Quotulatiousness

July 20, 2013

Investigators still don’t know what caused the explosion in Lac-Mégantic derailment

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:02

In the Globe and Mail, Jacquie McNish and Grant Robertson report on the ongoing investigations into the causes of the fatal explosion:

Federal officials probing the Lac-Mégantic disaster are testing the chemical composition of crude oil carried by the runaway train as they seek to answer the crucial question of what triggered the unusual and devastating explosion after the derailment.

[…]

Edward Burkhardt, chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Inc., which operated the derailed train, said Canadian authorities have impounded the rail cars to take “a huge number of samples of oil.” He said the investigators and officials in the rail and oil industries “are asking how come there were explosions here. Crude does not blow up.”

People familiar with the investigation said the TSB is examining the composition of the oil that fuelled the explosion.

Industry sources said there are several possibilities. One is whether the crude, which came from the Bakken oil region of North Dakota, contained volatile chemicals. A possible scenario is that additives were intentionally combined with the crude oil to speed up the transfer of the syrupy oil, common for pipelines but rare in the rail industry. Another possibility is that the tanker cars had chemical contaminants from a previous shipment. Another question is whether the oil contained high levels of flammable hydrogen sulphide gas, which is sometimes present in Bakken oil.

[…]

Regulators in the United States say rail carriers are responsible for knowing what they are carrying, and that the shipper and the railway company are required to work out such details when the train is being loaded.

“The carriers have to know exactly what it is that they’re hauling at all times,” said Warren Flateau, a spokesman for the Federal Railway Association in Washington.

Mr. Burkhardt said MM&A received a detailed bill of lading from the U.S. oil services company, which he declined to identify, and no chemicals were identified as being present in the crude. The intermediary oil services company leased the rail cars, loaded them with oil and then contracted three separate railway companies to transport them.

The first carrier was Canadian Pacific Railway, which handed over the train to MM&A in Montreal. From there, MM&A was to deliver the oil cars to a small rail company in New Brunswick owned by the Irving family.

July 16, 2013

Paul Wells summarizes Harper’s cabinet shuffle

Filed under: Cancon, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:29

July 15, 2013

Prime Minister live-tweeted his own cabinet shuffle

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:47

In Canada, we do things a bit differently these days:

And on, naming each new minister or minister with changed portfolio.

July 12, 2013

QotD: Canada as mirror-America

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

Have you heard about this place called Canada? It’s like some weird parallel America where they never had a revolution. There’s some other differences too: It’s colder, for instance, and they call their Seattle “Vancouver.” Also, they keep their Louisiana in the north instead of the south, and every now and then it threatens to leave. Apparently, if you change just a few little variables like that, history comes out differently: You get socialized medicine, and a lot of signs and stuff are in French, and instead of Saturday Night Live there was a show called SCTV which was funnier but didn’t last as long.

Legend has it that if you journey to the far, far north, you can pass through a portal to this alternate America. Unless you live in Alaska, in which case I gather you have to drive west. (*)

(* Or maybe east. The legends are cloudy.)

Jesse Walker, “Canada Repeals Restriction on Online ‘Hate Speech'”, Hit and Run, 2013-07-11

July 10, 2013

Operation Husky, 1943

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Italy, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:11

Was the invasion of Sicily by the allies in 1943 a strategic error?

Seventy years ago this week, U.S. and British Commonwealth troops began Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. Foreshadowing D-Day 1944, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower served as overall Allied commander. Like D-Day, Allied airborne soldiers led the Husky assault by parachuting (on the night of July 9, 1943) into olive groves and rock-strewn fields along the island’s southeastern shores. On July 10, seven divisions — three U.S., three British and the 1st Canadian Infantry Division — launched an amphibious attack on a 100-mile long front. Despite several successful Axis air attacks on ships and a brazen Italian tank attack on U.S. positions near Gela, by midnight July 10 all seven divisions were ashore.

Putting seven divisions ashore so swiftly was an extraordinary coup. Oh, grievous errors occurred as the buildup proceeded, the most notorious being the July 11 downing of 23 U.S. transports by Allied anti-aircraft fire. The planes were ferrying paratroop reinforcements. Yet in its initial phases Husky demonstrated that the Anglo-American team had learned a great deal since the Operation Torch landings in November 1942. Planning and coordination had improved. North African combat had honed the skills of American forces.

