Lessons in Irony - Week 59 - June 11-18

What a fantastic week.

As the Oil Lobby (aka The Conservatives) ramp up pipeline ads on TV, the oil spill in Alberta gets worse and worse. 160-480,000 barrels of oil.  As one commenter posted "If they can clean up the Gulf, they can clean this up."  Yes indeed.  If.  Thank god we're streamlining those troublesome environmental approvals.  And, this provides a bit more insight as to why Mr. Harper is "streamlining", as some documents from a few years ago show that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans thinks that Enbridge is taking the cheap route and underestimating risks.  Obviously, we don't want to hear from those yahoos.

I'm not going to talk about the 1%.  But I am going to point you to a fantastic article that talks about the fallacies of a "merit society".  It's really great.  It's pretty easy to remain at the top when the playing field isn't level.  And you can buy an excavator to ensure that the playing field at no point ever approaches level.  And then you just run over everybody else's shit with that excavator.

And, in the spirit of not listening to scientists, the feeling is that the freshwater research facility being shutdown by the Conservatives is on the block because of their troublesome research into the oil sands.

On the topic of meddlesome losers, how about that Auditor General?  Well, he's at it again, pointing out that a number of contracts issued by Parliament and the Senate were, well, bad.

And, within a day or two of suggesting that we may be heading for a recession...again...Stephen Harper lectures the World on following the Canadian model for their economy.  This is the man that is the "steady hand on the tiller".  This is the man that somehow manages to spend like a drunken sailor while cutting actual programs.  Yes.  Follow our lead.

And where I think the problem is, well, I just think Conservatives don't know what math is.  There's Peter McKay, no link necessary.  And now, Dean Del Mastro.  He claims he spent $1575.  Receipts suggest he spent $21,000.  That's a bit of a difference.

Maybe they're catching on though?  Maybe they've recognized that they just need a bit more time to crunch some numbers and figure it out?  They've decided to delay handing out key figures on the Fighter Jet purchase.  Who needs to know that stuff in a timely fashion?

Okay.  Get this.  Chuck Strahl.  Retires from Parliament with a full pension.  Does so in a way that gives his son a massive leg up on getting nominated as the Conservative candidate.  And now he's being named as the CSIS watchdog?  Does he have law enforcement experience?  Intelligence experience?

And then what should be a big story, restricting debate on Parliamentary debate on major laws, just doesn't even matter any longer as the Conservatives do it so often.  Yes, the Conservatives are limiting the debate on the budget.  The excessively overblown budget that's massive and unwieldy.  I guess the Filibuster didn't work, but it has resulted in a marathon 24 hour vote.  And...there is actually some feeling from actual Conservatives that this may not have been worth it.

I've kind of lumped Copyright and Internet Surveillance together.  They are kind of similar.  Here Slate comments on Vic Toews using Luca Magnotti for political gains (i.e. pushing his Internet Surveillance bill through).  And the Copyright lobby pushes for more and more and more (and more) because they won't stop until we're strapped to couches with our eyelids pried open and they can just automatically siphon money out of bank accounts.  And similar things are happening in the UK.

Lets talk about drugs a bit.  I'm going to argue that the big problem with drugs isn't the actual drugs.  The big problem with drugs is that people kill people because they can make money.  Or kids buy shit laced with rat poison because some sketchy dude is selling it to them out of the back of his van.  Or people's lives are ruined because they're caught with an "illegal substance".  Or we spend millions and millions keeping people in jail.  Or property crime goes way up because people need to steal to pay for artificially elevated costs due to illegality and smuggling.  Or people don't get treated over the stigma and, once again, illegality.  So, I like that the BC Health Officer is pointing out that ecstasy isn't so bad, if you actually get ecstasy.  Not rat poison.

You know how people get riled up when Don Cherry says stuff?  Turns out he's just a crazy old man.  And that the metric system is "commie stuff".

A New Year - Week 36 - Jan 3-9

I'm starting something new this week.  An awesome Conservative Government photo for each week.  Here, our buddy Steve waves at us.

FEMA Canada announces that the 3rd Party Manager appointed to the Attawapiskat Reserve (at huge expense) might miss payroll.  Way to handle a crisis, Steve.

Steve warns us that "foreign environmental interests" could delay approval of the Northern Gateway Pipeline.  Ummm...Ahhhh....what about all the foreign oil money?  And, these "radical groups" are so scary, he's going to change the environmental review process, because the current process takes too long.  This seems to be a theme developing here...too many people asking questions, shorten the period for discussion.  Surprisingly, people aren't happy about it.

