Quotulatiousness

December 6, 2012

Toronto’s unusually expensive school maintenance costs

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Education — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:33

The Toronto Star is asking the Toronto District School Board some searching questions about how much the board is paying for small maintenance jobs:

The high cost to perform tens of thousands of small jobs — hanging pictures, mounting bulletin boards and yes, more pencil sharpener installations — are costing the Toronto District School Board a small fortune, according to data obtained by the Star.

At one school, Emery Collegiate Institute in North York, a work crew was summoned to hang three pictures one day in March 2011, a job that took seven hours and cost $266. Eight days later, workers were once again called to the same school to “hang three pictures on the wall.” That time, workers billed for 24 hours at a cost to taxpayers of $857.

[. . .]

The Toronto public school board is in a cash crunch. It estimates $3 billion of work needs to be done to bring its aging schools up to an acceptable level.

About 900 workers belonging to the Maintenance and Skilled Trades Council carry out the work as part of a long-standing contract that is radically different from many other boards in Ontario, which contract out many jobs to the lowest bidders. Schools also have janitorial staff, which could do the smaller jobs that have been routinely assigned to the council workers.

Teachers have contacted the Star saying they would like to put up a shelf, a coat hook or attach a pencil sharpener but believe that they are not allowed to. “I was told flat out by my school that we are not allowed to do this work,” said one teacher, speaking on condition of anonymity because the teacher fears job repercussions for talking.

The data obtained by the Star is a mix of small jobs that appear to take too long, and big jobs that take many, many weeks. The data is raw — no conclusions are made in the data as to whether the job was done properly or on time.

H/T to Chris Selley:

December 5, 2012

The shipbuilding tradition of the Maritimes

Filed under: Cancon, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:56

I got a media advisory from Tell Tale Productions this morning, letting me know that their most recent documentary will be shown on CBC television this Sunday on Land & Sea:

Maritime Shipbuilding is a half hour documentary that reveals this seafaring history and the proud tradition that lives on today. The film travels to once-thriving shipbuilding centers in Atlantic Canada to reveal was at one time the most vibrant, productive, and profitable shipbuilding region in the world.

From the first boats built by the earliest settlers, to the golden Age of Sail in the 1800s, and from the Grand Bank fishing Schooners to the high tech Naval frigates of today — the 28,000 vessels built in Atlantic Canada during the past 250 years have shaped the region like no other industry.

December 4, 2012

An American view of Canada’s immigration policies

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:11

Shikha Dalmia says that the US could learn useful lessons on immigration policy from Canada:

… Canada’s provincial-nominee program is a model of economic enlightenment. Under this system, 13 provincial entities sponsor a total of 75,000 worker-based permanent residencies a year, and the federal government in Ottawa offers 55,000. Each province can pick whomever it wants for whatever reason—in effect, to use its quota, which is based on population, to write its own immigration policy.

Provinces may pick applicants left over from the federal program. They can also solicit their own applicants from anywhere in the world. In a direct attempt to poach talent from the U.S., some provinces are sponsoring H1-B holders stuck in the American labyrinth.

The government in Ottawa can’t question either the provinces’ criteria or their methods of recruitment. Its role is limited to conducting a security, criminal and health check on foreigners picked by the provinces, which has cut processing time for permanent residency to one or two years—compared with a decade or more in the U.S.

Richard Kurland, a lawyer who is considered Canada’s top immigration expert, notes that provinces use the program for diverse goals such as enhancing existing cultural or ethnic ties with other countries. Not surprisingly, the most popular reason is economic: to augment the local labor market.

The program gives British Columbia the same flexibility to sponsor, say, bricklayers as it gives Ontario to sponsor computer programmers. It doesn’t treat the entire Canadian economy as monolithic and pretend that distant federal bureaucrats can effectively cater to local job markets. (Canada’s federal program is a different story altogether.)

December 3, 2012

Canada’s arch-traitor of the War of 1812

Filed under: Cancon, History, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:54

In the National Post, James Careless discusses the worst politician in Canadian history, the man who urged invaders to burn down his own constituency on their retreat:

Joseph Willcocks was an admired and effective member of the Upper Canada parliament for Niagara when the War of 1812 broke out. He quickly applied his skills to the war effort, convincing aboriginal warriors in his area to fight for the British. He earned the gratitude of the great British Army officer Sir Isaac Brock for his effort and fought alongside Brock at the Battle of Queenston Heights.

