Canada’s has always been like the U.S.’s much less successful younger brother. We’re this rich businessman and adventurer who has been on the cover of every magazine, while Canada is going to make manager at McDonald’s any day now and has gotten a speaking role in the community theater’s production of Beauty and the Beast and we’re really proud of him.
Except now Canadians are richer than us.
[. . .]
Yep, we’re now being outpaced by those maple syrup-swilling moose jockeys up north. Thanks Obama!
Frank J. Fleming, “Losing to Canada”, IMAO, 2012-07-19
July 20, 2012
July 18, 2012
Toronto’s gun problem
No, not a problem with guns per se, but a problem with the image of guns. Jonathan Kay tries to do a quick psycho-analysis of Toronto’s issue here:
The primary tragedy of urban gun violence is, of course, that it kills people — including 14-year-old Shyanne Charles and 23-year-old Joshua Yasay, who were slain in Scarborough this week. A secondary ill effect is that it produces paralyzing anxiety in millions of otherwise unaffected people, largely thanks to sensationalistic media reporting that encourages the idea we are all inhabiting some kind of anything-goes “war zone.” As I’ve written before, gun violence in Toronto is largely confined to a small set of areas, and a small set of social and criminal contexts. For the average citizen, the chance of suicide or death-by-domestic-battery is much, much higher than the chance of becoming collateral damage in a gang killing.
But it’s not hard to figure out why scared housewives are canceling their zoo trips when the Toronto Star is blaring out headlines like “Mass shooting on Danzig puts the lie to Toronto’s ‘safe city’ mantra.”
Combine that headline with the lurid, disturbingly blood-fixated Rosie DiManno column that sits under those words, and a clear message emerges: Torontonians have been living in a dream world, going about their parenting and work lives in blissful ignorance of the warring gangs who are probably just around the corner, ready to march up the street, spraying the whole area with machine gun fire. Even the lemur isn’t safe: They’ll probably shoot him, too.
As I’ve noted, Chicago — a city with a population close to Toronto’s 2.6-million — witnesses about 10 times as many murders every year as Hogtown. And as Marni Soupcoff wrote earlier this week, tiny Detroit has had 184 murders this year, compared to Toronto’s 28. To repeat what’s been written: Among the American cities that witnessed more murders than Toronto in 2011 were Nashville (pop. 616,000), Tulsa, Okla (pop. 393,000), and Stockton, Cal. (292,000). In per-capita terms, Toronto has a substantially smaller homicide problem than Winnipeg and Edmonton.
And one must remember that Toronto has a unique view of itself and its role in the world:
Another factor is Toronto’s bizarrely inflated view of itself as a civic nirvana, to which the rest of the world is constantly gazing as a sort of Light Unto Cities. When anything bad happens, we naturally assume that the entire planet is gasping in horror and disappointment. In 2010, for instance, when a few dozen windows got broken at the G20 Summit here, Canadian journalists truly believed that the news would make banner headlines on other continents — and that we would have a “black eye” that would last for generations.
Regarding the shootings in Scarborough, this Reddit item is worth reading.
Update: Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail:
… In certain neighbourhoods, a war is on. It’s a war against peace and order waged by the forces of social disintegration. It’s the same war that killed Jane Creba in 2005, two people at the Eaton Centre last month and dozens of other victims who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The single most significant root cause is not guns or crummy housing or racism or inadequate policing or lenient sentencing or lack of jobs or insufficient social programs. It is family and community breakdown. Most especially, it’s absent fathers.
Social programs are essential. But all the social programs in the world can’t make up for family disintegration.
[. . .]
Family disintegration is not a racial problem. It is an underclass problem. The evidence is plain that children born to unmarried women – of whatever race – do much worse than children with two married parents. They’re less likely to succeed in school and more likely to turn to violence (boys) and promiscuity (girls). The easiest way for them to feel like someone is to grab a gun or have a baby.
So by all means, let’s redevelop public housing, strengthen our policing, hire more youth workers, launch more employment programs, start more basketball programs, help young mothers finish school and teach them how to read to their kids. It makes us feel good to focus on these things because they are things we can actually do something about, and maybe they will make a difference. But let’s not kid ourselves: They’re Band-Aid solutions.