[. . .]

The Sicily campaign placed Allied troops less than 10 miles (the strait’s width) from mainland Italy.

The oh-so-close proximity of large Allied forces to Italy was enticing. And that enticement leads to the biggest historical question tagging Operation Husky: Was taking Sicily the best strategic choice, since it made an invasion of Italy inevitable? From south of Naples to the Po Valley, Italy’s rugged and rocky terrain is a defender’s delight and attacker’s sorrow.

Winston Churchill had sold Sicily as the next logical step. Sicily was the classical route to Rome from North Africa, and knocking fascist Italy out of the war would deal Adolf Hitler’s Axis a heavy political loss.

Sicily geographically dominates the central Mediterranean. Husky’s advocates noted that for three millennia the island served as the stepping stone of to-and-fro commerce and war between North Africa and Europe.

American military leaders were not convinced. The decisive route to Berlin goes through France — make the all-out effort there. Churchill also claimed Europe had a “soft underbelly.” Italian and Balkan terrain is not soft. Several senior U.S. planners thought Churchill was really trying to defend British imperial interests.

Axis-controlled Sicily had served as a big aircraft carrier for attacking Allied shipping. Under Allied control, those bases would extend air cover to northern Italy and Sardinia. U.S. planners agreed that Husky made operational sense if the goal was securing air bases. But can we stop there, at the strait? Sicily’s hard slog was costly. A strategic thrust up Italy’s mountainous spine will be as just slow and deadly.

And indeed it was.

July 9, 2013

Time to let the media in to Lac-Mégantic

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:46

In Maclean’s, Paul Wells makes a strong case that it’s high time to let the media in to the disaster area of downtown Lac-Mégantic so they can do their job:

It was when I saw that Justin Trudeau had toured the Lac-Mégantic disaster site that I started to think something is seriously screwy about this whole situation.

I take seriously the sincerity of every politician arriving at Lac-Mégantic to tour the site of Saturday’s early-morning train derailment, and I note that it is starting to be a long list. I stand to be corrected on this chronology, but in very rough order it has included Premier Pauline Marois, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, several members of Marois’s cabinet, two members of Harper’s, and Trudeau. On Tuesday Olivia Chow and another NDP MP will add their names to the list of MPs, MNAs and other dignitaries who have walked through the zone where the devastation occurred and the lives were lost. I assume it has been a harrowing experience for all of them.

But to some extent I can only assume, because no journalist has been allowed to take the same walk the politicians have taken. I did a radio interview today, and the reporter said, “The Prime Minister said it’s like a war zone. What have you seen?” And I said, more or less, I’ve seen some Sûreté du Québec scrums, and the haunted eyes of a few lucky survivors.

Now. There are reasons reporters wouldn’t be allowed to see the accident zone, and reasons why politicians would. But the parade of the latter is starting to make the curtain drawn in front of the former seem faintly ridiculous. The accident zone was hot for days, although apparently not so hot that a succession of politicians couldn’t get close. There are other security concerns, though apparently not insurmountable (see: succession of politicians). And political figures are responsible for authorizing relief efforts. But that’s less true for opposition politicians, and a whole lot less so again when it comes to leaders of third parties.

CNN reports that the CEO of the parent company that owns the MMA claims the Lac-Mégantic train was tampered with before the runaway:

The driverless train that barreled into a small Quebec town and derailed, unleashing a deadly inferno that killed at least 13 people, may have had its brakes inadvertently disabled, the chairman of the company operating the train said Tuesday.

Firefighters in the nearby town of Nantes put out a blaze on the train hours before it rolled into Lac-Megantic. Ed Burkhardt, chief executive officer and president of Rail World, the parent company of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, told media outlets there’s evidence the engine powering the brakes was shut down at some point.

The matter needs further investigation, he told the Montreal Gazette. His company has begun an internal inquiry, he said.

“There are a number of missing pieces here,” Burkhardt told the paper, saying he didn’t suspect “the event was malicious or an act of terrorism.”

Pressed to elaborate by CNN affiliate CTV, Burkhardt wrote in an e-mail exchange, “We are now aware the firefighters shut down the locomotive. By the time (Montreal, Maine & Atlantic) people found out, it was too late.”

