It always takes a farcical story to drive a point home. A group of Ontario birdwatchers have been threatened by Revenue Canada over "political activity". They wrote a letter to several cabinet ministers expressing concern over bee deaths.
Stephen Harper fears that the people he's in charge of are trying to bring back the Long Gun Registry. And all he needs is your money to stop it.
He also seems to be researching privatization of Canada Post and writing secret reports about it.
It's easy to form an argument that CSIS needs more power to track "terrorists". (It might not be credible, but it's easy) It's harder to understand how they decide who a "terrorist" is.
Fraser Institute economist thinks that he has solved science and proven global warming is a farce. Science points out that he is an idiot.
Kinder Morgan pro-pipeline ads come at a time that can be seen as influencing upcoming municipal elections.
There are a truly insane number of foreign caregivers waiting for Permanent Resident status in Canada.
This might be getting complicated. Sun News dug up some documents that suggest the major media companies (most of them) in Canada came to an agreement not to air attack ads that used copyrighted information originating from any of their broadcasts...Which may have lead to the Conservative political copyright law...and may be illegal...and Sun News views as collusion to put Trudeau into power.
Jason Kenney took it upon himself to decide that a niqab can't be worn during a citizenship ceremony.
One Russian cargo ship loses power on the coast of BC and exposes our "World Class" ship safety plans as a farce.
Canada's Indian status system seems insane. And one lady is challenging it, as her status was revoked as she does not know the identity of her grandfather.
The Canada Food Guide kind of sucks. And it's been put together by people closely attached to the food industry.
Showing posts with label Canada Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada Post. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Not so good at this social media thing - Week 145 - Feb 3-10
Sorry if I got a bit grumpy earlier in the week. Times are difficult, you know?
Oh boy, Steve. You really can't win these days, can you? I'd expect this kind of stuff out of your buddy Rob Ford. Anyhow, the drummer in Stephen Harper's band has been charged with sexual assault. That guy is going to fast learn the definition of fair weather friend.
Of course everybody is still talking about the farce of an "election reform" bill. I can't not put it in quotations. Also not a fan? The Chief Electoral Officer. He's wondering why he's no longer allowed to encourage people to vote and what his remaining job is. Why didn't he speak up when they didn't consult him about it? He also speculates that up to 100,000 voters could be impacted by the voter ID law, most of them aboriginal. And of course, this is another great opportunity to cap debate on a bill. Gotta ram that shit through, no? Maybe another candidate for a Senate hold-up? Nobody seems to think this bill is good. Except the Vernon Morning Star.
This one is new to me, but this site breaks down the arguments put forward in Parliament. Brad Butt, who is a real Conservative MP and not a made up person, suggests that during his last campaign they just went around and collected discarded voter cards and then went in and voted on behalf of those people using the vouch system. Oh. Sorry. "Some other campaigns" were doing that. My apologies.
Another Conservative MP has settled his dispute with Elections Canada. Funny how most of the disputes between MP's and Elections Canada involve Conservatives and now there's all these laws to take away authority from Elections Canada.
This is not new news, but seems to be new news now that the BC Civil Liberties is on board. Think of just how insane this is. The national spy apparatus, which is legally prohibited from spying on Canadians, not only spied on (relatively) law abiding Canadians, but did so at the behest of a corporation running a publicly reviled project. It's totally insane.
Sticking with pipelines, a report about an explosion in a TransCanada pipeline was administratively buried. Of course, that was never the intention. I mean, it only showed that their entire inspection program was inadequate.
The new plan for Canadian military procurement is to create some kind of Canadian military-industrial complex. We can't seem to buy even a trash can properly for the military, now we're going to require it to be designed and built in Canada?
Several dozen oil patch workers were laid off and replaced by Croations. Of course, nobody is responsible. The government has no control over Imperial Oil. Imperial Oil has no control over its contractors. I'm surprised any of these people were able to make it in to work today, seeing as they're not responsible for anything.
The Conservatives have decided that they don't need tougher conflict of interest rules for themselves. But public servants certainly do.
Another example of military boostin' Steve not really giving a shit about the actual soldiers. Veterans are being discharged for medical reasons and don't qualify for benefits. In other news, a story about how the government ignored PTSD in Canadian soldiers.
The Conservatives have decided to target the "political activities" of charities they deem to be terrorists. Of course It's much easier to be deemed a terrorist when you do something the government doesn't like. I would imagine church groups are still going to be allowed to do whatever they want politically. And if you can't get 'em that way, subject them to Revenue Canada audits.