We have a million euphemisms for what’s gone wrong in our so-called “priority” neighbourhoods, a splendidly euphemistic term that has replaced “at-risk,” “disadvantaged,” “underprivileged” and “poor.” By now, it should be obvious that material poverty is not the problem – not when every kid in a priority neighbourhood has a cellphone and a flat-screen TV. Their poverty is of a different, more corrosive kind: a poverty of expectations, role models, structure, consistency, discipline and support.
Even our euphemisms have euphemisms these days. They do nothing to solve the problem, but they allow the problem to be discussed at such a distance from reality that the lack of solution is generally hidden from view.
Until the next shooting.
July 17, 2012
Ending supply management
In the Globe and Mail Economy Lab, David Bond explores equitable ways to compensate farmers who will lose out if-and-when the federal government abandons the supply management system:
The quota was originally given out for free, therefore farmers or their direct successors still in the business would receive nothing for their original allocation and then 90 per cent of whatever they paid at the time they acquired additional amounts of quota.
Why only 90 per cent? Well having quota allowed the holders to earn returns on their investment well in excess of the returns that could have been earned in alternative forms of farming. Having enjoyed for more than 40 years these superior returns thanks to their ability to persuade government to protect them from competition it’s time they “enjoyed” some of the costs they foisted upon Canadian consumers.
While the potential beneficiaries of this compensation may complain of shoddy treatment they evidenced little sympathy on the costs they passed on to the consumers much less the harmful impact they had on potential exports of other agricultural and non-agricultural exports because government refused to modify supply management during trade negotiations.
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July 16, 2012
Toronto edges cautiously toward allowing wider range of “street food”
Matt Gurney in the National Post on Toronto’s inch-by-glacial-inch move toward allowing a bit more variety in the foods street vendors can sell:
Last week, Toronto City Council approved hot dog vendors to sell an expanded variety of foods. The expanded list is still far from expansive. Veggie sticks, fruit salads and bagels with individually packaged butters are about the extent of the street food revolution in Toronto. Even these baby steps are progress, though — they follow the total failure of Toronto’s A La Cart program, which tried to expand the city’s food options to include more “ethnic” fare. The program, which should go down in history as the most botched effort the city has ever made, is Prosecution Exhibit A for those who believe that governments only exist to screw up things that really aren’t all that complicated.
But the city’s concern about street food, though overwrought and frankly embarrassing, at least comes from an honest place — concerns about spoiled food or improper preparation hurting public health. But Toronto has always missed the point. The public is protected when governments monitor outcomes and harshly punish failures, not seek to control process. Health inspections are an entirely reasonable part of the government’s job, with street food as much as any industry. And it seems that Toronto, while fretting about what food vendors might be doing wrong, hasn’t exactly been doing a bang-up job of its own responsibilities.
Hard though it is to imagine, other cities — even other Canadian cities — somehow manage to have all sorts of tasty treats for sale by food trucks, carts, and temporary kiosks without civilization crumbling.
July 15, 2012
What’s a waste of $180 million among politicians?
Rex Murphy explains just why Ontarians are so justifiably cynical about politics and politicians:
Add all these up and I think we have a good notion of why politics are so little regarded, why so many politicians are abused or scorned and why public life holds so little invitation for those of delicate moral scruple, or a functioning conscience.
But now I’d like to add one particular item to that list: the Dalton McGuinty campaign’s decision to cancel an already-in-progress, contract-guaranteed gas-fired electricity plant outside Mississauga, Ont. It was cancelled, according to the current Ontario Energy Minister’s own words, by the Liberal campaign during the last election. (Everyone who is either sentient or not an absolute Liberal partisan — and pardon the redundancy — realizes that happened because opposition to the plant threatened a Liberal seat or two in the election.)
The cost of that “campaign” choice is now acknowledged to be $180-million.
Now if even a million of the amount had gone into some private pocket, or a bank account of someone close to the Ontario Liberals, the scandal would be nuclear. But because the money is merely wasted — because the whole $180-million just got thrown away, effectively doled out just for partisan advantage — people don’t quite reach white-hot anger.
