Newest cool epithet: "You're a weathervane!"

Just to show that Canadian politics can be as inane as any state in the union (even Florida), Quebec forges ahead with critical measures to curb pol-on-pol abuse:

Politicians in Quebec's legislature will have to come up with a new way to slag their opponents now that the word 'weathervane' has been added to the list of unparliamentary language.

Speaker Michel Bissonnet judged the word to be "hurtful" as the legislature resumed Tuesday after the summer break. Premier Jean Charest has called Opposition Leader Mario Dumont a weathervane on numerous occasions recently, elevating him on Tuesday to "national weathervane" during the legislature session.

Charest made the crack near the end of the heated debate as he reiterated his belief that the Action democratique du Quebec leader is like a weathervane in the wind because he is always changing directions.

MMP proposal defeated

Well, the election result was pretty much what I expected, no real surprise there. The referendum result was much more pleasant: resounding rejection of MMP:

At 8:15 a.m. ET Thursday, with more than 98 per cent of polls counted, the proposal had the support of 36.8 per cent of the vote. Meanwhile, 63.2 per cent of voters cast their ballots in favour of the existing first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

Only five ridings, all of them in Toronto, showed a majority supporting MMP.

The MMP proposal required 60 per cent support to become the new electoral system. As well it had to win a majority in 64 ridings.

A citizens assembly was appointed by the previous Liberal government to study the issue. It recommended MMP to replace FPTP, which has been in place in Ontario for 215 years.

Huzzah!

Repost: The value of scrutineers in elections

Back in 2004, I posted a brief discussion of my experiences as a scrutineer during a by-election in the 1980s. It seems appropriate to re-post that story today:

[. . .] In Canada, these people are called "scrutineers" and they have a vital job.

No, I'm not kidding about the vital part. Each candidate has the right to appoint a scrutineer for every poll in the riding (usually only the Liberal, NDP, and Conservative parties can manage to field that many people). I was a scrutineer during a federal byelection in the mid-1980's in a Toronto-area riding, but I had five polls to monitor (all were in the same school gymnasium). This was my first real experience of how dirty the political system can be.

The scrutineers have the right to challenge voters — although I don't remember any challenges being issued at any of my polls [. . .] They also have the right to be present during the vote count and to challenge the validity of individual ballots. Their job is to maximize the vote for their candidate and [legally] minimize the vote for their opponents.

Canadian ballots are pretty straightforward items: they are small, folded slips of paper with each candidate's name listed alphabetically and a circle to indicate a vote for that candidate. A valid vote will have only one mark inside one of the circles (an X is the preferred mark). An invalid vote might have:

• No markings at all (a blank ballot)
• More than one circle marked (a spoiled ballot)
• Some mark other than an X (this is where the scrutineers become important).

After the polls close, the poll clerk and the Deputy Returning Officer secure the unused ballots and then open the ballot box in the presence of any accredited scrutineers. The clerk and DRO then count all the ballots, indicating valid votes for candidates and invalid ballots. The scrutineers can challenge any ballot and it must be set aside and reconsidered after the rest of the ballots are counted.

A challenged ballot must be defended by one of the scrutineers or it is considered to be invalid and the vote is not counted. The clerk and DRO have the power to make the decision, but in practice a noisy scrutineer can usually bully the DRO into accepting all their challenges. I didn't realize just how easy it was to screw with the system until I'd been a scrutineer myself.

This is one of the key reasons why minor party candidates poll so badly in Canadian elections: they don't have enough (or, in many cases, any) scrutineers to defend their votes. In my experience in that Toronto-area byelection, I personally saved nearly 4% of the total vote my candidate received (in the entire riding) by counter-challenging challenged ballots. We totalled just over 400 votes in the riding (in just about 100 polls) — 21 of them in my polls. I got 15 of those votes allowed, when they would otherwise have been disallowed by the DRO.

There was no legal reason to disallow those votes: they were clearly marked with an X and had no other marks on them; they were challenged because they were votes for a minor candidate. As it was, I had a heck of a time running from poll to poll in order to get my counter-challenges in (I probably missed a few votes by not being able to get back to a poll in time).

The Libertarians only had six or seven scrutineers, covering less than a third of the polls in this riding. If the challenge rate was typical in my poll, then instead of the 400-odd votes, we actually received nearly 2000 votes — but most of them were not counted.

Yes, even 2000 votes would not have swung the election, but 2000 people willing to vote for a "fringe" party would be a good argument against those "throwing away your vote" criticisms. Voters are weird creatures in some ways: they like to feel that their votes actually matter. Voting for someone who espouses views you like, then discovering that only a few others feel the same way will discourage most voters from voting that way again in future.

Minor revisions in the text to elide references to the 2004 Ohio article which I was originally commenting on.

Voting day in Ontario

It may surprise some of you to find that today is an election day in Ontario . . . and the most likely result is no change (the ruling Liberal party may lose a few seats, but appears likely to still manage a majority in the house). John Tory did a masterful job of steadily wearing down his own support to keep Premier McGuinty in power for another four years (the government-funded madrassa proposal had a major part in this outcome).

Perhaps more important is the referendum to change the existing electoral system from the traditional first-past-the-post to a system that will provide (theoretically) a result more reflective of the actual votes cast. I like to consider this proposal the "Never let Mike Harris get elected again" initiative, because the most likely outcome of implementing this will be a never-ending series of coalition governments between the moderate left, the hard left, and the Greens. We'll not likely see the conservatives get close to running the province again if this proposal is approved by the voters.

I'm against it, by the way, as I really don't like the idea of adding a number of unelected (and probably otherwise-unelectable) party bagmen through the party list system: the current system isn't wonderful, but it's better than this monstrosity being foisted off on the voters today.

Canada's sad record on human rights

The Iranian government is calling Canada's bluff on human rights abuses:

[. . .] the document asserts that the Canadian government denies its people food, clean water and the right to work.

"Routine unlawful strip and beatings by Canadian police has been a matter of concern for international community," notes the booklet, entitled Report on Human Rights Situation in Canada, adding that "the practice of police is alarming simply because . . . it is functioning as if there is no need to have judges."

The publication, which claims its allegations are drawn from "objective and factual information released by authentic and credible international sources," alleges that a range of human rights violation occur in Canada, especially toward aboriginal peoples, refugees and immigrants.

"To the great dismay of the international community, it is a great concern that the rights of women are violated, and no serious attention has been paid in promotion and protection of women's rights in Canada."

You can be sure that Canadian diplomats will be furiously writing and issuing apologies to the world and distributing them at the UN for the rest of this week.

H/T to Damian Penny.

Let's party like it's 1976

For the first time in over a quarter century, a FrozenTundraMicroPeso is at par with the mighty, mucho-macho American dollar:

The Canadian dollar reached parity with the U.S. dollar this morning for the first time since November 1976.

The loonie has been gaining on its American counterpart since bottoming out below 62 cents in early 2002.

It has risen about five U.S. cents since the beginning of the month.

Helping the Canadian dollar reach the same level as its U.S. counterpart has been continuing weakness with the American currency.

Arctic Patrol Vessels: now with less sonar

The not-yet-fully designed Arctic patrol vessels may have a lot of capabilities, but sonar isn't going to be one of them:

Canada's new Arctic patrol ships will likely lack sonar capability, forcing them to use other methods to detect submarine threats in northern waters, a project official said yesterday.

"They will not have the ability to detect submarines," Captain Ron Lloyd, a senior navy planner, said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Both the operation and even the installation of sonar equipment on the new warships may prove to be impractical, he said.

"You're talking about a ship that's going to run up onto ice and all of the noise that ice makes and still be able to detect submarines," said Capt. Lloyd, who is the former commander of the frigate HMCS Charlottetown.

"From our perspective we have not examined that as a potential [capability] for this platform."

"What?" I pretend to hear you ask. "How are our not-yet-built Arctic superships supposed to deter eeeeevil Yankee and Ruskie nuclear subs if they can't even detect 'em?" A good question. Professor Dan Middlemiss is quoted in the article and he says that helicopters can be used (when the weather allows), and that would give some anti-submarine capability. Moreover, actually hunting submarines is primarily a job for other submarines in the modern era.

Still, you can't help but feel that the new boats won't have quite the same effect without the ability to "ping" the heck out of intruding subs.

Good description of Canada

Jeremy Clarkson enjoyed his visit to Canada, although he had some issues with the rental vehicle. Even if he thinks "no one in Canada ever wins on the horses, or escapes from a knife fight with their life, or has an orgasm. It is Switzerland with wheat."

When I'm faced with intransigence at a car-rental desk, what I like to do is summon up some little nugget of military history. It's never difficult. In Germany I tell them about Dresden, in France it's Agincourt, in Spain I wax lyrical about Drake, in Italy I'm spoilt for choice, and in Argentina, where I'm going next year, I shall be mentioning Goose Green.

In Canada I told the smiling girl at the Thrifty desk all about the massive superiority of General Wolfe over the pitiable Marquis de Montcalm and explained that if she didn't come up with a car — right now — I'd visit the Plains of Abraham on her desk.

It worked, and 10 minutes later I was driving through Canada . . . in a Dodge Grand Caravan . . . from a company called Thrifty. As recipes go, this is right up there with a plate of pork sausages and strawberry ice cream served in a puddle of tepid Greek urine.

H/T to Damian Penny for the URL.

Cool new airlift capability in use

Chris Taylor discusses why the newest military transport aircraft in the Canadian Forces is a good thing to have:

Each Herc carries a crew of five — 2 pilots, 1 navigator, 1 flight engineer, and 1 loadmaster. That's fifteen people to move these pallets, or a week of duty days for a single aircrew. The Herc would make each 1,568nm trip in 6 hours — that's 12 hours including the return trip. So for a single CC-130H aircraft to move these 13 pallets, it would require three 12-hour trips, or three aircraft making a single 12-hour return flight. Not including ground handling, offload and refueling times.

In contrast, a single CC-177 can fly all 13 pallets to Jamaica in 3 hours, 49 minutes, using a single aircrew of three (2 pilots, 1 loadmaster). And it can carry sufficient fuel for the entire journey. Tack on the return trip and you have the entire mission completed in just under 8 hours, not including ground handling and offload times.

Remind me why the CC-177 isn't the best choice in this scenario?

I do find the formal military designation to be a bit odd: CC-177, rather than the American designation C-17. Even the defence minister calls it a C-17 in public. It looks like somebody stuttered while typing up the original name.

It's a good thing the rest of the world can't vote

An amusing little site, Who Would the World Elect? has Barack Obama leading among Canadian "voters" on the Democratic side, and (of course) Ron Paul leading on the Republican side:

Feel free to cast your vote . . . it's only marginally less effective than a real one. It certainly looks like every active Libertarian in Canada already has voted.

"We're lowering prices because of the costs of piracy"

Over at Slashdot, the denizens are having lots of fun mashing the piñata:

HMV Canada Cuts Music CD Prices

umStefa notes a CBC story reporting that the largest music retailer in Canada, HMV, has slashed prices on CDs and is attributing the move to demand by customers for lower prices. The back catalog of popular artists will see price cuts of up to 33%; the cuts average 20% across the board. The Canadian version of the RIAA is spinning the news as being a direct result of music piracy.

The slashdotters have been having lots of fun whacking away at the embedded notions:

PunkOfLinux: Because, as we all know, customers who want CD's at a decent price are OBVIOUSLY pirates...

Otter Escaping North: You know - I'm living in Canada, never used p2p or anything like that to download music...don't consider myself a pirate at all. Happy to pay for the materials I want. Upon hearing HMV is slashing prices - I rejoice and head to the website.
The White Album is still forty-five freakin' dollars!
Piracy causes lower prices then, does it? I guess I just haven't been doing my part.

Gr33nNight: So in other words, if people keep pirating, then CDs will be cheaper. Sounds like a win-win to me.

teh loon: Spinning the news as software piracy won't help their agenda - I'm quite sure no consumer is going to feel sympathy for the RIAA's loss of potential profits. If anything, it'll encourage piracy - CDs are already overpriced as it is.

And what else would you expect them to do?

This was the headline on the Rogers news portal a couple of minutes ago:

And media types wonder why they don't get treated with seriousness . . . how unserious do you have to be to write that headline?

Of course the Van Doos will carry on: they're soldiers. That's what soldiers do. The loss of comrades will sadden them, but they'll continue to do the job . . . because that is what soldiers DO.

Frickin' idiot media. The article is here if you want to read it.

Rather a good summary, I think

For laughs, I followed a link to The Economist's page of business etiquette tips for visitors to Toronto . . . and found them to be a pretty good guideline for getting along with the aloof and prickly Torontonian:

• Business cards are usually exchanged after meetings, rather than during introductions.
• Once the working week is over, Torontonians value their free time. Important meetings are not typically scheduled for late on Friday afternoons, and you should not try to set up meetings at weekends.
• In this multicultural city, with roughly 80 ethnic groups, language and cultural differences are the norm rather than the exception.
• Understatement and a low-key demeanour are looked upon with favour. Boasting about past achievements or hyping up a product should be avoided in Toronto.
• Unless your host indicates otherwise, stick to sparkling mineral water during a business lunch; midday meals here tend to be dry.
• Ice hockey is a local passion. Toronto's home team, the Maple Leafs, are simultaneously loved and loathed by locals, most of whom support the team despite its failure to win the Stanley Cup, the sport's top prize, since 1967.

If you're visiting Toronto on business, you could do much worse than to read the rest of the list. The final entry is particularly appropriate: "Many Canadians nurture both inferiority and superiority complexes about America. Tread carefully."

Update: Occasional commenter "Lickmuffin" has taken the time to reverse-engineer the original draft of the story in the comments. I do encourage you to read 'em . . .

Tories invade the Arctic

At least partially fulfilling an election promise, Stephen Harper has announced a new military training base and a deep-water port in Nanisivik and Resolute Bay:

Canada will build two new military facilities within contested Arctic waters to bolster its sovereign claim over the fabled Northwest Passage, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Friday.

He said the Canadian Forces will install a new army training centre and a deepwater port at distant points of the Arctic archipelago that has been coveted for centuries as a possible trade route to Asia.

"Protecting national sovereignty, the integrity of our borders, is the first and foremost responsibility of a national government, a responsibility which has too often been neglected," Harper said, citing what he called the "first principle of Arctic sovereignty: use it or lose it."

For those of you who've never heard of Nanisivik (which would include me), it's roughly here:

The slow news season kicks off

You can tell that we've reached the news doldrums when articles like this are treated as real news:

One of Canada's most popular authors is taking a decidedly novel approach in his efforts to encourage appreciation of the arts — he's started a website to help expand Prime Minister Stephen Harper's literary horizons.

Yann Martel, the author of the award-winning 2002 novel "Life of Pi," is behind the website "What Is Stephen Harper Reading," a project aimed giving the prime minister a little taste of culture. Since April, Martel has been mailing Harper a different inscribed book every two weeks, along with a personal letter praising the book's virtues. The letters are posted online at www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca.

Martel admits he's taking a few jabs at Harper, but insists he isn't preaching.

"There's no point in writing to someone if you're going to insult them. I certainly don't agree with the prime minister — I'd never vote for him — but that doesn't mean one becomes petty and petulant," he says.

There you go, a perfect encapsulation of Canadian smug. Of course Stephen Harper is culturally illiterate . . . he's a Tory. Tories are well known, among the educated urban elite, for their disinterest in — if not active hatred for — all things cultural. In some ways, it's surprising that Martel is bothering to send real books, as Tories are also thought to be largely unable to read . . . perhaps he's sending the "large print" versions?

Colby Cosh shouts "Fire!" in the theatre

Colby Cosh has some fun batting around the restrictions on freedom of speech:

On Wednesday, Marni Soupcoff, our much-missed editorial board colleague who is on maternity leave, popped in at the paper's Full Comment weblog to discuss the fine recently levied by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal against an Internet goofball who had created a dreck-filled homepage for an imaginary "Canadian Nazi Party." She was there to express the timely if unpopular view, which I share, that even scumbags have sacred free speech rights and that they should, in ordinary discourse, be resisted by argument and not by means of hate laws. An interlocutor in the comment thread disagreed on behalf of "smart people," offering a familiar reminder: that freedom of speech "does not give anyone the right to shout 'fire' in a theatre."

For 20 years I've been arguing with Canadians against our impoverished accepted doctrine of expressive freedom, and in favour of the strong First Amendment-style approach implied in the actual language of the Charter of Rights. Ordinarily I am told that in arguing for near-absolute free speech I am reciting a blind, unreasoning formula that is ill-adapted to contemporary times. It is never more than two minutes before the person arguing against stale old-fashioned ideas is trotting out the 88-year-old "fire in a theatre" cliche. You could set your watch by it.

Cosh does a good job of pointing out the nincompoopery (if that's a word) of the argument.

QotD: Chicago's view of Canada

Happy Dominion Day! In la belle province, the concept of Canada may be regarded with indifference and contempt and dismissed as a weak sickly thing, but here in Chicago Canada is the baddest-@#! mutha ever to come swaggering in town.

For four months, the prosecution have regaled the jury with horror stories of the wild lawless swamplands to the north. You thought it was just one big wimp-o 24/7 Benetton ad celebrating diversity and UN peacekeeping and socialized healthcare and confiscatory taxation and all that other wimpy stuff? Hah! Get real. It's an offshore tax haven to which the world's executives stampede en masse because in Canada you don't have to pay any tax. It's a land beyond the rule of law where predatory thugs sporting sinister colours of terrifying gangs like the "barristers" and "Queen's Counsels" fall on helpless US trial-lawyers, eat 'em up and spit 'em out all over Larry King Live. Marauding hordes of corporate vice-presidents ride down across the 49th Parallel to lay waste to American boardrooms like Albanian Mafiosi pillaging Italy.

Innocent unworldly types such as secretaries of state, four-term governors, Pentagon advisors and chief nuclear-arms negotiators who think nothing of going mano a mano with the Soviet Politburo, the ChiComs and the PLO are forced to concede they're way out of their league with these ruthless Canadians. A maple-drenched godfather simply has to put the word out, and an apparently innocuous sentence such as "Toronto wants it" is enough to strike fear and terror into the hearts of big-time execs all over Illinois. And that's before they send in the enforcers from the badlands of "the Maritime Province".

Mark Steyn, "Canada Day in the Northern District of Illinois", Maclean's, 2007-07-01

Happy Dominion Canada Day

Finally got the Red Ensign up in front of the house. Just took a bit longer than I'd planned (like too many other projects around the house, now that I think about it).

Ontario under siege

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) pre-emptively closed Highway 401 near Napanee last night, before a planned blockade was placed:

Ontario Provincial Police, who shut down Canada's busiest highway early Friday morning west of Kingston due to native protesters in the area, have decided to reopen Highway 401.

The OPP had closed it earlier in the day after the protesters blockaded a section of secondary highway and a stretch of nearby railway track on the eve of the National Day of Action.

The OPP closed Highway 401 both ways between Napanee and Belleville and were diverting traffic north onto Hwy 7 due to native protesters "being in the direct area, for safety reasons," said Sergeant Kristine Rae of the Smith Falls detachment.

Hours later the OPP issued an arrest warrant for protest leader Shawn Brant on a charge of mischief.

It's unlikely that the warrant for Shawn Brant will actually be used . . . the OPP have been very cautious in dealing with native protesters (many people feel they've been far more than just cautious). VIA Rail also cancelled all passenger service from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal, as the protest would also block the railway line, which is in close proximity to Highway 2 and Highway 401.

It's unlikely that the police and the provincial government would be quite as careful to avoid confrontation if it were any other group blocking highways and other transportation corridors.

Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, stressed at a news conference Thursday in Ottawa that his organization is calling only for peaceful events.

Of course, in this sort of situation, things are peaceful only as long as the police don't actually try to enforce the law, which (in the morally inverted universe of political protest) puts the onus on the police to avoid any contact with the protesters for fear of being the "aggressors".

Tens of thousands of people are being forced to either avoid travel or take lengthy detours (all at their own expense) so that the police can't be accused of "escalating the situation". And there is little or no chance of the courts acting to punish or even censure the protest organizers.

Terence Corcoran tried to dig up some background on the underlying land claims:

If Indian Affairs has clear answers to these and other questions, it will not say. All documents are sealed under legal privilege and cannot be viewed by anyone. Even after settlement is reached, no Canadian, and no resident of Deseronto, will ever know what the facts are behind the Culbertson Tract claim.

Claims like this exist all over Canada. Since 1973, 1,279 claims have been filed by native bands. So far, only a few — maybe 75 — have been rejected as having no legal merit. Most of the rest have been approved and settled (282) by Ottawa or are awaiting negotiated settlement (790). All documents in all claims remained sealed.

So, as today's protest carries on, it also helps to ensure that more of those thousand outstanding claims will be accompanied by "actions" that the police won't — or can't — control. Long hot summer? It's going to be a long hot decade at least!

QotD: Public Education and Kieran King

What fascinates me about the case of Kieran King, the Saskatchewan high school student who was threatened, punished and slandered by various officials over the past three weeks for talking with some pals about the health effects of marijuana, is that it explodes almost every single utopian cliche about public schools that has been ever propounded by their employees and admirers. It's almost glorious, in a way. Ever heard an educator say "We're not here to teach students what to think — we're here to teach them how to think"? BLAMMO! "We encourage children to make learning a lifelong process." KAPOW! Poor Kieran didn't even make it to age 16 before someone called the cops.

"Diversity is one of our most cherished values." But express a factually true opinion that diverges from what you've been taught and — WHOOMP! "Public schools aren't crude instruments of social control, they're places where we lay the foundation for an informed citizenry." BOOM!

I could go on, but I'm running out of sound effects and I really don't have time to fire up an old Batman episode on You-Tube to gather more.

Colby Cosh, "Put Kieran on a poster", National Post, 2007-06-22

The Star can still surprise

I'm quite taken aback by this editorial in the Toronto Star:

These events emphasize the importance of a continued combat role for Canada and its NATO allies in the Afghan war. They also emphasize the reality that without the continued effort to take the war to the Taliban, aid and reconstruction will be impossibly dangerous. Indeed, they would become pointless because abandoning the war means handing Afghanistan back to a Taliban dictatorship.

Maintaining Canada's will to fight that war, however, is certain to grow more difficult as casualties mount. Already, 56 Canadian soldiers have died in the war and the Taliban's campaign is becoming more violent as it grows more desperate. As casualties rise, political and public pressure to disengage from Afghanistan is likely to increase in Canada.

There are indications that the terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan are experiencing difficulty in finding recruits among Afghans themselves and have been replenishing their ranks with Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs. That may be an extension of the war, but it is not one that should discourage Canada. It is more importantly a sign that war against terror there is working, that Canadian combat troops are slowly succeeding in making Afghanistan safer so aid workers such as Mr. Frastacky can eventually do their jobs without fear.

Wow. Just wow.

I find it amazing (and heartening) that the Star, who have generally been against the Afghan mission all along, would be able to print this editorial (but note that it originally appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press, and is reprinted in the Star). Between this editorial and the mayor of Toronto's climb-down over the yellow ribbon issue, it's already been a very unusual week.

Free speech versus the school authorities

Well, this isn't surprising, but it is rather depressing to read:

Kieran King, a Canadian 10th-grader, did some research and discovered that marijuana is not as bad as his government makes it out to be. When he shared this information with his friends at the Wawota Parkland School in Saskatchewan, King says, the school's principal, Susan Wilson, accused him of selling pot and threatened to call the cops. Outraged at the principal's intimidation, King organized a student walkout to protest what he saw as a violation of his right to free speech. Wilson responded by locking down the school and suspending the 15-year-old for three days, which will force him to miss his final exams. Not your average pothead, King says he's never seen marijuana, let alone smoked or sold it. "The main purpose [of the protest] wasn't cannabis," he told the Regina Leader-Post. "It was the defense of the freedom of speech. I believe we have a right to freedom of expression."

Call me pessimistic, but I don't see this ending well.

When state funding diminishes

Grant McCracken gets it exactly right here:

But $975 million is not the real cost. No, the real cost is much higher This is because when we fund culture this way, we actually diminish it. The opportunity cost is, in other words, phenomenal. I reckon this cost is roughly equal to the Pirates, Spiderman, and Oceans trilogies combined, but then I'm a trained professional working in the controlled circumstances of a New England laboratory. (Don't try these calculations at home.)

Sure, it sounds paradoxical. Spending more gets you less? Funding culture dismantles culture? But dynamism teaches us, that cultures are like marketplaces, the less you intercede the more they flourish, the more you intercede, the less they do.

[. . .]

I'm not saying that Canada could have established it's own cultural ascendancy, if only the state had spent less. I am saying spending more virtually guaranteed its present obscurity on the world stage. (And before someone writes in to complain about all the great music coming out of Montreal, let me point out this was made without state subvention too.)

Armies fight the last war. States embrace the last idea. There was a time when the model of state sponsorship worked. My travels in Europe might as well have been a tour of opera houses, each more glorious than the last, extravagant evidence that cities and states tied their identities to the musical accomplishment of local sons and daughters. (The Paris house, I was interested to note, was funded by private subscription.)

The state is no better at predicting the direction of artistic endeavour than they are at picking economic "winners". Most state spending on cultural items disproportionally benefits the economically better-off, too. How many folks working ordinary office jobs go to the opera? Listen to classical music? Watch the ballet?

Artistic welfare for the rich? Isn't that just as morally questionable as economic grants to wealthy firms? You can't even really say that it's the struggling artists who benefit from this kind of spending . . . it's the already successful ones who garner most of the return.

Now I recall why I don't watch much TV

Christie Blatchford has a few swats at the Mother Corpse:

First, they congratulated the network (that is, themselves) on the astonishing response the contest got - 20,000 nominations, and a million votes (not that the votes would turn out to matter, because the CBC appointed a panel of three judges to make sure the winners would be geographically balanced and culturally appropriate). Ms. Rogers noted "the passion, the avid, fervent love" so many viewers had shown for the country. It was the first of several times the hosts or judges would mention the "passion" in their most insipid voices, as though by saying something is filled with passion makes it so. And then correspondent Mark Kelley came into view to talk about the judges' task - to narrow down the 15 choices they'd made the night before to the final seven.

"It was a gut-wrenching and soul-searching process," he said.

By this point, Strach and I were in hysterics: The show was already like a parody of Canada and Canadians. "What about AK-47s at Jane and Finch?" Strach yelled. "I bet there are more AKs in this country than there are canoes." [. . .]

Mr. Kelley was soon back to tell us that, "A wonder of its own, seven choices overlapped," but that wasn't the end of it. Ms. Jamieson then gestured to the map of Canada and said, "Look at this vast part of the country we are not touching," she said, and the judges began to do a little horse-trading to up the geographical diversity quotient, with Mr. Kelley intoning, "The judges must make an agonizing choice." Ms. Jamieson had already confessed, the night before, that as a Mohawk woman, "I place a lot of value on the process," meaning the consensus-building la-la-la in which she was now engaging, though I think it fair to say that she ran the show, steered the discussion and appeared to be leading Messrs. MacGregor and McGuire around by the nose.

She looked pretty bossy to me, but I am not a Mohawk woman, so what do I know?

Ah, quality television. [Pause] Wouldn't it be a good idea?

QotD: Canadian Immigration Policy

What worries me is when settled nations start to fetishize immigration to almost absurd degrees. In 1997, the government in Ottawa festooned the land with posters marking the 50th anniversary of Canadian citizenship and showing people of many lands holding hands around a globe — ie, Canada's idea of itself is as a great compilation of other people's hits rather than as a concept album in its own right. The idea that a nation expresses itself as merely an ongoing receiver of people from elsewhere, that it's Gate 57 at Heathrow writ large, no more or less than whoever happens to be standing in it, is very reductive.

Mark Steyn, "Re re re re re: Nation of immigrants", The Corner, 2007-06-07

Is someone running a pool on this one?

If they're not, then a good betting opportunity is being missed: waiting to find out who's the #1 on the list of people who are screwing up Canada.

Hint: neither Stephen Harper nor Stephane Dion have yet appeared, and the countdown is at 19. (David Ahenakew, Conrad Black, and Jack Layton have already been listed.)

This'd qualify as a grade-A parental nightmare

The kids don't come home on the school bus, because the driver takes them all away:

Paul Merriman said his two children, aged seven and 11, told him the bus didn't follow its normal route, but instead meandered through neighbourhoods and then hit a parked car at a shopping mall.

The school bus continued moving until the driver was forced to pull over by the drivers of two other school buses who blocked her path.

"They thought it was just kind of a joke at the time, that the bus driver was taking a different route or something. And then the bus driver was, from what the kids tell me, was very unresponsive," he said.

Happy Victoria Day!

Today being a holiday Monday, in token regard for our monarch's notional birthday, posting will be light.

Actually, my U16/U17/U18 soccer team will be kicking off in the first game of the season at 7:00, so there's a bare possibility of either a victory cheer or a losing gripe later in the evening. It would help if we'd had a chance to get some practice in, but the team lists were only distributed last week, and there are so many kids signed up for soccer in Whitby this year (over 6,000, in a town of just more than 100,000) that there are no practice fields available on weekday nights any more.

New-ish tanks now double original cost estimates

Unusually, the government did not merge the capital costs and the support costs of the 100 Dutch Leopard 2 tanks when the original announcement was made. Now the total package is estimated to cost C$1.3 billion, not C$650 million. It's not clear from the article why this acquisition was handled differently than other recent military purchases.

Canada's purchase and long-term support of 100 slightly used Leopard 2A6 battle tanks will be $1.3 billion — roughly double the Conservative government's initial public estimate last month.

As he detailed a laundry list of military hardware the Conservative government plans to buy over the next few years, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor surprised the Commons by announcing there will be a 20-year, $650-million service contract attached to the tank deal.

"The capital acquistion is $650 million and the support for 20 years is about $650 million; about the same range," he said in reply to an opposition question during debate over Defence Department estimates.

Of course, even at the higher price, it's still a bargain for top-drawer military hardware.

Misleading headline

The headline bellows "Brawl breaks out in House of Commons", which sure would be big news, right? Our penny-ante politicos, rolling up the sleeves and going for the literal jugular? Kewl. Something reminiscent of Taiwanese political in-fighting, perhaps?

No:

Ottawa MP David McGuinty accused Tory MP Royal Galipeau of storming across the floor and unleashing a tirade of insults. He called the conduct the worst he has seen in his three years on the Hill.

"The member was clearly out of control, using unparliamentary language and in a threatening fashion grabbed my left shoulder and only left my side when several of my colleagues urged him to stop and to leave, but he would not," McGuinty said.

"He was really completely out of control, raising his voice, flailing his arms, gesticulating in a threatening fashion and making wild accusations."

If that qualifies as a "brawl", then I dread to think what they think a real brawl might be like.

Of course, the very best part of the article is here:

Galipeau, who is also from Ottawa, is deputy Speaker and charged with keeping peace and decorum in the Commons.

He must be keeping it in his parliamentary office, then, because he sure didn't display it on the floor of the House!

Over-the-top iconography

Last week, Whitby made the news when a local parent strenuously objected to the Boy Scout badge her son brought home. The Toronto Star had somewhat predictable coverage:

Cale Northey went to a Scouts Canada camp to learn about gun safety. He came back with a "licence to kill."

That's how his parents view the badge the 11-year-old brought home from a target shooting event in Oshawa last weekend.

The badge features an Agent 007-type figure pointing a gun with a red target over his heart.

"I think it's terrible," said Cale's mother, Jane Northey. "We've got kids shooting up everyone these days. What kind of message are we sending them? This badge is a licence to kill sponsored by Scouts Canada."

I thought the whole thing was overwrought, and just another excuse for the Star to run a glib anti-gun article. Until I got a look at the actual badge, and I discovered that Jane Northey had a case:

Could you have designed a badge that was more likely to get up the noses of people who aren't comfortable with guns? This is the intellectual equivalent of a drive-by mooning.

What. Were. They. Thinking?

What part of "responsible gun handling" does this illustrate?

