as the party tries to distance itself from hard-line social conservatism.

Penetration rarely conjures up a pretty picture.

The bulk of good observations honoured, albeit they are buried in the article:

That said, [John Reynolds - the retiring Conservative MP], is offended by attempts to paint the Conservative party as a harbour for religious zealots.

"There were three dozen Liberals who voted with us on the same-sex thing," he said. "Nobody is going after them and saying, 'Look at these far-right Christians that got into the Liberal Party.' "

Ms. Silver, a lawyer in the federal Justice Department, objects to being labelled a Christian candidate. "That's a form of discrimination," she said. "That's putting them in a class of people and ascribing to them the characteristics of that class without ever giving them a chance to stand on their own merits."