It’s possible that the firefighters who were called to the scene of the earlier (small) fire may have shut down the diesel engines as a precaution, not realizing that the engines were maintaining the air pressure in the brake system. If the engineer who went off-shift had not locked down enough of the hand brakes to hold the train on that grade, it would account for the train later running downhill towards Lac-Mégantic.

July 8, 2013

Canadian Army to return to historical designations and rank insignia

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 14:40

Oh, good: now nobody in the journalistic world will ever be able to figure out what the assemblage of items on a Canadian Army officer’s shoulder strap actually translates to in spoken English.

Traditional Insignia for Officers

In line with the formalization of historical rank names for non-commissioned members, the traditional army officer rank insignia – with the stars, or “pips,” and crowns – are being restored. This ranking system is more than a hundred years old and continues to be used by armies the world over. Historically, the variations of the stars and crown were used to delineate rank so that officers could recognize each other on the battlefield. Canadian Army colonels and general officers will also wear the traditional gorget patches.

A quick search didn’t turn up any new graphics showing the rank insignia, but it’s similar to what the British army uses:

British army officer insignia

Divisional Nomenclature and Patches

Land Force Areas will be renamed as divisions and Canadian Army personnel will wear appropriate division patches. Formations will be renamed as follows:

  • Land Force Quebec Area will be referred to as “2nd Canadian Division”;
  • Land Force Western Area will be referred to as “3rd Canadian Division”;
  • Land Force Central Area will be referred to as “4th Canadian Division”;
  • Land Force Atlantic Area will be referred to as “5th Canadian Division”; and
  • Land Force Doctrine and Training System will be referred to as “Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre”.

There will be no change to 1st Canadian Division Headquarters.

Update 24 July: No wonder the official website didn’t have any updated graphics for the re-instated rank insignia … “The CA was not apprised of this announcement until days before the MND made it. It was announced less than 2 weeks ago so we can only offer preliminary information.“

It is not generally understood how our Army came to wear the current Navy rank. This SITREP will hopefully allow you to dispel wrong information.

Key Talking Points

a. ‘Stars and Crowns’ is not British. The officers of almost 100% of the armies on every continent of the world including China, Russia, Finland, Colombia, and including the Salvation Army and RCMP wear a system of two identifiers: (i) a star, and (ii) a national symbol…it is an international convention and customary practice so an officer from any country can negotiate on the battlefield or work in coalitions like the UN or NATO and with civilian agencies. Canada’s Army used this international customary practice from 1885, officially recognized it in 1903, but lost it in 1968.

b. The CA lost stars and crowns as rank insignia in 1968 when the CA and RCAF plus the RCN were directed to put-up Merchant Navy rank. The RCN successfully got their ‘fighting-Navy’ executive curl back for their 100th anniversary. Now, the CA will return to Army vice Navy rank in time for the 100th anniversary of WWI and the 75th anniversary of WWII.

c. Cheaper. It costs $33.00 to tailor an officer’s DEU sleeve rank every time they get a new jacket or are promoted. It costs $5-6.00s for a pair of crowns or stars. The CA will save 80% of the costs and pay-off the initial project in just over 4 years. ‘Stars and crowns’ is going to save money for the CA not cost money.

This is what we can share now and will continue to share more in next Friday’s SITREP.

• Date of Implementation. Stars and Crowns cannot be implemented until a meeting off the National Defence Clothing and Dress Committee endorses the design for wear on DEU uniform. The CA will likely announce two dates: (i) the date that crowns and stars are available from each officer’s Logistik Unicorp account, and (ii) the date they need to be put-up.
• The full implementation may take considerable time to fully introduce because we were unaware of the change and there is no current stock of crowns or stars in the supply system.
• The CA will introduce the traditional rank system of WW II as found in Figure 14 of the 1953 CA Dress Regulations. We have already met with DHH and DSSPM for purchase discussions.
• DEU. The CA will buy and issue one pattern of star and crown at public expense based on one national CA/DHH approved pattern. The crowns and stars will be push pin like the NCM rank badges so the uniform is not damaged.
• Rifle and Guards Regiments. The CA will respect the traditional prerogative of rifle regiments and Regiments of Guards to purchase their alternate colours and patterns of stars and crowns respectively on DEU, patrol, ceremonial, and mess dress. For DEU, the CA HQ has requested public funding but the outcome is not known. For DEU, rifle regiments must still apply to the chain of command and submit their alternative designs for approval by the CCA and DHH. Rifle regiments may contact the G1 Heritage Pat Bryden at 613 415 7707 for additional guidance.
• CADPAT. There is a new high visibility CADPAT rank slip on/velcro project running as we speak. The project will change all CADPAT rank to higher visibility thread. This project will introduce stars and crowns for officers prior to mass production. Thanks to this project, there will be no new cost to put crowns and stars onto CADPAT slip-ons.
• DEU Slip-ons. The CA with DHH will also approve patterns for the officers’ slip-on for the CA. Decisions are now being made on the extent of patterns and the extent of public funding support. Vendors are already offering rank badges and insignia to units. Some units might lean forward and we suggest Divisions advise units to not proceed until key decisions are made on (a) permissible public and non-public purchasing, (b) the extent to which units will be permitted to deviate from the CA patterns, and (c) the CA date to implement new DEU rank is announced in a CANARMYGEN. All regiments can trust that our CA HQ is working in the interest of regimental identity and speed to meet the MND intent.
• Mess Dress. It is recognized that a substantial number of our CA units still informally use stars and crowns on their mess dress. The current CA recommendation will be that officers with Navy bars on their mess dress will only be required to put-up stars and crowns voluntarily (grandfathered) but it will be mandatory if/when the officer is promoted. This will be further developed.