QotD: Peace, Order, and Liberty

I was surprised that my colleagues on the panel seemed less alarmed by the steady concentration of more and more power in fewer and fewer hands. In my view, the greatest guarantor of liberty and good government is an engaged and sceptical populace standing between its leaders and the levers of power, but this is clearly not a universal sentiment.

Akaash Maharaj, "The Friendly Dictatorship Revisited", Akaash Maharaj: Practical Idealism, 2007-05-07

Senate bill delay

The NCC blog is complaining that the latest Senate reform bill has been delayed:

One year seems like an awfully long time to pass a bill that is only three clauses long. But when the bill in question (S-4) proposes to limit Senate terms to eight years, it is no wonder the dust collectors in the Upper House have pulled out every trick in the book to delay it.

This is one of those "I don't really care either way" issues, as the only real change is to impose term limits. Term limits without other, more radical changes are pretty much a non-issue: in fact, it'll increase the overall cost of running the Senate. Why? Because with more frequent changes in the composition of the senate, there'll be more ex-Senators drawing public pensions. Other than that, this is not a particularly useful change.

The Food Police

Frequent comment writer, "Da Wife", has been having issues with the staff at her son's school. She asked if I'd let her rant about it . . . and I was happy to give her some space for it:

Our son is in Junior Kindergarten. Until he started school most of his food knowledge has been from us, his parents. Since he started school, when we serve certain foods, they have been increasingly accompanied by little commentaries from him such as "Cheerios are bad for you" (carbs). "Apples are good for you and make you big and strong". "Peanuts can make you die" (I guess a kid in his class is allergic). These comments are not something he would think of himself.

He has been coming home with many comments specifically about his lunch and snack contents. His lunch and snacks are balanced but do contain little treats such as Rice Crispy Squares. At home we offer good food and some treats too, and in general we do not preach about food causing death. Some gentle inquiries let us know that his teacher and the lunch helpers (from now on referred to as the Food Police) are indoctrinating our son and the other children in his class with the official Food Police views on food. Now remember that these are 4- and 5-year-olds who probably have very limited influence on what is put in their lunch. Aside from making them feel bad, how much good is the lecturing doing? Well it is doing a great job of undermining the parents' authority.

There is nothing quite as successful as undermining the influence of parents to make the children more susceptible to suggestion from other sources, such as the school system.

In February the school board conducted a month-long tally of all students’ morning snacks to see if the snacks are balanced and contain the major food groups. Yes, the official government-sanctioned Food Police were out to make sure that the children are eating properly. Yes, our tax dollars are now being spent on digging through kindergarteners’ snacks.

In March, I was unpacking my son's lunchbag and saw his sandwich was uneaten. His answer was that his teacher said it was too sweet so he did not eat it. I go to great pains to ensure that my very picky son will eat his sandwiches every day and at the same time ensure they are healthy. The sandwich in question contained 100% whole wheat bread. The margarine was non-hydrogenated 0mg cholesterol and 0mg trans fat with Omega-3. The jam was actually apple butter which — wait for it — is puréed apples and nothing else. But yes, to the eye it did appear that it was a sandwich with butter and jam. Maybe if the teacher actually spoke to me instead of making snide comments she would find out otherwise. This prompted a very angry phone call to the school office and a chat with the teacher the next day. She of course, not wishing to admit that she basically bullied a 4-year-old, said it was all in my son's head and he misunderstood. I left fuming after explaining to her the contents of his lunch and getting it across that her comments are not appreciated. The comments from the teacher seem to have lessened but I still hear that the other kids are still receiving them.

At the beginning of May, we received a "Healthy Eating Newsletter". This is from the same school that has not exactly been stellar on the province-wide standardized testing; maybe they should concentrate their energies elsewhere.

In another neighborhood school, if a child brings something the Food Police consider bad, the child has to take it to the office and trade it in for a piece of fruit. So nice of the school to take away a food that the parents spent their hard earned money on. I do wonder what happens to all these confiscated snacks. The office staff should have regular weigh-ins.

Up until about two weeks ago, we just simply attempted to deprogram our son whenever the need arose, aside from the one sandwich incident. Then came the final blow: after all the lectures, letters home about good eating, and the government-sanctioned snackbag inspections, then came the fundraiser. What do you ask was involved in the fundraiser? Selling apples for a dollar? Selling stuffed animals? Oh no: selling very large chocolate bars! Given out on behalf of the school by none other than Ms. Food Police herself, the classroom teacher!

Obviously the health of our children and our society is only important when money is not involved. The principal boasted about the good cause the money would go to. I was going to have a chat with the principal but then I remembered that he actually believes the themes of the month that involve teaching children about courage, empathy, sharing, etc. instead of the three Rs. As parents are no longer equipped to teach these themes at home, the school system has taken upon themselves the arduous task of teaching these qualities. After all, you hand in a report to your boss; he will not care if you cannot spell. As long as you do it with courage and are munching on a carrot stick.

And I used to think it was bad ten years ago, when we were getting the gears from Victor's school about "acceptable" foods . . .

Joe Canadian, redux

An older piece in Reason provided me with all the encouragement to post my favourite parody of the Molson "I am Canadian" ad:

Tabernac, mon esti!

Why have an army at all?

Joe Jacobs, in a letter to the Toronto Star asks the question,

Realistically, why do we need a military at all? It's not like we need to be able to protect ourselves from the Americans. If President George W. Bush wanted to invade Canada and take all of our water and other resources, he could do it tomorrow. How would we possibly stop him? And if any other country invaded or attacked Canada, the United States would respond because we are in its "sphere of influence."

Given this, it is absurd that we should spend some $15 billion annually simply to be an adjunct to the U.S. military. Just imagine what we could do with that money if it was invested in education, the environment, taking care of seniors or building a national child-care system.

If we didn't have an army, what would prevent the Americans, the Russians, or even the Danes from taking over part or all of the country? Well, not much, clearly: the primary purpose of any military is to defend the homeland. Without an army (even as small a one as Canada's), why would anyone even pretend to pay attention to what Canadians claim to be their territory?

Mr. Jacobs is correct that President Bush could order troops into Canada tomorrow, and there would be little or nothing we could do to stop him. Why not? What benefit is it to his government to leave a loose cannon (no, not a cannon; perhaps a loose bong?) like a totally defenceless Canada on the northern border.

Does Mr. Jacobs actually think that we can live as literal freeloaders on the American military (as several Republican politicians have already accused us of, over the last 20 years or so)? What price does he think we would pay in exchange for giving up one of the primary determinants of nationhood? Would our largest trading partner just let us carry on as if nothing had changed?

I strongly doubt it. Canada is constrained by the need to maintain our peaceful trading relationship with the huge US market we serve. A month-long interdiction of the US-Canadian border would shatter our economy, throwing hundreds of thousands of workers on to the streets. It probably wouldn't even take a month for the economic pain to strike very deeply: we are disproportionally dependent on selling our raw materials to US customers . . . and if they stopped buying from us, we'd have damned few options open in the short term. Even dumping everything on the open market would require transportation that we're not set up to organize overnight.

Mr. Jacobs may be sanguine at the notion of Canada becoming a literal "frozen banana" republic, but it's not a future most of us would be happy with. At least, I hope that most Canadians feel somewhat the same way. Recent polls do not leave me too hopeful, in the long run.

QotD: Belinda Stronach's retirement

Suppose, on entering politics, she had been content to start out as a humble backbench MP. Suppose she had spent some time learning the ropes, mastering a few files, practicing public speaking, acquiring a smattering of French, demonstrating an ability to work with others. Suppose she had supported the same party for more than a year or two. After a while, people might have said: you know, she's got a lot of money, she looks good in expensive clothes — and she's qualified. Let's put her up for leader!

But that would have taken time — a year at least — and Ms. Stronach is not accustomed to waiting. Or perhaps, to be more charitable, she was the recipient of spectacularly bad advice. At any rate, that is not how things worked out.

Andrew Coyne, "She could have been a contender", National Post, 2007-04-12

German tanks, Dutch tanks, Canadian tanks

To my surprise, this news just got reported over at The Torch:

Here's what I've heard from sources within the defence community, what I was waiting for the official announcement to confirm:

• The 20 Leopard 2A6M's we'll be acquiring from the Germans aren't a lease, they're a loan. That is to say, while we're going to have to give them back in the condition we got them, and while there may be some incremental costs to their transport, operation, et cetera, we're not paying the Germans for the use of their tanks. A big, hearty thank-you needs to go out to Germany for this gesture of friendship and allied solidarity. We're going to try to get them into theatre this summer, for the worst of the heat, but meeting those timings will be tight.
• We're going to be buying a total of 100 used Leos from the Netherlands, for delivery sometime this fall. These tanks have apparently been properly stored and maintained to keep them in top shape. Of those 100 tanks, 40 will be 2A4's for two training squadrons in Canada (one in Gagetown, one in Wainwright), 40 will be two squadrons of 2A6's that after some Canadianization and upgrades (especially to the armour) will be deployable anywhere we need them, and 20 will be specialist tanks (bridge-layers, ARV's, dozers, etc).

For the troops in Afghanistan (and potential future deployments), this is excellent news.

Belated thanks, Helmut

By way of a post at The Torch, I found out something of which I had previously been unaware: that Canada nearly gave up its armoured warfare capability in 1976. Of all people, it was German chancellor Helmut Schmidt who saved the day:

After the Second World War, the need for armour on the future battlefield was self-evident to all who had served in the army. As a result, Canada's army was equipped with the then latest Centurion tanks. In the late '60s and early '70s, the Centurions became obsolete and the Canadian government announced it would end its tank capability by 1976.

However, talks between Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and then prime minister Pierre Trudeau resulted in Canada acquiring German-built Leopard tanks to resolve the imbalance of trade between the two countries. Resolving the imbalance in trade, not the government's need to maintain an armoured fighting capability, resulted in this necessary capability being reinvigorated.

Thanks, Helmut.

Kids go hungry at Vimy Memorial

In yet another silly move, the Veterans Affairs department of the Canadian federal government takes careful aim and shoots itself in the foot:

The department has withdrawn an offer to provide lunch for 3,600 Canadian students — one for each of the Canadian soldiers killed in the attack — who are to attend a ceremony at the memorial on April 9.

Meanwhile, Radio-Canada has reported that the translation at the memorial has errors in verb tenses, gender and word usage. [. . .]

The trip organizers thought the government was going to feed the students, but then told teachers across the country that Veterans Affairs changed its mind about providing the lunches due to the cost.

Now organizers are allocating $30,000 that was to have bought the students souvenir hats to buy box lunches.

The students raised the funds to pay for their travel and other costs on the trip.

Typical cheese-paring behaviour of certain branches of the government. Surely the cost of 3600 boxed lunches wouldn't have broken the budget?

Obligatory declaration of interest: two of Victor's friends are among the 3600 students taking part in the ceremony.

Toronto to export garbage at retail level

Well, that's not what the official intent of the proposed $15 per month garbage collection fee, but it will be one of the most likely outcomes.

Toronto homeowners could soon be paying an average fee of $15 a month to have their garbage hauled away. But Mayor David Miller is pledging he'll cut property taxes by the same amount.

Households that toss the most trash also would pay the highest bills, as a way of encouraging composting and recycling, according to a city staff proposal that would overhaul the city's garbage-collection system.

Garbage collection, especially in a large urban area like Toronto, is one of the classic "free rider" problems. Everyone benefits by having municipal garbage collected and taken away (regardless of whether the service is public or private), and few of us would want to revert to a no-collection scheme: it's a public health concern. How to allocate the costs of these services is always a problem, because of the free riders: those who pay little or nothing toward the costs, but receive benefits regardless.

Many municipalities have gone with various forms of garbage bag tags: each household receives a set number of tags, which must be attached to the bag for the bag to be collected. This works fine . . . as long as the number of tags issued is proportional, and that extra tags are not over-priced. And also, that the scheme isn't being used as a political weapon to force behavioural changes on the participants.

Most people, most of the time, will be willing to go along with bag tags (or some other equivalent pay-as-you-pitch scheme), but some won't. When we lived in Toronto, for example, we would frequently discover that one or more of our neighbours had added their trash to ours . . . pushing us over the limit for what would be picked up. So we were left, literally, holding the bag.

At one point, we actually saw someone doing this. The person was walking past our house, and dropped a garbage bag on our lawn, and was out of sight by the time we got out to the street. Fortunately for us, there was an addressed envelope in the bag, so we were able to track down and return the bag to its origin. What was truly puzzling was that the bag came from an apartment building about a block away . . . where the garbage was collected communally. This person had gone to the trouble of taking the garbage bag from the building . . . probably even walking past the garbage chute, out onto the street, then carried it past half a dozen other houses before selecting our lawn as an appropriate resting spot.

This person wasn't even being personally inconvenienced, yet chose to impose her externalities on us. Multiply that by all the folks who'll prefer to just find a quiet area along the road to dump their trash, rather than pay for having it collected. Pickering, Markham, and Mississauga are certainly going to discover a significant increase in the amount of dumped trash along their borders with Toronto.

Pessimistic report on Britain's military

Nick Packwood rounds up all the depressing news from Britain, confirming that things are getting worse on several fronts:

I can only hope the anemic reaction of the British public to the last five years is because the British public does not understand the scope of the problem.* This LA Times (?) opinion piece explained the problem to the American public over a month ago. It has been born out by events.

The linked LA Times editorial has nice things to say about both British and Canadian military personnel, but correctly points out that both governments have been trying to do too much with too little:

Royal Navy, which is at its smallest size since the 1500s. Now, British newspapers report, of the remaining 44 warships, at least 13 and possibly as many as 19 will be mothballed. If these cuts go through, Britain's fleet will be about the same size as those of Indonesia and Turkey and smaller than that of its age-old rival, France.

Britain is hardly alone in its unilateral disarmament. A similar trend can be discerned among virtually all of the major U.S. allies, aside from Japan. Canada is a particularly poignant case in point. At the end of World War II, Canada had more than a million men under arms and operated the world's third-biggest navy (behind the U.S. and Britain), with more than 400 ships. Today, it has all of 62,000 personnel on active duty, and its navy has just 19 warships and 23 support vessels, making it one-fourth the size of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Of course, numbers aren't the entire story. Both Britain and Canada have top-notch soldiers, allowing them to punch above their weight class in military affairs. But there is only so much that a handful of super-soldiers can accomplish if their numbers are grossly inadequate. Quality can't entirely make up for lack of quantity.

In Canada's case, decades of neglect cannot be made up quickly: equipment takes time to order, build, and deploy, but it takes even longer to rebuild the units themselves. Soldiers do not wander in off civvie street today and become militarily effective tomorrow; it takes years to re-create effective battalions. Canada's military may not have years . . . the current minority government has no guarantee that it will see out the next session of parliament, never mind win a majority in a subsequent election (and it will take years of uninterrupted efforts to get the Canadian Forces back into shape).

This came as a complete surprise to me . . .

Damian Brooks sent along the URL to this Globe and Mail editorial:

Of course the Canadian Red Ensign should fly at the April 9 commemorations of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, alongside the Royal Standard of Canada, the Maple Leaf, the Union Jack and the French tricouleur. And of course the Red Ensign should fly in perpetuity at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. The Maple Leaf is not the battle flag of a Canadian revolution. When Canada adopted the 1965 flag, Canadians did not abrogate their history.

The Red Ensign, along with the Union Jack, was the flag Canadians fought under during the First World War, and indeed the Second World War, and it deserves a place of continuing honour in this country and on its historic battlefields. To do otherwise would serve only, as the Dominion Institute's Rudyard Griffiths aptly put it, to "airbrush our history." The 1965 flag is in a sense a product of the heroic Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, since the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers during the Great War were integral to the full achievement of Canadian independence, codified in the Statute of Westminster, 1931.

Is it a bad sign that I automatically assumed that the G&M would be against flying the Red Ensign?

Knock me down with a feather.

QotD: Equalization

The flawed assumption behind equalization is that wealth is generated somewhat at random and that complex transfer payment formulas merely correct for this "maldistribution" of wealth.

"Publius", "From the Mind of Sheila Copps", Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2007-03-19

That's going to leave a mark

By way of SDA comes this devastating exchange in the Commons, reported in Macleans:

If you're going to mock a veteran, you might as well do it with the language of war. But O'Connor shrugged off these remarks and stuck to his script. Even when Dion demanded his resignation, he seemed thoroughly unmoved. Perhaps he's seen worse than the likes of Her Majesty's Official Opposition.

Inevitably, Dion repeated his demand. And with that, he pushed the Prime Minister to the precipice of his increasingly infamous temper.

"I can understand the passion that the Leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners," Harper shot back, the House falling silent. "I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers."

Well then.

As Conservative members stood long and cheered, the Liberal front bench was frantic. Party whip Karen Redman tried desperately to quiet her backbench. Defence critic Denis Coderre jabbed his finger in the air, egging Dion to seek retribution. The leader looked positively besmirched. One minute you're making headlines with the demand that a high-profile minister resign, the next you're being branded a Taliban-sympathizer. Somewhere, Jack Layton empathized.

A Red Ensign call to battle!

This is a cause I fully support:

It's the flag the Canadians carried into battle when they captured Vimy Ridge in 1917. And it's the flag that should be flying when thousands assemble at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial next month for the unveiling of the restored monument to mark the 90th anniversary of the battle, say members of a campaign to get the Red Ensign to Vimy Ridge for the ceremony.

The Red Ensign was there in 1936 when the monument was unveiled for the first time.

Ottawa resident John Heyes, a retired public servant, has been lobbying to have a version of the historic flag taken to France for the April 9 ceremony.

Mr. Heyes and Bill Bishop, a maintenance worker in Maple Ridge, B.C., who has written hundreds of letters advocating a stronger presence for the old flag, don't expect the Maple Leaf, which Canada adopted as its flag 42 years ago, to take a back seat to the Red Ensign — they think both should be flown.

Call me naive, but I'd always assumed that the Red Ensign would be flown at the ceremony . . . but respect for history has never been a strong point for Canadian governments before.

H/T to Damian for bringing it to my attention.

Update 22 March: Thank you, Stephen Harper.

QotD: A second-rate country

"Sophisticated" Canadians mock so-called "inbred" folks in Alabama, but consider it perfectly natural and oh-so-chic that our media and political elites all share the same last names: Mulroney, Trudeau, Richler . . . What a second-rate country we can be sometimes.

Kathy Shaidle, guestblogging at SDA in "Satire is dead", Small Dead Animals, 2007-03-02

QotD: Homeland Insanity

I don't know about this whole Sudafed issue. My example of clueless governmental overregulation would be the confiscation of a tin of boot polish from my carry-on bag on a recent Ottawa-Toronto flight of mine. I should probably mention I was in uniform at the time.

I do think it's reasonable to assume that the threat of a uniformed, accredited Canadian soldier threatening the safety of a Canadian plane with his can of black polish is even theoretically nil. Anyway, I decided to take another look at the current official list of prohibited flight items for Canadian airlines, figuring I'd missed the relevant regulation. I can't help noticing that boot polish is not on the list.

Bruce Ralston, "Airline travails", Flit, 2007-03-01

Drug raid gone awry . . . in Montreal

Jay Jardine reports on a recent botched police raid in Montreal:

When this story broke last week, I cringed at having to endure yet another round of politically charged nonsense surrounding drugs and guns. Today's developments put the case in a whole new light. Radley Balko (who has researched American SWAT raids extensively) has often noted that after a police shooting, usually the first thing the cops do is point out the amount of drugs that were seized in the raid. I haven't read anything yet pertaining to seizures. One Post story notes that of the six people arrested in the raids one had already been released without charges. The Globe notes that neither Parasiris nor his wife (who was presumably shot by officers returning fire?) have criminal records. At this point, all we have are the comments of his lawyer — take that as you will, and the rather exceptional details coming out of the raid (a fairly traditional family arrangement, with no criminal record and a legally registered firearm doesn't sound like a typical crackhouse to me), but rest assured I'll be paying close attention to this case as details emerge.

Proving yet again — as if it needed more proof — that the militarization of the drug war is an almost unmitigated bad idea. In this case, unlike too many others, the innocent victim survived the initial onslaught of battering-ram-equipped paramilitaries breaking down his door.

More climate change evidence?

This Toronto Star article was sent to me with the heading "Al Gore was in town recently, wasn't he?":

February was coldest in 28 years

If you thought February was particularly cold, you were right.

Frigid conditions made the month the coldest February in 28 years, according to Environment Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips.

Not since 1979 has February dished up such bone-rattling conditions.

No wonder I kept hearing so many variations of the same joke last month: "Global Warming? It sounds good to me right now!"

H/T again to "Da Wife".

Sullum on Vancouver's latest "free" drug program

Reason's Jacob Sullum has some thoughts on the most recent innovation in Vancouver's ongoing attempt to socialize drug abuse:

Vancouver, which already has "a free needle exchange, a methadone maintenance program, a drug injection site where nurses supervise as heroin addicts shoot up, and a clinical trial testing whether chronic opiate addicts can be helped with prescribed heroin," is now experimenting with "maintenance treatment" for stimulant addicts. Under the new program, reports The Globe and Mail, heavy users of cocaine and methamphetamine will receive oral doses of legally prescribed stimulants in the hope that they "might decrease their use of illegal drugs and improve their social and physical health." Both of those outcomes are plausible, assuming the "patients" stop injecting, snorting, or smoking black-market drugs and start swallowing legal, quality-controlled pills instead.

[. . .] More troubling is the Vancouver model of free needles, free methadone, free heroin, and free amphetamines, all courtesy of the taxpayers. This strikes me as exactly the wrong way to achieve drug policy reform, guaranteed to alienate people who might be willing to let others use drugs but don't want to pick up the tab for it. The message should be freedom coupled with responsibility, not government-subsidized drug addiction.

It's certainly better than treating all drug users with penalties and punishments prescribed by the full majesty of law, but he's quite correct that it's shifting the burden from the drug users to the non-drug using through redistributive taxation. Surely it's immoral to require radical anti-drug warriors to pay taxes which support something completely opposed to their own beliefs?

Accounting and the military

Jack Granatstein reveals some of the real data behind the mind-bogglingly big numbers of military contracts:

The first is something called the accrual system of accounting. In the past, Canadian governments bought a truck for $25,000 and charged that sum to a department's budget. The costs of gas, oil, and maintenance five, 10, and 20 years down the road were charged to future budgets. In accrual accounting, perhaps more reasonably, the costs of operating the truck 20 years into the future are charged to today's budget. That $25,000 truck now becomes a $125,000 charge on this year's budget funding.

This matters. Consider the four C-17s the Harper government has agreed to buy. Each of the huge transports costs about $250-million. The accrual cost, again in round numbers, is $4-billion. Many Canadians remain unaware of the change in accounting methodology, and government rules (or practice) do not appear to permit explanation. So a $1-billion purchase of necessary equipment appears to many as a $4-billion boondoggle. It's not, but it's a hard sell for all of us whose eyes glaze over at the mention of accountants' rules. The answer, of course, is to explain defence purchases (and purchases in every other government department, as well) by making it clear that the total lifetime package is included in the announced sum.

Part of the difficulty in grasping this is that most of us, in our private lives, do not do anything of the sort in our own household budgets . . . we think of the sticker price of your car as "the cost", ignoring the finance costs of a car loan, the regular maintenance, the insurance, the license stickers, and all the other sundry other costs of car ownership. If we did think in this way, we'd all be much more careful in how we spent our money!

The other part of the problem is that the information is presented in the media as if a line of Brinks trucks were taking money from all the "good" areas the government also funds and physically moving all those loonies in through the gates of CFB Boondoggle and handing them over to General Simon Legree.

Canadians in Afghanistan, via The Economist

A positive — one might even say warm-fuzzy — post on the Canadian contribution to the fight against the Taliban, from The Economist:

The deployment in Afghanistan is a much bigger deal for Canada than it is for the Americans or the Brits. The Canadians stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, but for most of the past 50 years they turned themselves into the ultimate "soft" power, deploying their soldiers mainly for peacekeeping.

In Kandahar they have gone back to being a fighting force, and have lost more than 40 lives in the process.

If the Brits have been having a hard time in Helmand, it is the Canadians in Kandahar province who fought the decisive battle of Nato's war so far, leading a brigade-sized assault on Taliban positions in the Panjwayi valley last autumn.

The Canadians are the first contingent to bring main battle tanks to Afghanistan. The French-speaking men of the Vandoos regiment in Panjwayi look even bigger and meaner than the Royal Marines in Kajaki.

The operation is hugely controversial at home. A Canadian Senate report this month said: "Anyone expecting to see the emergence in Afghanistan within the next several decades of a recognisable modern democracy capable of delivering justice and amenities to its people is dreaming in Technicolor."

Yet among the soldiers there is a sense of relief at getting rid of the blue helmets and white paint from their armoured vehicles. There is even some macho mocking of the Dutch in the neighbouring province of Uruzgan: "Wooden shoes, wouldn't shoot," they quip.

QotD: Canada, in the world's opinion

Note to Canadians: Everyone does not love Canada. Following Belgium, Canada is considered to be the most boring country on Earth** and, if it is thought of at all, it is as the uptight, underachieving and humourless*** version of the United States.**** Is any of this particularly fair? You be the judge. Though I have noticed nothing tends to bring out the scratch-the-surface jingoism of Canadians more than pointing out this sort of thing.

** Excepting Montreal.

*** Outraged list of famous Canadian comedians arriving in 4... 3... 2... Yes, there are some witty Canadians; they live and work in the United States. The rest of Canada's limited comedic output works on Air Farce, a show so ham-fisted and lame it makes Egyptian soap-opera look like Shakespeare. Rick Mercer is the exception that proves the rule, btw, so don't even go there.

**** Canadians like to point to our largely mythical role as peacekeepers. I have rarely encountered a better example of what Antonio Gramsci described as hegemonic ideology; a myth propagated in the interests of an established elite at complete variance with material fact.

Nick Packwood, "Angeline Jolie is afraid of Americans", Ghost of a Flea, 2007-01-23

Defending Canada . . . the Copps way

Sheila Copps reminisces about the need to work with French officials who didn't bother to try to hide their support for Quebec separatism:

At one point, I hosted a dinner at the Canadian embassy in Paris for then-French minister Catherine Trautmann. Trautmann was planning an international meeting to which she intended to separately invite the PQ minister. When the subject came up, I politely informed her as a sovereign country, Canada would determine the composition of our delegation. At the time, political upheaval in Corsica had just led to a couple of arrests, and I pointed out that if she felt compelled to issue a separate invitation to the Parti Quebecois, I would have to invite a separate Corsican delegation to our next international rendezvous.

Trautmann literally choked on her dinner. She claimed there was absolutely no legitimate comparison between the state of Corsica in France and Quebec in Canada. She further pointed out that France does not permit separation since the country was deemed indivisible during the French Revolution. Voila. End of story.

H/T to Colby Cosh, who admits that he "must have agreed to do something humiliating or biologically impossible on the day Sheila Copps actually wrote an interesting newspaper column". He'd appreciate it if nobody troubles themselves to remind him . . . because it just happened.

The Economist on Stephen Harper

The current version of The Economist has an article on Stephen Harper's minority government:

In freakishly warm weather, Stephen Harper met the press earlier this month in the snow-free gardens of his official residence to discuss his new-found commitment to the environment. He candidly admitted that his Conservative minority government had let the public down when it presented a climate-change plan whose main targets were set 50 years in the future, and vowed to do better. He promptly named a new environment minister with a reputation as a political pitbull.

A different politician might have chosen a different backdrop for this confession of failure. But as Canadians have learned from watching Mr Harper over the past year, their young prime minister is not a man to dodge realities, however unpleasant. On issues ranging from revisiting same-sex marriage to ending favourable tax treatment for business entities known as income trusts he has followed his instincts rather than the opinion polls.

It has worked. Instead of falling within months, as Canada's liberal punditocracy had predicted, Mr Harper has become an increasingly assured performer. The talk in Ottawa now is that, despite commanding just 125 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, his government may even manage to carry on until 2008.

The article isn't totally a tongue-bath for Mr. Harper, although it's rather odd to read this sort of thing here. The Economist, like so many other British publications, has been moving away from traditional free market policies (most of the others weren't all that much in favour of free markets to start with, but they've gotten worse lately), so it's almost a surprise to see positive comments about the current prime minister from that side of the pond.

Count your change

The Defense Department is warning its American contractor employees about a new espionage threat seemingly straight from Hollywood: It discovered Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden inside. In a U.S. government report, it said the mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

Top suspects, according to intelligence and technology experts: China, Russia or even France — all said to actively run espionage operations inside Canada with enough sophistication to produce such technology.

Update: Or maybe not.

A report that some Canadian coins have been compromised by spies secretly embedding transmitters in them is wrong, a U.S. official said yesterday. A report from a Pentagon agency made headlines this week because it stated Canadian coins found in the possession of U.S. defence contractors had been tampered with. While some special-issue Canadian coins briefly triggered suspicions in the United States, the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the fears were groundless. "We have no evidence to indicate anything connected with these coins poses a risk or danger," the official said.

Latest OWR now online

The first 2007 edition of the OntarioWineReview is now available. In this issue, Michael has a good rant about the abomination that is wine in Tetra-Pak containers:

Just like Peter Finch in the movie Network, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore". The LCBO seems to be forcing its will on the people and in typical Canadian-sheep-like fashion we are going to put up with it . . . again. Well it's time to take a stand. What am I so hopping mad about? Tetra-Paks, and the more I learn, the more incensed I get, and I'm thinking you should be too. Sure Tetra-Paks have their place in society for juice boxes, soups and soy milk — but keep your cotton-pickin' Tetra-Paks off of my wine. You've probably noticed that the LCBO is shifting into high gear promoting this "alternative packaging" as the great saviour in wine packaging — lighter, more versatile, more consumer friendly, and recyclable.

[. . .] Terence Corcoran tells us in his article "Monopoly Wine to Come in a Box" dated December 9th, 2006 in the National Post. "The idea that this is a waste-reduction plan is a trick concept. Glass is heavier than Tetra Pak, so replacing one with the other will reduce waste by weight. But glass, properly sorted and processed, is recyclable. Tetra Pak is not." That's because of Tetra-Pak's make up which is 75% paperboard, 20% food grade polyethylene plastic and 5% aluminum — which makes it light and unbreakable, but for recycling purposes it's a cost nightmare to separate out the materials. Even the new recycling program announced in September and touted by the Premier of the province as dragging Ontario "out of the dark ages" is actually, according to Corcoran, part of the sham to get you to buy Tetra-Paked wines: "This new 20-cent deposit system is actually the product of the LCBO's plan to make a major shift away from bottled products and towards boxes . . . [the LCBO] is mounting a major international effort to get vintners to repackage wines in boxes." The LCBO is also hoping you will see the new deposit-system as another form of taxation on booze and will refuse to pay it, opting instead for the lower cost of Tetra-Wine.

Corcoran puts forth another reason for the LCBO's love of Tetra-Paks, which has nothing to do with environmental concerns. Profits are the main reason for these wine-drink-in-boxes, at the expense of consumers tastebuds. "the LCBO now has business relationships with two box plants." Thus a vested interest in you and I buying and consuming Tetra-Paked wines.

There is another down-side to having a monopoly supplier of wines and spirits here in Ontario: if they get a massive brain-fart (like, for example, wine in Tetra Paks), there's no alternative for most consumers . . . you just go along with whatever the LCBO has decided will be good for you. Or, more accurately, what's good for the LCBO.

QotD: Parliament

We’ve got to get over this idea that any time MPs exercise their brain cells unchaperoned it is some sort of constitutional crisis. It would be unnatural if they weren’t divided, given the real divisions that exist in the country, and nothing is served by pretending the contrary.

Andrew Coyne, "Wanted: a free vote on gay marriage", AndrewCoyne.com, 2006-12-06

Free vote in commons

The free vote on same-sex marriage was held today, and the majority of MPs voted against re-opening the debate:

The last major threat to same-sex marriage rights in Canada was soundly defeated in the House of Commons on Thursday, with MPs sending the message they don't want to revisit the emotional, divisive debate.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he heard the message and will respect it. "We made a promise to have a free vote on this issue, we kept that promise, and obviously the vote was decisive and obviously we'll accept the democratic result of the people's representatives," Harper said. "I don't see reopening this question in the future."