Another Conservative attempt to solve a problem that doesn't really exist: reigning in public sector employee sick leave. And then of course all our problems with immigrants. What better way to weed out the riffraff than to make it more expensive for people to become citizens? I wonder how these new rules are going to affect ministerial personnel who pretend to be new Canadians for photo ops?
This is a sad and scary story. Tyrone Hayes is a scientist who did research into a chemical sold as a pesticide. He started this research at the behest of the company that sold it. When they didn't like his findings, they set about attempting to discredit his research and ruin his reputation. They followed him and purchased advertising based on search terms related to his name. This needs to be a new type of crime.
Justification for ending Canada Post home delivery doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Of course, now that a few trains have blown up, the Conservatives never would have considered this plan from the rail industry to cut inspections on trains carrying dangerous goods.
CNRL continues to have a giant bitumen leak that they can't stop.
Job creator Jamie Dimon gets a fat raise after presiding over billions in fines to JP Morgan Chase for illegal activities. As Matt Taibbi points out, the rank and file received pay freezes after the fines were announced.
There were some jobs created in January....for now. See if there's a major correction to the stats a la November.
Oh boy, Steve. You really can't win these days, can you? I'd expect this kind of stuff out of your buddy Rob Ford. Anyhow, the drummer in Stephen Harper's band has been charged with sexual assault. That guy is going to fast learn the definition of fair weather friend.
Of course everybody is still talking about the farce of an "election reform" bill. I can't not put it in quotations. Also not a fan? The Chief Electoral Officer. He's wondering why he's no longer allowed to encourage people to vote and what his remaining job is. Why didn't he speak up when they didn't consult him about it? He also speculates that up to 100,000 voters could be impacted by the voter ID law, most of them aboriginal. And of course, this is another great opportunity to cap debate on a bill. Gotta ram that shit through, no? Maybe another candidate for a Senate hold-up? Nobody seems to think this bill is good. Except the Vernon Morning Star.
This one is new to me, but this site breaks down the arguments put forward in Parliament. Brad Butt, who is a real Conservative MP and not a made up person, suggests that during his last campaign they just went around and collected discarded voter cards and then went in and voted on behalf of those people using the vouch system. Oh. Sorry. "Some other campaigns" were doing that. My apologies.
Another Conservative MP has settled his dispute with Elections Canada. Funny how most of the disputes between MP's and Elections Canada involve Conservatives and now there's all these laws to take away authority from Elections Canada.
This is not new news, but seems to be new news now that the BC Civil Liberties is on board. Think of just how insane this is. The national spy apparatus, which is legally prohibited from spying on Canadians, not only spied on (relatively) law abiding Canadians, but did so at the behest of a corporation running a publicly reviled project. It's totally insane.
Sticking with pipelines, a report about an explosion in a TransCanada pipeline was administratively buried. Of course, that was never the intention. I mean, it only showed that their entire inspection program was inadequate.
The new plan for Canadian military procurement is to create some kind of Canadian military-industrial complex. We can't seem to buy even a trash can properly for the military, now we're going to require it to be designed and built in Canada?
Several dozen oil patch workers were laid off and replaced by Croations. Of course, nobody is responsible. The government has no control over Imperial Oil. Imperial Oil has no control over its contractors. I'm surprised any of these people were able to make it in to work today, seeing as they're not responsible for anything.
The Conservatives have decided that they don't need tougher conflict of interest rules for themselves. But public servants certainly do.
Another example of military boostin' Steve not really giving a shit about the actual soldiers. Veterans are being discharged for medical reasons and don't qualify for benefits. In other news, a story about how the government ignored PTSD in Canadian soldiers.
The Conservatives have decided to target the "political activities" of charities they deem to be terrorists. Of course It's much easier to be deemed a terrorist when you do something the government doesn't like. I would imagine church groups are still going to be allowed to do whatever they want politically. And if you can't get 'em that way, subject them to Revenue Canada audits.
Another Conservative attempt to solve a problem that doesn't really exist: reigning in public sector employee sick leave. And then of course all our problems with immigrants. What better way to weed out the riffraff than to make it more expensive for people to become citizens? I wonder how these new rules are going to affect ministerial personnel who pretend to be new Canadians for photo ops?
This is a sad and scary story. Tyrone Hayes is a scientist who did research into a chemical sold as a pesticide. He started this research at the behest of the company that sold it. When they didn't like his findings, they set about attempting to discredit his research and ruin his reputation. They followed him and purchased advertising based on search terms related to his name. This needs to be a new type of crime.
Justification for ending Canada Post home delivery doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Of course, now that a few trains have blown up, the Conservatives never would have considered this plan from the rail industry to cut inspections on trains carrying dangerous goods.