By all accounts he fought bravely. But as the war raged on, Willcocks decided to switched sides, joining the Americans who had overrun his Niagara riding. He created a turncoat regiment called the Canadian Volunteers who spied on Upper Canadians still loyal to the British, imprisoned their men and plundered their farms.

When the Americans retreated from Niagara in December 1813, Willcocks urged them to burn the village to the ground. This the Americans did, turning families out into the snow with the Canadian Volunteers’ eager assistance.

“This act of treason made Willcocks the only MP in history to burn his constituency,” says Sarah Maloney, managing director/curator of the Niagara Historical Society & Museum in Niagara-on-the-Lake (formerly Niagara). “His betrayal is unprecedented in our history.”

“Willcocks was certainly Canada’s worst-ever politician,” says Peter Macleod, pre-Confederation historian and curator of the Canadian War Museum’s 1812 exhibition. “But he was more than that. Willcocks was and still is Canada’s arch-traitor.”

Update, 24 May 2013: This was posted as a comment by Bryan Kerman, but comments are automatically closed on posted items after a few days, so it didn’t get added to the comment thread.

Sorry to surprise you but the article on Joseph Willcocks is misleading and covers up the big STATE LIE about him.

To whit:

1. He did not go willingly to the Americans but was run out by some prominent Tories, part of what would be called the Family Compact shortly afterwards.

2. He essentially fought his war within a war to hurt the Tories and otherwise political enemies who had caused him to flee.

3. His treason by taking up arms has provided convenient cover for 200 years to those who caused his expulsion and thence violent response.

These conclusions based on new evidence I have found is given in the ‘Introduction’ to my book Democrats and Other Traitors (Amazon) and throughout the novel.

Mr. Kerman’s book is listed on the Offorby Press website here.

November 29, 2012

QotD: Transforming Ontario’s wine market

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Quotations, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:33

A major transition is never easy, but it would be worth it. The strategy we recommend would lead to more government revenue for health care and education; a sustained commitment to the socially responsible use of alcohol; increased economic growth based on greater access to markets; a renewed emphasis on responsible environmental practices; and wider choice, more convenience and competitive prices for consumers.

The present beverage alcohol system took shape at the end of Prohibition. For decades, Ontario has made minor repairs to the system when a complete overhaul was needed. In our view the government should focus its role on effective regulation, and restructure the system from top to bottom to establish a more competitive model.

After 78 years, change is long overdue. It is time to transform Ontario’s beverage alcohol system for the 21st century.

“Part IV. Conclusion: Towards a Competitive System”, A Report of the Beverage Alcohol System Review Panel July, 2005

November 28, 2012

Is Ontario finally “grown up enough” for private wine stores?

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Law, Wine — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:38

In the National Post, David Lawrason talks about the push for changes to Ontario’s Prohibition-era laws regarding the sale of wine in private stores:

The Wine Council of Ontario has flipped the switch on a website called www.mywineshop.ca that allows citizens to create their own virtual wine shop. It is a very bold and clever marketing/lobbying idea. And it is the first time an industry association has initiated a public campaign aimed at creating private wine stores in the province. Gutsy stuff.

In less than a week it has painted an appetite-whetting tapestry of what privatization might look like in Ontario, complete with store themes, stock selections and locations across the province as designed by its citizens. And it is giving the public a very direct way to lobby their local MPPs for change.

One of the big reasons the Ontario wineries and wine writers fear pushing too hard for this modernization and liberalization of our drinking law is that the KGBO LCBO has a long history of retribution against dissenters:

The other theme is fear of LCBO retribution. (Talk about “the elephant in the room”). Even our braveheart John Szabo remarked at the end of his piece that “I hope I don’t get put on an (LCBO) interdiction list for writing this”. An importing agent replying to John’s article said he really wanted to talk about the issue ‘off the record’ as he was concerned that being put on an interdiction list would put him out of business.

This fear of the LCBO, whether justified or not, is another compelling reason to re-think the government monopoly. The fear shouldn’t exist within an otherwise free and democratic society; but it does. I have been writing on wine for over 25 years and during that time I have been involved in thousands of conversations with wineries, importers and consumers on shortcomings of the current system. Only once did an individual agree to be quoted.

When your livelihood depends on access to a product controlled by a monopoly, you dare not get on the wrong side of the powers-that-be controlling that monopoly. They may not break legs or leave horse’s heads in the beds of critics, but they can directly freeze the critics out of their profession. An excellent way to limit dissent. Just the hinted threat can be enough to make a would-be critic decide to toe the line and shut the hell up.