The question put to MPs was whether they wanted to see legislation drafted to reinstate the traditional definition of marriage, while respecting the existing marriages of gays and lesbians.

That Conservative motion failed 175-123.

I'm glad that issue is off the table for the mid-term future at any rate.

I really did wonder why Harper wanted a vote on this, as the population is probably even more in favour of the current situation than they were at this time last year. Perhaps he had to show support for his more traditional supporters, and a free vote in the house is sufficient for that purpose.

Non-trivial, indeed

Damian "Babbling" Brooks asked me to call attention to this post at The Torch:

Why don't ordinary Canadians know much about this intensely valuable and important work? Well, partly because the government has done a lacklustre job telling the public about it, as the MND recently admitted. Luckily, they're now working to correct that course of action.

But you can't put it all on the government, either. Here's a stat that might surprise you as well: since January 16th of this year, 175 journalists from 37 different media outlets have embedded with the CF in Afghanistan. How many stories have you seen about the KPRT — other than from the BBC? Now, how many ramp ceremonies have you seen?

Mourning the deaths of our soldiers is important, let there be no doubt. But even a couple of folks within the media think that the balance of coverage has swung too far in that particular direction.

Please do read the whole post.

This could get ugly

According to a report in The Economist, Ontario is starting to introduce roundabouts:

One afternoon last month roadworkers removed the covers from Yield signs at a newly built roundabout in Cambridge, in south-western Ontario, watching anxiously to see what would happen. Traffic lights, the traditional method of controlling intersections in Canada, had been ripped out. Drivers faced an unfamiliar circle. Would they know what to do?

The question would seem absurd to Britons, who invented the modern roundabout in the 1960s. But in Canada until very recently, they were rare (as they were, apart from the odd circle in New York and Washington, DC, in the United States until the 1990s).

While roundabouts work remarkably well in Britain, they're not the be-all and end-all of traffic control. One of my few visits to the south of England found me in a horrific piece of roadwork the locals called the "magic roundabout". It was a gigantic ring, composed of interlocking mini-roundabouts. Clearly I wasn't the only unfortunate visitor, because just as we entered one of the mini-circles, there was a crash from one of the adjacent circles (fortunately for me, it was "upstream", not in the direction I needed to travel). I needed a stiff drink and a change of underwear after negotiating my way 3/4 around the damned roundabout. My local guide nearly wet himself laughing . . .

Similarly, the few roundabouts I've encountered in the Boston area appear to be the automotive equivalents of free-fire zones: vehicles entering at speed, forcing the vehicles already in the circle to yield. Lots of fun.

Algonquin Park in Autumn

A few weeks back, Elizabeth and I took my mother for a drive up to the southern reaches of Algonquin Park. We were hoping to catch some of the glorious fall colours, but we mis-timed it for Algonquin: most of the reds and golds had long since faded to browns and yellows. In spite of that, it was a lovely drive and we enjoyed the scenery. Here are a few photos taken along the way:

The last image was on our way home, alongside Highway 35 south of the park. I didn't have a tripod, so the image is a bit shaky, but I'm glad I stopped to try taking it.

QotD: Canada in the 1960s

Of course I've changed. That's just a part of being alive. You should not have the same views at 74 that you had at 34. On the other hand, I think in certain basic principles I haven't changed, but the world has changed a great deal. I believe deeply in free speech, free trade, free love, free drugs for old people, the public health system. Those are all liberal keystones. And in 1965 you'd have to be voting Liberal or New Democrat to push any of those planks.

I also believe in a robust foreign policy. And in the 1960s, with [Lester] Pearson as prime minister, I don't think we had any reason to be ashamed of our foreign policy. I was a Pearson Liberal. He certainly is my favourite prime minister — a man who never got a majority in the House of Commons, but nevertheless accomplished more than anyone else. The health system came under him, the flag. A new rapprochement with the provinces was part of his legacy. And he did that in five years with a minority government and a maniac named [John] Diefenbaker leading the Tories and shouting at him from across the House. I think that was a huge achievement. I voted for that Liberal party and if that Liberal party existed today, I might vote for them again. If Diefenbaker's Conservative party existed today, they wouldn't have a chance of getting my vote.

Robert Fulford, interviewed by Marni Soupcoff in "Question Period: Robert Fulford", Western Standard, 2006-10-09

The most annoying Canuck?

Autonomous Source is running a poll for the most annoying Canadian. The competition is strong, but (as of right now), Jack! is enjoying a massive lead (he's got 40% of the vote, in a field of 24).

You can vote for your candidate once per day until the end of December. Let's see if Jack! can hold his early lead . . .

Stratford school hosts radical anti-abortion display

St. Mike's, a Catholic high school in Stratford Ontario, has become the first high school to host a particularly graphic anti-abortion display:

Included with pictures of aborted babies were other images of death, including a lynching and the Nazi Holocaust during which six million Jewish people were slaughtered.

The display, belonging to an anti-abortion group called the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), was set up near the building's main entrance yesterday. It was part of "pro-life events week" at the school.

GAP originally designed its display for post-secondary campuses and yesterday marked their first visit to a high school, said one of the three university students who organized it.

"The goal is basically challenging choice, challenging the message that abortion is OK," said Theresa Matters, who attends the University of Waterloo.

"We want to talk to people about the truth and we want to tell the truth. The truth is abortion is the killing of an innocent person."

Full-throated debate on the appropriateness of this kind of debate in a publicly funded high school in three, two, one . . .

RCMP Apology to Arar

The RCMP has finally apologized to Maher Arar and his family for their mistake in identifying Arar as a terrorist:

RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli formally apologized Thursday to Maher Arar and his family for the "nightmare" caused by Arar's deportation to Syria by U.S. authorities, largely because of RCMP mistakes.

Testifying before a Commons committee, Zaccardelli acknowledged the pain caused by RCMP errors outlined by a recent federal inquiry. He said the force will act to ensure this never happens again.

The RCMP, he said, "will do whatever we can to see that no other Canadian citizen will ever suffer what happened to Mr. Arar and his family."

Zaccardelli praised Arar and his wife for the dignity they maintained in their response to what he called their "nightmare."

Justice Dennis O'Connor's inquiry report found that the Mounties sent unfair or inaccurate intelligence reports about Arar to the United States.

QotD: The CBC

In their own quiet way, CBC people have become a remarkable cult, the proprietors of a vast reservoir of smugness they are incapable of recognizing as such. For generations, they have been constructing a body of impregnable, self-regenerating opinion. As employees they are pre-selected and their views are pre-recorded, like most of their programs. A single rule governs all personnel selection: Like hires like. That principle, followed for seven decades, produces seamless intellectual agreement in all corners of the staff. Occasionally a few oddballs somehow slip through the screening process. They are allowed to hold unofficial views, providing they have the good sense not to express them. Otherwise, the CBC encourages everyone to speak up.

CBC producers glory in what Wordsworth called "smooth and solemnized complacencies." They believe in universal one-tier medicare, feminism, the Kyoto accord, employment equity and the United Nations. They consider Israel an embarrassing upstart state and remain unimpressed by its accomplishments. They hate the Bush administration but they are routinely anti-American even when someone more agreeable occupies the White House. They don't much like business. In their view the free market causes more trouble than it's worth, and globalization is another word for evil. They believe unions are usually on the right side (even if they think their own unions are led by idiots). They have learned that there is one side to every question.

Robert Fulford, "The lessons I learned at CBC", National Post, 2006-09-23

Expensive historical documents

There's an auction running on eBay right now for a treasure trove of historical documents on Canadian railways in the maritimes:

Probably the largest private collection of railway documents in Canada. All relate to abandoned and existing railway lines in Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. This extensive collection contains the following:

9472 documents to railway parcels — have original signatures, dated back to 1867, many deed files also contain hand drawn sketches on paper, linen or blueprints

254 survey plans of railway right of ways and parcels — dated back to 1871, a mix of paper, linen, vellum and plastic medium as well as blueprints, all rolled, mostly 3' high, many 20', 30', and 40' long

8 books of bound plans (875 pages total)

5 — 5 drawer metal filing cabinets, 7'6" wide X 5' high X 2'4" deep, 22 drawers with deeds, 3 drawers with card file index

1 — 45 hole metal plan cabinet, 7'6" wide X 1'6" high X 3' deep

1 — MS Access database for deeds

1 — MS Access database for plans

Of course, such a massive collection doesn't come cheap: the starting bid is C$100,000, and that doesn't include any provision for shipping at all . . . the seller will make arrangements for the buyer to pick up locally in Miramichi, NB.

Oh, well, that explains it then

It may have come to your attention that the CBC just lost their chairman, as related in this Reuters story. The best comment I've heard about the situation was this:

Of course, our left-leaning community is in deep shock over the whole dismissal. They see this as a case of someone from the Reality-based community who was trying to speak truth to power being silenced by the chill wind blowing from the Chimpy McBushliburton puppet regime that's been installed in Ottawa.

Comments like that don't come around every day . . . oh, wait, yes, they do.

The gun control debate

One of the most common discussions after a widely publicized crime involving firearms is the "need" for gun control. Kate, at SDA, offers her advice to a reader who asked for help on this topic:

Concede the point.

"I agree. There is no need in today's world for a citizen to own a gun."

Having come to agreement that "need" is the threshold for a citizen's right to own a firearm, the discussion is ready to move forward.

Announce to your friend that you are ready to accompany them to their home. You will begin with an inspection of the kitchen, and from there, will work your way through their house, tagging each possession you believe they do not need in "today's world".

Don't forget the garage.

Hat tip to "Da Wife" for the URL.

Victimhood

Rosie DiManno has a very good article on the shootings at Dawson College:

Handy too, will Gill be — this is happening already — to crusaders with their own agenda to advance, be it gun control or cross-border traffic of weapons or music and video censorship.

It's Marilyn Manson's fault, it's America's fault, it's the fault of ineffective security precautions . . . teachers . . . bullies . . . ostracizing student cliques . . . website operators . . .

No, it's Kimveer Gill's fault.

He's no victim.

Let's be clear: The victims are the students shot on Wednesday — 18-year-old Anastasia De Sousa, a lovely trilingual co-ed who was a treasure to her family, four others still in critical condition, more than a dozen more wounded, as well as the scores who experienced this terror first-hand, running and crab-scuttling and dragging each other away from the spray of bullets at Dawson College.

Hat tip to Jon for the link.

Reaction to the reaction

Victor sent me this link, a post at Gaia Online, reacting to the horrific events at Dawson College in Montreal:

I was terrified and sadden to learn of yet another school shooting, this time in Montreal. Myself, like many others want to know what could possibly cause such a tragedy? As I read the news report, they had found a scapegoat: he played videogames and he wore a trenchcoat. Are you kidding me? That's almost as angering as the situation itself. The artical then elaborated on his videogames and his sense of style and "dark clothing." I thought I was going to hurl. You think that's all it takes to drive someone to kill people?

What's more sad? The fact that there are theories like this or the fact people believe them?

The search for easy labels and obvious scapegoats is as old as the news business. People don't want to think more than they have to: providing them with an easy, obvious person or group to blame for misfortune or bad news is, I hate to say it, a deeply rooted part of the human psyche. If it's not the Gypsies, it's the Jews. If it's not the Jews, it's the Mexicans, or the Masons, or whatever group will most easily satisfy the need to assign blame to among your listeners.

Perhaps the most reprehensible reaction seems to be the most common . . . something bad is happening? Who can we blame? It's sick. It's twisted. It often prevents logical thought. And it's absolutely human.

QotD: Canada and Australia

[. . .] Canada had attitudes rather than policies, and the fierceness of its attitude was as a general rule inversely proportional to the likelihood of it ever acting upon it — Kyoto being only the most shameless example. Australia, on the other hand, is an old-fashioned nation state: it has responsibilities rather than attitudes. A few days into my trip to the Antipodes, I'd heard so often the line that Canada to America is like New Zealand to Australia, that I began proposing an alternative: Canada to America is like Indonesia to Australia — crazy joint to the north where half the people are jumping up and down shouting, "Death to the Great Satan!" But, after mulling it over, I decided this was unfair to the Indonesians. The world's largest Muslim nation is a fragile democracy, to be sure, but it seems, for the moment, to be doing quite a good job holding down the Islamists.

Mark Steyn, "A great and powerful Oz", Western Standard, 2006-09-11

QotD: Multiculturalism in Canada

When the concept of multiculturalism was introduced to Canadians, most assumed it meant "more pavilions at Folkfest".

Kate McMillan, "The "Inter-Faith" Hospital Gown", Small Dead Animals, 2006-09-05

Boot on the other foot department

Imagine, just for a moment, the unlikely event of an American or British university using "Steve" Harper, everyone's favourite ice-sculpture PM, as a target of mockery. Okay, first get past the idea that anyone in the entire outside world knows or cares who the current Canadian prime minister is . . .

I still think that Lakehead University's current ad campaign mocking George Bush is a dumb move. But some dumb moves work better than your brightest moves: who'd ever heard of Lakehead before this ad campaign?

Gilbert said Lakehead plans to ride out the public relations storm without removing the posters or taking down the Web site.

"You don't undo the damage that has been done, if there's damage, by simply retracting," he said, adding the school will try to respond individually to people who expressed concerns.

So long, Brian, and thanks for all the fish

NealeNews is shuttering, after four years of highly useful service:

Farewell

Today is the last posting for Nealenews. After spending five hours a day, seven days a week for the past four years updating this site, I have reached the point where I no longer have the energy or desire to continue.

In an attempt to prolong the inevitable, I recently decided to cut back on the postings, including weekends, but news operates on a 24-hour cycle and rather than become irrelevant through neglect, I've decided to pull the plug.

Four years is a very long time in web years. That must be nearly three generations of newbies. The half-life of the average blog seems to be about eighteen months before hitting the burnout zone. And every blogger or serious web publisher knows all about the burnout zone.

QotD: Canadian Mind Police

Why is it that some people don't understand that being Canadian doesn't automatically mean you think a certain way, that you hate all the right people, that you hold all the "proper" attitudes? It appeared to be incomprehensible to the dispatcher that someone might object to the use of public property to convey a message they found repugnant. The "freedom" my learned civil servant was referring to was, I think, not freedom of speech, but the freedom to agree with her.

"Occam", "You Don't Say?", Occam's Carbuncle, 2006-07-26

QotD: 50,000 Canadians in Lebanon

How did "50,000 Canadians" come to be in Lebanon? Is it one of our major trading partners? Has Bombardier opened up a Ski-Doo plant there? Is Beirut where the Quebec Nordiques wound up? 50,000 Canucks out of a total Lebanese population of 3.8 million works out to about 1.3 per cent of the population. Hezbollah claims 400,000 supporters in Lebanon after 20 years of diligent recruiting and investment by Iran, but Canada has managed to amass an eighth of that figure with nary a thought. Despite significantly smaller populations than our G7 colleagues, we have more citizens in Lebanon than the Americans, British and Germans.

Combined.

France is the former colonial power in Lebanon and the Western country with which it maintains the closest ties, yet even the French can muster only 30,000 citizens in the country. Formerly known as "the Paris of the Middle East," these days Beirut would appear to be the Saskatoon of the Middle East. Another decade or two and Lebanon will boast more Canadians than most of the Maritimes. If Canadians were represented within the global population as generously as they are among the Lebanese, there would be over 81 million Canadian citizens living outside Canada.

Mark Steyn, "50,000 problematic Canadians", Macleans.ca, 2006-08-01

Looking after the children

Jon just got his first Child Care Benefit cheque from "Uncle Steve". Here is his celebratory message:

QotD: The Planet of Toronto

Some days, working in Toronto feels more like being on the Away Team to the planet of the Progressive Latte People.

Paul Canniff, "Stuff I Can't Make up: T.O. Edition", Daimnation, 2006-07-20

He must be talking about a different Toronto

Peter Samuel describes a wonderful place that sounds so unlike the city most of us know:

The city of Toronto has made major efforts the past couple of decades to revive the waterfront on Lake Ontario and to link it better to the central business district. The revival is generally a success. Scores of handsome condo/apartment towers have gone up. Heavily used ferries now provide service to islands just offshore to newly created hiking trails, a nature preserve, and attractive promenades where wharves once rotted. A nicely streetscaped Lake Shore Boulevard runs the length the waterfront, and of course there's a new trolley line.

Toronto's laissez-faire, Houston-style approach to zoning — no historic district or plan reviews, no affordable housing requirements, no car parking requirements, very liberal floor/site ratios etc. — is probably forging the rapid developments that capitalize on lake views and downtown proximity. Freedom from stifling U.S.-style zonings has produced a vibrant mix of activities and services . . . The area is thriving.

A case of mistaken identity

I guess it's been so long since a Canadian prime minister said anything like this that the mistake is quite understandable:

Arab papers are carrying Saudi Arabia's condemnation of Hezbollah. That hasn't stopped the UN and EU capitals from denouncing Israel. Go figure. But Australian Canadian* PM Stephen Harper isn't having any of it:

Harper, who is in London for a two-day visit, called Israel's response to the kidnapping of three soldiers "measured" and "simply self-defence".

[. . .]

* Well, he sounded like an Australian!

Hat tip to Jon for the URL.

Harper renaging on election promise?

Paul Wells compares the top five priorities of the Conservative campaign to the top five priorities of the Conservative government . . . and calls Stephen Harper on it:

n his latest column, Stephen Harper offers an update from Ottawa. "It's been quite a ride," the PM reports. Since the election, the new Conservative government has made progress "on all of our five priorities — from cleaning up the federal government, to cutting taxes, cracking down on crime, supporting families, and strengthening our country at home and around the world."

Read that list again.

Notice anything?

Maybe not if you don't live in Ottawa. But in the capital, everybody who read that list spotted it immediately. Harper is playing Hide-the-Priority. And he's being pretty clumsy about it.

The fifth item in his list was never among the five priorities the Conservatives campaigned on. The fifth Conservative campaign priority was: "work with the provinces to establish a Patient Wait Times Guarantee." Harper has replaced it with this business about "strengthening our country."

And it's not a typo.

Go read the whole thing.

Soccer stadium to be built in Toronto

The federal government has confirmed the previous Liberal government's commitment of $27 million towards a new soccer stadium in Toronto:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty caught soccer fever Tuesday, formalizing the government's share of building a stadium to house Canada's first Major League Soccer franchise.

He said the federal government will kick in up to $27 million, as promised last fall, for the construction of the open-air venue, located on the city's waterfront. The $62.9 million facility is due to be completed on May 1, 2007. The timing of the financial agreement coincides with the FIFA World Cup underway in Germany.

Flaherty said he hopes Canada will be able to compete in the next tournament, taking place in South Africa in 2010.

Canada is currently ranked 83rd in the world.

As a soccer fan, I'm happy that Toronto is going to be getting a major league soccer team. As a taxpayer, however, I'm much less happy: the three levels of government should no more be putting up money for a soccer stadium than they should be paying for any other kind of private enterprise. If there's enough fan support for a team, then there'd be enough private funding to build the stadium. If it can only be done by forcing non-soccer-supporting taxpayers to contribute part of their taxes to the deal, then it shouldn't.

This is no more than corporate welfare for sports teams. Since all three levels of government are involved, all Canadians are paying — even if the total amount is relative peanuts — for something to benefit Toronto's soccer fan community and especially the owners of the new team. How is this fair, equitable, or just?

Urination for the nation

One of the downsides of individual freedom is that sometimes individuals choose to use their freedoms in ways that disgust and distress others. This is a case in point:

Furious veterans are renewing their demands that the National War Memorial be guarded to protect it against "disgusting" assaults after young men were caught urinating on it during Canada Day festivities.

A retired major snapped digital pictures of several people relieving themselves on the monument around 11 p.m. on Saturday, as thousands poured into the streets following the fireworks.

Most cheered and laughed when they were photographed using the memorial as a toilet on the nation's birthday.

Hat tip to Jon for the URL.

Mister Ghost asks "What does Canada stand for?"

If you're not already overloaded with Canadian content, you could do much worse than to read the varied responses to Mister Ghost's question, What does Canada stand for?. The responses include both bloggers and mainstream journalists (my response is the very last one in the list, because, of course, you save the best for last, right?).

The first part of the post is cross-posted to Iraqi Bloggers Central.

QotD: First Day of the Somme

The casualties sustained on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme totalled 57,470, of which 19,240 were fatal. The Newfoundland Regiment Battalion ration strength on June 30, 1916, was 1044 all ranks, including administrative staff and attached personnel. Actual fighting strength was about 929 all ranks, of whom twenty six officers and 772 other ranks deployed into the trenches. A further officer and 33 other ranks were attached to the Brigade Mortar and Machine Gun Companies while 14 officers and 83 other ranks were held back as reserve and for special duties.

So far as can be ascertained, 22 officers and 758 other ranks were directly involved in the advance. Of these, all the officers and slightly under 658 other ranks became casualties, but exact figures are not available as casualties were reported for the day as a whole. Of the 780 men who went forward only about 110 survived unscathed, of whom only sixty eight were available for roll call the following day. The Battalion's War Diary on July 7 states that on July 1 the overall casualties for the Battalion were 14 officers and 296 other ranks killed, died of wounds or missing believed killed, and that 12 officers and 362 other ranks were wounded, a total of 684 all ranks out of a fighting strength of about 929. About 14 of the wounded subsequently died from their wounds. Afterward, the Divisional Commander was to write of the Newfoundlanders effort: "It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault failed of success because dead men can advance no further."

"Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial", Veteran's Affairs Canada

Finding that elusive common denominator

Canadians love to think of their country as being multicultural, diverse, unprejudiced, unbiased, etc., etc. Our federal police, the RCMP, are doing everything they possibly can to avoid being seen to draw the wrong conclusion:

Staff Superintendent Pauline Tumble: Wait, Sarge! The stupid floorsweep may be on to something. Look at those names: Fahim Ahmad; Zakaria Amara; Asad Ansari; Shareef Abdelhaleen; Qayyum Abdul Jamal; Mohammed Dirie; Yasim Abdi Mohamed; Jahmaal James; Amin Mohamed Durrani; Abdul Shakur; Ahmad Mustafa Ghany; Saad Khalid. Do you see the pattern?

Sgt. Warren Bollard: (adjusts glasses, peers yet more intently at the intricate graph) Yes . . . yes, I think I do see something. Something that rather leaps out at one, once one strips away all the distractions surrounding this confounding and inexplicable case!

de Funt: (still sweeping) Dey is all . . .

Sgt. Warren Bollard: They’re all male!

Hat tip to Martina P. for the link.

QotD: Innovation in Canada

I have long been convinced that Canada needlessly sells itself short; we tend not to celebrate success very loudly or readily up here. Our celebrities are considered to have "made it" when they've achieved success in L.A. or New York. Our executives are considered successful when they move on to helm large American or international firms. Our entrepreneurs are considered successful when their companies get bought up by a wealthier competitor. If we want to stay ahead in a global game, those attitudes have to change.

Chris Taylor, "Canadian business setting self-defeating goals?", Taylor & Company, 2006-04-20

A bit of perspective on the 17 arrests

This editorial in the New York Sun does answer one burning question about why Canada might be a target for terrorism:

Canada sent no troops to liberate Iraq. Our neighbor to the North so opposed the Iraq War that at least one American deserter fled there for safe harbor, as draftdodgers did during the Vietnam War.And while Canada is mildly pro-Israel, and more so under its new conservative government, its arms sales to the Jewish state are peanuts compared to America's, and at the United Nations on key votes it's likely to abstain rather than join the America, Micronesia, and Palau in voting with Israel.

What the Islamic extremists oppose in Canada is neither its support for Israel nor its behavior in Iraq but the mere fact that it is not a country governed by Islamic law. An Associated Press dispatch on the bomb plot noted that Canada, with the America, Britain, Spain, and Australia, was listed by Osama Bin Laden as a "Christian" nation that should be a target for terrorism. Nothing short of dropping Christianity and converting to Islam will satisfy the Islamist terrorists.

(I suspect that someone ran a quick search-and-replace on this editorial to substitute "America" for "United States", because most folks don't refer to the country as "the America".)

Hat tip to Paul Tuns, who wrote:

Altogether now, out loud: "What the Islamic extremists oppose in Canada is . . . the mere fact that it is not a country governed by Islamic law." If we exchange the maple leaf on the flag for a hammer and sickle, er, sorry, crescent and sword, we might be able to buy some time.

Andrew recasts Godwin's Law for Canadian debaters

Jon sent this link to Bound by Gravity, where Andrew has performed a very useful transformation of Godwin's Law, specifically for Canadian content:

Godwin's Law, Canadian Variant:

As a online discussion about Canadian politics grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the United States of America or a member of the Republican party approaches one.

Whenever a journalist, blogger, or commenter chimes in with a reductio ad americanum my respect for what they have written immediately drops a few notches, and I am less likely to take their point of view seriously. It is lazy rhetoric, and rarely appropriate. Even when the comparison is valid, the author's point could have been made (usually far more succinctly) using a different choice of words.

Bonus Snark:

Godwin's Law, Conservative/Libertarian Variant:

As a online discussion about left-versus-right politics grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the USSR or Stalin approaches one.

Canadian military hardware wish-list

There's a good round-up of the Canadian Forces' hardware wish list posted at Daimnation. It includes a link to this Chris Wattie article:

Defence sources say Gordon O'Connor, the Defence Minister, will make a pitch to a Cabinet committee tomorrow for six major projects worth more than $8-billion.

[. . .] At the top of Mr. O'Connor's list will be four new C-17 Globemaster cargo jets, which the sources said would be bought directly from the U.S. manufacturer, Boeing, in a "sole source" acquisition.

Long overdue. Not necessarily these particular planes, but creating a long-range, heavy-lift "organic" component. This sort of thing can be supplemented by rentals of foreign aircraft as needed, but for the kind of missions Canada has taken on over the last few years, it's incredible that it's taken this long just to get to the formal proposal stage.

The government will also be asked to approve the purchase of 17 tactical transports — smaller, propeller-driven aircraft that can land troops or cargo in remote, rough airstrips. The likely winner of that contract will be the C-130J, the latest model of the venerable Hercules now in service with the Canadian air force.

These will probably be coming on line just as the oldest of the current Herc fleet are ready to be retired. If the tender goes to the current most likely winner, the air force will be happy. However, the competing manufacturer's agents are very busy trying to sell their alternative solution by dangling a fair bit of domestic off-sets (especially in Quebec). Let's all just hope that (if the politically expedient option is chosen instead) the Airbus A400M will be a capable aircraft. When it gets airborne.

Mr. O'Connor is also proposing to buy as many as 20 new heavy-lift helicopters for the army and a total of 18 new search-and-rescue planes.

It must be galling for the current Canadian deployment to Afghanistan . . . they're depending on the Dutch for use of Chinook heavy-lift helicopter support. Chinooks which used to belong to the Canadian Forces.

The army is to get a replacement for its 24-year-old logistics trucks, while the navy will get approval for its three new joint-support ships, a combination troopship and resupply vessel due to be built over the next five years, the sources said.

The new ships for the navy will be an interesting development. As Mark C. points out in his post at Daimnation:

I smell a fix here. In return for the JSS (at least most of them) being built in Canada (hang the added expense and delays, politics is politics), when the government gets around to the amphibious assault ship it may consider an off-shore purchase. The Dutch have a nifty example but there are several other possible sources (France, UK, US, Italy — the last is the un-Canadian "hybrid" aircraft carrier that the Liberals so misleadingly and viciously attacked in the 2004 election).

It will be fascinating to see whether the Defence Minister can get cabinet to go ahead with this plan.

The mystery of "Canadian Content" rules

As most of you have probably figured out by now, I'm not much of a fan of the Canadian government's meddling in the entertainment and broadcast industries. Their weird and whacky "Canadian Content" rules are just part of the distorting influence of the feds in this area. I didn't realize just how odd those rules can be, until I read an email from Mike Major to the Canadian Browncoats mailing list, talking about a new SF venture:

[. . .] a local group of producers and actors are doing a hard SF serial distributed through the 'net which, while not in the [Firefly/Serenity] 'verse is certainly evocative of a similar kind of feel.

http://www.rebelspace.com

Thought there might be some interest in Canadian home-grown, produced, acted, directed and everything else hard SF. Oh — they can't get funding from the government because it's not set in Canada.

While I don't think the government should be providing any funding to anyone in the entertainment business, if they must do so, they should at least be reasonable in how they choose who gets funding. So a group of Canadian actors, with a Canadian crew, using a Canadian script, and Canadian producer/director isn't enough to qualify the production as "Canadian" enough . . . because it's not set in Canada?

Someone want to parse that one for me? Because they certainly hand out lots of money to plenty of productions that are shot in Canada using foreign actors, directors, producers, etc. Is the "set in Canada" the most important criterion?

QotD: Advice for the Left

When discussing Canadian politics, try to stick to Canadian politicians and processes. Dragging George W. Bush into the discussion every other sentence might be entertaining (and especially for us on the right), but try to remember that he lacks executive authority within these borders. Canada has her own elected representatives — George is not now, and never will be, one of them.

Chris Taylor, "A Primer for the Recalcitrant Left", Taylor & Company, 2006-05-18

A possible answer . . .

. . . to the question of why we have troops in Afghanistan:

"Then he turned to me and said, 'Please excuse their staring. They are just very surprised that you are a woman working with all of these men. I have told them that you climbed over the mountain with us with your heavy bag and that you had no problems. They think that you must be very strong. I explained to them that you are just like the men, and that you can do everything that they can do the same as them.' "

Goddard added: "It was perhaps the greatest statement of equality that I have ever heard — and it was given by a Pakistani-raised, Afghan male in the middle of an Afghan village that is only accessible by a five km walk up a mountain. It just goes to show that anything is possible and that stereotypes are often completely wrong."

Captain Nichola Goddard, 1st Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, was killed in action earlier this week, the first Canadian woman to die in combat:

Although Canadian women lost their lives in action in both the First and Second World Wars, Goddard was the first to do so in a combat role.

"I believe it's safe to say she was the first woman in a combat-arms military occupation (such as artillery, infantry, or armoured) killed in front-line combat," said Lieut. Morgan Bailey, a media liaison officer in Ottawa.

Goddard was serving as a forward artillery observer, helping to target the artillery guns by observing where the shells fell.

Combat roles were first opened to Canadian women in 1990.

Canadian forces were acting in support of the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army, who had received information a large number of Taliban fighters were massing in the Panjwai district, about 24 kilometres west of Kandahar, an area that has seen off-on fighting for weeks, said Fraser.

QotD: Government Spending

This is hardly the first case, after all, in which Parliament has been informed of government expenditures long after they have been made. Budget after budget, up to and including the last, have misrepresented the government's fiscal position by stuffing billions of dollars in current spending into previous fiscal years, circumventing that most hallowed of Parliamentary prerogatives: the power to scrutinize and approve how government spends the money it takes from taxpayers, before it is spent.

But these were at least open in their contempt for Parliament. And, at least in theory, Parliament could put a stop to such flimflammery if it chose. In the current example, by contrast, neither the public or Parliament had any knowledge of the overrun, or the misreporting, until it was too late. It was a deliberate act of deception, a calculated defiance of Parliament, and a fraud upon the public. That the program was also catastrophically mismanaged is, in the circumstances, almost an afterthought.

Andrew Coyne, "Why should we ever trust the Liberals again?", National Post, 2006-05-17

Tabernac! The Church Strikes Back!

The Roman Catholic Church is making an attempt to reclaim the religious meanings to words Quebecers have been using as swear words:

Montreal's Catholic churches are trying to take back the tabernacle and the chalice, reminding Quebecers that the common French-language cuss words are still sacred objects to the church.

The churches launched a cheeky publicity campaign on the weekend to teach the true meaning of words that roll so easily off the tongues of many francophones when they stub a toe or strike a thumb with a hammer.