Update, 11 June, 2014. While I wasn’t paying attention, the Canadian Army Insignia page was updated with the current rank insignia. For your inconvenience, I’ve bodged the officer shoulder insignia into one image:

Canadian Army Officer Rank Insignia 2014

July 7, 2013

Locomotive in Lac-Mégantic derailment had been on fire hours before the crash

Filed under: Cancon, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:07

In the 680News round-up of details from the Lac-Mégantic explosion and fire, there’s a fascinating bit of news I hadn’t heard before:

Responding to a reporter’s question during Saturday’s news conference, Lauzon confirmed that firefighters in a nearby community were called to a locomotive blaze on the same train a couple of hours before the derailment. Lauzon said he could not provide additional details about that fire since it was in another jurisdiction.

This may or may not have any bearing at all on the subsequent runaway and crash, but it’s of interest. So far, there have been three reported deaths from the explosions and fire, with at least 40 people still unaccounted for. The PM will be visiting the town soon:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is planning to visit this Quebec community Sunday, one day after powerful explosions caused by a train derailment levelled the town’s downtown core and killed at least one person, with police predicting the death toll would rise.

“We do expect we’ll have other people who will be found deceased unfortunately,” Lt. Guy Lapointe, a spokesman with Quebec provincial police, told a news conference Saturday night.

Authorities in Quebec say two more people are confirmed dead in the train derailment and massive fire in Lac-Mégantic to bring the declared death toll to five.

“We also expect that down the line … there will be more people reported missing than people actually found dead.”

Lapointe refused to give any estimate of people unaccounted for because emergency crews couldn’t reach a two-kilometre-square section of the town out of concern that five of the train’s tanker cars could still explode.

Update on the Lac-Mégantic train derailment

Filed under: Cancon, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:48

The Guardian provides more recent information about the situation in Lac-Mégantic:

Fires continued burning for more than 24 hours after a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed in eastern Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed a town’s centre and killed at least one person. Police said they expected the death toll to rise.

The explosions sent residents of Lac-Mégantic scrambling through the streets under the intense heat of towering fireballs and a red glow that illuminated the night sky, witnesses said. Flames and billowing black smoke could still be seen long after the 73-car train had derailed, and a fire chief likened the charred scene to a war zone.

Up to 2,000 people were forced from their homes in the lakeside town of 6,000 people, which is about 155 miles east of Montreal and about 10 miles west of the Maine border.

Quebec provincial police lieutenant Michel Brunet confirmed that one person had died. He refused to say how many others might be dead, but said authorities had been told “many” people have been reported missing.

Lt Guy Lapointe, a spokesman with Quebec provincial police, said: “I don’t want to get into numbers, what I will say is we do expect we’ll have other people who will be found deceased unfortunately. “People are calling in reported love ones missing, some people are reported two, three times missing by different members of the family,” he said.

Lac-Mégantic train derailment update

[. . .]

The cause of the accident was believed to be a runaway train, the railway’s operator said.

The president and CEO of Rail World Inc, the parent company of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, said the train had been parked uphill of Lac-Mégantic.