November 27, 2012

Coyne: Carney’s departure is probably for the best

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Economics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:27

Aside from the ousting of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, the other big story in Canadian media yesterday was the announcement that Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney will be leaving to take over the Bank of England next year:

Inevitably, there are mixed feelings: satisfaction that a Canadian civil servant should be held in such regard abroad; annoyance that a foreign power should feel entitled to raid our highest offices, as if we were their farm team; gratitude for his service; disappointment that he did not finish his term.

On balance, however, the departure of Mark Carney as governor of the Bank of Canada, to take on the same position at the Bank of England, is probably for the best. It will of course be a great loss: he is largely deserving of his exalted reputation. That’s the point: he was becoming too big for the Bank. His ambitions were known to stretch beyond it; his persona was starting to overshadow it. Rock stars and central banks make an uncomfortable fit.

[. . .]

But ultimately, it’s the institution that counts, not the man. The Bank is steeped in talent, and any successor will be able to draw on the same organizational strengths as Carney. And Carney’s own outsized talents, it must be said, were beginning to present a problem, or at least might have. Politically savvy, a natural communicator, possessed of a certain glamour (at least by central banker standards), and young enough to harbour ambitions beyond his current office, it was perhaps inevitable that he should excite speculation about his future plans, without ever intending to.

All the same, it was unhealthy that talk began to turn to the possibility of him running for Liberal leader, and unhealthier still that this was not more firmly squelched, sooner. I’ve no reason to believe he ever seriously considered doing so, but it would have been a terrible business if he had. It is unusual enough for a governor to leave one country’s central bank for another. But for a governor to resign to lead the party seeking to replace the government he had lately served? I do not think the people who were urging this course upon Carney thought this through.

Update: At the Telegraph, Iain Martin reminds Carney’s sudden horde of fans that he’s merely mortal.

Is there any stopping Carney-mania? Those of us who 24 hours ago couldn’t have identified Mark Carney, even if he was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “I’m the Governor of the Canadian Central Bank” in 110pt type, now stroke our chins and swap our best Carney insights. He was voted the most trustworthy Canadian in a poll conducted by Readers Digest (Canada). He has four children. He paid $800,000 for his house in Ottawa, apparently, although he undertook $95,000 of improvements. Did they extend out the back or convert the attic? I don’t know, yet. And Canada didn’t have a banking crisis, you know. Only it did, in the 1990s, and the recovery and reorganisation put it in place afterwards left it in good shape ahead of the much bigger financial crisis which hit the US and the UK particularly hard. And Canada knows how to regulate its banks, only that wasn’t actually Carney’s job. This is most of what we know so far.

[. . .]

Now Carney is hailed as “the world’s greatest central banker”. None of this is to knock the Canadian for a second. He seems like a sensible, pragmatic fellow with a good record. It is also pleasing to see a fresh face, someone not from the revolving door cast-list of the British establishment. Although it is worth remembering that he is from the new global establishment, via 13 years at Goldman Sachs and subsequent sessions on panels at Davos.

The UK certainly needs this appointment to work out, but the new arrival deserves continuous scrutiny from sceptical parliamentarians and, yes, from a (hopefully) free press. After all, Mark Carney is a banker, not a magician.

Toronto’s once (and future?) mayor

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

In Maclean’s, Ivor Tossell recounts the story of Rob Ford’s brief tenure as mayor of Toronto:

At Toronto’s City Hall, surely the most ambiently lunatic building in Canada, a stage was set up to launch the Mayor’s Christmas Toy Drive. Eight small children had been procured to act as “honourary elves,” sitting cross-legged on a carpet at the foot of a Christmas tree, flanked by boxes of mini-trikes and construction cranes. A boxed CFL football sat ominously to one side. The mayor was scheduled to launch the drive at 1 p.m. An enormous crowd of reporters buzzed about. Interest in the mayor’s event had amplified to unusual levels by news that the mayor had just gotten himself fired.

For everyone who’s ever bemoaned the fact that our democracy doesn’t offer a way to recall politicians, witness Rob Ford: the man who couldn’t stay mayor. In a ruling released this morning, a Superior Court justice declared Ford’s seat vacant — a weirdly existential way of putting it — after finding the mayor violated the municipal conflict-of-interest act in a small-stakes, but entirely willful, transgression.