Several Montreal churches were festooned with gigantic black posters with the names of religious objects in blood-red letters and the true definition in smaller white type.

The VRWC Chronicles, Hansard edition

Jon sent me a link to this Stephen Taylor post:

Mr. Mark Holland (Ajax-Pickering, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the point that the minister misses is very simple. There is a difference between expressing an opinion about the judiciary and launching a personal attack on the independence of Canada's chief justice and to put words in her mouth. There is a huge difference.

Canadians want to know are the comments from the member for Halton and the Prime Minister's close association with the ultra right wing Civitas Society part of their real agenda, an agenda to destroy the independence of our judiciary?

Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I cannot resist answering a question about the vast right wing conspiracy. What I will say is that I will speak to the Minister of National Defence and see if there is any possibility in the budget of a black helicopter, so we can fly the hon. member around to investigate his concerns.

My hat is off to the Prime Minister for this one. I guess it proves he does have a sense of humour after all. [Pause] Oh. [Pause] You mean he was serious?

QotD: Bob Rae on Federalism

At least one candidate, Bob Rae, himself a former Ontario NDP premier, has warned against that sort of positioning. Last week, he said Ottawa must be seen "not as a nanny, not as a scold, not as Big Brother, Big Daddy, whatever." In an echo of Clinton's famous declaration a decade ago that "the era of big government is over," Rae said, "The federal government is there to help facilitate change, to be a constructive partner, and to have sometimes the fiscal capacity to help make things happen. The days of heavy centralized bureaucracies running big programs, those days are gone." That sort of talk has some Liberals viewing Rae, the converted former socialist, as staking out a position slightly to the right of other big names in the leadership pack.

John Geddes, "How to win friends and not be a loser", Macleans, 2006-05-04

Dalton's rent-controlled mansion

Jon sent me a link to Joan Tintor's post about Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's sweetheart rent arrangement:

As the Star reported, McGuinty is paying only $1,460 monthly to occupy the house, far less than its carrying costs.

To give you an idea of the costs, a $1-million dollar mortgage at 5% with a 25-year amortization period would require a monthly payment of $5,845.90.

The 2006 assessment for the house is $1,050.000. At this year’s mill rate, plus the 3% increase approved by council, that means an annual tax bill of $9,806.42.

Add in $300 a month for utilities and insurance (a modest estimate) and you get monthly costs of $6,963.10 (this does not include maintenance or repairs).

I have to admit that I don't get all worked-up about this: the Ontario Liberal Party is covering the shortfall. I would get upset if the taxpayers were doing so. Being a taxpayer in Ontario is unavoidable, but being a member of the Liberal Party is optional: if they're willing to foot the bill for Dalton's little mansion, who am I to criticize?

Nova Scotia fails basic economics, again

Nova Scotia's government, having solved all the problems available, have now decided to regulate the price of gasoline and diesel:

Nova Scotia will regulate gasoline and diesel fuel prices, beginning July 1.

Service Nova Scotia Minister Richard Hurlburt said Wednesday the responsibility for setting prices for fuel will be left to the province's Utility and Review Board after a hearing process this fall. Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations will act as the interim regulator until the review board process is in place.

"Nova Scotians want more stable gas prices and they want to know those prices are justified," Hurlburt said in a release.

"Nova Scotia will soon be the only province east of Ontario that does not regulate gasoline and that's a reality we have to respond to."

Because, of course, you have to keep up with the neighbours, right?

After this, the Nova Scotia government will be requiring the rivers to run uphill (just like in New Brunswick, eh?).

Roxanne Potvin at "Le Skratch"

Clive suggested that we meet him at Le Skratch in Oshawa to listen to a new performer he was very enthused about: Roxanne Potvin. When he first mentioned the idea a couple of weeks ago, it sounded like a good idea. However, when I took a look at the club website to get directions, I started to consider coming up with excuses not to go . . . Le Skratch didn't look like our kind of place at all.

I've avoided hanging around pool halls since I was in my late teens, and Le Skratch is a combination dance club and pool hall. Much of the information on their website (which was down when I tried to go there just a minute ago) implied that we were probably not their target audience . . . but in spite of all that, we showed up anyway.

I'm glad we did: while the club itself was about as bad as I feared, Roxanne Potvin is a great performer. I took a couple of (typically poor quality) photos from our table at the edge of the stage:

Most of the songs she performed were (I believe) from her latest album, The Way It Feels, and she played both electric and acoustic guitar and keyboards in addition to singing. Elizabeth and I really enjoyed the show, and we'll probably be keeping an eye on Roxanne's performance calendar for when she'll be playing in our area again.

QotD: Prime Minister Harper's hypocrisy

Even the boy with a crush John Ibbitson wrote this in the Globe yesterday: "Mr. Harper's supporters will defend this contradiction as necessary pragmatism. His opponents will call it hypocrisy. But this is beyond dispute: Stephen Harper used to say one thing, and now he does another."

The point here is not about any particular policy, of course, but the style. That is the thing that will be spoken about when he loses whether in 18 months or 8 years. Power may be fun and he may think he is just great but there are few things that wear quickly than a semi-smarty-pants who treats people like dummies. Only after overcoming that particular trip line do you get to put policies in place that will last beyond the week after the next election. I've said it before, but so far he is the conqueror of brown paper bags who marches victoriously amongst the remains of fratricide.

Alan McLeod, "That's So Last Week...", Gen X at 40, 2006-04-20

No National ID card plans

The federal government is not planning to introduce national ID cards, and instead is recommending that any Canadians planning to visit the US in 2008 obtain passports:

The Conservative government said Tuesday it has no plans to introduce a new national identity card for citizens travelling to the United States and is advising Canadians to obtain a passport if they plan to cross the border once new U.S. security rules are enforced in 2008.

"We are not suggesting at this time that we are launching into a program of a Canadian identity card or anything of that nature," Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said following meetings with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

I'm relieved and a bit surprised that the government isn't doing the stupid thing here: introducing yet another form of government ID. The requirement for Canadians to carry valid passports when entering any foreign country is in no way a special burden: most countries have required this for decades. The fact that the US and Canada have not required this in the past was a friendly gesture, which helped move people and goods across the mutual border with less hassle . . . but the US is well within their rights to stop this arrangement whenever it suits them.

Hat tip to NealeNews.

QotD: Defending Canadian Culture

Canadians feel their very identity and souls embattled by creeping Americanism. And they are fighting a constant and futile battle to defend themselves — whoever that may be. With no Dudley Do-Right to protect the poor Nell that is Canadian culture, the Canadian government has taken lately to threatening criminal charges against 200,000 confused Canucks who use satellite dishes to watch contraband US TV programming.

"Wars of Northern Aggression", Suck, 1997-05-12

QotD: Differences between the US and Canada

[Michael] Adams' method was established in Fire and Ice: he notes at one point that in the U.S. SUVs outsell minivans by two-to-one, whereas in Canada it's vice versa. That's a fact. The fancy is in the meaning he appends to it. "This is a stark difference," he writes, "whose roots can be traced directly to the differing values of our two countries." This assertion seems to have no basis other than a casual assumption that Canadians are more environmentally responsible and thus more concerned with "excessive gasoline consumption, pollution and safety violations."

Isn't there a more obvious correlation? Minivans are cheaper than SUVs, and Canadians have less disposable income than Americans. It's easy to be "socially responsible" if you've got no choice in the matter.

Mark Steyn, "Science as sound as the Orgasmatron", Macleans, 2006-03-13

Flaherty promises to rein in Federal spending

Finance minister Jim Flaherty restated the Conservative election promise to pay down the federal debt and to reduce wasteful spending:

"It should come as no surprise that, those of you who knew me in Ontario, that I believe in balanced budgets and paying down debt," he told members of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada in Toronto.

"I will behave no differently than I did as Ontario's finance minister when I made the largest payment against the public debt in a single year in the history of the Province of Ontario — $3.1 billion in 2001.

"Behaving otherwise — bargaining away balanced budgets and debt paydowns — puts the future of our children and our grandchildren at risk."

The Conservatives said they would reduce the public debt each year by $3 billion if elected, a promise Flaherty said they intend to keep.

This is all to the good . . . but the rest of the speech will certainly cause raised eyebrows and upset stomachs among those who depend on federal funding for their expanded empires:

The Tories are also taking immediate steps to curb federal spending, namely by working with Treasury Board and Finance officials to ensure that taxpayers' dollars will be "limited to programs that are efficient and effective," he said.

It's one of those funny truisms of politics that one person's "fat" in the budget is always someone else's "bone marrow". Once a spending program has been established, it also simultaneously generates a vested interest in keeping that program not only alive, but constantly growing.

New governments have a brief window of opportunity to eliminate programs before the existing support for each potential casualty manage to bring their own pressure to bear on the government, and things generally return to the status quo ante. That window of opportunity seems to be getting smaller all the time. I'd guess that the Conservatives have perhaps three to six months of freedom to act before they become as enmeshed in the web as the Liberals ever were. If a spending program survives until October, it's probably safe for the life of this parliament.

They make it sound so . . . unappealing

From a report on the dramatization of the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series:

Scenes take place in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Moscow, but it was all shot in New Brunswick a year ago.

The look and feel of the early 1970s are there in bad hair and worse clothes. Pierre Trudeau is prime minister. You hear the odd unabashed ethnic slur or sexist remark, and lots of people, including some players, smoke just about anywhere, including the dressing room.

The series shows how unprepared Canada was for a pre-season September series against a team that was leagues better than the shoddy scouting reports indicated.

The players went into camp out of shape, believing themselves invincible, but found a well-conditioned opponent that was at least their match in talent.

And they endured booing from their own fans when the Soviets dominated the first four games in Canada.

For many, it was a pivotal moment in Canadian history, when it was discovered how much hockey meant to the national psyche.

Generally, I'm with James Lileks that the 1970's were the most forgettable decade in history, but the 1972 hockey series really was a defining moment for many Canadians. I remember being in class, and the entire school being moved into the library to watch the final game on TV. (We were one of the first "open concept" schools, so there was plenty of room if you ignored the fire regulations and gave up any concept of comfortable seating.)

If I remember correctly, this was only the third or fourth hockey game I'd ever watched, so the fine points of play were pretty much over my 12-year-old head. It was exciting, however, in the same way that being in the middle of a huge crowd of excited people can be: sort of an adrenalin contact-high.

Here is the CBC web page for the presentation.

QotD: Canadian Peacekeeping

Under the Liberals, Canada was the quintessential post-nationalist nation, and, indeed, so aggressively so that our post-nationalism became more jingoistic than conventional nationalism: "The world needs more Canada," etc. We were too busy promoting ourselves as the great peacekeeping nation to actually do any. We're currently at No. 32 on the hit parade of UN peacekeeping deployments, below not just the Great Satan (31) but also Benin (30), which I, with my typical dead-white-male Eurocentric arrogance, had assumed was the kind of Afro-Marxist basket case to which you deploy UN peacekeepers. Well, good for Benin for shouldering its share of the globocop burden. And, unlike Canada, it doesn't brag about it on five-dollar bills and in beer commercials.

Mark Steyn, "Enough with the globo-gab", Macleans, 2006-03-27

QotD: War Reporting

[P]erhaps the time has come to send sports reporters to war zones. It seems to be one of the last refuges of journalism in which a) reporters have basic knowledge of the subject matter they're assigned to, and b) they're expected to report the details and outcome of the race, even if a contestant is injured or dies during competition.

It's astonishing that the same country that still celebrates the envelope pushing performances (and near-death experiences) of the "Crazy Canucks" downhill ski team, hasn't figured out that covering a war in the context of body counts is the sports journalism equivalent of limiting Olympic coverage to the daily injury reports of the various countries in competition.

Kate McMillan, "Killed In Action", Small Dead Animals, 2006-03-29

Will MPAC be reined in?

I've mentioned my experiences with the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation previously. Apparently, I got off very lightly indeed in my dealings with them, according to this Toronto Star report:

After a five-month investigation, Ombudsman André Marin made 22 recommendations designed to help level the playing field for property taxpayers up against MPAC, which he says has a "superiority complex," engages in "cloak and dagger behaviour," and "cutthroat manoeuvring around property owners."

Oh, yeah. I certainly experienced that in my dealings with MPAC.

"Never in the 30-year history of this office have so many complaints been received in so short a period about a single public agency," Marin said, noting that more than 3,700 people contacted his office about MPAC.

His recommendations for change include:

MPAC should rely less on its mass appraisal computer system and more on what a specific property sells for to decide its value. (The report points to the example of a condo purchased for $503,000 yet being assessed at $617,000 the very next day.)

Our out-of-whack assessment wasn't that bad, but it was bad enough that we went to the appeals.

When a property owner appeals, it should be up to MPAC to prove why the assessed value is correct instead of the current system where the owner has to prove why it is wrong.

It was amazing what they MPAC adjudicator would refuse to accept in the way of evidence . . . one of the other appellants at our hearing had maps, photos, diagrams, etc., none of which was deemed to be relevant.

If, on appeal, the review board lowers a property's assessment then MPAC should use that new number as a base for future years, instead of returning to the original figure the following year, as has happened in the past.

Bingo. That's what happened with our assessment, too.

MPAC should provide taxpayers with more information about their property so they can spot mistakes, such as an assessment based on a three-car garage when the property has only one.

And MPAC's methods should be more transparent: for example, did you know that they assess your floorspace by measuring your house from opposite corners and then multiplying by the number of floors? Your house has much more square footage by that method than by the method your real estate agent is allowed to use. Which, of course, increases your tax assessment automatically.

Hat tip to Jon for the URL.

QotD: Canadian Healthcare

When all is said and done, the philosophy on which Canada's ailing medicare system is based is this.

That Canadians are perfectly content to eat sawdust, as long as they can be assured that no one is ever going to be allowed to buy a steak.

Editor, "Health Care's Gone to the Dogs", Toronto Sun, 2006-03-05

QotD: Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan

[Interviewer]: What is being done to ensure your safety?

[Captain Dave]: Before I answer that question, I must make it clear that what we will be doing there is not what you expect. This is not a peacekeeping tour. We have a very clear mission in Afghanistan, and it will almost certainly involve combat — not occasional, desultory, 'odd angry shot' kind of fighting, but the real thing. It is very likely that many Canadian soldiers will be injured or killed. Although the organization of which I am a part — a small part of the complete Canadian force — has a peaceful-sounding title, you must remember that the enemy does not recognize such distinctions, or rather recognizes them enough to pick the easy target. A big part of my job will be to coordinate security. You may rest assured that if I see the enemy, then I or my soldiers will capture him, or we will kill him. We are not playing games.

My comrades and I are well trained; we are equipped, at the soldier level, as well as money can buy and certainly better than any other modern military; we have been given the legal authority to use the tools at our disposal; and we are, for the moment at least, backed by a population that supports us.

My only fear is that once we start to suffer casualties — and, again, we will suffer casualties — that support will begin to erode, and well-meaning but nevertheless terribly misguided Canadians will start to demand our return home. I am making no comment whatsoever on governmental decisions that may or may not be made in the future — but make no mistake, a public that does not support the fight does not support the troops. Period. And this war will have to be prosecuted over a generation for our sacrifices to mean anything at all.

Captain "Virtual Dave", Provincial Reconstruction Team, "More on the PRT", Farfromcanadahar, 2006-01-20

QotD: Peacekeeping

. . . the word "peacekeeping" triggers a series of powerful memories and positive images in the Canadian mind: Lester Pearson's Nobel Peace Prize; a Canadian soldier in a blue helmet interposed between warring factions; the peacekeeping monument in Ottawa, and the widely believed mantra that, while Americans make war, we Canadians keep the peace.

Canadians are fixated on peacekeeping. We believe that Mike Pearson invented it, that Canadians are the best in the world at it, and that if we do peacekeeping, ideally for the United Nations, then we will not need large numbers of troops or much expensive equipment. The idea of peacekeeping as our métier has certainly shaped Canadian defence policy, and not for the better. The billions of dollars that Liberals and Conservatives have belatedly pledged to rebuild the Canadian Forces will take years to make a difference and to undo four decades of neglect . . .

By J.L. Granatstein, "Wake up! This is our war, too", Globe and Mail, 2006-02-28

"We absolutely want to see it go into public hands"

As we all know, it's impossible to have private enterprise run things like roads and bridges, because they could deny access to the public:

Some are worried that new private owners could let the bridge — it's actually two connected bridges — deteriorate, or could hike tolls. Current tolls, collected only on northbound traffic, are $6 per car, more for trucks, but officials on both sides of the border wouldn't mind if the tolls were scrapped altogether.

"We absolutely want to see it go into public hands," said Fort Frances Mayor Dan Onichuk. "It's the main channel for northwestern Ontario for Canadians going into the States and vice-versa."

Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton agreed the bridge should be in public hands, and said he too was worried tolls could be hiked to the point that they hurt both tourism and the forestry sector in the northwestern part of the province.

"You can kill a lot of jobs and that kills a lot of economic activity," he warned.

Clearly this is a situation that can't be allowed to continue: why, a private owner might raise the tolls! Unlike the current private owners . . . who've owned the bridge since it was built in 1908.

The Strand goes global

Victoria University (for some reason, I've always thought it was "Victoria College") of the University of Toronto has an obscure student publication called The Strand. As this article at Hit and Run implies, it's not going to stay obscure obscure for long:

Click here to view image and article

Image [Image removed at site owner's request] links to original article at The Strand

Commenter "RexRhino" at Hit and Run gets the situation exactly right:

Remember that Star Trek episode where Spock tell the computer "Believe me, I am lying", and the computer cannot handle the paradox? "If you say you are lying, it means you are lying that you are lying, you are telling the truth, but telling the truth you are lying... BZZZPPPPZZTTTHHH!!"

This is the same effect with the Political Correctness androids here in Canada when looking at this cartoon!

"Muslims are upset because the cartoon offends them by depicting Mohommed as homosexual... must make sure muslims are not offended... except that gays will be offended if we imply that there is anything offensive about homosexualiy... must make sure gays are not offended... but if we don't offend them we offend muslims... but if we don't offend muslims, we offend gays... Politically Correct brain cannot compute! BBBTTHHHZZZZPP!"

QotD: Blasphemy

We've all learned this week that people react badly when you make blasphemous insinuations against the central figure of a dominant religion. Nevertheless, that's not going to stop me from writing about Gretzky.

Colby Cosh, "Par for the course", ColbyCosh.com, 2006-02-10

QotD: Military Equipment Purchases

For sake of comparison, the US-built Milverados cost $65,000 each, the Austrian-built G-wagon $150,000 each. In the early 1980s, the Candian Forces wanted to buy German-built Iltis at a cost of $26,500 apiece. But, purchasing policies intended to support Canadian industry resulted in German tools being moved to a Bombardier plant in Quebec instead. Each licence-built Bombardier Iltis ended up costing DND $84,000.

Stephen Priestley, "Canadian Forces Light Utility Vehicle — the milCOTS 'Milverado'", DND 101, 2006

Putting Canadian troops at risk?

A short news item on the CP wires says that Canadian troops are at risk because the Western Standard is re-publishing the cartoons:

A Muslim group warns that the publication of controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Western magazine may cause harm to Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

Riad Saloojee with the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations says reprinting the drawings could put Canada's soldiers in danger. Violent protests erupted after the images were printed in a Danish newspaper.

As opposed, one must guess, to the utterly risk-free and peaceful job they're currently enjoying in Afghanistan? Or do we need to read this as a threat, rather than just a note of concern?

Note for the overly literal reader: "utterly risk free" and "peaceful" are used in an ironic sense in the preceding paragraph.

QotD: The Westminster System

Endowing the sovereignty of the nation in an absentee monarch — as Canada, Barbados, Belize, Tuvalu et al. do — is an even more exquisite variation on the Weil theory: vesting power in its literal rather than merely political absence. But the Westminster system depends on a Westminster disposition. And the disadvantage, as we've seen in Gomery Canada this last decade, is that, if you're prepared to drive a coach-and-horses through the polite conventions, there's nothing very much that can be done about it. As Lord Acton almost said, all power corrupts but Liberal power corrupts very liberally. And the Grits' big red machine was by no means the first to realize that the Marquess of Queensbury doesn't always stand up to biker-gang tactics. The British system worked in India and Grenada and New Zealand. It proved less resilient in Zimbabwe and Iraq.

Mark Steyn, "Pip, pip for the Brits — despite the blips", Macleans, 2006-02-07

QotD: Canadian Politics

The problem with Canada over the last decade was that it was a one-party state. Having seen the arrogance and corruption built up due to that am I going to accept a one-party Conservative state? Give your head a shake. I want a functional democracy with honourable parties putting out well thought out alternative positions and debating them maturely. Yes, I am an idealist small d-democrat. No one side has a majority on the truth. I would love to actually have a hard choice deciding what party to vote for. I am not blindly partisan. Although you might have questioned that for the last, I don't know, year.

Greg Staples, "Wow!", Political Staples, 2006-02-06

Garth Turner sticks to his guns

I've not really been a huge fan of former-and-now-current MP Garth Turner. This little post may make me change my mind:

This one MP came face-to-face with the party machine in a series of unhappy meetings including one tonight with the prime minister. I think it is now safe to say my career options within the Conservative caucus are seriously limited. If you would like a course on how not to be popular in Ottawa, then take a seat.

[. . .]

But, I arrived as the prime minister was appointing a floor-crossing Liberal and an unelected party official to his cabinet, which seemed to fly in the face of everything I had told voters about accountability and democracy. It also made me question the whole process, after eight months of knocking on doors to win my coveted seat in this magnificent stone building on the banks of the Rideau.

Going from door to door turns a politician into a democrat. At least, it did for me. By the time I got to Parliament Hill, I was infused with the spirit of a new era in government, sated on the belief we would see freedom reign in the Chamber and that the days of subjugation of MPs by the prime minster’s office were numbered. I had swallowed with gusto promises of more free votes, more powerful committees of free-thinking MPs, more listening to the voters, and an elected and responsible Senate.

[. . .]

Sure, I thought the appointment of those two ministers was questionable. And after stating many a time that Belinda Stronach should have sought a by-election after her defection, how could I not say the same obvious thing now? It was simple for my constitutents to understand, and simple for me. I did not seek the microphones out, but when they were under my nose and a clear question was asked, I gave a clear answer.

Everybody who makes up the government should be elected. They should be elected as members of the party that forms the government. Anybody who switches parties should go back to the people. To do otherwise is to place politicians above the people when, actually, it’s the other way around.

Medical ethics or cost-benefit analysis?

A brief news article in Canadian Press today illustrates the inevitable end of fully socialized medicine — allocating care only to those who follow medical orders:

A New Brunswick man has been told he has to butt out before doctors will perform the surgery he needs to get back on his feet.

Robert Randall, a fisherman from southeastern New Brunswick, says he has smoked for over 30 years. Randall says there's no way he can give up cigarettes prior to the surgery required to further repair his previously broken knee and leg.

[. . .]

Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai, president of the Canadian Medical Association, says doctors understand addiction and would never deny care in an emergency situation. But she warns that when it comes to elective and non-urgent care, physicians may have to start saying no to patients with potentially dangerous lifestyle habits like smoking.

Or eating fatty foods. Or not exercising regularly. Or failing to go for regular checkups. Or pick your common human frailty.

As long as there's only one healthcare provider — the state — they get to set the conditions under which you'll be eligible for care. And there is never enough money or resources to provide all the care that is required. So, the healthcare bureaucracy will ration care, based on whatever criteria they think they can get away with.

Is anyone really surprised?

QotD: Hockey Anagrams

I was playing with a new piece of anagram software today, plugging in the names of various National Hockey League teams. It began to dawn on me that, despite the best efforts of franchises like the Minnesota Wild, there isn't nearly enough poetic, surrealistic imagery in hockey. Rearranging the letters in the team names opens up a whole new imaginative universe to the hockey fan. You tell me — why would you cheer for the pedestrian New York Rangers when you could root for the Narrow Green Sky? You're already thinking of how beautiful the uniforms would be, am I right? And isn't it true that a much more evocative and accurate name for the Toronto Maple Leafs would be the Lame Forest Platoon? It summarizes their entire history perfectly, and you wouldn't even have to change the logo.

Colby Cosh, "Engages No Skills", ColbyCosh.com, 2006-02-04

Zerbisias versus Shaidle, round one

Antonia Zerbisias took some cheap shots at Kathy Shaidle in her Toronto Star column:

Toronto-based blogger Kathy Shaidle (a.k.a. Relapsed Catholic) whose religious politics would have easily qualified her as chief judge and bonfire builder during the Spanish Inquisition. The woman never misses an opportunity to insult Islam. And so, it was hardly surprising that, not only did she publish the offending cartoons, she giddily took up the torch and ran with it.

On Sunday she posted a Tom McMahon cartoon claiming that when it comes to skyscrapers Muslims "destroy" them, and when it comes to cartoons Muslims "riot about them" — as if this applies to every single Muslim every single minute.

Why she doesn't call her blog the Daily Auto Da Fe — for the public burning of heretics in Spain — is beyond me.

Kathy responded in this post, titled "The Daily Cougar: So Very Creative":

Funny for so many reasons.

Who are the actual "heretic burners" around today? Me, for publishing some cartoons, or . . . a bunch of crazy Muslims demanding that cartoonists get their hands chopped off?

And yes, I really am morally superior to people like that, thanks muchly.

[. . .]

The "every single Muslim every single minute" line is about the level of argumentation you'd expect from a kindergartener, not a professional journalist. I can just as easily and petulantly respond that I don't "blog about crazed Muslim terrorists and their welfare bum/crack dealer supporters every single minute of every single day" to prove her wrong. And that would be just as lame.

She — and remember, this is a salaried journalist at Canada's largest paper, who, on every other issue, like allowing Al-Jazeera on Canadian tv, is all for free speech — explains that publishing the cartoons in North American papers "was not necessary to understanding the story. As many editors have explained, merely describing the cartoons is sufficient for making the point."

The gloves are definitely off in this fight. It's probably going to get much, much more violent after this exchange. Stay tuned, fight fans!

H/T to NealeNews for the URL to Zerbisias' column.

QotD: Canada in 2006

Canada remains in 2006 largely what it was in 2005 — a country where cigarettes are taxed 300% to 400% but heroin is free to addicts; where gay widowers have an easier time obtaining their pension entitlements than World War II veterans; and where a woman can go topless in public unless she has hate literature tattooed on her breasts.

Colby Cosh, "The great right North?", L.A. Times, 2006-01-27

ESR on the Canadian Arctic

Eric S. Raymond finds some amusement in the notion of Canada actually defending the far north:

But let's just start by considering all the wisecracks about the Canadian military to have been made already, shall we? True, they're about as intimidating as three troops of Girl Scouts nowadays, but it's not really fair to harsh on them; they were a tough, professional service before po-mo leftism in the Canadian elite made it national policy that the military could never be more than a joke.

What's much funnier is that the U.S. mainstream media sees Harper's maneuver as an I'm-not-your-poodle message to George Bush. There's some justification for this; Harper is doubtless playing that card to stroke Canadian Liberal voters, who indeed do tend to hate Bush almost as intensely and irrationally as the U.S. press does.

But really! Over a bunch of ice floes on the sub-zero ass-end of nowhere? Harper, an ex-libertarian, isn't that stupid. Anybody who can't hear the wink-wink-nudge-nudge in Harper's parody of territorial posturing is tone-deaf.

Harper is doing something much deeper and funnier here. He's catching the Left in a trap. If they want to join him in his anti-Bush polemic, they're going to have to stand behind the principles of — national sovereignity? Patriotism? Rendered idiots by their hatred, many of them will probably take the bait — not anticipating that their own rhetoric is going to come back around to hammer them flat sometime when there's a serious issue on the table.

QotD: Urban and ex-Urban

Canada is different from the States in fewer ways than any of our city-borne media realize. We have the same basic Left/Right division, with the same sorts of views on both sides (both in English and French). The difference between countries is geographic — and derives from the fact that so little of Canada is habitable. We lack the vast, occupied, American outdoors. Against the wind blowing from the Arctic, we are huddled together more densely in cities. A much higher proportion of our population is therefore to be found in typical "Blue State" environments — where people have lost all contact with nature, and by increments, with the realities of life.

The over-urbanized are the willing clients of the nanny state. They are loathe to take responsibility for anything; they assume when anything goes wrong, some specialist or expert will fix it. Even when they have children they expect "child-care facilities". They are salaried people; few have ever taken a risk on their own dime. Their taxes are lifted from them at source. They are easily frightened when a Paul Martin or a Jack Layton warns that a bogeyman from Alberta is going to take their entitlements away.

David Warren, "The Urban Angle", Ottawa Citizen, 2006-01-25

QotD: Free Speech in Canada

[T]he degree to which speech in Canada has been corralled and controlled by the courts, ever-invasive government institutions and unaccountable "human rights" tribunals is deeply disturbing. The trend has been reinforced for decades by a Liberal party reward system for pro-Liberal journalism, overtly (through diplomatic postings and Senate seat appointments) and financially. In America, the largest advertiser is Procter & Gamble. In Canada, it is the federal government.

Kate McMillan, "Morning In Canada", CBC - Canada Votes 2005, 2006-01-24

The tribulations of being a public figure

Brian Mertens has a good post about the down side of being a public figure:

No wonder Paul Martin goes to a private clinic — for privacy.

For future reference, if I ever become a public figure: If I have been rushed to the hospital unable to breathe, and I'm wearing a backless gown . . . it's going to be a NO COMMENT. Thanks.

I can't wait for the Citizen's next interview with Harper, conducted from the stall next to his in a Tim Horton's bathroom:

"Had a lot of coffee this morning, huh? Mr. Prime Minister?"

QotD: Canadian Nationalism

If Maude Barlow, David Orchard and Mel Hurtig (remember him?) really thought the AmeriKKKans were going to take over our country and kill us all, they'd be demanding that Canada get its own nuclear deterrent.

Damian Penny, "Imitation of the Day", Daimnation!, 2006-01-19

Austin Bay on the Canadian Forces

Austin Bay has some thoughts on revitalizing the Canadian military:

The term "Canadian military" should never be an oxymoron, but after a decade of reduction and decline, what was once one of the world's most able and elite combat organizations is now a hollow force.

The slide in defense funding that began in the mid-1990s is one cause. The current Canadian defense budget buys about 25 percent less bang and less peacekeeping than it did 10 years ago.

With the end of the Cold War, some reduction in force structure was understandable.

Actually, the Canadian government was cashing in the "peace dividend" long before anyone else in the west . . . even before it could be said to exist. The peak of Canadian involvement in NATO was probably the mid-1960s to mid-1970s. From the second Trudeau government onwards, every change in military policy seemed to be a step back from front-line commitment, a weakening of the numbers of fighting troops, a reduction in the quantity of equipment to be provided. They say there's a lot of ruin in a country, and after the last 30 years, you'd have to say the same about the military: it's amazing that there still are Canadian Armed Forces left.

Post-Cold War, North American geography played a role. Here's that presumption: The United States would always be there to defend Canada, so why bother maintaining military forces?

Canadian governments consciously decided to become parasitical on the American military. Is it any wonder that Americans view us as military freeloaders? We no longer have the "lift" to get our troops to where they're needed without help. We don't need to build a miniature of the entire US arsenal, but we do need to invest in replacing obsolete equipment and re-acquiring transport, supply, and support capabilities we used to have.

I have yet to meet or serve with a Canadian soldier who failed to impress me with his professionalism and discipline. In my experience — in terms of individual, quality personnel — only Australian troops match Canadians on a one-for-one basis.

Two years ago, I had the privilege of serving with Australian troops in Iraq. The Aussies are crack.[. . .]

Today, Canada has too few of these fine troops, and the superior troops Canada does field are not supplied with the modern, first-rate weapons and equipment they deserve — at least, not in sufficient numbers.