Great story about the decline of public institutions in the US. There's just so much in this article.  What really stood out for me is how wealthy some of these American politicians are.  Romney is worth $200 mil?  That's crazy.  These guys are getting paid millions and millions of dollars by corporations to convince the average American that spending government money on things that will help them is a bad thing.  I think the key problem is that the average American thinks they're just a lucky break or two away from the 1%.  Are any Canadian politicians super wealthy?  Paul Martin had a few bucks.  Belinda Stronach had money (and strange taste in men).  But I can't really think of any in the same league as the Americans.

More on income inequality, with the richest 100 CEO's of publicly traded companies making $8.38 Million per year.  I'm okay with that, actually.  I'm got more of a problem with the average wage of $44,366.  It is shocking that the CEO's will have earned that $44,366 by noon on Jan. 3rd.  But does that include the stat holiday?

Copyright reform gets even worse.  Canada seems to be quietly considering extending copyright terms from lifetime + 50 years to lifetime + 70 years.  You really can't argue that it will help artists make a living by tacking on an extra 20 years in earnings after they have been dead for 50 years.

Friday afternoon.  Time for some Senate Appointments!  Hey, gotta reward those police chiefs that agreed to your crazy tough-on-crime legislation somehow.

What is the Office of Religious Freedom and why does it fall in with Foreign Affairs?

I realize that this is a completely useless poll.  And it's kind of a stab in the gut, seeing that this majority government was really a perfect storm of bad things.  Anyhow, if an election were held today (with no debates, advertisements or dirty tricks), there would be no majority.

Best of the new Harper Government - 2011 Edition

What a frighteningly awful year it has been in Canadian politics.  If you had told me at the start of this year that we'd end the year with a Conservative majority...well, I would have gotten very angry.  However, that turn of events did inspire me to create this blog - my attempt to document our slide down the slippery slope. 

Here are my top political moments/events/happenings in our new Conservative Canada, where nothing is ever the Government's fault and no question is worth answering or acknowledging and...screw that...you're an idiot for even asking.

Broke their campaign promise to balance the budget by 2014-15 - Actually, we're not going to balance the budget and create a surplus in 2014-15 but we might get around to it in 2015-16 or 2016-17.  And, actually, we're pretty awesome for showing such remarkable budget flexibility.  Hey, it's been 28 weeks since the election when we made that promise.  A lot has changed.  And it's not like this was an important part of the platform or anything.  Heck.  It's way down there at number 3 (of 5) on the list of "key priorities".  The most awesome thing.  It took them only about a week to break the promise.

Introduced copyright legislation that nobody in Canada really wants, except for a bunch of media conglomerates (and the US Government) that aren't really suffering all that much due to piracy - But don't worry, it's not really practical for us to enforce some of this stuff, so you shouldn't really worry about it too much.

Brushed aside a scandal whereby one of their MP's may or may not have had an affair with a woman who may or may not have been a Chinese spy (looks like she probably was) - But you're the idiot for asking about it.

Ignored youth advocates and statistics and lawyers and some of the Provinces (maybe even judges too?) and decided that the key to a better country is a really expensive batch of "tough on crime" laws - What do those "experts" know about anything?

Announced that if British Columbia (and Newfoundland and PEI) didn't immediately sign their RCMP contract as is, then they'd withdraw RCMP services - Just because we call it a "negotiation", it doesn't mean you get to have any input.

Made a series of increasingly baffling announcements and law proposals to stir up Canadian nationalism and remind us of our links to the monarchy - From a crazy law that would forbid you from preventing somebody else from flying a flag, to creating special laws about mischief around war memorials, to re-introducing the "Royal" into our military, to ensuring that the Queen's picture is hanging in our embassies, to War of 1812 re-education...I'm sure I missed one somewhere.

Thoroughly embarrassed Canada by joining up with pillars of the international community (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Vietnam) to ensure that asbestos didn't make it on to a UN list of controlled substances...so that they could support a mine in Quebec that may or may not have enough asbestos to stay open past 2012. - Hey, small town Quebec votes are more important than an international reputation.  Or a bunch of poor people dieing.

Made a gigantic, huge big deal out of the fact that the temporary head of the NDP had past ties to the Bloc Quebecois...which is fine, except when you ignore the fact that members of your own cabinet have past ties to the Bloc Quebecois.

Created a new form of governing whereby anything that suits your list of priorities that you happened to mention during your campaign warrants no debate whatsoever.  Things that you didn't mention during your campaign don't get much discussion either.  And things that you promised during your campaign but that you can't deliver on, get ignored.  See item #1.