But something else may be going on. People’s contempt for actions of this sort may be so deep that for a while it remains unspoken. Arrogance and self-interest on this level leaves most normal people speechless. They resign themselves to the sleaziness and corruption of the game. They learn to quietly despise politics. At that point, in a democracy, all are losers. And make no error: It was the Ontario Liberals this time, but once in power, every party, from the Tories to the Greens, is capable of acting in the same way.
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July 14, 2012
Ontario’s latest headache in the education ministry
Mark Schatzker explains the new disaster unfolding in the Ontario government’s education file:
According to reports, a number of large unions, including CUPE, IATSE and the United Steelworkers, are already courting prominent Toronto-area student leaders. It is expected that any negotiation will include a list of long-standing student grievances. Top among them is the issue of merit based marking.
“Someone has to do something about all these losers who hog all the best marks,” said Stu, a grade 11 student at Central Etobicoke High School who did “brutal” in Functions and Applications this year.
His friend and co-organizer Luke says a union will be able to push for a “marks tax” on the top one per cent of students. “You have these total nerds who get, like 98 in Bio,” Luke explained. “We think they should give five or ten per cent of those marks to the students who get 45.”
“We have to stop rewarding greed,” Stu said.
Over at Parkside Elementary School in Scarborough, Isabelle, who is in grade seven, is also taking up the fight to make Toronto schools a closed shop. At the top of her grievance list: “geographism.”
“The way it works right now,” Isabelle explained, “is that you have to go to whatever school is closest to your house. But what if your best friend from music camp goes to a different school? How is that, like, fair?”
Sources in the Ministry of Education say the province is already close to signing a deal with elementary students with a benefits package that includes: cupcake Fridays, a ban on quinoa, and a 5.7 per cent increase in recess every year for the next four years, raising it to 20.9 minutes by 2017. (It is presently 15 minutes.)
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Discovering old favourites
I was delighted to discover last night that my favourite Quebec folk group has finally appeared in digital form on iTunes. I first heard the music of Barde in about 1978 and was immediately captivated by it. It’s a blend of Celtic music with a Quebec twist. Here’s their entry in the Canadian Pop Encyclopedia:
Richard Chapman (vocals, mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, guitar)
Toby Cinnsealac (aka Kinsella) (tin flute, tin whistle, recorders, clarinet, tambourine)
Pierre Guerin (vocals, acoustic guitar, accordion, concertina, flute, recorder)
Chris (aka Crilly) MacRaghallaigh (vocals, violin, keyboards, bodhran, tambourine)
Elliot Selick (violin, tin flute, tin whistle, banjo)
Ed Moore (bodhran, tambourine, concertina, tin flute, tin whistle, glockenspiel)
Jacques Joubert (violin; 1983)
Richard Paquette (keyboards; 1983)
Jocelyn Therrien (bass; 1983)This sextet from Montreal was formed in 1973 and found their brand of Acadian & Celtic reels and jigs popular around the Maritimes, Quebec and overseas in Europe. The group was known for its utilization of a twin Celtic fiddle sound courtesy of Crilly and Selick.
They signed to Polygram then to Direction Records, then to Flying Fish, and finally to Porte Parole. Their eponymous debut, Barde, was released in 1977. By their the second album, Images, in 1978 Chris Crilly had introduced keyboards in the form of synths and pianos. By 1983’s Voyage Selick had also left and the remaining members changed musical direction by incorporating keyboards bass and violin courtesy of studio musicians Jacques Joubert, Richard Paquette, and Jocelyn Therrien.
Pierre Guerin led a revamped Barde at the 10th Annual Winnipeg Folk Festival. The band finally disbanded for good shortly thereafter with Guerin marrying and settling in the St. Boniface region of Winnipeg. He became a disc jockey before becoming Artistic Director of The Winnipeg Folk Festival.
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July 13, 2012
Nice little racket some Toronto stores have set up
Charge your customers 5 cents per bag, beat them over the head with the message that the money goes to “charity”, then pocket the profits:
Another customer, who requested anonymity, said she now boycotts Loblaws, Shoppers and PharmaPlus. When Loblaws started selling plastic bags, she said it led to poorer customer service like cashiers refusing to pack her groceries.