There is so much that needs to be done just to properly support our existing troops in current commitments in the way of equipment that it risks sounding totally unrealistic to talk about new equipment for future roles; but that is exactly what the new minister needs to tackle ASAP. The troops on deployment right now will (unfortunately) see very little direct improvement in their situation . . . military equipment is usually a long-term purchase, but there are undoubtedly small things we can do in the short-term to make their jobs easier and less risky.

One aspect of the rhetorical differences between Canada and the United States may have been (unintentionally) of significant assistance to US policy:

In many ways, the Canadian rhetorical and political game of "We Aren't America" is a reasonable, if semi-hypocritical posture. The game has actually benefited the great cause of freedom. In Cold War situations where American troops or observers might have escalated tensions, Canadians could provide security, stability and democratic presence. Canada could be the United States without Washington's alleged baggage. Those of us who understood the stakes were thankful.

QotD: Canada

John O'Sullivan, a former editor of National Review and Thatcher's long-time adviser, observed that post-war Canadian history is summed up by the old Monty Python song, "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK", which begins as a robust paean to the manly virtues of a rugged life in the north woods but ends with the lumberjack having gradually morphed into some transvestite pick-up singing that he likes to "wear high heels, suspenders and a bra" and "dress in women's clothing and hang around in bars".

I'm not saying Canadian men are literally cross-dressers — certainly no more than 35, 40 per cent of us are — but nonetheless a nation that in 1945 had the fourth-largest armed forces in the world has undergone such a total makeover that it's now a country that prioritises the secondary impulses of society — government health care, government day care, rights and entitlements from cradle to grave — over all the primary ones.

Mark Steyn, "A Howardesque leader", The Australian, 2006-01-25

Why scrutineers are important

Back in 2004, I posted a brief discussion of my experiences as a scrutineer during a by-election in the 1980s. It seems appropriate to re-post that story today:

[. . .] In Canada, these people are called "scrutineers" and they have a vital job.

No, I'm not kidding about the vital part. Each candidate has the right to appoint a scrutineer for every poll in the riding (usually only the Liberal, NDP, and Conservative parties can manage to field that many people). I was a scrutineer during a federal byelection in the mid-1980's in a Toronto-area riding, but I had five polls to monitor (all were in the same school gymnasium). This was my first real experience of how dirty the political system can be.

The scrutineers have the right to challenge voters — although I don't remember any challenges being issued at any of my polls [. . .] They also have the right to be present during the vote count and to challenge the validity of individual ballots. Their job is to maximize the vote for their candidate and [legally] minimize the vote for their opponents.

Canadian ballots are pretty straightforward items: they are small, folded slips of paper with each candidate's name listed alphabetically and a circle to indicate a vote for that candidate. A valid vote will have only one mark inside one of the circles (an X is the preferred mark). An invalid vote might have:

• No markings at all (a blank ballot)
• More than one circle marked (a spoiled ballot)
• Some mark other than an X (this is where the scrutineers become important).

After the polls close, the poll clerk and the Deputy Returning Officer secure the unused ballots and then open the ballot box in the presence of any accredited scrutineers. The clerk and DRO then count all the ballots, indicating valid votes for candidates and invalid ballots. The scrutineers can challenge any ballot and it must be set aside and reconsidered after the rest of the ballots are counted.

A challenged ballot must be defended by one of the scrutineers or it is considered to be invalid and the vote is not counted. The clerk and DRO have the power to make the decision, but in practice a noisy scrutineer can usually bully the DRO into accepting all their challenges. I didn't realize just how easy it was to screw with the system until I'd been a scrutineer myself.

This is one of the key reasons why minor party candidates poll so badly in Canadian elections: they don't have enough (or, in many cases, any) scrutineers to defend their votes. In my experience in that Toronto-area byelection, I personally saved nearly 4% of the total vote my candidate received (in the entire riding) by counter-challenging challenged ballots. We totalled just over 400 votes in the riding (in just about 100 polls) — 21 of them in my polls. I got 15 of those votes allowed, when they would otherwise have been disallowed by the DRO.

There was no legal reason to disallow those votes: they were clearly marked with an X and had no other marks on them; they were challenged because they were votes for a minor candidate. As it was, I had a heck of a time running from poll to poll in order to get my counter-challenges in (I probably missed a few votes by not being able to get back to a poll in time).

The Libertarians only had six or seven scrutineers, covering less than a third of the polls in this riding. If the challenge rate was typical in my poll, then instead of the 400-odd votes, we actually received nearly 2000 votes — but most of them were not counted.

Yes, even 2000 votes would not have swung the election, but 2000 people willing to vote for a "fringe" party would be a good argument against those "throwing away your vote" criticisms. Voters are weird creatures in some ways: they like to feel that their votes actually matter. Voting for someone who espouses views you like, then discovering that only a few others feel the same way will discourage most voters from voting that way again in future.

Minor revisions in the text to elide references to the 2004 Ohio article which I was originally commenting on.

Searching for descendents of RCAF crew

Jon sent me a link to a Toronto Star article about a planned monument to the (mostly Canadian) crew of a bomber which crashed on Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire in 1944:

The Canadians on the plane were:

— Pilot Donald George (Mac) McLeod, pilot officer RCAF. Service number J/87657. Age 21. Son of John and Agnes McLeod of Waterford, Ont.

— Air Bomber Robert Henry (Bob) Rahn, sergeant RCAF. Service number R/155420. Age 22. Son of Jacob B. and Edith G. Rahn of Waterloo, Ont. Service record shows his address before recruitment as RR 4 Kitchener, Ont.

— Navigator Lewis (Lew) Riggs, WO11 RCAF. Service number R/148524. Age 20. Son of Walter and Maude M. Riggs of Toronto. Service record shows his address before recruitment as 308 Wellesley Street, Toronto.

— Wireless Operator/Air Gunner William George (Bill) King, WO1 RCAF. Service number R/93560. Age 27. Son of John and Margaret King of Teepee Creek, Alta.

— Air Gunner (Tail) George Ed Martin, sergeant RCAF. Service number R/163413. Age 21. Son of George G. and Nesta E. Martin of Spanish, Ont. Service record shows his address before recruitment as 116 Atlas Avenue, Toronto.

— Air Gunner (Mid-upper) Albert Lorne Mullen, sergeant RCAF. Service number R/192035. Age 19. Son of John Leslie and Ether Brown Mullen of Burnaby, B.C.

All are buried in Stonefall Cemetery in Harrogate, England, where there are 665 graves dedicated to Canadian airmen.

Reilly is in the final stages of completing the monument at the crash site in Yorkshire. An unveiling ceremony is planned for Jan. 31, the anniversary of the crash. The monument will include parts from the aircraft excavated from the site.

[. . .]

"I'd love to be able to contact any surviving relatives of the remainder of the crew," said Paul Reilly (email: preilly@blueyonder.co.uk).

"All my efforts so far have drawn a blank other than finding Lorne's brother. It would be fantastic if any of the relatives in Canada, if traced, could be there for the dedication."

The Halifax aircraft, serial number DK185, crashed on Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire, England, around 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 31, 1944.

Update, 18 November, 2008: There's a post at Peak Wreck Hunters with the correct co-ordinates and a photo of the memorial.

Celestial Junk surveys the Canadian Armed Forces

Celestial Junk ran a series of articles on the Canadian military earlier this month, which I only just discovered. If you have no idea what the Canadian Forces look like or what they're currently equipped with, these short articles are a good overview (and I'm so far past my active military days that this was useful to me, too):

• Land
• Air
• Sea

QotD: Canadian Political Landscape

My working assumption has been that there is no substantial Conservative political talent in Canada, as distinguished from pundits or theorists. But the more interesting proposal is that Canadian politics is a natural monopoly. On this view, even if it was possible to profitably carve out a "Canadian conservativism" distinct from warmed-over Red-Toryism, the Liberal party would simply extend one of its tentacles to occupy it; conversely, should any party successfully replace the Liberals, they will converge on a form that looks a lot like the present Liberal octopus. This doesn't mean that secondary parties don't matter: the obvious model is the way that the existence of Apple affects the evolution of Windows merely because they theoretically could replace it, even if they never will in real life.

Some might call this a pessimistic vision of Canada's future. I say that the Canadian "soft monopoly" model provides a pretty optimistic scenario for the future of (say) China. Also, I've thought about this for at least four minutes now, and I don't see how responsive democracy necessarily requires competitive parties, despite all the pieties to the contrary. I'm always tempted to think that the optimal number of political parties is zero, and having one really big one might actually be a closer approximation of this.

Evan Kirchhoff, "Coronation Announced", 101-280, 2005-11-29

QotD: Canadian Elections

Every 12 to 36 months, the federal Liberal government is exchanged for another, identically-staffed federal Liberal government, in a traditional ceremony known as "Exoneration". Many Canadians have come to deride the procedure as an obsolete relic, but it should be noted that voting in Canada is now considerably faster and more convenient than, say, purchasing beer.

From what I can tell, the new government will take office in late January, and will likely be a Liberal "majority" government rather than the current Liberal "minority". In plain terms, this means that some of the public funds now being used to bribe "opposition" parties will be freed up to bribe voters directly. However, kickbacks and naked theft will continue at customary levels.

Evan Kirchhoff, "Coronation Announced", 101-280, 2005-11-29

QotD: Canada

Anybody with any ambition at all, or intelligence, has left Canada and is now living in New York. [. . .] Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada.

Tucker Carlson, quoted by Beth Gorham in "Canada described as 'retarded cousin' by U.S. pundit, in spate of attacks", Canadian Press, 2005-12-19

Harper to strengthen northern defences

Conservative leader Stephen Harper made some strong commitments to defending Canada's north in a speech in Winnipeg today:

Stephen Harper says that if he's prime minister, any foreign vessels bold enough to trespass in Canada's Arctic would get a frosty reception from brand new icebreakers bristling with firepower.

The Tory tough talk is part of multibillion-dollar plan to protect the country's sovereignty in the wake of reports that American submarines cruise Canadian waters at their leisure undetected. Harper said he'd put an end to that by establishing a national sensor system for northern air and water.

He promised to commission three Canadian-built military icebreakers and create a military-civilian deepwater docking facility in the Iqaluit region.

And he said he would set up an Arctic army training centre in the Far North and station new search-rescue aircraft in Yellowknife.

At least 500 sailors, soldiers and airmen would operate the icebreakers and the docking station, which would cost about $2 billion over eight or nine years.

Although I find the mention of icebreaking ships "bristling with firepower" to be highly amusing — none of the rest of the fleet could be accurately described that way — it's the first hint of seriousness about the northern frontier in many years.

Of course, to properly patrol the ice-packed coastline, you need (whisper it) nuclear-powered submarines. The sort of vessel that has only once ever appeared on the Canadian military shopping list (during the first Mulroney government, if I remember correctly).

Don't hold your breath waiting for them to appear in the Canadian order of battle any time real soon . . .

QotD: Parliament

The language of the Westminster parliamentary tradition assumes integrity: "my right honourable friend," "the honourable member" and, in the House of Lords, all that stuff about "the noble earl opposite." The minute you can no longer assume it, the minute you have to have armies of "ethics commissioners" to put it all down in sub-clauses and appendices, the game is up. Queen Elizabeth I's reign had the courtly intrigues of the Earl of Essex. Queen Elizabeth II's has the kabuki "transparency" of 300 earls of ethics. When Liberal hacks drone on about "da Canadian values," we should know what that boils down to: we now live in a political system where, when dealing with a minister of the Crown, one is obliged to sign a piece of paper undertaking not to offer a bribe to him or accept one therefrom.

Mark Steyn, "Still ironing out the wrinkles", Western Standard, 2005-12-12

Supporting the Canadian troops overseas

Neil Peterson sent the following URLs to a mailing list I monitor:

• Donations to Deployed Members of the Canadian Forces: "Companies, groups and individuals wishing to encourage our Canadian Soldiers serving in foreign countries can send donations through CFPSA. [. . .] Once received, your submission will be evaluated and someone from CFPSA will contact you to make delivery arrangements."
• Write to the troops: "The men and women of the Canadian Forces have demonstrated time and again that they will rise to any challenge. Let your Canadian Forces members know you appreciate their service by sending a message using this monitored message board."
• [Neil writes:] "Operation Santa Claus is the overall name. As a general rule http://www.cfpsa.com/en/ is a good place to go if you want to offer our troops (where they are deployed in any given year) some support."

California universal day-care proposal follows Quebec's program

A link from Reason Alert to this San Francisco Chronicle article shows some of the unexpected costs of the Quebec universal daycare program:

The final price tag for Quebec's day care program is 33 times what was originally projected: It was supposed to cost $230 million over five years, but now gobbles $1.7 billion every year.

With this kind of spending, one would think that Quebec was offering top-notch day care to every tot, toddler and teen.

Think again.

Much of the increased spending has gone not toward increased access, but increased costs. Day care worker unions, on the threat of strike, negotiated a 40 percent increase in wages over four years. The cost of care has doubled since the program began, with the annual per-infant cost now exceeding $15,000.

Besides unions, the other major reason for the skyrocketing costs is that when people don't pay the full price for a service, they consume more of it — what economists call the problem of the moral hazard: Quebecois taxpayers pay 80 to 90 percent of the cost of care, requiring parents to pitch in only $7 a day.

Such low co-pays have encouraged mothers who might otherwise have stayed at home with their newborns to return to work. But any hope that the program would be able to meet the demand that it created was doomed right from the start, because it banned new centers and barred existing ones from participating, decimating the private day care market. (It has since reversed this policy). Literally overnight, long lines of desperate parents vying for a "free" day care spot emerged. Parents registered babies yet to be conceived. And when they did land a spot, they paid their $7-a-day to hold it — even if they were months away from using it.

For your urgent alcohol-buying needs

Courtesy of The Accordion Guy, I find a link to the potentially very useful Beer Hunter:

It's currently 9:38pm on Wednesday in Toronto*. There are 38 places you can get booze right now. (* More cities coming soon!)

Shipwreck with White House Plunder

The Halifax Daily News has an interesting article about the wreck of HMS Fantome, which sank carrying loot from the White House in 1814:

He said the Fantome was loaded with loot from the White House, which British troops burned in August 1814. The ship was heading home to Halifax with a convoy when it lost its way in a vicious storm.

With untold treasures, Fantome smashed into shoals and sank off Prospect on Nov. 24, 1814.

The wreck was left undisturbed for political reasons. The event coincided with the end of the war, and the two nations wanted to move on.

"Obviously, this was a very touchy subject at the time, so no one really said any more about it," Chisholm said.

Jagged rocks kept excavators away for nearly 200 years. It's only recently that the technology has allowed anyone to take a look.

Hat tip, again, to SOMNIA.

What a surprise . . . if you don't pay attention

In what should be no surprise to anyone with any familiarity about the Canadian government's long-standing habits on the purchase of military equipment, the feds have decided to delay the decision on nearly C$12 billion of aircraft:

The federal government has delayed a $12-billion purchase of military aircraft until after the next election, deferring political fallout over buying foreign products, The Canadian Press has learned.

Key cabinet ministers and the defence chief faced "passionate" aerospace industry representatives Monday night. They had to deflect claims they were tailoring the purchase of planes and helicopters to eliminate Canadian competition in favour of specific foreign-built craft they want.

"It's unanimous — we're not moving with it now," a government official said on condition of anonymity.

"We're not moving with this before an election.

"It's all on the basis of the ferocious lobbying by industry. It's all Toronto-Montreal-Bombardier politics."

Defence Minister Bill Graham said Tuesday that an election would "inevitably delay the capacity of the government to make major procurements."

"We don't make major procurements during elections," he said.

Hat tip to SOMNIA.

Giving Toronto more power to interfere

The Last Amazon has some bloodcurdling news for folks who live in Toronto:

The scope of the powers proposed to be granted to city hall are not only vast but wide ranging:

• Passing bylaws on just about anything that lets the city run better. Right now, if the city isn't specifically given the power to do something by the province, it can't.
• Regulation of store hours. The city could, for example, decide to let stores stay open on statutory holidays, like Christmas.
• The power to promote development in underused areas by forgiving property taxes or other city fees.
• The ability to hold developers to architectural and urban design standards to improve the look and feel of the city.
• Preventing conversion of rental housing to condominiums to protect affordable housing and set minimum densities for new buildings to encourage intensification.
• Establishing a business owned by the city to meet a defined goal. The city could, for example, start a business to provide cheap Internet access to poor neighbourhoods to improve life there but couldn't open a factory to make designer clothes.
• Powers to implement taxes and fees, which could include taxes on parking, sidewalk snow plowing, additional car registration fees and road tolls.

These are incredibly intrusive powers for a municipal government to weld and are ripe for abuse. In light of the recent municipal scandals it should make your blood run cold while giving any business new reasons to leave Toronto. Not only is Alberta looking better than ever — so is the Western Separatism movement.

To be honest, I'm surprised that the city doesn't already have some of those powers.

"Welcome to Ontario. We're all doomed."

Damian Penny links to a very useful article by Lorrie Goldstein — a tour through the mind of a typical Ontario voter:

Hi there, folks. Today, I want to explain to you in the rest of the country that, contrary to popular myth, we here in Ontario are not all fickle, idiotic dingbats who will vote Liberal no matter how venal, arrogant, greedy and corrupt they become. Far from it, we here in Ontario are in fact . . .

Wow! Did you hear? Paul Martin is promising us tax cuts if we vote Liberal in the next election! It's going to be right there in his economic statement tomorrow! Whoopee! Happy days are here again! Boy, I sure hope the Liberals promise to scrap the GST. That would be great! I wonder why they've never done it before?

Now, where was I? Oh yes, you must understand that from the point of view of the sophisticated Ontario voter such as myself, voting for a government is much more complicated than simply reacting to the obvious corruption exposed in the sponsorship scandal. In Ontario, we tend to look at issues from a broader, pan-Canadian perspective and . . .

Alright, that does it! I am totally outraged! I completely agree with Paul Martin. How dare the opposition even think about forcing Canadians to the polls over the Christmas season? Even if they've backed off now, it just goes to show you their raw, naked lust for power. Disgusting! You'd never see the Liberals pulling a stunt like that.

Abandon hope all ye who enter Ontario.

QotD: Toronto

What did Peter Ustinov say about Toronto, that it was "New York City as if run by the Swiss." (And I think Bjork says something like, "I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me." I believe she meant "Canadian.")

Personally, I blame the likes of Margaret Atwood. You could get everything Ms. Atwood knows about the well springs of contemporary culture into a phone booth and still have room left over for roughly a dozen college students. The lit crit crowd has an embargo on certain kinds of thinking and Toronto appears to be engaged in a building frenzy, as if a dynamic culture could be imposed in the form of daring new architecture.

Grant McCracken, "Networks are our networth: Notes from a hotel room", This Blog Sits at the, 2005-11-02

QotD: Canadian Left Wing Voters

[T]here is not now much point in trying to strip votes from the New Democrats by conflating them with the Liberals. The New Democrats would have been long since dead and buried if this logic were at all convincing to NDP supporters.

I suspect that at the 2004 polls Jack Layton (and Ed Broadbent) merely brought the New Democrats back to their natural level in the popular vote. About one-sixth of us, I think, are simply New Democrat by nature — old hippies floating in internal exile, overgrown red-diaper babies, identitarians of various flavours, Gaia-worshipping vegans, and, above all, workers for whom The Union represents the sum of their aspirations and the totality of their intelligible thought. These people, and especially those in the latter category, may stay home if they're asked to vote for some insincere schoolmarmish warhorse like Alexa McDonough. Give them a grinning, attractive regular-guy who speaks in complete sentences and they'll turn out.

Barring the "Third Way" species of self-reinvention that the party continues to resist, it is hard for me to see the New Democrats ever getting 20% of the vote in a Canadian election again. (I bet publicly against the NDP getting 20% in '04, at a time when people were whispering "Official Opposition", and it was the one thing I got right about the outcome.) But until the party gets rid of Jack Layton it should continue to draw the maximum vote possible. It's a Kuhnian process. Mortality should cause the NDP vote ceiling to sink slowly, but then again there are new fools being born every day.

Colby Cosh, "A gun to the head", colbycosh.com, 2005-11-02

QotD: Remembrance Day ^(TM)

This week, Bourque has made the unpleasant discovery that the red poppy traditionally worn in early November is no longer a popular symbol of respect for the veteran, but a brand that somehow became the aggressively defended intellectual property of the Canadian Legion. (As far as I know, the Legion has never objected to the politicians who don the poppy increasingly early, every year, for what can safely be described as "other purposes".)

The Legion's legal pestering of Bourque enrages me, in the same way and for the same reasons as it would if some private organization tried to trademark the image of the Christ child. I never thought I was helping to remove a piece of our cultural heritage from the public domain by buying Remembrance Day poppies. And I am certainly surprised to learn that "Remembrance" itself has become anyone's formal property. I won't pay for or wear one ever again. And neither should you.

Colby Cosh, "It's official: nothing is sacred", colbycosh.com, 2005-11-07

Update: Let It Bleed explains why the Legion isn't the bad guy in this situation.

30th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Tomorrow will mark the 30th anniversary of the best-remembered shipwreck on the Great Lakes:

It's an evocative song that defies description: Haunting yet comforting, wistful yet powerful, mythic yet real.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was among Gordon Lightfoot's greatest hits, an unlikely Top 40 smash about the deaths of 29 men aboard an ore carrier that plunged to the floor of Lake Superior during a nasty storm on Nov. 10, 1975.

"In large measure, his song is the reason we remember the Edmund Fitzgerald," said maritime historian Frederick Stonehouse. "That single ballad has made such a powerful contribution to the legend of the Great Lakes."

Three decades after the tragedy, the Fitzgerald remains the most famous of the 6,000 ships that disappeared on the Great Lakes.

QotD: Canadian Multiculturalism

The first country formally to embrace "multiculturalism" — to the extent of giving it a cabinet post — was Canada, where it was sold as a form of benign cultural cross-pollination: the best of all worlds. But just as often it gives us the worst of all worlds. More than three years ago, I wrote about the "tournante" or "take your turn" — the gang rape that's become an adolescent rite of passage in the Muslim quarters of French cities — and similar phenomena throughout the West: "Multiculturalism means that the worst attributes of Muslim culture — the subjugation of women — combine with the worst attributes of Western culture — licence and self-gratification. Tattooed, pierced Pakistani skinhead gangs swaggering down the streets of northern England areas are as much a product of multiculturalism as the turban-wearing Sikh Mountie in the vice-regal escort." Islamofascism itself is what it says: a fusion of Islamic identity with old-school European totalitarianism. But, whether in turbans or gangsta threads, just as Communism was in its day, so Islam is today's ideology of choice for the world's disaffected.

Mark Steyn "Early skirmish in the Eurabian civil war", Telegraph Online, 2005-11-08

QotD: So-called Conservatives

"They" call people like me "so-cons"; I think of them as "so-calleds". Through some weird convergence of cowardice and careerism, too many Canadian "conservatives" are just a bunch of poseurs. I'm not sure if they're scared of pissing off their friends or not getting a promotion or what — it all boils down to suckiness, and primarily afflicts the male of the species, making it all the more stomach turning.

Kathy Shaidle, "Standing athwart history, mumbling 'Whatever . . .'", Relapsed Catholic, 2005-11-07

QotD: Canadian Healthcare

The essential proposition behind Canadian Medicare is not that all people should have access to health care, if it were its advocates would be far more open minded toward two-tier health care, but that government control of health care is inherently more moral. The point is not that government run medicine helps people, it is that government run medicine is an ideal in and of itself because its services are offered "equally" and without regards as to ability to pay. This is the same philosophical principle behind socialism and communism, in other words "need not greed."

Publius, "Socialized Health Care — Further Indictments", Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2005-10-26

Viral meme propagation

I posted about the creepy Canadian Tire "husband" in their long-running TV ad campaign earlier this week. Apparently, the meme has metastasized:

That's the top story at the Rogers news portal today. Here is the "diary", and the "full story".

The prince of Simoniz pressure washers — the pitchman on one of Canada's most hated ad campaigns — has proven especially repulsive to bloggers. Every mention of him on the Web results in a string of nasty posts written with a rage so visceral it's hard not to fear for the safety of Canadian Tire Guy's fictional family. If he lived in any real Canadian neighbourhood, somebody would probably have glue-gunned his lips shut. But there he is on TV, showing his neighbours how to attach a set of MotoMaster Precise Fit Teflon windshield wipers, or tightening a bolt with his trusty Mastercraft speed ratchet. He's even spawned wannabes — a selection of would-be Canadian Tire guys and gals who've appeared in commercials this fall.

At lunch earlier this week, we actually discussed this TV spot. Pretty clearly, the Candian Tire couple are supposed to resemble the Hometime couple (Dean Johnson and originally Peggy Knapp, then JoAnne Liebeler, followed by Susanne Egli, Robin Hartl, and Miriam Johnson):

What's up with Dean and all his "wives"?

Okay, here's the story. Dean is not now — and never has been — married to any of his co-hosts. He is happily married, however.

So why did we make it look like Dean and his co-hosts were married? It's a philosophy we called "living the project." When we made it look like Dean and his co-host lived in the houses they worked on, we could delve into the issues of living in a house under construction: cooking in the living room, taking cat baths at the laundry tub, making yet another trip to the home center store, and eating way too much take-out. We even showed them goofing off to remind homeowners to take a break and have a little fun every now and then. Today, we are moving away from the married couple concept, yet taking the "living the project" format even further to include real homeowners pitching in and a unique home improvement crew.

Softwood lumber

Jon passed along another interesting link, this time on the Canadian-US dispute over softwood lumber:

America has been accusing the Canadian government of heavily subsidizing softwood allowing Canadian producers to sell softwood for low prices to Americans. Think of it as a kind of double-coupon day on Canadian wood products.

This of course is a terrible thing in that American consumers do not take congressmen on important fact finding/golfing missions as US softwood producers do. America remedies this untenable situation by levying duties on the wood products coming in from Canada thereby ensuring that rather than going to American consumers, the savings go directly to the federal government where they belong.

Canadian content, 1970s style

Kathy Shaidle talks about a children's TV show that was shot in her hometown:

A completely meaningless post, if you're one of my American readers
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein is now on DVD!

TCTG as Canadian "Everyman"?

Kathy Shaidle takes issue with a recent post by Colby Cosh about the creepy character in the Canadian Tire television ads. Colby says:

He seems particularly preoccupied with various means of providing electric power to the home in the event of a catastrophic failure of the grid. His smooth but strained friendliness suggests that he's a hardcore evangelical — but obviously he doesn't belong to one of those mainstream churches that expects the good guys to be raptured out of danger before the star named Wormwood arrives to defecate poison into the seas.

Put the pieces together and what you get is a dedicated member of some bizarre Christian cult — perhaps one that, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, expects to inherit our planet and its resources from a conveniently slaughtered infidel citizenry.

Kathy responds thusly:

Cosh, an atheist, reads TCTG as an uber-Flanders of Doomsday. Interesting . . . does TCTG inspire so much Pat-like revulsion because he is a blank slate, upon which we all project our deepest hatred of our opposite number: boomer, know-it-all, stay-at-home dad, gay-acting straight guy?

Me, I'm more intrigued by TCTG's dowdy dominatrix wife. The couple seem so oddly matched. And you know they have a son, but . . . how? And how do they afford all this stuff on typical Canadian salaries?

Hmmm. Bland, unassuming pitchman or horseperson of the Apocalypse?

Screedy goodness

James Lileks cuts to the essential differences between brutal, all-conquering American culture and kinder, gentler, weak-willed-and-easily-led Canadian culture:

Another day, another international conference, another meaningless display of unity. But with lovely gift bags, we're sure. The latest example: a UNESCO compact, sanctified in October at a Tunisia conference, supporting the rights of nations to control the import of entertainment from other countries, all in the name of "cultural diversity." Otherwise Bugs Bunny cartoons would pose a mortal threat to the state-controlled monoculture of most nations. The United States opposes the compact, because we're mean and hate everyone, if you read the press. But was the US vote correct? Let us consider.

The original sponsors were France and its stepchild Canada; figures. No country is more prickly about preserving its own culture than France; they regularly have le panique attaq whenever small fragments of other tongues infect their pristine lingo. Their cinema is heavily subsidized, producing endless movies about older-yet-unquestionably-masculine men who pensively smoke while contemplating a girl's knee observed on a beach in 1972. Canada also mandates local content, because there's so much difference between someone who grew up in southern Manitoba and someone who grew up in upper North Dakota. The North Dakotan grows up without a sense of what it's like to be annoyed by bilingual candy-bar wrappers, for example. Might as well be from different planets.

Municipal taxes in Ontario

The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) has come in for a lot of criticism in Ontario recently. I'm one of the few people in my area who managed to get a rollback in my assessment for the 2003-2004 tax years, so I've had a bit more experience of dealing with MPAC than most people. MPAC is the organization set up to do market value assessments (MVA) of properties and to provide municipalities with that information in order to set tax rates.

MPAC is getting a lot of heat from taxpayers because their assessments are opaque — it's difficult to discover why certain properties are assessed at significantly different values than superficially similar properties in the same area. At our hearing, for example, we discovered that MPAC uses a fairly simple method for establishing the "square footage" of a given building . . . they measure from opposite corners of the ground floor. This didn't sound too bad, until we discovered that our house (which has an attached garage) was being considered to be identical to other houses in our area which have fully detached garages — and the detached garage was not included in the "square footage" of the "comparable" houses. This had the direct effect of artificially boosting the assessed value of our house. However handy this may be for the town, surely this isn't the intent of MVA?

Jon passed along a link to a particularly appropriate Toronto Star cartoon (reg. req'd) on the issue.

Incidentally, our assessment for 2005-2006 shows our house has (theoretically) increased in value by nearly 20% since 2003. So I have to expect at least that much of an increase in my municipal property taxes. Oh, joy. Of course, my pay hasn't risen by even a tenth of that since 2003, but that's my problem.

Update: The link to the Toronto Star has changed, but you can only view it if you're registered on their site.

Bookstore funnies

Jon and I were in a bookstore at lunch today, and Jon noticed a book on the sale table:

"Look, it's that new history of the Liberal Party!"

I guess you had to be there.

Customer Service Follies

Elizabeth just got off the phone with a Rogers representative. We'd received a mailing from Rogers, offering us a special "Digital VIP" package to replace the plain old "VIP" package we already had. Well, actually they were informing us that they were discontinuing the "VIP" program and replacing it with the "Digital VIP" instead.

The letter was long on words, but short on numbers . . . it didn't actually say anywhere how much it was going to cost us to take the new package or how much it was going to cost if we reverted back to the unbundled costs for our service.

Elizabeth called to try to get the straight story. Almost the first thing out of the sales rep's mouth was "It is very confusing, but most of the time, when the husband explains, it's clear." Does the phrase "waving a red cape in front of a bull" sound familiar to anyone?

Sorbara forced to resign from Ontario cabinet

Greg Sorbara, the Finance Minister in the Ontario government, has been forced to resign after coming under an RCMP investigation:

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's government was dealt a devastating blow late Tuesday as Finance Minister Greg Sorbara resigned just hours after he was named in a warrant as part of an ongoing RCMP investigation.

Police raided Sorbara's family's real estate development company, the Sorbara Group, amid a criminal investigation into Royal Group Technologies, a company where Sorbara had been a director. "A devastating mistake has been made," an ashen-faced Sorbara said at a hastily called late-night news conference. "I want to tell you that I intend to get to the bottom of that."

Sorbara, McGuinty's right-hand man, is the first cabinet minister in McGuinty's cabinet to resign. He has been under a cloud since police began investigating Royal Group Technologies in February 2004.

QotD: Canadian Films

Shout Factory included two nice bonuses on the disc, including an actual Hinterland Who's Who ("The woodchuck . . ."), and an explanation of Goin' Down The Road meant for Americans (and Canadians under 30 blessed with no memory of the film). Beside the fact that Jayne Eastwood was in both the original and the parody, it included scenes from Shebib's movie that brought back awful memories of just how . . . dreadful, how . . . dismal and grey and drab and ugly Canadian movies were back then. It was like they'd never actually seen a film, but had them described to them, got handed a camera and told to "go out there and give'er, lad!"