So.  That's it.  All that stuff happened.  4 more years.

Bubbling Away - Week 34,35 - Dec 19-Jan 3

Okay.  I let Christmas get the best of me.  Not much here.  I don't think anybody else was up to much either.

Remember.  The Conservatives didn't cause the bubble by relaxing mortgage approval policies...it's the bubble that caused them to not meet their unrealistic financial plans.

The Conservative government is summed up in the first couple of paragraphs in this article - "Little notice and no negotiation".  Myself, I have a hard time understanding exactly what these funding decisions for our health care means.  But I can clearly see that this isn't the right way to do things.  And when 2 of the 3 people that agree with you are Christy Clark and whichever Conservative lackey who happens to be running Alberta...

As with most Christmases, Stephen Harper lurks out of his hole in the dead of night and starts handing out patronage appointments while nobody is looking.

It was a mistake.  Honest.  We had no idea that we were phoning Liberal voters and telling them that their polling station had changed.

Breaking Promises - Week 28 - Nov 7-14

Surprise, surprise.  Jim Flaherty hints that the Conservatives probably won't stick to their campaign promise of balancing the budget by ...oh god...who even knows where their promise is now.  2015?  2016?  It doesn't really seem to matter what the target is.  They won't reach it.  Wait.  It's official now.  And I could have this wrong...but they actually seem to be using this as as a chance to brag about their "flexibility" in dealing with the economy.  That's some mighty strong lemonade.  And this article points out all the other campaign promise dominoes that will fall because of this (income splitting, TFSA allotment increase, fitness tax credit, kids tax credit, fighter jets).

The Tyee has an opinion piece that makes my views on the Conservative government sound rosy and cheerful.  At this point, I think it's a bit of a stretch to claim initiatives to increase charitable giving are the first strikes in a plan to erode social programs.  But who knows?

It's hard to know what to think about the Air Canada labour dispute.  On one hand, you're playing with fire when you reject the deal recommended by your own union.  On the other, it's hard to bargain when you know the government/arbitrators are just going to impose something on you.

The Government seems to hint that there might actually be something to this whole "Global Warming" thing, and offer up $150 Million to study its effects over the next 5 years.  Not studying how to get rid of it, mind you.  Just studying its effects.

I'm all for eliminating vandalism to war memorials.  But creating specific laws related to "mischief" around war memorials?  Vandalism is a crime.  Punish it.  Let's not create a nefarious shadow group of laws that will allow us to throw somebody in jail if they pee a little bit too closely to a war memorial.  This cries out for abuse.  Are we going to paint a line around every war memorial to outline the "no mischief" area?

There's a projected 2-year delya in the F-35 Fighter Jets.  Of course, for the Conservatives, there's "no problem".  Just added costs.  And extended timelines.

More signs that Piracy is really hurting large entertainment companies.  The CEO of Viacom (Comedy Central, MTV, Paramount, etc) received a 148.6% raise and will now earn $84.5 Million per year.  Hard times, indeed.

There's a plea deal to the Conservative election funding fiasco.  Sounds like they get off pretty lightly.

A Globe article documents Canada's shift on Israel policy and UN votes.  It's a bit of an implicit criticism of the UN as well, in my mind.  Politicized vote after politicized vote, followed by a veto by somebody.

The 1 % - Week 24 - Oct 12-17

Okay.  Enough with the link roundups.  This start this week with something fresh.  There's been a lot of talk of income inequality in the US.  The Top 1% has 40% of the wealth, etc.  How does Canada fare.

There's no numbers here, but this graph shows we're not quite as bad as the US.  That's not quite what I'm looking for (The Gini coefficient does seem to be the standard for how these things are judged), but I guess it makes sense that we're somewhere in the middle, well behind Denmark but ahead of the US.  It does suggest that we're getting worse.
 
That Stat doesn't really cover things.  There's no nice comparable to the top 1% headline grabber in the US.  Digging deeper,  here is the motherload.  Let's got to page 73, table 8-1.  Assume 25 million people in Canada and that each household is 5 people.  That might not sound quite right, but the assumptions should balance out in the end.  So, 5 million households and each quintile is approximately 1 million.  Average household wage is $61,000.  Multiply that out, and we have $305 Billion in wages earned by Canadians.  Of that, the bottom 20% earns an average of $7,100 per year.  Which isn't much.  The top 20% earns an average of $156,300.  Let's multiply that out:

Bottom 20% - $7.1 Billion total earnings - 2.3% of total income
Top 20% - 156.3 Billion total earnings - 51% of total income

So the top 20% of Canadians earns 51% of the money in Canada.  Not sure about the top 1%.  And not sure about total "wealth".  This isn't quite as tidy as I'd hoped to make this, but the Globe and Mail doesn't seem to be able to put a nice little bow on this story either.  Update - According to this link, the top 20% of Americans earn 60% of the income.  Our bottom 20% is actually worse off than the US, who earn 3.5% of total income.