Ford has been in office for two tumultuous years, in which his cost-cutting mandate quickly gave way to a scorched-earth war on the media, a succession of botched policies and a never-ending series of altercations, each more bizarre than the last. Giving the finger to a six-year old; chasing a reporter around a park near his home; helping eject a bus of TTC riders into the rain to get his football team a ride home. Finally, today, the mayor of Toronto was sent back to the voters to ask for his job back. In the end, Rob Ford recalled himself.

Update: Speaking for the defence, here’s Ezra Levant in his trademarked over-the-top style, comparing the Ford case to some other recent political scandals in Canada.

November 24, 2012

Regulating food container size as a form of soft protectionism

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Food — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:54

Terence Corcoran talks about the 1970s-era food packaging regulations that have suddenly become topical:

What started out looking like a regulatory non-event, the Harper government’s plan to repeal scores of petty federal rules governing the size of containers for packaged food in supermarkets, has suddenly become a great national food fight.

It’s industry against industry, food processors versus supply management, Heinz battling Campbell’s, baby-food makers against corn canners — all part of a war over jobs and trade and consumer dollars. Nominally over antiquated federal regulations, it’s also a war that highlights another reason why Canadian consumers pay more for products at the retail level.

[. . .]

Never mind peanut butter. Ottawa has detailed container specs for what looks like every food product on store shelves: canned vegetables, fruit juices, vacuum-packed corn, tomato juice, maple syrup, frozen spinach, pork and beans, bagged potatoes, soups, desserts, pies, sauerkraut, horseradish sauce, wine — and many more.

It is unclear why these detailed container-size regulations exist, but one explanation is that they are a result of Ottawa’s mass conversion to metric measure in the 1970s under then prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Under the metrication rules, the law mandated metric for all prepackaged food products.

Whatever the intent of the detailed regulations, the effect has been to erect trade barriers that have created protected industries that are now opposing the proposed changes. The Food Processors of Canada set up a web page, KeepFoodJobsInCanada, promoting an email campaign to force Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz to block the plan to repeal the container-size regulations. It seems to have worked, so far.

November 22, 2012

Tim Tebow … future CFL star?

Filed under: Cancon, Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:54

Edmonton is crying out for a quality quarterback to take the Eskimos back to glory (or something that might pass for glory in poor light). Colby Cosh explains:

Tim Tebow. Say what you want about the man, and you will, but he is good copy. I got into a Tebow discussion the other day on Twitter after I started wishing aloud that he would come to Edmonton and save our CFL Eskimos from the wretched, dare I say almost Rider-like, state into which they have fallen. I was not really being serious. Well, OK: maybe ten percent serious.

About a year ago our genius general manager Eric Tillman decided to risk all on one turn of pitch-and-toss and trade our longtime quarterback, Ricky Ray, for magic beans from a passing pedlar. This decision was second-, third-, and nth-guessed at the time, and it was, we now know, rabidly opposed by head coach Kavis Reed. Ray does not throw the ball very far, or in an especially conventional way, but he has supreme accuracy statistics and had won two Grey Cups in Edmonton with pretty underwhelming teams. (The once-proud Eskies have not had a 12-win season yet in this century.)

Ray was divisive, though, Lordy, not Tebow divisive. But the trade united the city in agreement that the return was disappointing, and the unfolding of the Esks’ 7-11 season emphasized this in an especially brutal way. Peaceable Canada has never approved of the American practices of tarring and feathering or hastening the unwelcome out of town on a rail, but Tillman came within about a micron of it.

As with any healthy, anatomically intact young football fan, my thoughts sometimes turn to the curiously saintly, annihilatingly gifted Tebow. Last year’s Denver Broncos hero has entered the metaphorical wilderness of the New York Jets roster, where he spells off starting QB Mark Sanchez for a few snaps a game, plays on special teams, and for all I know mops the locker room. He is paid well for this, but it is not doing much for what you would call his human capital. In practices, Sanchez gets the vast majority of the “reps” — i.e., the work of simulating real plays. Tebow’s experience as a “punt protector” has been unhappy. There is already tremendous prejudice against him in the league, because he throws a football in a faintly silly way, and the longer he goes without running an offence as a quarterback, the less likely he is to ever be asked to do it again. Catch-22.