Rick McGinnis, guest blogging at Daimnation, 2005-10-04

Canadian military medical research?

Not that I'm objecting to the goal, but I was surprised to hear that bird flu research is being done for the Canadian military, as reported by Canadian Press:

Military scientists working for the Canadian government have developed a number of innovative drugs they believe could target avian influenza, potentially helping to shore up the world's meagre defences against the threat of pandemic flu.

The federal government is now seeking scientists who could test the drugs outside North America, issuing a call for tenders for the work.

[. . .]

DRDC is the research arm of the Canadian military. The work was done at the agency's high-level biosecurity laboratory housed at CFB Suffield in Alberta.

The need for new flu drugs is acute. Currently there are only four produced commercially, two of which are not effective against the H5N1 avian flu subtype that experts fear is poised to trigger the first pandemic since the Hong Kong flu of 1968.

A leading Canadian antiviral expert Dr. Fred Aoki called the work "very Star Wars-like ideas (that) nonetheless deserve to be looked at."

Given that a flu pandemic is this year's science panic story on slow news days, it's good to hear that some weapons against the most likely variants are being developed.

Great Canadian Blog Survey

Aaron is asking for assistance in compiling information on Canadian Blogs. If you tend to self-select for answering surveys, away you go and join the parade!

Some have suspected this for years . . .

. . . that is, that former Minister of National Defence Paul Hellyer is a space alien. Or, more accurately, believes in them.

Hellyer, 82, says he believes not only that UFOs are extraterrestrial visitors, but that some governments — the United States at least — know all about it and are covering up.

He says he believes American scientists have re-engineered alien wreckage from a UFO crash at Roswell, N.M. in 1947 to produce technical marvels.

"I believe that UFOs are real," he said in a recent interview. "I'll talk about that a little bit and a bit about the fantastic cover-up of the United States government and also a little bit of the fallout from the wreckage, by that I mean the material discoveries we have made and how they've been applied to our technology."

Hat tip to Damian Penny.

St. Ratfood?

James Lileks' weekly Matchbook feature this week fulfils his non-mandatory Canadian Content quota for the year: Ali Baba Steak Houses in Stratford and Waterloo:

I'm guessing that one out of 20 waiters eventually snapped after hearing a customer say "open sesame!" for the 298,026th time, and stabbed the diner with a corkscrew. Maybe that's why the Stratford one seem to have closed down.

If you look at the purple part long enough, the second word starts to look like "St. Ratfood." If you look long enough, that is, and are thinking "St. Ratfood." Try it.

QotD: Winnipeg

Winnipeg is in the geographic centre of Canada and perhaps our cultural centre in terms of defining what is really Canadian — not just because it's called Winterpeg. Vancouver culturally associates with San Francisco or Seattle, Calgary with Dallas, Toronto with New York, and Montreal with Paris.

But Winnipeg is a place unto itself, a place that reflects the vast space and isolation one feels in countless Canadian communities from the Maritimes to northern Ontario to the interior of B.C.

In such communities, the glue is neighbourliness, a thirst to find a middle ground, a place where everyone has something in common.

David Lawrason, "Canada's Middle Ground", Wine Access, September, 2005

Canadian Military History group blog

There's a new group blog, concentrating on Canadian military history, called Never Forget. Among the contributors are Publius (from Gods of the Copybook Headings), Damian "Babbling" Brooks, and Andrew Anderson (from Bound By Gravity). They're starting off by reposting a few of their individual blog posts on the topic. Go have a look.

Welcome to "Never Forget", a group blog dedicated to the proud history of the Canadian Armed Forces and, more importantly, the men and women who have so bravely stood up for our country in times of need.

Every day Canadians lose something precious, something that cannot be replaced. With each new day more and more of our veterans pass away, and with them the go the memories of where they have been, what they have done, and why they have done it.

Canadian schools do not teach our children about our military history.... at least not in any meaningful way. Personally, I managed to graduate highschool with absolutely no knowledge of the amazing accomplishments of the Canadian military over the years — it simply was not taught. It has only been through private research have I been able to start to learn about all of the impressive feats that Canadian soldiers have accomplished. Vimy Ridge and Juno Beach leap immediately to mind — but we have been so many other places, and done so much more.

Canada's naval flotilla

To my amazement, I just read that among the Canadian vessels being sent to support the Katrina recovery is the icebreaker Sir William Alexander:

Since its diesel engines are designed to use the frigid waters of the Far North to keep cool, the ship will have to reduce speed the further south it travels to avoid overheating.

That's why the ship will take seven to 10 days to arrive in the Gulf of Mexico — about four days behind the navy's humanitarian convoy, led by the destroyer HMCS Athabaskan.

"It is extremely unusual and it's absolutely unheard of," Capt. Robert Gray said in a ship-to-shore interview with The Canadian Press. "I think vessels like this have transited the area, going east to west through Panama, but for sustained operations in the Gulf of Mexico, I believe we're the first."

The 83-metre ship is making the trip partly because of its specialized abilities, but also because the navy's nearly 40-year-old East Coast supply ship is tied to a Halifax pier with mechanical problems.

HMCS Preserver, sent to Florida in 1992 to provide relief from hurricane Andrew, was unable to make the trip south because it is having kinks worked out after an almost year-long, $36-million refit.

QotD: Equalization Payments

Perhaps the most fascinating component of [Prof. Thomas] Courchene's paper is his subtle discussion of what, precisely, equalization is for. Is it meant to render every province in Canada equally well off in general? Or is it meant only to correct inequities introduced by the provinces' different geographic and natural circumstances? Or is it meant even more narrowly, as a scheme to ensure that the federal government doesn't accidentally worsen those inequities? Or it is meant merely to discourage culturally harmful labour migration?

There is no official answer to this question, and all the possible answers lead to moral and mathematical absurdities. It's not just that we don't know whether equalization works, as Terence Corcoran observed in the Financial Post yesterday. We literally don't even know what it's meant to accomplish.

Colby Cosh, "Economist plays ethicist", National Post, 2005-09-01

The Babbler beats me to the draw

I was going to post about the Canadian naval contribution to the Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, but Damian "Babbling" Brooks beat me to it:

In a place where dry land is at a premium, it's good to bring your own floating base. In a place where violent anarchy reigns, it's good to bring folks who know how to protect themselves and others. In a place where airborne rescues are ongoing because roads remain submerged, where pallets of relief supplies need to be put down very precisely on the scraps of land available, it's good to bring helos (yes, even Sea Slugs - I've been hoisted out of the Atlantic by one, and they'll get the job done). In a place where expertise is badly needed, it's good to bring engineers, medics, and divers. In a place where the essentials of life are in short supply, it's good to bring water, food, blankets, and shelter.

In a place where hard work is required, it's damned good to bring 1,000 of the most dedicated individuals you'll ever meet.

In short, it's good to bring the Canadian Armed Forces.

In other military matters, Damian also covers the attempt to replace some of our oldest transport and SAR aircraft and eviscerates a critic of the plan.

Canada offers aid to disaster recovery efforts

Prime Minister Paul Martin did the sensible thing and changed the topic of today's call to President Bush from a pathetic whine about softwood lumber to an offer of whatever assistance Canada could provide:

Canada will send the United States any help needed in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Prime Minister Paul Martin told President George W. Bush on Thursday.

"If you need help, just ask and we'll be there," he told Bush in a 15-minute phone call that was to have been a sharp discussion of the softwood lumber dispute but instead became a call of sympathy and condolence. Martin said Bush didn't ask for help, but predicted he will.

"They're in the process of trying to put all the co-ordination together and they're going to take us up on it," the prime minister said in Edmonton.

"They're trying to determine their needs right now."

White House spokesman Scott McLellan said a number of countries have offered aid.

Reuters reported that among the countries offering aid were Canada, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, China, Australia, Jamaica, Honduras, Greece, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, South Korea, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Border crossing trauma, deconstructed at LIB

Bob at Let it bleed does a bit of friendly knife-work on a whiny Toronto Star contributor:

Journey with the writer of the column, a self-described "white Canadian boy" as he encounters the horrors of the US Border Patrol. Did Jonathan Mendelsohn scamper across the Rio Grande, skirmishing with armed constabulary who chased him down with helicopters? Er... no. He took a flight through Toronto's Pearson International. Was he abused, thrown in gaol, denied entry? Um... nope. The customs agent had the temerity to ask him for an address in the US where he would be staying. He was taken aside and questioned. And the agent confiscated a pear he was carrying. Plus, she was an asshole. Now, for anyone who has been lucky enough to travel, bumping up against a surly border control guard hardly merits notice. But for this delicate flower, the incident was so traumatizing he felt compelled to write more than a thousand words on the matter. And a Toronto Star editor was so shocked (shocked!) by the terror inflicted that he or she felt the need to get this story out there rightnow!

I must assume that the original author has never crossed an international border before this, because it's one of the necessary unpleasantnessess of the modern world. Bob mentions that he's actually had less trouble travelling internationally since 9/11 than he did before, and he's not the only one who's said that. I got held up at the border the last time I flew to the States, but there was sufficient reason for it: I didn't have my passport with me, and the other forms of ID I was carrying were not enough to convince the agent that I was who I said I was. I eventually got through, but I had to take a later flight . . . and then apologize profusely to my wife, who had to put up with an unexpected call from US Immigration to vouch for my identity!

Here's a judicial concept due for a quick update

Jon passed along a link to a Globe and Mail article on the difference between heterosexual adultery and homosexual "affairs":

The 44-year-old Vancouver resident had been married nearly 17 years when, in October of 2004, she discovered her husband was having an affair with a younger man.

She and her husband separated immediately and she filed for divorce two months later, seeking an immediate end to their union.

Canada's Divorce Act allows for a no-fault divorce after a one-year separation, on grounds of marital breakdown.

It also allows for an immediate divorce if there is admitted or proven adultery or cruelty.

Ms. Pickering's ex-husband signed an affidavit on Jan. 5, 2005, acknowledging his adulterous relationship, and did not appear in court in February to contest the divorce.

But Justice Nicole Garson of the B.C. Supreme Court declined to order the immediate divorce, because the definition of adultery in common law does not include homosexual relations.

Justice Garson may be following the strict letter of the law, but clearly isn't following the spirit of it, now that the law recognizes same-sex marriage.

When is an Ontario wine not an Ontario wine?

The answer may well be "all the time" if a proposed temporary change to the Ontario government's labelling requirements for the 2005 vintage, according to a Toronto Star report (reg. req'd.):

The goal is to prop up the VQA-approved, 100-per-cent-made-in-Ontario brands. To do that, wineries propose that they should be allowed to devote more of their scarce grapes to those higher-profile, pricier brands and less to their blended varieties.

The plan is to lower the amount of Ontariograpes required for blended brands from 30 per cent to zero. That means that a bottle of wine from an Ontario vintner could be made entirely of foreign grapes.

"We want to try and keep as much high-quality VQA (Vintners Quality Alliance) wines on the shelf as possible. It's certainly going to help us in terms of brand perception," said Norm Beal, chair of the Wine Council of Ontario, which represents dozens of wineries.

But the vintners and growers only want the change to last one year, to apply to the 2005 vintage bottles that will hit shelves early in 2006. After that, the minimum blend requirements would return to 30 per cent Ontario grapes.

As you probably know from reading the blog, I'm generally a fan of the VQA system, in so far as it promotes higher quality Canadian wines. This is less a quality issue than a regulatory one: the Ontario wineries want to retain more of the locally grown crop — which will be down significantly from previous years — for their premium VQA wines, but that means that the Ministry of Government Services must allow them to sell wines from totally foreign grapes to be sold as "Ontario" wines.

I rarely buy non-VQA wines, so it's not going to directly effect me . . . but if they don't allow the change, it will probably drive up the price of VQA wines. Colour me prejudiced in favour of the change!

A related move by the Wine Council is to ask the LCBO to make the distinction between VQA and non-VQA wines more obvious to consumers:

Currently, both VQA and blended wines sit in the "Ontario" aisle, though in separate sections.Though Beal noted that blended wines say "Cellared in Canada" on the label so as not to completely hide foreign content, he said, "It sometimes can be a little bit confusing. A lot of people don't look at the label until they get their wine home."

And the addition of local-made but entirely foreign-content wines could increase the confusion.

So the groups want a distinct "Cellared in Canada" area — which would be home to the zero-per-cent local content wines next year and the 30-per-cent wines once the proposed stopgap blend change returns to normal.

This is a good move regardless of whether the other proposal is allowed. I hope the LCBO follows through on it.

Hat tip to Jon for the link to the Toronto Star article.

Advance preview of the next health act

As we've all been made aware by the constant drumbeat of media-generated panic, obesity is the biggest problem facing the Canadian healthcare system. Canadians are getting much fatter, getting less exercise, and generally imperilling their own health and, in the aggregate, the entire healthcare system — the core of the Canadian identity. The government is moving to confront this looming problem in the very near future.

Tackling Obesity

Because voluntary measures have failed, the federal government, in consultation with the provinces and territories, is going to amend the Canada Health Act, the cornerstone of the healthcare system. Poor health is no longer an individual problem: it affects the entire country. This means that the government is going to get very serious about tackling the causes of the problem, not just treating the patient after the problem becomes severe.

The current provincial health ID cards will become federalized: this is to ensure that all Canadians are able to get consistent treatment when travelling outside their home provinces. The new ID cards will carry biometric information and it will be mandatory to carry these cards at all times.

To ensure that we comply — it is for the sake of our healthcare system — the health ID card will be requested on boarding all public transit, commuter rail, airplanes, ferries, and ships. Inexpensive card readers will speed processing. No ID? No travel. Simple as that. Our healthcare system is too important to risk for minor concerns like individual rights, privacy, or freedom of movement.

It is expected that the major banks will quickly realize the advantage of integrating their ABM networks with the new universal ID card, obviating the need for them to maintain their own card issuing services. Any who do not quickly adapt will find it difficult to get government business. But it will be strictly voluntary, of course.

Once the banks have adapted, the government can phase out the production of printed money . . . there will be no need for it since you will always carry your combined ID/ATM card. This will be a boon to shopkeepers, banks, and anyone involved in handling money right now.

One of the biggest advantages of this will be that the government will be able to act decisively to combat the scourge of obesity: all food purchases will be directly traceable to show who is eating too much or too much of the wrong kind of food. Within a few years, as the existing printed "Nutrition Facts" information is encoded into RFID tags, it will be possible for your ID/ATM card to restrict the amount of food you purchase to the recommended daily allowance for your diet. Won't that be great? You won't even need to think about what to eat, because you'll only be allowed to eat the "right" amount of the "right" foods, as determined by the government.

Of course, those Canadians who have allowed themselves to eat too much should not be given the same top-priority access to healthcare that their less weighty fellow citizens should have . . . overweight patients will be treated in inverse proportion to their deviation from the norm. That's only fair, and fairness is nearly as important an aspect of Canadianness as Universal Healthcare.

There may be some bleeding hearts in the civil liberties movement who decry this extension of government power, but we can safely ignore them. The only thing that makes Canada the great place it is today is universal healthcare. This has been repeated so often that most of us accept the concept without any doubt or uncertainty.

Universal healthcare is Canada; Canada is universal healthcare.

Universal healthcare matters more than anything else, again as uncounted public opinion polls and government surveys have discovered, so anything that strengthens the healthcare system is good for Canada. Critics of the system are clearly not acting in the best interests of the healthcare of all Canadians, so we must move to suppress such unpatriotic — even treasonous — talk.

Snuffing Out Smoking

After obesity, the next greatest threat to the system is already being addressed by all levels of government: smoking. It will soon be possible, using the same combination of mandatory ID/ATM cards and RFID tags to completely stamp out the purchase of tobacco products. The government would be remiss if they failed to take full advantage of the current wave of public support to make tobacco use illegal everywhere. Canadians are naturally law-abiding: they will quickly adapt to the need for vigilance for signs of illegal tobacco use. Snitch lines may be required in certain areas to provide more support to those Canadians who want to ensure the health of their fellow citizens — and, of course, the essential healthcare system!

Other methods can be used to ensure compliance, especially in the delivery of healthcare: patients who have smoked will be required to wait longer for all services, to be fair to those patients who never smoked. In the model of "plea bargaining", patients may be able to get faster aid by reporting others who supplied them with tobacco.

Annihilating Alcohol

Alcohol abuse is the next problem to be overcome. The cost to the healthcare system from treating the direct results of alcohol abuse are staggering. It is manifestly unfair that non-drinking Canadians must pay to rectify the self-inflicted damage of alcohol by drinkers. Earlier Canadian and American governments tried to stamp it out during the last century, but they failed. This government will not: we have the tools to enforce compliance that earlier governments lacked.

As a first step, all sales and production of alcoholic beverages will be nationalized. All citizens must apply for permits to allow them to drink alcoholic beverages, which will only be available from government outlets at strictly controlled times. Sensible limits will be applied, so that packaging that encourages abuse (24-packs of beer, 1.18 litre bottles of alcohol, etc.) will be quickly removed from use. Purchase limits will be strictly enforced, to ensure that so called "binge drinking" can be controlled and eliminated. Drunkenness will be dealt with as sabotage of the healthcare system.

Importing alcohol will be eliminated as a source of health problems, and domestic production will be gradually curtailed and then eliminated in turn. Home brewing and winemaking will be very quickly made illegal: snitch lines will certainly be needed to enforce this, but good Canadians will realize that the health of all requires us to clamp down on those who do not follow good health guidelines.

Enforcing Exercise

It's not going to be easy to make Canadians as healthy as possible, but the vigour of our Universal Healthcare system can only be enhanced by improving the physical well-being of all Canadians. Voluntary efforts to encourage healthy exercise have been a dismal failure, so mandatory exercise is the only way to move forward. In the short term, all public and private schools, offices, factories, and other workplaces will be required to add exercise periods to every workday.

Mandatory exercise, however, will not be allowed to encourage carelessness and risk-taking — so-called "extreme" sports are all foreign concepts to Canadian culture, and should be discouraged at all cost. The healthcare system must not be held hostage to stupid, careless victims of unnecessary accidents. They'll be in last place for healthcare services, after the obese, the smokers, and the drinkers.

The End Result

Let's be honest . . . this is going to be a gruelling regime, and some will not have the intestinal fortitude to pull through. By phase IV of our program, we should expect to see some weaker souls emigrating to escape the rigours of our brave new healthy world. We should let them go, but ensure that they have paid a fair price for the privilege of living in the healthiest country in the world: a sliding scale tax on property maxxing out at 90% for the wealthiest.

But what a wonderful country it will be without them: everyone at the absolute peak of health and vitality (because getting sick will be illegal).

Firejuggling in Stratford

Yesterday's trip was yet another trip to Stratford. The reason (excuse?) was the PlayMakers! annual "Take it Outside" event. The weather was not willing to co-operate, as the rain arrived about 45 minutes after the event started.

The opening act was a bit of juggling, including the always-popular fire-juggling.

After a few short scenes from previous performances, the rain forced a quick relocation to the bandshell. Quickly, a swordfight broke out:

The final scene was taken from the most recent production of "The Imaginary Invalid", set in the 1920's:

Presenting the news, Canadian style

Today's big story, as filtered through the Rogers portal:

Yeah, a rumour about a couple of members of the Royal family being asked to do voice work for an episode of The Simpsons is far more interesting than a rocket attack on US Navy vessels. Par for the course.

I have nothing to say . . .

. . . on a whole bunch of currently hot topics in the Toronto area. The Last Amazon has said everything I could say — and far better than I would have done — on the recent spate of shootings in Toronto. Go read what she has to say. Even if you disagree with what she says, she's living right there where much of the violence has been happening. I think we should pay attention.

Risk of entrapment in Emery case? You don't say!

Marc Emery, who is constantly in the news these days, is now warning his customers to beware of a possible entrapment operation run by US and/or Canadian law enforcement agencies:

B.C. pot activist Marc Emery is warning his marijuana seed customers their orders may have been intercepted by U.S. justice officials.

He also alleges that those people are now being sent letters by drug enforcement authorities in a surreptitious move to entrap them. "These people are being set up to be busted in their own homes," Emery said on Monday. "They should be very alarmed."

He called the move "ominous in a way Canadians aren't used to."

Emery is the Canadian activist wanted on drug charges in the United States on conspiracy to sell marijuana seeds in that country. The U.S. wants him extradited from Canada to face the charges.

Anyone who has had dealings with Emery's business in the past should already be aware that they are at risk of (at the very least) much greater scrutiny now that Emery himself is the focal point of a major investigation. You don't have to be paranoid to make the fairly obvious leap of logic that those with whom he has been doing business are now also going to be investigated.

Consider this my public service announcement for the week.

QotD: Canadian Content Rules

[Stargate: Atlantis] is a Sci-Fi channel show produced in Canada, starring Canadians and featuring a cranky, sympathetic Canadian character in a lead role. But thanks to Canadian trade-barriers it has yet to air on Canadian television. Remind me again what original programming Canada's CRTC sheltered Space: the Imagination Station has produced? How many times can we be expected to watch decade old repeats of Seaquest DSV in defense of "Canadian culture"? If they had the wisdom to rebroadcast Starlost or some such epic crap I could almost see the point but as it stands CanCon rules, and the businesses they shelter, are a joke.

I tried making this case to a left-leaning friend. She said, half-joking, "I know you are speaking Canadian but I can't understand any of the words." I am reminded every day of my former communication studies undergrads who would argue for Canadian content rules (I am told these represent "regulation" and not "censorship") and, with no change of expression, cheerfully explain they never watch Canadian television because it is uniformly awful. Such is the naked truth of ideology.

Nick Packwood, "Poisoning the Well", Ghost of a Flea, 2005-08-12

Tuesday's Beamsville Winery Tour

Tuesday's wine tour was all in the Beamsville area, including Fielding Estates, Crown Bench, De Sousa, Birchwood, and Flat Rock Cellars.

We got off to a later start than we'd planned, so we only managed to get a visit in to Fielding Estates before lunch, but the visit was very worthwhile. Jake, our host, was very enthusiastic and happy to share his knowledge with us. We sampled several wines and then toured the facility, which is very impressive. As you drive in from the road, the building is very reminiscent of the huge Jackson-Triggs facility in Niagara-on-the-Lake — Fielding used the same architects.

Tasting notes for Fielding Estates wines:

From Fielding, we drove in to Jordan to have lunch at Zooma-Zooma Café. They were quite busy, so we didn't make up much time, especially as we then had to backtrack to get to our next planned winery: Crown Bench Estates.

Crown Bench is just far enough off the main wine route that they don't appear to have to cope with mass crowding in their tasting room (we've been driven out of some rooms as busloads of tourists arrived). Their speciality is flavoured icewines, although you can only taste one complimentary icewine sample (if you buy an icewine glass, you get two more free icewine samples). Unfortunately, Brendan and one of the staff members at Crown Bench didn't hit it off well at all, and Victor was made to feel very unwelcome so we left under less than ideal conditions.

Tasting notes for Crown Bench wines:

Leaving Crown Bench, we stopped at De Sousa Wine Cellars, who distinguish themselves from other area wineries by emphasizing their Portuguese heritage. One of the ways they do this is by serving some of their wine in clay cups (although on our visit, they were using disposable plastic wineglasses).

Tasting notes for De Sousa wines:

From De Sousa, the next planned winery was Ridgepoint, but they (and nearby Tawse) are not open on Tuesdays, so we carried on to Birchwood. Birchwood's facility is visible to traffic hurtling by on the Q.E.W., but this was the first time we'd been able to stop. It turned out to be a great visit, as the wines were interesting and the server at the tasting bar (who is also the winery assistant manager) did a wonderful job of informing and entertaining us (and other visitors).

Tasting notes for Birchwood wines:

The wine-tasting day was rapidly drawing to a close (most wineries close by 5, a few by 6), so we were fortunate that Flat Rock Cellars was our final planned stop in the Beamsville area. Flat Rock has a wonderful site, overlooking part of their vineyard and looking north towards Lake Ontario. The winery is one of only three gravity-flow wineries in Ontario (that I'm aware of, anyway), so the grapes enter the winery at the top level and are processed at each level before flowing naturally down to the next level (minimizing or eliminating pumping).

Tasting notes for Flat Rock wines:

At the end of the tour, Brendan and I had each accumulated over a dozen bottles from the various wineries and could easily have brought home many, many more. Aside from our experiences at Crown Bench, we could declare the tour a resounding success.

Overheard on a winery tour

At one of the wineries we visited yesterday (full report later as work and time allow), I overheard part of a discussion between a winery employee and a visitor:

Winery employee: " . . . oh, we can usually tell the difference between local [Canadian] visitors and Americans right away.

Visitor: "How is that?"

Winery employee: "Canadians almost always ask about dry table wines. Americans almost always ask about sweet or Ice wines."

I have seen several Americans arrive at a winery, purchase one or more bottles of Ice wine, and then say that they were buying it to have with steak, or burgers, or whatever. Ice wine as table wine? Urgh!

Offensensitivity again

Apparently the situation is now even worse for free speech in Canada: Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, has been ordered to undergo sensitivity training after CAIR objected to this sentence:

In April, he predicted that oil prices would double by 2010. Demand will outstrip supply because "this time around there won't be any tap that some appeased mullah or sheik can suddenly turn back on," he wrote.

So, even more today than yesterday, carefully police your language to avoid the merest hint of a shadow of a penumbra of something that someone somewhere might, perhaps, decide is offensive to them (or even to third parties). I strongly doubt that CIBC is acting of their own free will: almost certainly they are trying to forestall government action here. Even the biggest corporations in the country are afraid that the PC police will be unleashed at the slightest provocation nowadays.

Welcome to Canada. Please check your civil liberties at the door.

Hat tip to Jon for the link.

PM announces next Governor General

Paul Martin kept his promise that the next appointed Governor General of Canada wouldn't be any of the names that were under media discussion last week. He has announced that the new GG will be Michaelle Jean.

I had to Google for information on Ms. Jean, as I was not familiar with her background. She will be the first black head of state in Canadian history, and has been working as a journalist in Quebec for most of her life. She was born in Haiti and her family came to Canada to escape the violence of the Duvalier regime.

Update: Paul Wells is delighted with the choice.

Update the second: Kate at SDA begs to differ with Paul Wells, and the name of Irshad Manji is mentioned. Now she would be a candidate I'd really approve of. Nobody could accuse a government of tokenism if she was the appointee . . . well, I guess they could, but then Ms. Manji would hand them their figurative heads. Manji for GG!

QotD: Canadian Soldiers

In the field in summer, [Canadian] soldiers wore bush clothes, which were adequate enough, though multi-hued depending on how often they had been washed. There were no winter field uniforms, and soldiers wore U.S. Army field jackets. On exercises, black coveralls were the usual dress, the sloppiest uniform in any army at the time. Until the army introduced combat clothing in the mid-1960s, Canadian soldiers looked as though they had been kitted out by a second-hand clothing store.

J.L. Granatstein, Canada's Army, 2002

Jack Knox beats the war drum

Just in case you still think of Canada as the 98-pound weakling of North America (and let's face it, who doesn't?), Jack Knox thinks the upcoming war with Denmark is a slam-dunk:

The problem with going nose to nose with Greenland is the Inuit think it's foreplay.

Which is why we're going to fight Denmark instead, dropping the gloves in a border war.

This will come as a shock to those who were unaware we even share a border with Denmark, which we don't, really.

Our actual neighbour is the aforementioned, quasi-independent Greenland — the Danish Factory Outlet Store, as it were, way out on the edge of town beside Ellesmere Island and Costco.

Greenland, Denmark, whatever — bring it on, we're going to war.

Hat tip to SOMNIA.

Smoky Smith, VC, 1914-2005

The last surviving Canadian soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross has died:

Although his comrades called him "a soldier's soldier," Smith's relationship with the army was stormy.

He built a reputation as an independent-minded man suspicious of authorities. They made him a corporal nine times and busted him back to private nine times. That was his rank when he was awarded his VC, the only Canadian private to win the medal in the Second World War.

Irreverant, sharp-witted and something of a trouble-maker, Smoky Smith and his deeds that night are the stuff of legend.

Already wounded once in Sicily, he had returned to cross the Savio River with his Seaforth Highlanders, the spearhead of an attack aimed at establishing a bridgehead in the push to liberate Cesena and ultimately break through the Germans' Gothic Line.

Smith was far from being the ideal soldier:

Smith heard he'd won the Victoria Cross about seven weeks after the fight. His reputation as a party animal preceded him. Military police were sent to take him to the ceremony with King George VI in London.

"They picked me up in Naples or somewhere and they put me in jail," Smith recalled with his trademark grin.

"'Don't let him loose in this town. Don't let him loose. He's a dangerous fellow.'

"I liked to party. I'd have a big goddamn party and they'd say: 'Where is he now? Oh, he's drunk downtown."'

Aircraft crashlands at Toronto's Pearson Airport

An Air France A340 passenger jet crashed during descent into Toronto's main airport late this afternoon. Canadian Press is reporting that 243 passengers were onboard, but there are so far no reports of fatalities.

Update, 3 August: Updated reports confirm that there were indeed no fatalities, and in fact no serious injuries in the crash. The aircraft's crew performed a "textbook" evacuation of the plane, and all 309 people aboard were able to get out of the burning aircraft within two minutes.

QotD: Climate Change

It is no exaggeration to say that in the eight years since the Kyoto Protocol was introduced there has been a revolution in climate science. If, back in the mid-nineties, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would not exist because we would have concluded it was not necessary.

Tim Patterson, quoted on One Billion Red Chinese and a Dog Named Liberty, 2005-07-25

HMCS Preserver out of action until November

HMCS Preserver, one of Canada's two fleet replenishment ships, has been taken out of active service until November to rectify electrical problems:

Navy spokeswoman, Lt. Marie-Claude Gagne, says technicians still haven't pinpointed the cause of the problem that forced HMCS Preserver back to Halifax two weeks ago.

But she confirmed the problems are not related to a recent $40 million upgrade to the 35-year-old vessel's structure and propulsion system.

The ship had been at sea to begin tests of those upgrades when its commander decided to return to port.

Paul Wells on visa reform

Paul "Inkless" Wells calls for a sensible reform to Canadian visa policies towards several Eastern European nations:

For no clear reason, Canada requires visas for short-term visits, not only for visitors from Estonia, but from six other European Union member states: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. For most, the delay is a lot shorter than six weeks. But it's a pointless hangover from the Cold War. A hassle Canada imposes on no other Europeans — and which none of the seven countries imposes on Canadian visitors.

Ivar Tallo, incidentally, studied here. In the early 1990s he was a Ph.D. candidate at McGill University. He could return to lecture our senior officials on democratic reform. "Or I might just want to go to my favourite depanneur in Montreal and say hello to the nice Greek guy there. Or have a bagel. I respect and understand your right to have an independent country. But if you want to have friends . . ."

Canada is losing friends in one of the world's most dynamic regions, not through any great misdeed but because of this silly visa restriction. In Bratislava, a half-dozen Canadian businessmen told me Slovaks bend their ears about visas all the time. In Ottawa, a Polish diplomat told me the visa restriction has become the first issue at every meeting. Too often it's also the last issue because our feds can't explain why (a) somebody from France can visit Canada with only a passport; (b) somebody from Poland can visit France with only a passport; (c) that same passport isn't enough for the Pole to visit Canada.

He suggests that the only reason for the restriction still being in place is bureaucratic inertia. I think that's almost always at least part of the reason for silly laws, regulations, and restrictions. Let's hope that he succeeds in bending enough ears in Ottawa to get this policy changed.

The LCBO: a kinder, gentler KGB

I've written about the "bad old days" of the Ontario liquor board's stores in the late 1960s and 1970s, but apparently it used to be far, far worse (reg. req'd):

From the late 1920s forward, the LCBO developed an elaborate head office bureaucracy with up-to-the-minute, proto-computer systems employing sophisticated administrative surveillance of point-of-purchase consumption of alcohol that makes today's computerized gathering of personal information from consumers look amateurish.