“A bag was a courtesy given for shopping in the store and also a way for the store to advertise by putting their logo on the side of the bag,” she said in an email.
She also detests the World Wildlife Fund, which Loblaws funds with bag sales.
Metro spokeswoman Marie-Claude Bacon said Metro buys each bag for about 2.5¢. Most retailers won’t say how much plastic bag revenue flows to charities. Even when they do give, they recoup 33¢ of every donated dollar, Al Rosen, a forensic accountant, points out.
And he adds: “Overall, there are some who are being honest about increasing their donations and there are others who are just taking advantage of plastic bag thing to find another way of making the same donations as they previously made.”
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The only long-term answer to road congestion: real-time tolls
I know, I know … I hate paying road tolls as much as the next driver. But the current road pricing scheme is broken and getting broken-er. Andrew Coyne points out the unpleasant realities:
… the demand for road use — traffic — is not a fixed quantity. Like anything else, it fluctuates with the price. And the price to use the roads, under present policies, is denominated in time: that is, by how long people are prepared to stew in traffic. This is, when you think about it, perverse. The people who get first claim on the roads are the ones who put the lowest value on their time. Or in other words, the people who need them the least.
That’s why analysts have long recommended pricing roads in more conventional terms, i.e. dollars and cents. But there are lots of ways of getting even this wrong, so we need to eliminate a couple more alternatives, such as:
More taxes. Many people’s first response to the notion of pricing roads is to say “but I already pay a gas tax.” The more knowledgeable will point to statistics showing that revenues from gas taxes more than pay for the cost of building and maintaining the roads.
But these are far from the only costs at issue, or even the most important. As far as congestion is concerned the cost that matters is not the cost of building the road, but the cost of using it. Every time you use the road, you impose a cost on other drivers, so far as you make the roads that much more crowded — as they, of course, do you. Add up those costs over millions of drivers every day — costs measured not only in delays, but in more collisions, more wear and tear, more pollution, and so on — and we are well into the billions, according to several estimates.
[. . .]
What’s really needed, then, is a more comprehensive approach. With modern technology, there’s no reason to toll only some roads and not others. Using GPS-style in-car transponders and satellites, it’s now possible to charge drivers to use the roads generally, with the highest charges applying in downtown centres and at rush-hour — just as you pay a higher charge to use your cellphone depending on the location and time of day. You’d even get a monthly bill in the mail.
Far-fetched? Britain and the Netherlands have each been on the verge of adopting similar schemes in recent years. That each backed down in the end tells you something of the political sensitivities involved: It’s always hard to get people to pay for things they are used to getting for free. But the roads aren’t free. We’re paying more and more to use them every year.
Pay in congestion, in time and noise and aggravation — or pay by credit card. Once you think of it that way, the choice should be easy.
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July 10, 2012
Does “Rule 34” have an exception after all?
Kathy Shaidle may have found the only known exception to Rule 34:
Since women (and not a few men) obviously love a man in uniform, where is all the porn featuring the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?
Dirty cops are an X-rated staple, and “the UPS guy” has almost driven the once-ubiquitous “mailman” out of the porn business.
Even Nazis get to go where Mounties fear to tread. Those sleek black (Hugo Boss-designed) SS getups can get under even the most surprising skins: During the Eichmann trial in Israel, “Stalag” porn became Über-popular sexual samizdat.
So this slightly put-out Canuck wonders: What’s wrong with the RCMP, eh? Their uniforms are pretty sharp, too. And Due South fandom was rabid.
Yet there’s a distinct Mountie-porn void, one that violates a law of the Internet — “Rule 34” to be exact, which declares, “If it exists, there is porn of it.”
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July 8, 2012
Canada beats US at football. Really. Not a joke.
Okay, it was Under-19 football, but Canada did win:
… the U.S. team at the IFAF U-19 World Championship fell to Canada, 23-17, in the gold medal game. The American team was the defending champion in the event, and had won its first two games in the 2012 event by a combined 97-13 score.
An American team losing in a sport that theoretically only America is any good at? And to Canada? Never mind that gridiron football — the umbrella term for football played in the U.S. and Canada that encompasses both American football and the Canadian football that actually existed a few years before it — is about as much Canadian as American; do you expect most American fans to know that?