Guess who thinks the old Liberal Government did a great job of running Canada's finances?  Tony Clement!  It's funny what these guys will say when they don't think Canada is listnening.  Maybe Paul Martin will run for Liberal leader again?

I'm not really a union backer.  But I kind of agree that Canada Post workers got royally screwed and I think a lawsuit is a good idea.

John Baird...When you want to give the impression that you're in it for the little people, don't fly in to a country that you've just "liberated" with executives from oil & gas, pipeline and engineering firms.  It suggests that your motives may have been suspect.

Harper Gets a Brazilian - Week 15 - Aug 8-15

Oh. I wish it was true. Some Brazilian newspapers have reported that Stephen Harper locked himself in a bathroom and wouldn't come out until the Brazilian government agreed to change the schedule for lunchtime toasts.

This whole South/Central American junket is confusing to me. He's gone to Brazil and encouraged trade. He's gone to Columbia, signed a free trade deal (coffee and cocaine?), suggested human rights concerns are a "front" and anybody opposing this is a "protectionist". Then he went to Costa Rica and announced that our free trade deal will be re-opened (why was it closed) and "security aid". On to Honduras, where he is working on a free trade deal with a country that underwent a coup in 2009. Is he living out his childhood dream to backpack through the Americas?

Awesome. The Harper Government actually has their own ex-Bloc member that they forgot about. But don't worry. It's okay because he's not their leader. Just a cabinet minister.

It doesn't get talked about much, but the Omnibus crime legislation that will be "rushed through" (by parliamentary standards) includes a whole lot of Internet monitoring under the heading of "Cyber Investigation". Some people are advocating that we hold off on that and talk about it a little bit. Which sounds reasonable. Unfortunately, it will be pretty easy for the Conservatives to paint anybody that questions any of this as "soft on crime". Because if you don't blindly go along with something sold as "tough on crime" you're automatically for child pornography. Because those are the only people that use the Internet, right?

You know who else doesn't think that Stephen Harper's "Tough on Crime" bill is a good idea? The Canadian Bar Association. But what do lawyers know about the law, anyhow? The Conservative response? No, no. You're wrong. Mandatory sentences are "reasonable". International experts seem to agree with the lawyers as well.

More asbestos. The Conservatives are threatening to sue a widow whose husband died of asbestos related ailments over unauthorized use of the Conservative logo in an online ad. I almost feel a bit sorry for them. There's not really a way to come out of this one looking good. Other than doing the right thing and phasing out the export of asbestos. Don't worry though. The mayor of Sarnia has her back.

Food inspection services are being cut. Shouldn't the meat producers be paying for this sort of thing? Meh. What's a bit of e-coli floating around in our meat if we can save a few million bucks.

Sorry. More copyright. But honestly, if you think this doesn't affect you...Please just read the first page of this article. This is where the US is with copyright. A legally blind man with children 4 & 6 years old is being sued for downloading a porno movie because he left his wi-fi open. The cheap option: pay a few thousand dollars in shakedown money to make the case go away. The expensive option: spend a few months in court fighting it. The more expensive option: spend a few months in court fighting it and then pay $150,000 if you lose the case. Luckily even Canada proposes to limit the amount of damages in the event of a copyright lawsuit. But you can't want this. You can't think that this is a good model to use for our system of copyright laws.

I'm going to get way, way off topic here. God, there's just so many great articles out there about what is wrong with the world economic system. This one is about how Germany ties in to the whole European economic mess. Money quote, from the head of Commerzbank - “Why should you pay $20 million to a 32-year-old trader? He uses the office space, the I.T., the business card with a first-class name on it. If I take the business card away from that guy he would probably sell hot dogs.” That's just priceless. And the article will make you cry.

Wow. There's a Toronto City Councillor that makes the Ford brothers look sane. Ranting about "layabouts" and "communists" is never a very good idea. And all of them snubbed a library opening. At least these guys aren't running the country. No, that job is left to their idealogical BBQ buddies.