From 1927 to 1962 the LCBO limited those who were legally allowed to drink by requiring a permit to purchase liquor. These permits required an application to the liquor board who would then grant or deny a request based on "fitness" to drink and "character."

The permit book resembled a passport in size and shape and was individually identifiable through a unique six-digit number. The pages inside consisted of a small section related to the individual, including name, address and employment, and another for records of purchases, including the date, liquor type, volume and cost. This tracking of every Ontarian's liquor purchases allowed the LCBO to live up to Ferguson's original mandate of "knowing exactly who is buying and how much."

Between 1929 and 1933 these permits, along with investigations by the LCBO and OPP, allowed the board to generate more than 154,000 detailed files on Ontario residents that included financial, employment and family data that was used to gauge the "fitness" of drinkers. It was also shared with other state and police institutions.

The LCBO even had the controversial right to grant police search warrants and the ability to convert private property such as homes or places of business into public spaces under the Liquor Control Act.

I honestly didn't know that the situation was as bad as that: I thought it was pretty bad in the 1970's!

I guess, in retrospect, we can all be grateful for bureaucratic inertia and the role of common decency that the domestic KGB, er, I mean LCBO didn't use their power to become even more dictatorial than they were.

Hat tip to Jon for the link.

More local winery visits

I'm almost ashamed to admit this, but I discovered a new (to me) winery yesterday quite close to home. I've been slowly reading the Wines of Canada book I picked up earlier this month, and they had a short review of the Willow Springs Winery in Stouffville.

We were at a bit of a loose end yesterday, so Elizabeth and I abandoned Victor to his latest online game and drove off in search of wineries.

Stouffville is about a 25 minute drive, so it wasn't a long trip. The only exciting parts were nearly running out of gas just short of the Main St. strip of gas stations in Stouffville, and a scary looking single-car accident on the road about 200 metres before the winery parking lot. There was lots of police presence on the roads in that area — I guess something was going on at the Markham fairgrounds — so the police were already on the scene by the time we passed the site.

The winery is relatively small, although they do have enough space in the back for small winemaker's dinners and parties. The wines are made from both local grapes and grapes sourced from Vineland (in the Niagara peninsula). I didn't taste everything in the line-up, but here are some brief tasting notes:

After purchasing a selection of the wines we'd tasted (plus the two listed above that we haven't tasted yet), we drove west to the Southbrook winery in Richmond Hill. We'd tried their Framboise several years ago, but this was the first time we'd sampled any of their table wines:

All in all, a well-spent afternoon.

Yet another new online bookseller

For those of you within the USA, there's a new online bookstore for libertarian and anti-authoritarian works: Bill of Rights Press. Sadly, they don't ship to other countries:

Do you Sell and Ship Internationally?

At this time, Bill of Rights Press does not sell it’s products internationally

Unfortunately, recognition of Freedom of the Press does not extend very far beyond the borders of the United States of America. Our Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press are only ENUMERATED by the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to our Constitution.

It is the official and personal positions of all employees of Bill of Rights Press that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press is an inalienable right for every person on the face of this, and any other, planet. Only oppressive regimes would try and restrict what a person can say or write.

Many of the existing despicable, tyrannical governments have placed restrictions on words, ideas and concepts. Many of our books, videotapes, CD’s, DVD’s and other forms of media are BANNED in numerous countries.

This means that if you are in a country outside the United States of America, there is a very good chance that your order, despite your desire to research freedom and hear the words of other freedom-loving persons, may not make it to your door. Many foreign customs persons will CONFISCATE and DESTROY your property and ARREST you for attempting to purchase or import banned materials.

As we said: Despicable.

Do you ship products to Canada ?

Canada is a foreign country. See previous question.

Social Credit made simple

There's an interesting essay posted at Gods of the Copybook Headings about the time that Alberta "went crazy":

Social Credit? What's that you ask? Some kind of Commie 1930s scheme that briefly held sway and then faded. No, in fact it was an attempt to save capitalism from itself. Capitalism, however, needs saving only from its enemies and occasional false friends. It works just dandy, if you leave it alone. Meddle, even a little bit in the wrong places, like, oh say the money supply, and Kaboom! The economy can implode, as it did when the American Federal Reserve decided it knew better than global capital markets and botched interest rate adjustments in the late 1920s.

The Smoot-Harley Tariffs, Herbert Hoover's jaw-boning large corporations not to cut wages, and an unnecessary interest rate hike produced a perfect economic storm. The result was the Great Depression. Economies are funny things, at least on the surface. Huge chunks of a modern economy can be re-directed toward state expenditure, vast bureaucracies can regulate business to a maddening extent and yet an economy still continues to function. Heck, it even grows a bit. Problem is not government intervention per se, but how it intervenes. The Holy Trinity of a market economy, its nerve system without which it cannot function are: relatively unhampered prices and wages, stable money supply and comparatively free capital markets. In 1929 and 1930 the Hoover Administration and the U.S. Congress intervened in all three to a major extent. Yet, as is so often the case, the blame fell not upon the interventions but on capitalism itself.

I must admit that I'd never quite grasped just what "Social Credit" was all about . . . the raw stuff — the 140 proof version — was already gone long before I was born. The name lingered on, but almost nothing of the philosophy remained.

And, from what Publius has written, a damned good thing, too!

Common sense prevails, for once

In a sweeping victory for that rare commodity, common sense, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, has announced that the Sea King helicopter will not be deployed to Afghanistan:

Canada's geriatric helicopter fleet won't be making the trek to Afghanistan, Canada's top soldier said Friday.

"We have no intention at this point in time to deploy the Sea Kings," said Gen. Rick Hillier.

"If it could do the job there, in that hot climate at very high altitude, and be able to lift enough of a load, would I deploy it there? Absolutely. But I do not believe it can do the job there."

Reports had suggested that the decades-old fleet would be refitted for use by the 250 soldiers who will be in Afghanistan as of next week. Forty-four personnel are already in Afghanistan as part of Canada's reconstruction mission that will swell to 1,500 by February.

While I dread to think what the government will require the military to do next, at least they won't be trying to put the flying equivalent of the Model-T into more dangerous spaces.

Someone's been watching too many WWII POW movies

Jon sent me a link from the Toronto People's Daily Worker Star (reg. req'd) on a tunnel dug from a Vancouver suburban backyard to a house on the American side of the border:

The men, all from Surrey, B.C., have been charged in Washington state with conspiracy to distribute and import marijuana after law enforcement officials discovered the 110-metre tunnel that starts underneath a Quonset hut in this Vancouver suburb and ends beneath the living room of a house in Lynden, Wash.

The tunnel, which is just a few hundred metres from a Canada-U.S. border crossing, ranges in depth from one to three metres and is reinforced with ribbed steel bars and wood supports.

"It probably is one of the most significant, if not the most significant, tunnels that we've seen enter the United States," said Rod Benson of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The photo accompanying the article really does look like one of the tunnel scenes from The Great Escape.

LCBO and Union at daggers drawn

The LCBO and its union are down to the wire in contract negotiations. If no new agreement is reached, the union will strike just after midnight on the 27th. The union rep, John Coones, has some strong opinions to offer to the public:

But Coones said the possibility of a strike is very real and whatever plans LCBO management has in the works to ensure continued customer service will fail.

"I would suggest that the biggest majority of (stores) will be shut down, and the other ones, if they aren't shut down immediately, certainly they will be within two to three days," he said.

In the event of a strike, he said, workers will not only stop working at the stores and in warehouses, they will also make sure no one from the outside takes over by physically blocking any vehicles trying to move stock.

"We'll have secondary pickets, and any truck that wants to try crossing that line, well, that's up to them, but I don't think it's in their best interest to do that."

Now, given that secondary pickets have been illegal in Ontario for several years (that is, picketing parties other than the employer), this could turn out to be interesting. Are they thinking of picketing grocery stores (who have Wine Rack outlets in them)? Beer stores? Restaurants and taverns?

If the union is trying to lose the public's sympathy quickly, I can't think of a quicker way to do it, frankly.

QotD: Canadian Peacekeeping

In fact, why don't we practise anything we preach? As of May 2005, the top contributors to UN operations were Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal at Number 4, good grief, and they're practically on the brink of civil war. Well, okay, we're not in the Top 10 with all that expendable Asian manpower but c'mon, we must be in there somewhere . . . Number 20) France; 24) Ireland; 29) United Kingdom; 30) United States . . . hey, how'd those two warmongers make the Top 30 peacekeepers? Wait a minute, here we are: Canada, rocketing into the Hit Parade at 33 with a lack of bullet, right between Togo and Turkey. But, to the best of my knowledge, Togo and Benin (28) and Senegal (12) don't regard peacekeeping as so indispensable to their self-image that they stick it on their currency and brag about it in beer commercials.

So we're no longer a great military nation. But nor are we a great peacekeeping nation: we do less than notorious sabre-rattlers like Britain and America. Compared to the Scandinavians and the other niceniks we're a poor aid donor, and our immobile rapid-reaction force is of no practical use in humanitarian crises. M. Chrétien's legacy-building Africa initiative of 2002 is known only to Canadians. Everywhere else, it's credited as Tony Blair's Africa initiative. We have less influence internationally than we did in the 1940s — before we had a flag, an anthem, or our own citizenship. Even if the Trudeaupian vision of Canada were sufficient for a national identity, it suffers from the basic defect of being a bald-faced lie.

Mark Steyn, "Nothing to see here", Western Standard, 2005-08-08

Paul Wells, movie reviewer

Paul Wells tries his hand as a movie reviewer:

A whole bunch of us saw The Wedding Crashers the other night, and as God is my witness, I think Vince Vaughn should win the Best Actor Oscar. I haven't laughed this hard since Paul Martin said he wanted Belinda because he admired her ideas about government.

Temperatures rise, fall in Toronto offices

A report in the Globe and Mail describes the plight of scantily dressed female lawyers in offices air-conditioned for the comfort of suit-wearing men:

Don't run your dishwasher during the day, authorities advise. Lower the thermostat. Keep your curtains drawn. In all that energy-saving advice, they forgot one thing: Don't switch on that space heater.

Ms. Godkewitsch, 32, isn't the only one in her office to use space heaters in summer. "Quite a few of us use them. All women," she said. "In fact, the mail-room guys ordered them for us."

Office air conditioning appears to be calibrated for men, fully dressed men, in shirts, ties, suit jackets, pants, sock and shoes.

Male lawyers, of course, can't exactly show up in muscle shirts. But with temperatures stuck in the 30s for days on end, their female counterparts are donning sleeveless tops, backless dresses, short skirts and flip-flops.

In spite of my chosen quote above, I'm actually pretty sympathetic to this complaint: I work in an older office, and my cube is directly under the only cold air vent in my area of the floor. The temperature in my office this morning was a shade under 17 degrees. The rest of the floor was up near 19, and other offices in the building were in the low 20's. But here's food for thought:

You'd think worker bees would get more sluggish when temperatures rise. But according to a 2004 study by Cornell University, warmer temperatures actually increase productivity. When the office temperature was cranked from 20 C to 25, typing errors dropped 44 per cent and overall typing output rose 150 per cent, according to the study by Cornell professor Alan Hedge.

A bit counter-intuitive, yes?

Uptight Toronto bureaucrats

Toronto apparently has a bylaw restricting the use of Nathan Philips Square. Who knew? It's being applied to ban the current Miss Universe from opening a Thai festival:

"Activities which degrade men or women through sexual stereotyping, or exploit the bodies of men, women, boys or girls solely for the purpose of attracting attention, are not permitted on Nathan Phillips Square."

There, says Ms. Reid. Miss Universa non grata.

She can come. But no sash, no tiara.

Do not introduce her as Miss Universe or even as a beauty queen.

The bylaw says you must call her "an individual of note contributing to our community."

Lovely. Here she is... Miss Individual Of Note Contributing To Our Community.

Not surprisingly, Natalie and the Thais took a pass.

Hat tip to Jon for the link.

Update: Over at Small Dead Animals, Kate has a fascinating discussion going on in the comment thread on this topic.

Update the second, July 22: Nick Packwood rounds up the details on this little contretemps and spikes down the lid on some of the most scary commenters at SDA.

QotD: Wine

I was amused this week to see to see a sign outside my local Wine Rack store which read "Sawmill Creek Bin End Sale." Bin end usually means the last few bottles or cases of the lot. For a wine that arrives in Canada by the boatload, "bin end" sounds a bit far fetched. Then again, "Tanker End Sale" doesn't sound quite as dignified.

Richard Best, The Frugal Oenophile Newsletter, 2005-07-13

Downtown office buildings

In lieu of a real post or six (which will hopefully get written up later today), I offer a view of downtown Toronto, looking west from the front window of Jamie Kennedy's Wine Bar:

QotD: National Music

What does the soul of a people sound like? With the Germans, you have adequate proof; Wagner spoke for them, for better or worse — grandeur and myth that elevated the soul as easily as it rotted to the soundtrack for a meglomaniacal death cult. Italian music — well, no one ever marched off to war to Respighi's ode to a peacock. Music for life, lived without lasting consequence. (They did their part in the Roman times; they've earned a nap.) French music is best expressed by the gauzy wash of Debussy and his comrades, music that doesn't confront the ear but gently appeases it. America: cheerful tootling Souza marches or great broad optimistic Copeland yawps. Or jazz. Or rock and roll. Or country twangs. (It's not that we have no sound — we have many, and each is as much a part of us as the other. Few cultures can pull that off.) Russian music has that delicious third-drink moodiness. Canadian music — no such thing, really, which is telling. Unless you define it as American style music recorded in a Canadian studio to satisfy a government requirement.

James Lileks, Screedblog, 2005-07-08

Babbler tackles the paranoiacs

Damian "Babbling" Brooks discusses the reaction to Anne McLellan's recent comments on how unprepared Canadians are to cope with terrorist attacks:

Nobody is advocating exposing yourself to horrific images until you're numb enough to wade through body parts with a serene demeanour. Nobody is advocating learning how to use throwing stars and hand grenades in expectation of the day when the world goes Mad Max on us. Nobody is advocating spying on your neighbours and turning yourself into a paranoid conspiracy freak.

Get this through your thick skull: nobody wants you to be scared, other than the bastards who blow up buses in rush hour.

But ask people who come up against frightening and horrific situations as part of their job how they combat their own fear. Ask soldiers, firemen, policemen, trauma doctors and nurses: it's the training. When you're scared, the training — the preparedness — is what rises to the top of your mind and gets you through the situation.

[. . .]

How to get through to these people that stoicism isn't the same as burying your head in the sand? That evacuation drills from office buildings aren't the first step in the destruction of all civil liberties? That prudent preparation by ordinary citizens for extraordinary events isn't akin to living in a culture of fear?

Do I need to tell you to go read it all?

The Hollywoodization of the Khadr story

Jon sent me a link to this story about a planned movie about Abdurahman Khadr, the posterboy for Canadian involvement in the War on the Great Satan Terror:

For his participation in the project, Khadr will be generously rewarded: The National Post, quoted by Daniel Pipes, reports that Abdurahman — the "good son" of the Khadr family — could earn as much as $500,000 when the movie debuts sometime around 2006. Daily Variety, also quoted by Pipes, suggests that the deal may be worth in the "mid- to high-six figures." The producers hope Johnny Depp will star in the lead. Vincent Newman, president of Vincent Newman Entertainment, who bought the rights, is quoted hailing Khadr’s "a classic black sheep story — a story about the rebel of the family." Khadr meanwhile has reserved the rights to develop the screenplay. Variety notes that "it appears it will follow the storyline that makes him look best...."

Khadr certainly has his work cut out for him. The tale of a young rebel who never reconciled himself to his family's extremist ways may set the hearts of Hollywood producers aflutter. But it would be difficult to tell a story more incompatible with the facts of Khadr’s life.

It rather figures that the first popular presentation of Canadian involvement in the War on Terror should feature the participants on the side of the terrorists, doesn't it?

Transformation or grand PR exercise?

Another good post at Castle Argghhh! discusses the new transformation initiatives for the Canadian Army:

Given how the Canadians have been using their forces, and see their forces being used in the future, what they are doing right now makes perfect sense. It is more deployable, cheaper to acquire and maintain — and makes more of their force available for use. The Canadians maintained a heavy armored force to support the Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, Canada's NATO contribution — which is no longer needed as a heavy punch in Europe. And let's face it — the US isn't going to allow (if it's even *truly* possible at this point in history) someone *else* to invade Canada (heck, we've never been successful, we aren't about to let someone else do it and embarass us, right?). So, given the way the Canadians see their forces, this transformation makes sense, and actually *expands* the spectrum of effort they can involve themselves in. Which, when they come to think about it — may cause some Canadians some angst.

While I'm still hopeful that this process will improve the situation for the army, I'm not alone in being concerned with the possible outcomes:

The Armorer at Castle Argghhh!!! has posted a tidbit on the Canadian Forces' attempt at restructuring, and as usual, he is being quite a gentleman about it. By that, I mean he expresses some polite enthusiasm for the effort, whether or not he actually agrees with the specific actions being taken. As a Red Ensigner, John has come to understand that the Canadians who actually read his site are already a little touchy about the problems plaguing the CF, and don't need any salt ground into their wounds.

A couple of other Kingston photos

We had dinner in Kingston on Saturday at the Kingston Brewpub, oldest active brewpub in Ontario and home of Dragon's Breath Pale Ale. They do offer tours of the brewery, although we were there too late in the day to be able to do this. This is disappointing, as I'd hoped to get a few photos — in spite of having two digital cameras, I got a remarkably small number of photos on this trip.

Victor and my mum. Victor is in the middle of fiddling with my "good" camera (this is a Treo photo). He was busy trying to take some photos of Samantha, who was sitting beside me.	Samantha, wearing a t-shirt which seemed to draw a lot of attention. Both at lunch and at dinner, she was asked where she'd found the really cool shirt. It caused some disturbance at the table beside us, where the men in the party took offense at their ladies finding the message very appropriate.

QotD: Journalism

[J]ournalism is now, and perhaps always has been, really nothing more than a marketing tool. And as long as there is a need for marketing, there will be journalism. Look at papers like the [Toronto] Star — any paper that has a "Lifestyles" section cannot really be considered to be real journalism.

Jon Piasecki, Private email, 1999-08-21

Kingston, the slow way

Yesterday's adventure was a drive up to Kingston with my mum and my niece. I've been told I'm not allowed to post any pictures of Samantha, so I'll just have to put up a couple of architectural photos:

The Prince George hotel. This was the first place I slept in after my family arrived in Canada in 1967. It nearly burned down the next day. I'm sure there's no connection between these two facts.	Kingston City Hall. I was told, but can't confirm from personal experience, that the local police station was in the basement in 1967. Escaped cons and wanted men were supposedly easy to find: they'd be in the bar at the Prince George right next door.
The traditional market square behind city hall is being ripped up — to put in something as historically relevant as a skating rink??	The east side of the Prince George hotel. As you can see, the hotel is apparently being renovated (yet again). The two boarded-up windows on the third floor were the room we stayed in. The fire was in the room immediately to the right of it.

The rain started just as I was taking these last two photos, so we had to make a dash for the car.

I'm not the only one who noticed this

Nick Packwood points out that the only two countries specifically listed as al Qaeda targets — and have not yet been directly attacked — are Italy and Canada:

Canada and Italy are named as targets by Al Qaida. The other targets have already been hit. People can continue to blame every problem in the world on the Americans but this belief, no matter how fervantly held, does nothing to change the stated aims of those would do us harm.

[. . .]

Carleton University security expert, Martin Rudner's assertion that Canada is relatively safe because "An attack on Toronto will get a minor mention in U.S. papers. The Arab world wouldn't even report it." merits special mention as the single most asinine thing I have read since yesterday's attack.

In some ways, the terrorists have already hit the hardest targets on their formal list: the United States, Australia, and Britain. Italy, Spain, and Canada are much softer (read thas as easier) targets for them to strike. I take no joy in pointing this out, but you don't have to be a strategic genius to figure it out.

"They will be (expletive) six feet under. . ."

A fascinating case in the west, where a Canadian politician is under arrest for drug trafficking:

Court documents allege that Ravinderjit Puar also said anyone who double-crossed her would be in trouble: "They will be (expletive) six feet under. . . . That's what the game is like in Vancouver. You (expletive) with us, you die."

"This is a violent group," Assistant U.S. Attorney Karyn Johnson said. "The comments (Puar) made are evocative of the kind of violence this group is capable of."

Puar's lawyer, Bill Hines, called allegations that his client was involved in organized crime "outrageous." He said that while there was probable cause to believe she committed a drug crime, there was no evidence of actual violence, just a lot of "huffing and puffing."

So her own lawyer admits that there is "probable cause", eh? Just fascinating.

Post-Canada Day Winery Tour

Elizabeth and I abandoned our parental duties yesterday and headed off to Grimsby to join a private wine tour. There were only five of us (Elizabeth, Pat, Marilyn, Paul, and me), just enough to squeeze into one car. Paul generously offered to be our designated driver — so I got to be a passenger for once. We weren't in a huge rush, so after visiting Peninsula Ridge (just a long walk from Pat's house), we drove in to Jordan to have lunch at Zooma Zooma:

The restaurant was clean, service was fast and friendly, and the food was tasty and quite reasonably priced. Perhaps I shouldn't say all of this, as it's nice to have found somewhere in wine country that's not already overrun with tourists!

After lunch, we crossed the street to the Cave Spring tasting room and the gift shop next door. I managed to escape from both Peninsula Ridge and Cave Spring with only one bottle each time (my budget has barely recovered from the last wine tour I was on). My luck (or, more accurately, my temporary fiscal restraint) didn't hold much longer.

I discovered that my Treo 600 doesn't like extremely high light levels. Twice now, I've had to do a hard reset after attempting to take a photo in very bright sunlight. This is part of the reason for the paucity of photos on this trip.

The wines I tasted, with some brief notes:

For any dedicated reader who stuck with the post this far, there's a bin-end sale on at the moment at Lakeview Cellars, including their 2001 Cabernet Franc (not the one mentioned above, but still a very good example of this grape). It's on for 8.95 per bottle (from $14.95), which is an incredible deal for such a good wine. I took a case home with me, so I don't feel too bad in letting the rest of you in on the sale.

Happy Soviet Canuckistan Day

Today is the national holiday here in the northern wastes. It was once Dominion Day, then Canada Day, and now Sponsorship Day. Okay, strike that last one: it's still officially "Canada Day". I'll be celebrating the day by not working insane hours, for the first time in a few weeks. I'm generally quite happy working in the software industry, but the deadline crunch is the part I dislike the most.

Canadian smugness undented by reality

A Globe and Mail article finds that a recent Pew study of attitudes shows that Canada still dwells in the mystical land of Smugistan:

Canadians, on the other hand, are utterly convinced of their popularity, with a breathtaking 94 per cent believing Canada is popular with others and only 4 per cent believing it is not liked.

Among developed countries, only the Dutch at 83 per cent, come anywhere close to Canadians in their conviction that they are beloved in the world.

But Canada doesn't win the sweepstakes as the world's leading land of opportunity. Asked where a young person should emigrate to in order to "lead a good life," Australia was picked by respondents in four countries, including Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Canada. Canada was chosen as the leading land of opportunity in three countries — France, the United States and China. Two countries picked Britain and Germany.

Of course, even a bastion of self-regard sometimes has opinions about the world outside:

Canadians' views of American personal attributes are more negative than residents of any other traditional U.S. ally.

While 77 per cent of Canadians surveyed believe Americans are hard-working and 76 per cent believe they're inventive, 62 per cent say Americans are greedy and 64 per cent believe they are violent.

Hat tip to SOMNIA.

Brooklin's new newspaper

To my surprise, our little village now has a local newspaper:

The Brooklin Citizen is published as an insert to the Whitby This Week distribution in north Whitby. I'm sure they had some interesting ideas for naming the new publication. If they'd polled the original residents, I think we'd have ended up with names like this:

• The Brooklin Invader
• The Brooklin Outsider
• The Brooklin Go Back To Toronto, Yuppie Scum!
• The Brooklin Alienation

The village has grown over 500% in the past 15 years, with the current population estimated at 13,500. The original residents, to be polite, were uncomfortable with all their new neighbours.

Not fitting anywhere on the left-right spectrum

I started writing this last night, and foolishly didn't bookmark which of the dozens of blogs I might have been visiting when the original thought struck me — which is why the post started off as if you'd already read "someone else's post" to which I was sort of responding. After that, the wine kicked in and I think I must have been free-associating, so I'm not even sure where I was going when I wrote it . . .

[Very early this morning] I just posted a comment over on someone else's blog, on a post which (so to speak) broke the world down into two camps: the left and the right.

I've never been comfortable with belonging exclusively to either camp: I'm pro-Capitalism (Right), but also pro-Freedom of Speech (Left), but I'm pro-Drugs (Left) and also pro-Military (Right). I'm pro-SSM (Left), but also pro-RKBA (Right). I'm against laws that restrict freedom of association, but I'm also against vandalism, trespassing, and picket lines.

In general, I'm in favour of ever-expanding personal freedoms, so long as they don't infringe on the freedoms of others. This means that I don't have a natural home in any of the major Canadian or U.S. political parties: each of 'em wants to restrict the freedoms of others in some major way.

On a not-very-closely related line, Perry de Havilland discusses the ongoing disaster that is the British Conservative party. It lost its way after John Major's last premiership (and a strong case could have been made that it was during, not after), and has been languishing in the electoral wilderness ever since. Tony Blair has successfully grabbed every plank of the Tory platform that had any appeal outside the hard-core Conservative grognards, and left successive Tory leaders with little to offer than either Little-Britainism or New-Labour-Lite. If Blair's eventual successors can keep this going, the Tories will swap places with the third-place Liberal Democrats permanently.

The Canadian Conservative party isn't much better off: Stephen Harper has brought them as close to power as they've been in over a decade, and even he hasn't been able to accomplish it — even with the most corrupt administration since Confederation as an opponent. Paul Martin is either the smartest guy to occupy 24 Sussex Drive (if he's been knowingly involved in the corruption) or the most clueless guy (if, as he claims, he knew nothing about the Sponsorship shenanigans).

Monument to the 1st Canadian Armoured Carrier Regiment

A memorial to a unique unit of the Canadian army will be unveiled in the Netherlands this month:

[. . .] the regiment with the motto Armatos Fundit ("Protecting Soldiers") sprang from an idea — the idea of Canadian general Guy Simmonds, who desperately needed a way to protect soldiers. For as part of British Gen. Montgomery's plan for the battle of Normandy, the Canadian infantry was tied up for weeks in meat-grinder battles on the left flank of the allied armies against powerful German armoured forces under Field Marshal Rommel.

Eventually, Rommel was wounded and fate took a hand. Hitler ordered a bold western thrust against the allies, aimed at Avranches, through a gap between Caen and Falaise. If the Allies could cut off this pocket jammed with SS panzergrenadiers, 400 Tiger and Panther tanks and hundreds of 88-millimetre cannons, the battle for France would be won.

Simmonds needed a way to move his infantry at high speed at night across rough terrain right through the heart of the Germans to seal the mouth of the bag behind them. It would be the kind of stunt invented by the Germans themselves — by such men as Rommel and Guderian. It was called blitzkrieg — "lightning war."

Simmonds found 76 "Priests" — American self-propelled artillery pieces that were being replaced by a new type of Canadian-made piece. Priests were like a tank but were open at the top and didn't have a turret. Simmonds had the guns taken out and extra armoured plate were welded across the gaps.

The "defrocked priests" thus became the first serious armoured personnel carriers. They could carry 20 men and their battle kit at 26 miles an hour with a thick wall of steel around them and a heavy machine gun to protect them.

The operation was a success. Allied fighters blasted the trapped German armour with rockets and all the firepower was brought to bear on them. The rout was complete. It was only a dispute between British and American generals about how to proceed that allowed many of the Germans to escape towards Paris. But it was the beginning of the end for the Germans.

Hat tip to SOMNIA.

A beer for folks with gluten problems

I meant to mention this a couple of weeks ago, but it slipped my mind. The LCBO is now carrying a gluten-free beer from Quebec, La Messagere from Les Bieres de la Nouvelle France. It's priced at $16.95 for six . . . and you may have to ask them to dig it out of the back for you: both of the LCBO outlets we've found it at did not have it out on display.

While I wouldn't say it's the best beer I've ever tasted, if you have Celiac disease or other gluten intolerance problems, it may be the only beer you'll be able to safely enjoy. It's actually quite reminiscent of some wheat beers I've tasted, but I'm sure that Alan at A Good Beer Blog will want to mention it (if he hasn't already done so, that is).

Elizabeth used to really enjoy beer tasting, and she's been unable to indulge for years. La Messagere has been a very welcome addition to the LCBO product line.

Update: Oddly enough, Alan had posted something about some other beers from this brewery, and La Messagere was mentioned in the comments to that post. Synchronicity or what?

New humane program for the suburbs

A rising problem in the suburbs is addressed with this innovative new catch-and-release program:

Suburbia Safer with Trap-and-Release Program for Lost City Dwellers

A new trap-and-release program for city dwellers found wandering aimlessly around the suburbs of major Canadian cities is bringing positive results, say officials with Suburban Environment Canada. [. . .]

McIntyre took us out to check on some of the traps, which are cleverly disguised as entrances to TTC subway stations. The first two were empty, but the third trap held a robust specimen, which McIntyre deftly stunned with a tranquilizer dart and then tagged with a small radio transmitter. As two assistants loaded the unconscious individual into a cage on the back of his pickup, McIntyre noted that of some 45 wayward city dwellers returned to Toronto since April, only three have subsequently been re-trapped in the same suburb. All three were neutered as a deterrent, although this later turned out to have been the result of a clerical error.

QotD: Healthcare

From year to year, it is becoming more obvious: the goal of medicine is not health but the extension of the health system.

Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)

QotD: Canada

[Y]ou can end all argument on any issue in Canada by saying a proposal is "American-style". I'm waiting for someone to seriously argue for abolishing elections, since they lead to "American-style argument, disunity and wasteful spending on political campaigns".

Damian Penny, "More Chaoulli-related thoughts", Daimnation, 2005-06-13

And Dave Rudell formulates a Canadian version of Godwin's law in the comments to this post:

Maybe we need an analogy to Godwin's Law for political discourse in Canada. It could be something like; as the length of a political discussion among (between) Canadians increases, the probability of someone using the phrase 'American-Style' approaches one. Of course, we'd also have to add the corollary; the person who invokes the phrase 'American-Style' has probably just lost the argument.

Argghhh's History Post for Today

The lead item in today's "what happened in military history" post at Castle Argghhh! is of interest both to Canadians and also to those Americans who still think the way to solve US-Canadian differences is by invading:

1745 American colonials capture Louisbourg, Cape Breton Island, from the French. Why is this significant? 1. It's the first time we Southrons (from a Canadian perspective) successfully invaded what is now Canada, and, (grump) the only times we've ever been truly successful is under Brit leadership engaging in French-bashing. 2. It set the stage for 1755, which marks the start of Cajun Cooking in what would become the US. The Brits expelled the Acadians (french colonists) from Port Royal... resettling them, among other places, in what is now Louisiana... "Cajun" is derived from Acadian (say it fast and drunk... ducking thrown crawdad heads).

Of course, Jon would still encourage you all to "Invade us! Invade us now!", but he's just a tiny minority voice up here in Soviet Canuckistan. And as soon as the authorities track him down, he'll be a very quiet voice indeed.

Not the same as it ever was

I've had this conversation with folks many times over the last few years, where some assertion is made that "pollution has never been this bad" or words to that effect. In almost every case, the person making that assertion is under 30. You'd pretty much have to be under 30, or to have lived far, far away from major population centres to seriously believe that.

Pollution is a problem. I don't dispute that. What I dispute is the notion that we are living in an ever-more-polluted world. As a child in the 1960's, I lived in an industrial town in the northeast of England. It was utterly filthy, 24/7/365. The streets were dirty, the air was visibly polluted, and the water stank (you needed to be a very brave and/or very stupid kid to go into the river). Most cities in England were like that, to a greater or lesser extent.