November 21, 2012

McGuinty’s resignation sends Andrew Coyne into wrathful froth

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 18:51

A fascinating set of Twitter updates from Andrew Coyne this afternoon:

Upgrading the Coyote

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

Strategy Page has a bit of Canadian content now and again:

Canada has ordered upgrades for another of its 66 LAV III wheeled armored vehicles. These 66 will be equipped for reconnaissance as was its predecessor the LAV II Coyote. This vehicle went to Afghanistan a decade ago and proved enormously useful by doing long range surveillance of Taliban and al Qaeda suspects. The Coyote reconnaissance system mounted on a wheeled armored vehicle. The recon gear consists of a nine meter (30 foot) telescoping mast that contains a Doppler radar, laser rangefinder, thermal imaging sensor and video camera. The mast mounted sensors can see clearly out to 15 kilometers and identify targets (day or night) for artillery or air attack. The radar can spot targets out to 24 kilometers, but can only distinguish vehicle types (wheeled, tracked) beginning at about 12 kilometers.

[. . .]

The Coyote was originally conceived as an inexpensive replacement for air reconnaissance. But the ability of a Coyote vehicle to stay in one place and carefully track movements over a wide area for days, or weeks proved very useful for intelligence work. Five years ago Canada began a $5 billion to upgrade and expand its fleet of LAV III wheeled armored vehicles. Over the last decade, Canada has replaced its 1980s era MOWAG and older LAV II vehicles with the locally built LAV IIIs. Canada donated many of the older wheeled armored vehicles (mostly 11 ton Grizzly personnel carriers) to nations performing peacekeeping duties.

November 17, 2012

The argument for a guaranteed annual income program

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:16

In the National Post, Andrew Coyne lays out the benefits of instituting a GAI to replace existing poverty programs:

The basic idea behind the GAI is sound: to consolidate a number of federal and provincial programs, some in cash and some in kind, into a single, universal, unconditional cash benefit, delivered through the tax system. The base amount would be modest: perhaps $10,000-$12,000 per person. Critically, it would be taxed back only gradually, say at 25 cents on the dollar, as earned income rises. Compare that to current practice, where benefits are often withdrawn dollar-for-dollar, or in the case of benefits in kind like free dental care or prescription drugs, are denied altogether to those who leave social assistance: an effective marginal tax rate of 100% or more.

You can see why the people who design and administer these systems do this. They’re trying to save money; they want to target assistance only to those who “need” it; they worry what people would do if given the cash to buy what they want, rather than the services government thinks they should have. But the result of all this careful selection and monitoring is not just condescending and intrusive: it effectively punishes people for taking a job, or working longer hours. This is the key insight of the GAI: dependence is created not so much by giving people money when they don’t work — certainly not at $10,000 a year — as by taking it away from them when they do.

So if all of this makes sense, why hasn’t it been done? One barrier is cost. The more gradually you reduce the transfer as income rises, the more paltry the base amount must be to stay within a given limit; conversely, set a more generous minimum, and you have to impose a steeper clawback. Of course, the arithmetic becomes less stark if you include the revenues saved from the programs the GAI would replace. But here you run into other obstacles.

November 16, 2012

Windsor’s new city slogan, courtesy of Stephen Colbert

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:53

American comedian Stephen Colbert just can’t seem to get off the back of Windsor, Ontario, and now he has dragged Winnipeg and the CBC into his attack routine.

If you could reply to Colbert’s comment, what would you say? Leave a comment below or on our Facebook Page (facebook.com/cbcmanitoba), and our Trending Now team will select the best comments to send back to Colbert!

November 13, 2012

Michael Geist on Canada’s new copyright law

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:52

If you’re not going to read the entire body of the law (and let’s face it, most of us would rather do just about anything other than that), here’s a thumbnail summary of what the new law says:

The good news is that the law now features a wide range of user-oriented provisions that legalize common activities. For example, time shifting, or the recording of television shows, is now legal under Canadian copyright after years of residing in a grey area. The law also legalizes format shifting, copying for private purposes, and the creation of backup copies. This will prove helpful for those seeking to digitize content, transfer content to portable devices, or create backups to guard against accidental deletion or data loss.

Canadians can also take greater advantage of fair dealing, which allows users to make use of excerpts or other portions of copyright works without the need for permission or payment. The scope of fair dealing has been expanded with the addition of three new purposes: education, satire, and parody.

Fair dealing now covers eight purposes (research, private study, news reporting, criticism, and review comprise the other five). When combined with the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decisions that emphasized the importance of fair dealing as users’ rights, the law now features considerable flexibility that allows Canadians to make greater use of works without prior permission or fear of liability.

The law also includes a unique user generated content provision that establishes a legal safe harbour for creators of non-commercial user generated content such as remixed music, mashup videos, or home movies with commercial music in the background. The provision is often referred to as the “YouTube exception”, though it is not limited to videos.

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