“If brakes aren’t properly applied on a train, it’s going to run away,” said Edward Burkhardt. “But we think the brakes were properly applied on this train.”

Burkhardt, who was mystified by the disaster, said the train was parked because the engineer had finished his run.

“We’ve had a very good safety record for these 10 years,” he said of the decade-old railroad. “Well, I think we’ve blown it here.”

Update: Of course, to a politician, it’s never too soon to turn headlines into props for your favourite causes:

[NDP leader Thomas] Mulcair, speaking in Montreal on Saturday, said the accident was “another case where government is cutting in the wrong area.”

“We are seeing more and more petroleum products being transported by rail, and there are attendant dangers involved in that. And at the same time, the Conservative government is cutting transport safety in Canada, cutting back the budgets in that area,” said Mulcair, who pointed to decreased transportation checks on petroleum at a time when production was increasing.

“When we have a discussion about these things in the coming months or years let’s remember this day. We are watching a magnificent little village being burned to the ground by toxic products that were being transported through it,” Mulcair said.

I really did think better of Mr. Mulcair. This is quite disappointing.

Update, the second: The front page of Le Journal de Montréal, courtesy of Newseum.

Front page of Le Journal de Montréal, 2013-07-07

July 6, 2013

Explosion and fire in Lac-Mégantic as freight train rolled through the centre of town

Filed under: Cancon, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:44

The CBC has a report:

A train carrying crude oil derailed overnight in the heart of Lac-Mégantic in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, sparking a major fire that led to the evacuation of 1,000 people from their homes.

Witnesses reported between four and six explosions overnight in the town of about 6,000 people. The derailment happened at about 1 a.m. ET, about 250 kilometres east of Montreal.

It is not yet known if there are any casualties, but several people have been reported missing and are feared dead.

Zeph Kee, who lives about 30 minutes outside of Lac-Mégantic, said he saw a huge fireball coming from the city’s downtown.

Kee said several buildings and homes were completely flattened by the blast.

Google Maps shows the railway line entering town from the southwest and curving along the lakeshore, crossing the Chaudière River:

Lac-Mégantic Quebec

More than 100 firefighters, some as far away as Sherbrooke, Que., and the United States, were on the scene early Saturday morning to bring the flames under control.

Lac-MéganticA large but as-yet undetermined amount of fuel is also reported to have spilled into the Chaudière River.

The derailed train belongs to Montreal Maine & Atlantic, which owns more than 800 kilometres of track serving Maine, Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick, according to the company’s website.

The cause of the derailment is under investigation. A spokesperson for Quebec provincial police said it is still early too early to say what caused it.

Update: Twitchy has collected some Tweets and photos from Lac-Mégantic.

July 5, 2013

Dudley Do-Wrong

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:32

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have a great PR image in the rest of the world … for many people, the image of the scarlet-coated Mountie is synonymous with Canada. But for Canadians, there’s a growing unease about the RCMP:

Canadians have mixed views of our national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We seem to admire the RCMP as an institution but are increasingly suspicious of the actions of individual Mounties and of the force’s brass — its senior officers and policymakers.

Our attitudes are further complicated by the fact that we seem to see the officers in our local detachments as good guys — they play on our men’s league hockey teams, help out with community charities, take their kids to school like the rest of us — yet we are beginning to see more bad apples elsewhere.

According to an Abacus Data poll of 1,000 Canadians conducted in late June, the Mounties remain one of our most trusted national institutions. A symbol of the country, the RCMP ranks right up there (69%) with the maple leaf (83%) and universal health care (78%).

Yet a majority of Canadians believe officers have used excess force (51%) and that sexism is rampant (54%) within the RCMP. Significant pluralities are also convinced problems within the force are “widespread” (43%) and are not being exaggerated (42%).

[. . .]

But I would guess, the biggest strains on the Mounties’ credibility, particularly in rural Canada and the West, have been over guns. And the warrantless seizure of hundreds of firearms from the homes of evacuees following the flooding in High River, two weeks ago — in which Mounties broke open doors and removed private property arbitrarily — will only widen the existing trust gap.