CNRL continues to have a giant bitumen leak that they can't stop.
Job creator Jamie Dimon gets a fat raise after presiding over billions in fines to JP Morgan Chase for illegal activities. As Matt Taibbi points out, the rank and file received pay freezes after the fines were announced.
There were some jobs created in January....for now. See if there's a major correction to the stats a la November.
Monday, October 17, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Government Mandated Truth - Week 8 - June 20-27
I'm sure nothing will come of it, but it's been announced that the RCMP is looking in to complaints on G8 spending. Which probably means that somebody at the RCMP read something about it on the Internet. What bothers me the most is John Baird's outright dismissal here, calling it a "public relations stunt". I'm sick and tired of these yabbos blaming everything on the person asking the question. That's actually the opposite of accountibility.
Next, the Conservatives target climate scientists at Environment Canada with job cuts. Well. Climate Change doesn't exist. Why would you waste money studying it?
Canada continues to embarrass itself by officially denying a UN declaration of asbestos as hazardous. And since the declaration has to be unanimous, there will therefore be no declaration of Asbestos as hazardous by the UN. And we complain when China or Russia step in and derail things with their Security Council vote. Even India, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan came around to changing their stance on this item. Actually, this probably opens up some Harper spin. "Canada Valiantly Opposes Baltic/Near East Asbestos Denial Axis at UN Summit". (In the end, the axis joined up with Canada. But I'm not writing a whole new paragraph just for that.) Add this to the lengthening list of "Strange Stephen Harper Obsessions."
And another case of "this is the truth because I say so." The Conservatives call the investigation of detainee abuse in Afghanistan closed because nothing in their redacted documents indicates that anything happened. Missing from the records...anything deemed legal advice or related to cabinet confidence. It would seem to me that any important discussion would probably be related to one of these two things.
Oh man. This is like...our two favourite things combined into one topic of awesomeness. Christy Clark...encourages Senate reform...and the addition of 10 Senate seats for British Columbia. Actually...she encourages abolition of the Senate, but if that doesn't work, then she wants to make it bigger. Ya...that doesn't make any sense at all.
And then...What the hell? Gordon Campbell is going to be the Canadian Ambassador to England? Sorry. "High Commissioner". Ya. We should probably reward criminally convicted premieres run out of office on a rail.
After an NDP filibuster (I didn't even know that was possible in Canada), the Conservatives passed back to work legislation for Canada Post employees. This article points out that this is the sort of thing that's supposed to happen in Parliament. I think the Conservatives were probably upset that they might once again miss a chance to stick it to striking workers.
And finally, John Baird begins his new role as International Courier with a quick trip to Libya.
Next, the Conservatives target climate scientists at Environment Canada with job cuts. Well. Climate Change doesn't exist. Why would you waste money studying it?
Canada continues to embarrass itself by officially denying a UN declaration of asbestos as hazardous. And since the declaration has to be unanimous, there will therefore be no declaration of Asbestos as hazardous by the UN. And we complain when China or Russia step in and derail things with their Security Council vote. Even India, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan came around to changing their stance on this item. Actually, this probably opens up some Harper spin. "Canada Valiantly Opposes Baltic/Near East Asbestos Denial Axis at UN Summit". (In the end, the axis joined up with Canada. But I'm not writing a whole new paragraph just for that.) Add this to the lengthening list of "Strange Stephen Harper Obsessions."
And another case of "this is the truth because I say so." The Conservatives call the investigation of detainee abuse in Afghanistan closed because nothing in their redacted documents indicates that anything happened. Missing from the records...anything deemed legal advice or related to cabinet confidence. It would seem to me that any important discussion would probably be related to one of these two things.
Oh man. This is like...our two favourite things combined into one topic of awesomeness. Christy Clark...encourages Senate reform...and the addition of 10 Senate seats for British Columbia. Actually...she encourages abolition of the Senate, but if that doesn't work, then she wants to make it bigger. Ya...that doesn't make any sense at all.
And then...What the hell? Gordon Campbell is going to be the Canadian Ambassador to England? Sorry. "High Commissioner". Ya. We should probably reward criminally convicted premieres run out of office on a rail.
After an NDP filibuster (I didn't even know that was possible in Canada), the Conservatives passed back to work legislation for Canada Post employees. This article points out that this is the sort of thing that's supposed to happen in Parliament. I think the Conservatives were probably upset that they might once again miss a chance to stick it to striking workers.
And finally, John Baird begins his new role as International Courier with a quick trip to Libya.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)