My family came to Canada in 1967 and we eventually settled in what is now Mississauga. The air quality was definitely better than what I'd grown up with, but we still had some days where the horizon was brown with pollution. Lake Ontario was visibly polluted, and the beaches were often unsafe due to sewage and industrial and chemical pollutants. The quality of life was definitely better in Canada than it had been in Britain.

Over the past 30+ years, most North American cities have become less polluted, not more. The air is less toxic, not more, and the water is far cleaner than it was. But that's not the message we get from government, media, and activist groups; they are almost unanimous in their outlook that things are worse and getting more so. They all push for more government controls to "save us" from ourselves. More police power to be handed to central authorities, more economic control to be ceded to bureaucrats, and more money to be spent on propagandizing "the truth about the environment".

It's not just environmental pollution that fits this pattern, but the environment is one of those issues that few people have negative feelings about, and most people can be counted on to instinctively (if you will) react to stories about degradation of environmental systems.

The more we can be persuaded that things are going to hell, the easier it is for us to decide that handing the keys over to the government can't make it worse. Too many of us are willing to cede that extra margin of self-reliance in so many different areas, either for fear of being responsible or out of mistrust for others' freedom of choice.

Bad news sells more papers than good news. Disasters are more telegenic than business-as-usual. Politicians appear more important when big issues are being decided than when they are discussing amendments to motions to existing legislation. Activist groups are only relevant (in their own minds, as well as in the view of the general public) when they are front-and-centre with their protests, petitions, demonstrations, and fiery denunciations for the TV cameras. Even the most upsetting, most alarming, and most troubling news has a built-in fatigue factor: the public tires easily and boredom quickly replaces the fear, disquiet, or dread. They don't call it the "news cycle" for nothing: novelty is important. All these elements work together to encourage overblown and alarming coverage of anything that can be considered "newsworthy".

On most measurement, things are not getting worse, but that's not newsworthy. Our society enjoys a better lifestyle than our parents' or grandparents' generations did. We still have problems, but the scale and immediacy of those problems is less than those faced just 30 years ago. Jon passed along a URL to a Powerline post which addresses some of these issues, and which triggered this little rant of mine. I thought it was worth bringing to your attention.

Tom Wark on the Sideways effect

Tom Wark writes:

Actor Jason Priestley is filming a new television series entitled "Hollywood & Vines" in which the former 90210 star takes us on a "road trip" to the West Coast's wine regions. The British Columbia native is putting particular stress on his home region where they are producing stellar wines. All this emanates from the success of Sideways.

I've heard word from other very good sources that other wine series are being considered in Hollywood, including one from a Major Producer you all know, but I've been sworn to secrecy on that one. I suspect that advertisers like the demographics associated with wine drinkers as well as the success the subject matter of wine has demonstrated.

<Snark mode=ON>Oh, good. Another way to drive up wine prices by encouraging conspicuous consumption by expense-account boors and trend-obsessed ignoramusi<\Snark>

Actually, given the current market for new world wines, this may be a good or a bad thing: much will depend on where they intend to target in the wine-consuming marketplace. If they spend their airtime doing "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Winery Owners", then it'll have no real effect on the price of quality wines.

Chris Taylor invades the wine-snob blogworld

Chris Taylor finally starts writing about wine: here, here, and here.

French carrier group departs from Halifax

The French navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its escorting vessels left Halifax after an uneventful stay. The Halifax Daily News reported:

Au revoir, mes amis. Bon voyage. Through a thick blanket of fog, the 3,000 sailors of a French aircraft carrier's battle group slid out of Halifax Harbour yesterday.

The whirlwind four-day visit by the French and British sailors was everything local businesses — and police — were hoping for. Euros flowed into local coffers, and sailors stayed out of local jails.

Paul MacKinnon, executive director of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission, said yesterday that while bars and restaurants did well, so too did retailers.

Hat tip to SOMNIA.

BMI is the control freak's WMD

As I've written before, I consider the widely used BMI measurement to be custom-designed for the hectoring nanny-state: it's a rare Canadian who is both healthy and has a "good" BMI. It's a scam for belittling and intimidating the general public, and a tool for prying more money out of the government for spurious "health-enhancing" programs.

Angry writes:

There are certain truths we hold to be self-evident.

I'm not talking about rights. That's passé. I'm talking about the fact that we're too fat.

You hear it all the time. Obesity is an epidemic. We eat the wrong things. Try this diet. Or this one. Or this one.

He then quotes extensively from a new article in Scientific American, which appears to support the BMI-skeptic position.

This is interesting . . .

According to Bourque, former PC cabinet minister Jim Flaherty is rumoured to be making a move for Stephen Harper's job:

Bourque has learned that longtime Ontario Cabinet Minister and two-time provincial leadership contender Jim Flaherty may well be positioning himself for an early opportunity to unseat Stephen Harper, the disappointing Conservative Party incumbent, increasingly seen as a lame duck leader who's political capital may well have expired with his botched handling of recent national antagonism towards the long-governing Liberals. Sources tell Bourque that failed retail heiress Nicky Eaton hosted a swish gathering at her country estate in Caledon for Flaherty's intimates to discuss a bid for Harper's job.

Hmmm. Very interesting. I've met Stephen Harper and I think he's capable of being a good prime minister. I've not only met Jim Flaherty (I'm in his riding provincially), but I coached two of his sons in soccer. I have a good opinion of his potential as a leader as well. The question is, do I want to see Flaherty rise at the direct expense of Harper?

Hat tip to Sean, via Small Dead Animals.

Mini restaurant review: 22 Church Street

If anyone remembers, I posted a brief review of a wine-tasting we'd attended at Pepperberries back in January. Last month, the chef who'd prepared the meal for that wine tasting contacted me to let me know that he'd moved to a new restaurant and they were hoping to put on a wine tasting in the near future. Because I'll be busy all next weekend (deadlines at work are starting to tower over the horizon), Elizabeth and Victor took me out for a pre-Father's Day dinner last night, and we decided to try 22 Church Street, the new restaurant.

The outside is a bit unprepossessing, being a converted house just south of Kingston Road in Pickering Village. A really positive thing is that the restaurant has applied for their BYOW license — making them part of a small, elite group of restaurants in Ontario. They have a shaded patio in the back, but the temperature and humidity persuaded us to stay inside for our meal.

The wine list isn't as extensive as I might prefer, but there's some reasonable choices on there (Elizabeth and I both ordered seafood, so we tried the Lou Black Chardonnay). Brian Cassibo (the chef) assures me that they'll be looking to expand their wine selection in the near future. The Chardonnay was actually a pretty good match with my scallops and Elizabeth's lobster, so it was far from a bad selection. Victor ordered the pork tenderloin, but he's not yet able to drink wine, so he cared little for our choice!

Victor, wondering why I'm suddenly messing around with my Treo	Elizabeth, just after Victor realized I was taking some photos (you can tell by the stern expression he's got).

Overall, we had a good time on this visit, and we'll be looking forward to the promised wine tasting sometime later this summer. You can check their current menu here, if you'd like to see what's on offer.

News from a universe just next door

Paul Wells entitles this post "Earthquake", and for good reason. First, read the quoted material below, then check the extended entry for the punchline:

"It is false and tendentious to establish a link between private-sector participation in the health-care system and the degree of progressiveness of a society. How can you claim that societies like France, England or Sweden are less socially advanced than Quebec on the basis of private-sector participation in their health systems? It's easy to see this makes no sense.

"The Scandinavian countries themselves have private participation in their health systems. As far as I know, nobody accuses them of being socially backward."

Here's the alternate universe part of the whole thing:

This statement was made in Quebec's National Assembly during an emergency debate on Friday by Philippe Couillard. He is Quebec's minister of health.

He is a Liberal.

Poverty in Ontario

Jon sent along this link to a Toronto Star article, with the comment that "this cannot be a Toronto Star editorial!" It is rather surprising to find that paper taking a such a careful stance on this notoriously hot-button issue:

Tempting as it may be for social activists to portray the poor in romanticized terms, it is not the basis for sound public policy. That is one of the lessons that emerges from a three-year study of 40 lower-income families struggling to survive in Ontario in the late '90s. The final report, entitled Telling Tales: Living the Effects of Public Policy, was released yesterday.

It is a useful antidote to a lot of the fuzzy thinking, academic theorizing and simplistic analysis that goes on in the social policy field.

The first quoted paragraph is already enough to have me checking the date, to ensure that it's not an April 1st story. But it gets more interesting still:

Not surprisingly, they found that almost none of their subjects moved up the socio-economic ladder. Even those who found work slipped back into poverty over the course of the study.

But there were surprises in the reams of data the researchers collected.

One was that a job — long considered the mainstay of a household's survival — actually plays a fairly limited role in keeping low-income families afloat. Participants cobbled together income from a variety of sources, got help from relatives and friends and depended on social supports such as subsidized housing and food banks. If any of these lifelines snapped, they were in crisis.

In other words, having raised a couple of generations of Canadians who accept and are perfectly comfortable with the concept of being dependent on others, there are now significant numbers of low-income families who are totally dependent on others for their necessities of life. The plight of those individuals and families when circumstances change is desperate indeed: they have no other resources to draw upon.

A second eye-opener was that people who have been cruelly stereotyped often do the same thing to others. It didn't take long for some of the study's participants to display racist, sexist, anti-immigrant and homophobic attitudes.

This one flabbergasted me. I grew up in relatively low-income areas, and it was far more common to hear all sorts of attitudes that — even for that time and place — were significantly more intolerant than would be acceptable in the wider society. I don't know whether the surprise is greater for the researchers or for the reporter, but clearly one or both are less familiar with life in poorer areas of town than they should be.

A third finding that caught them off-guard was that sole-support mothers don't want the government to hound "deadbeat" dads. Experience has taught them that these policies don't work, infuriate their former spouses and place them and their children in danger.

Another "duh" finding, but perhaps I should be happy that they were willing to publish it: it's certainly true that the current emphasis of the courts — punishing most or all non-custodial fathers pre-emptively — is a disaster for the very people who are supposed to benefit, the custodial parent and the children themselves.

Finally, the authors discovered to their dismay that most of the training programs offered by Ottawa and Queen's Park are totally out of synch with today's job market. They are designed to deal with brief interruptions in employment. Yet most of the participants in the study had never known — and never expected to know — steady work. They juggled two or three minimum-wage jobs or hired themselves out through temp agencies. The last thing they needed were courses in résumé writing or job-search techniques.

The Canadian government has been moving towards more private solutions to the unemployment and job-retraining areas, but the problem seems to be that public-service inertia transfers to the private firm, rather than initiative and task-orientation transferring to the public sector. This is typical of the kind of "privatization" governments tend to prefer: block transferring a job to a sole-supplier who is partly or wholly bound by pre-existing public service rules.

Graduation

According to an article in The Scotsman, Cambridge University is being pressured to reconsider their ban on graduating students wearing kilts:

But the interdict sparked fury among patriotic Scottish students, and the university has been inundated with e-mails from angry alumni demanding that the dress law be removed.

Yesterday, officials at the university admitted they were prepared to make exceptions for those who felt strongly about wearing their national dress.

A Cambridge University spokesman said: "These regulations have always been in place at the university but they were never enforced.

"Recently the number of people flouting and abusing the rules was becoming more prolific and extreme. If students feel strongly about the issue they can talk to the university and decisions will be made on an individual basis."

The kilt ban was sparked after university proctors — officials responsible for student discipline — complained about the variety of flamboyant clothing being worn to graduations.

Ye think they'd have learned from the last attempt to ban the kilt in the wake of the Rebellion of 1745!

Speaking of graduations (said he, switching topics), when did the idea of graduating from Grade 8 to high school become a formal occasion? My son is lobbying for a tux for his graduation later this month — I didn't think that would be an issue until Grade 12!

QotD: Government

In short, the Legislature within its jurisdiction can do everything that is not naturally impossible, and is restrained by no rule human or divine. If it be that the plaintiffs acquired any rights, which I am far from finding, the Legislature had the power to take them away. The prohibition, 'Thou shalt not steal,' has no legal force upon the sovereign body. And there would be no necessity for compensation to be given.

The Supreme Court of Canada, April 2003

Angry in the Great White North provides some context for this rather bladder-loosening declaration.

Boring, geeky army stuff

There's a fascinating post up at the Castle, talking about the next-generation of military vehicles the US has on the drawing board . . . and more importantly the command-and-control systems required to take full advantage of the new toys:

As I've mentioned before, a couple of years ago I worked ABCA exercises (the America-Britain-Canada-Australia Alliance). One thing about the Brit Army — they were far more comfortable working with the Marines than they were with the US Army — and while some of that was driven by cultural issues — the Brits are organized and used a lot like we do the Marines, and, well, they have some aspects of seeing themselves as peers to the Marines while the Army are slighty retarded younger brothers striving to show that we are too grown up (heh, let the snarks begin) . . . but the real issue is one of the US Army is so automated vice the Marines. The Brits are frankly just more comfortable hooking into Marines than they are the Army. They are (justly) concerned that the Army is so wired and used to being wired that, in effect, we are actually possibly *more* likely to engage a Brit formation in the wrong place at the wrong time because we are so used to the situational awareness we have from our systems they are concerned we will shoot first and ask questions later.

A couple of good points there, especially about the fundamental differences between the British Army and the US Army's typical deployment: the USMC are organized more like the Brits — and for totally functional reasons. The British army has been sealifted and dropped on foreign shores for centuries. It's how they expect to arrive at the point where they get to expend ammunition.

The idea is also mooted about opening the FCS to Britain and Australia (and possibly even Soviet Canuckistan), for economic and practical military reasons: it was already difficult enough to co-ordinate with their allies in the first Gulf War of 1991. Today, there are very few nations who can even pretend to have the technological parity to inter-operate with the US military, and all of them will be left in the dust when the new systems start to come into full production and distribution. And even the American military would appreciate design and development resources being contributed by their allies to offset the huge costs of these new systems.

I'm afraid I have to take the mention of Canadian participation as a friendly well-meaning red herring: who in their right mind would trust the current Canadian government to have any respect for other nations' military secrets?

French carrier arrives in Halifax

The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle arrived in Halifax harbour yesterday:

About 3,000 sailors who pulled into port Wednesday with a fleet of French naval vessels won't be at a loss for things to do during their stopover in Halifax.

"We're hosting our friends and allies from France — part of the task group we've been exercising with over the last few weeks," said Mike Bonin, a public affairs officer at Maritime Forces Atlantic in Halifax.

Six vessels from that task group are paying a visit to the home of Canada's East Coast navy, led by the French navy's flagship, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle.

French frigates Tourville and Jean-Bart, nuclear submarine Rubis and supply ship Meuse also arrived Wednesday morning, along with the British destroyer HMS Nottingham, another vessel that took part in the naval exercises.

Guest blogger tries to appeal to da Canadian values, eh?

In a bid to widen her already vast audience, Kate's guest blogger Jeff goes for the traditional Canadian market:

In which I attempt to curry favor with Canadians by carefully caressing their cultural sensibilities

Is there anything in the world better than Anne Murray? No. No there most certainly is not!

Unfortunately, he misses the mark. "Sean" helpfully provides some clues in the comment section:

You know what would be better than Anne Murray? Rita McNeil in a G-string and pasties. Oh yeah, and Ashley MacIsaac standing behind her and flogging her pallid flesh with his violin bow while ripped on acid and screaming obscenties at the audience. And let's have Gordie Lightfoot table dancing somewhere in the background. Just because.

Those are some Canadian cultural sensibilities I could get behind.

Not.

All I can say is there must be some part of Canada where this would be considered good entertainment.

So private healthcare isn't actually illegal in Canada . . . yet

Damian Penny covers off the key points of this morning's surprisingly sensible Supreme Court of Canada decision:

McLachlin, Major and Bastarache all ruled that the prohibition on purchasing private health care was not rationally connected to the goal of maintaining a public system, while Deschamps ruled that there was such a connection but that the ban was a disproprtionate means of attaining that goal. Justices Fish, Binnie and LeBel would have upheld the ban.

I'll need a lot more time to review the whole text, but here's the money quote from the headnote for McLachlin and Major's decision:

The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care. The evidence also demonstrates that the prohibition against private health insurance and its consequence of denying people vital health care result in physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness.

Where lack of timely health care can result in death, the s. 7 protection of life is engaged; where it can result in serious psychological and physical suffering, the s. 7 protection of security of the person is triggered. In this case, the government has prohibited private health insurance that would permit ordinary Quebeckers to access private health care while failing to deliver health care in a reasonable manner, thereby increasing the risk of complications and death. In so doing, it has interfered with the interests protected by s. 7 of the Canadian Charter.

I'll be honest and say that I never expected a SCC decision on health care to come down remotely favouring private medicine. The coast isn't clear for all provinces, as the court didn't muster a majority for the proposition that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been violated.

Greg "the junkie" Staples needs a fix

Poor Greg has been overdosing on his daily fix, and the supply has suddenly tapered off:

I need more of it or stronger doses to get me worked up. You mean no one has crossed the floor today. No back room deals have been made. There is no explosive news at Gomery. You mean I have to discuss issues! If the MSM doesn't do it how can I be expected to (that ones for you Paul Wells).

Hopefully some MP will go off their rocker today so I have something to talk about.

The sad, sad spectacle of the political junkie. Parents, don't let this happen to your kids!

Occam proposes a Free Province Project

Occam is tossing out the suggestion that Canadian libertarians and small-government conservatives should emulate the Free State Project:

[. . .] there is simply no place for you in Canada. That country will continue to be governed without regard to your wishes. It will take your money and spend it on things you don't want it spent on, or worse, things you actually find offensive. It's government will do this without scruple, without regret, indeed, with a certain degree of bravado, a certain swagger, if you will. You won't be arrested. You won't be spirited off in the night, or be menaced by government agents skulking about your house. You will, however, be overtaxed and overregulated. The daily comings and goings of your life will come under ever more stringent control and close inspection. Your business will be hampered. Your private property ever more subject to the scrutiny and whim of agents of the state. Though you were born free and grew into an independent, thinking adult, the state will continue to mother you, whether you want it or not. And you do not. You'll carry on, of course, as I am doing, because this is your home, and you are loathe to leave it, but there will come a time when you realize that it has left you.

Jon, my virtual landlord, often comments that right wing bloggers will be the first ones carted off to the "Kyoto Camps". While I don't think that's the way the game will be played, it is hard to believe that the country will stop moving towards the ill-defined socialist paradise which is the inevitable destination if current trends continue.

The Babbler goes for the patriotic angle

Damian provides some fodder for the would-be patriots among us:

Of course, I bring this to your attention because I feel strongly that we should celebrate our triumphs on the world stage, not because she's hot.

What's that? Why yes, I am sticking with that story, thank you very much for asking.

For those of you who are more visually oriented, he also provides a photo. . .

Media bias? What media bias?

It has been argued ad infinitum that the Canadian media has a strong bias in favour of the Liberals, and not just by those out on the right side of the political spectrum. This Toronto Sun article merely restates the case in terms of the recent decision by MP Pat O'Brian to sit as an independent:

O'Brien, who is opposed to legalizing same-sex marriage, said Martin had not, as he promised, allowed a "full and fair" debate on the issue and was instead just trying to ram it through.

Here's how to spot that our overwhelmingly pro-Liberal media are biased in favour of Martin over Harper:

Watch for how many of them argue that in losing O'Brien, Martin has demonstrated a clear inability to retain the loyalty of socially conservative Liberals, whose support he needs if his minority government is to survive for any length of time.

We predict there will be none, even though more than 30 Liberal MPs oppose same-sex marriage and Martin clearly can't afford to lose many more.

Despite that, count on our pro-Liberal media to never suggest that O'Brien's defection shows any failure on Martin's part.

Hat tip to Elizabeth for pointing out the article.

The Babbler bares his soul

Damian Brooks marks the anniversary of the D-Day landings with some personal insights:

I went to school and came away different, but they went to war. I lost classmates to training accidents, to car accidents, to suicide. They lost comrades to bullets, bombs, and shrapnel, in terrible numbers, day in and day out, for months on end. The stresses my classmates and I endured engendered a lasting camaraderie. How much greater the stresses placed on our veterans, and how much deeper the currents of uncommon experience that draw them together, even now.

After 13 weeks of recruit training, I cried when I saw my family again. Our Normandy veterans left family, country, and safety behind for years; they crossed an ocean; they killed and faced death. They liberated a continent, and in so doing, they changed the course of history. One wonders how they adjusted to some of the inescapably mundane elements of civilian life so shortly after engaging in such a momentous military undertaking.

When you've been forced to decide what is worth dying for at age 21, how does that affect what you believe is worth living for at age 22, or 42, or 82? We are rapidly losing the ability to ask that question of our Normandy veterans, as the natural ends of their lives loom closer with each passing day. Very shortly now, all we will have left is their legacy, an unmatched record of public service in both war and peace.

My brief military service was all spent in Canada, in the Militia. The unit I belonged to had few battle honours from the Second World War, as they had been chosen to provide headquarter guard detachments of platoon and company size to Canadian divisions. We envied the recruits of other units in our brigade which had more glorious recent histories, but the costs of gaining that glory was rarely in our minds. Canada provided a disproportional share of the military effort on D-Day — one of the two best-known battles Canadians took a leading role in — and they paid the costs in blood.

Re-organize the Armed Forces

Angry has some interesting things to say about the impending re-organization of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The problem is, of course, that in just about any military, it is the army that, in the end, matters most. Boots on the ground and all that. The navy and especially the air force exist to enhance the army. Of course, navy and air force guys will vehemently deny this. In the US, of course, the navy can do with its marines a lot that the army does, but then that just goes to show that landed forces, regardless of what you call them and who commands them, are what matters most.

So it's no surprise that our Chief of Defence staff, General Rick Hillier, is army. Prior to his appointment as CDS, he as chief of the land staff, which is Canada's uninspiring name for head of the army. His immediate predecessor, Ray Henault, was a fighter pilot.

Okay, you flyboys and seagoing lubbers, Angry's tossed down the gauntlet. Refute him if you can!

Red Ensign is raised at West Coast Chaos

The latest edition of the Raising of the Red Ensign has been posted by Temujin at West Coast Chaos. See what the other active bloggers in the Brigade have been up to lately.

Canadian Crisis: religious fanatics also infiltrating the Liberal Party!

In a shocking, hard-to-believe, cold-sweat-inducing revelation, it appears that Christians — actual believing-in-capital-G-God Christians — are also attempting to take over the Liberal Party:

Socially conservative Christian groups purportedly infiltrating the Conservative party have been equally involved in the ruling Liberal party for years.

"People of faith are engaging in the democratic process in the Liberal party as well as the Conservative party," Charles McVety, head of Canada Christian College and a founder of the Defend Marriage Coalition, said in an interview.

Reactions from traditional strongholds of Liberaldom have been somewhat confused:

McVety said his group, which opposes same-sex marriage, helped a number of like-minded Liberals secure nominations prior to last year's election.

Among them were Toronto-area MPs Paul Szabo, Tom Wappel, Jim Karygiannis, Dan McTeague and Albina Guarnieri, now veterans affairs minister, and Oshawa MP Judi Longfield.

"And those are just some of the Liberals we've helped."

The terrible news will undoubtedly leave knees quivering and jaws sagging all through the Liberal hierarchy.

QotD: Bike Gangs

The "Liberal Party of Canada" isn't the catchiest name for a Quebec biker gang. On the other hand, it's no more clunkily uncool than, say, the Rock Machine or any of the province's other biker gangs. The Liberal party is certainly a machine and it's proving harder to crack than most rocks, and it's essentially engaged in the same activities as the other biker gangs: the Grits launder money; they enforce a ruthless code of omerta when fainthearted minions threaten to squeal; they threaten to whack their enemies; they keep enough cash on hand in small bills of non-sequential serial numbers to be able to deliver suitcases with a couple hundred grand hither and yon; and they sluice just enough of the folding stuff around law enforcement agencies to be assured of co-operation. The Mounties' Musical Ride received $3 million from the Adscam funds, but, alas, the RCMP paperwork relating to this generous subsidy has been, in keeping with time-honoured Liberal book-keeping practices, "inadvertently lost."

Mark Steyn, "Exit strategy", Western Standard, 2005-06-15

Political shopping

I was just at Political Staples. Greg has Google Ads appearing between posts. This is a screen capture of the current ads on the page:

I thought it was funny, anyway.

Ajax to honour surviving crewmen of "their" ship

The Lake Ontario town of Ajax, named after the British light cruiser HMS Ajax (one of the three cruisers which harried the Graf Spee into internment and eventual scuttling), will be honouring 20 of the surviving crewmen later this month:

The town started life in 1940 as a Second World War munitions plant, Defence Industries Ltd. (DIL), and was named after the battleship HMS Ajax by a contest-winning plant employee. On Jan. 1, 1955, what had been called an "Improvement District," made up of 5,689 souls, became a self-governing entity.

This green scene — surely the envy of many people several dozen concrete kilometres to the west — is the result of a 1958 decision to keep the 6.5 kilometres of Ajax waterfront open, protected parkland for a width of 400 feet. With each tree planted, the memory of the town's most important players becomes rooted ever stronger, not only in soil but in the minds of current residents.

Ajax is nothing if not committed to its history. As early as 1958, the town hosted HMS Ajax Day, which included a presentation of artifacts from the ship along with a scale model. In 1963, the town council began the process of naming streets in new developments after crew members of the victorious battleship, which, along with HMS Exeter and Achilles, defeated the German "pocket battleship" Graf Spee during the 1939 Battle of the River Plate off the South American coast.

Except for their lamentable habit of calling every armed vessel larger than a tugboat a "battleship", this was an interesting article. (Sorry, a minor pet peeve of mine.)

Hat tip to Spotlight on Military News.

Brooklin Spring Fair, 2005

Last night was the opening of the Brooklin Spring Fair. We've now lived in Brooklin for two years (we took possession of the house on opening night two years ago), but this is the first time we've been able to actually get to the fair.

I'm not much of a fan of either crowds or midways, but I actually enjoyed our visit last night. It's about a fifteen minute walk from our house at the north end of the village, and the weather was perfect for evening strolls. Victor met a friend almost as soon as we were in the main gate, and the two of them disappeared for a couple of hours. Elizabeth and I ended up listening to Tanglefoot in the almost-empty arena while Victor and John haunted all the rides along the midway.

We'd never heard any of the band's music before, so it was educational: they have plenty of amusing anecdotes to introduce several of their songs, and the music was eminently listenable. It often takes me a while to decide whether I like new music (call me a conservative if you like), so it'll be a while before I know whether I'm a fan or not, but the stories were worth the price of admission all by themselves.

My favourite anecdote was the NASA tie-in to the song "Secord's Warning". A Canadian had been a mission specialist on one of the shuttle flights, and the mission specialists are tasked with selecting music for mealtimes. Our hero chose not only to take Music in the Wood, but to put this song on repeat until a mutiny was threatened:

Secord's Warning
Lyrics and Music: Joe Grant and Steve Ritchie

Come all you brave young soldier lads
With your strong and manly bearing
I'll tell you a tale of a woman bold and her deed of honest daring
Laura Secord was American-born in the state of Massachusets
But she made her home in Canada and proved so faithful to us

Chorus

There's American guns and 500 men
So the warning must be given
And Laura Ingersoll Secord was the stalwart heart
Who braved the heat and the flies and the swamp
To warn Colonel Fitzgibbon

There's soldiers pounding at the door
And they come from across the border
American officers march inside
It's food and drink they've ordered
In comfort they have dined and drunk
Their own success they've toasted
But they pay no heed to the woman who hears their plan so idly boasted

Chorus

Oh, James I've overheard it all
A surprise attack they're making
Fitzgibbon they intend to smash
His men for prisoners taking
And James a warning never you'll take with your wounded knee and shoulder
I myself must carry it past the sentries and the soldiers

Chorus

It's an all-day tramp to the British camp
By way of Shipman's Corners
There're snakes and flies and sweat in her eyes
There is no respite for her
She's lost her shoes in the muck of the bog
Her feet are torn and blistered
But there's many a soldier lad to be spared if the message be delivered

Chorus

So all you Yankee soldier lads who dare to cross our border
Thinking to save us from ourselves
Usurping British order
There's women and men Canadians all
Of every rank and station
To stand on guard and keep us free
From Yankee domination

Chorus

I can't imagine why they'd object to such a stirring folk song, can you?

Apologies for the quality of photos, as usual:

The blaze of midway lights as we walked out of the arena at the end of the Tanglefoot concert.	Closer to the main fairgrounds, it's still just a big smear of light, isn't it?
Waiting for Victor and John, near the start of the midway	Waiting for Victor to get his henna tattoo repaired, after having it smeared by a safety bar on one of the rides. That's Victor, just in front of the white tent in his traditional all-black clothes.

The people who've bought new homes adjoining the fairgrounds are rumoured to be complaining about the noise and light and insisting on the fair being moved to a new venue. I'm about as sympathetic to them as I am to people who buy houses beside railroad tracks and then complain that the trains are too loud: for one weekend a year, you can cope. If not, you shouldn't have bought a property so close to a fairground.

GM Canada gets mixed news

A Canadian Press report has good news and awful news for GM's Oshawa plants:

A General Motors car factory in Oshawa, Ont., was the most productive assembly plant in North America last year, but the automaker is losing money on every vehicle it sells on the continent while Toyota continues to improve, according to an industry study released Thursday.

GM's No.1 plant in Oshawa, which makes Monte Carlo and Impala sedans, topped the annual Harbour Report rankings for plant productivity. According to Harbour, it took 15.85 hours to produce a vehicle at that plant in 2004 - well below the industry average of 23.42, based on available data.

GM had three of the top five assembly plants in the report, including a fourth-place ranking for a second Oshawa plant, which makes the Buick LaCrosse — sold in Canada as the Allure — as well as the Pontiac Grand Prix. It also made the Buick Century last year.

The accolades comes just two weeks after J.D. Power and Associates named the No.2 and No.1 car plants in Oshawa, in that order, as the best plants in terms of vehicle quality.

I guess I may have to retract some of the verbal barbs I've thrown at the Oshawa GM folks over the years. Unfortunately, the economic news is much less pleasant for GM:

According to Harbour, Nissan had the biggest profit per vehicle sold - $1,603 US. Toyota ranked second and $1,488, and Honda third at $1,250.

Ford only made $620 US for vehicles it makes on the continent, and DaimlerChrysler just $186. GM, which lost $1.1 billion US in the first quarter, lost an average of $2,311 for every vehicle it sold, according to Harbour.

I've often joked that the only way I'd buy a North American car is if they paid me, but it looks like that's exactly what GM has been forced to do to keep sales going. There is no way that this trend can be maintained for much longer: even a company the size of GM has limits to their bank accounts.

I had no idea it was as bad as that. It makes a mockery of the old joke about "losing a dollar on every sale, but making it up in volume" doesn't it?

Occam's Separation Lottery

I can only plead illness for having missed Occam's ratings for provinces seceding from Canada. Brilliant, incisive, funny — what more could you ask?

UK Tax Freedom Day today

Samizdata celebrates the UK tax freedom day today. Sadly, our Canadian Tax Freedom day isn't upon us yet. To calculate your personal tax freedom day, use the Fraser Institute tax calculator. Then get depressed.

The revised Red Ensign Standard

The Monarchist has produced a linkulacious post to supplement last week's initial hoist of the Red Ensign. This time, he's divided the links into broad categories, which is good on two levels: it allows readers who focus on one or two specific areas to find links they'll be interested in, and it departs from the strict alphabetization which usually means readers are suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before they ever get as far the letter "Q"!

New class of ships?

I take a short break from blogging (okay, from just about everything beyond basic body functions, but that's not the point . . .), and everyone seems to get to the good stuff while I'm away. Hot new rumours about a new class of aircraft carrier being investigated by the Navy have, if you'll pardon the expression, surfaced.