July 4, 2013

That distinctive society

Filed under: Cancon — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:05

Richard Anderson on the most recent language flap in Quebec:

One of PET’s few redeeming characteristics was his understanding of Quebec nationalism’s intense parochialism. This was not simply a minority wishing to preserve its culture, the Quebecois of 1960 were among the most successful and secure ethnic minorities in the world. The tribalists who sought the province’s independence were driven by a fear and hatred of the Other. That Other was mostly the English in the 1960s. But Canada, even Quebec, is now a more diverse place. If this was just a matter of holding a grudge against the Anglos it would stop and end with the English. But the die-hards don’t seem be fond of anyone but their own kind.

Ethnic nationalists are like that.

Now let us imagine a scenario. Indeed a great deal of imagination is required to keep the kabuki theatre of Quebec nationalism going. Let us think of a retail manager in Toronto who, for the sake of preventing ghetto formation in the world place, decided to insist on employees speaking only English. How long do you guess before the cops show up? Minutes? The camera crews would probably be there faster. The Toronto Police Service is renowned [both] for their zeal in traffic enforcement and their obsequiousness toward politically correct nostrums. Chief Blair would be hailing the arrest as a victory for diversity by late afternoon.

[. . .]

In the wake of this story the Quebec government was clear that it was not illegal to speak English in Quebec. Not yet anyway. A pure laine nationalist can dream, can’t he? This story has resonance because it captures the status of Anglophones as second class citizens in their own province. It’s linguistic bigotry that would be tolerated nowhere else in Canada. The last acceptable bigotry in modern Canada.

All Canadians are equal. Those who speak French are just more equal than others.

In honour of our American cousins’ Fourth of July…

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 00:01

… here’s Tim Hicks singing “Stronger Beer”:

H/T to Dave Slater for the link.

July 3, 2013

Kathy Shaidle’s “Dispatch from Canada”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:21

Kathy will be writing a weekly column for our American friends, updating them with whatever’s up here in the Great White North. Given how little actually ever happens in Canada, it might be just a weather report or the latest style change for Justin Trudeau’s hair. However, to start it off, yesterday’s column attempted to correct a few common notions about Canada:

Because a lot of what you think you know about Canada is probably decades out of date.

As investment bigwig and journalist Theo Caldwell recently noted:

    But Canada is far from American stereotypes of socialism, centralization and obeisance, at least in relative terms. By almost any measure, Canada is a freer country than the U.S.A.

    Economically, the contrast is stark, for those who care to see. While folks reflexively state that Canadian taxes are higher than those of the United States, corporate and personal rates are lower up north.

How much lower are those corporate taxes? Canada ranks 6th lowest out of 185 nations. America came in at a shocking 69th place.

Believe it or not, Canada’s average household net worth is higher than America’s.

We also have lower unemployment, and our economy is holding steady, thanks in part to our ingenious refusal to give mortgages to welfare bums.

We have fewer divorces, fewer traffic fatalities, and way fewer tornadoes.

We’re skinnier, too. (Seriously: your restaurant portions are freakishly huge.)

But what about “the American Dream”?

According to one (Canadian) economist, “a son born to a poor father in the U.S. is twice as likely to remain poor throughout his life than if he had been born in Canada.”

[. . .]

We’ve got our flaws too, of course.

We literally have no abortion law, which means it’s easier to get one than a gun, even at the nine-month mark.

There’s no death penalty. And try getting an MRI, unless you’re a cat.

Our cops are increasingly corrupt, if not downright fascist. (Don’t be fooled by the propaganda about the noble, virtuous Mountie…)

We have this unelected Senate thing (long story) and a dorky constitution, especially compared to yours.

And don’t get me started on Quebec.

July 1, 2013

Positive developments in Canadian government digital policy

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:59

Micheal Geist rounds up some good news for Canada Day:

As Canadians grapple with news of widespread secret surveillance, trade agreements that could upend intellectual property policy, and the frustrations of a failed wireless policy, there are plenty of digital policy concerns. Yet on Canada Day, my weekly technology law column argues that it is worth celebrating the many positive developments that dot the Canadian digital policy landscape. Eight of the best include:

1. The Supreme Court of Canada’s strong affirmation of user rights and technological neutrality in copyright. [. . .]

2. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s policy on network neutrality. [. . .]

3. The defeat of the government’s lawful access legislation. [. . .]

4. Canada’s promotion of user generated content. [. . .]

5. The CRTC’s pro-consumer agenda. [. . .]

6. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s aggressive investigations of top Internet companies. [. . .]

7. Canada’s notice-and-notice system for Internet providers. [. . .]

8. Canada’s balanced patent law standards. [. . .]

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