A bit of triumphalism is surely allowed, right?
https://twitter.com/DaveLozo/status/221816030463393793
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July 7, 2012
July 6, 2012
If it’s being “rebuilt” to a different design, with different materials, it’s not the same Bluenose
Wooden sailing ships are subject to far more wear and tear than modern vessels: they’re like the old tale of the farmer’s axe (even though everything’s been replaced over time, it’s still the same axe). This means that heritage sailing ships need lots of careful maintenance throughout their lives, and major re-builds at long intervals. In the case of Nova Scotia’s iconic Bluenose II, however, it’s sometimes more than a “rebuild”:
She is a celebrity, immortalized on the back of our dime and presently parked beneath a big white tent in the Lunenburg Shipyard, awaiting finishing touches and the order to set sail.
Built in 1963, Bluenose II was effectively scrapped in the fall of 2010. A small percentage of the old boat, including the sails and masts and some of the mahogany and walnut from the hull, were saved for use in the rebuild. The bow-to-stern reconstruction had the legend at points looking more like a whale skeleton beached on the Lunenburg wharf, with her ribs exposed for all to see.
Some purists, including Ms. Roué, a great-granddaughter of William J. Roué — the naval architect responsible for designing the original Bluenose, which launched in 1921 and achieved lasting fame by hauling in massive catches on the Grand Banks and beating American schooners in ocean races — view the “restoration” tag as a semantic stretch.
They see it as a sham concealing the fact the boat being built and expected to launch this summer under the Bluenose II banner was not built according to Mr. Roué’s original designs. It is not the Bluenose II but a new boat altogether.
You could make the case that this is merely a look-alike, rather than a replica. In fact you’d pretty much have to say that:
The original Bluenose was made from Nova Scotia oak, while its second incarnation blended local and South American oaks.
The latest edition consists of laminated angelique, a bulletproof teak from South America. Meanwhile the engine bed, stern frame, floors and fasteners holding the whole shebang together are steel, where once they were wood.
Any boat, especially a boat named Bluenose, is more than the materials it is made of or the sum of its designs. It is a piece of living history and its identity derives from the stories attached to it and in the recollections of those that sailed aboard her, some accounted for, others lost at sea.
So, just to sum up: she’s being built to a different design (even though outward appearance is much the same), using different materials. In what way can you call her the same ship? The point made in the article, that the masts and sails were some of the “originals” being re-used is odd: those are among the parts that need replacing more often. And the mahogany and walnut saved from the last boat are almost certainly decorative elements, not structural ones.
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July 4, 2012
Canada’s new Cyclone helicopters — already 4 years late — may not arrive for another 5 years
Greg Weston reports for CBC News:
Canada’s long-promised fleet of new Sikorsky naval helicopters, already four years late and $300 million over budget, likely won’t be delivered and ready for combat for up to another five years, informed industry sources tell CBC News.
Last month, Connecticut-based Sikorsky missed its latest contract deadline to finish delivering 28 sleek, state-of-the-art Cyclone maritime helicopters to replace Canada’s aged fleet of increasingly unreliable Sea Kings, now nearing 50 years old.
In fact, delivery of the new choppers hasn’t even started.
[. . .]
As of last month, Sikorsky had only provided a couple of prototypes that have no military mission systems, and aren’t certified to fly over water or at night.
The two helicopters apparently spend most of their time on the tarmac at Shearwater Heliport at CFB Halifax as “training aids” for ground mechanics.
The machines are so incomplete the Canadian government refuses to accept them as an official delivery of anything in the contract.
What is it about helicopters in particular that makes it so difficult and so expensive for the Canadian government to acquire? Here’s the sad chronology:
- In 1963, the CH-124 Sea King helicopter (a variant of the US Navy S-61 model) entered service with the Royal Canadian Navy.
- In 1983, the Trudeau government started a process to replace the Sea Kings. That process never got far enough for a replacement helicopter to be ordered.
- In 1985, the Mulroney government started a new process to find a replacement for the Sea Kings.
- In 1992, the Mulroney government placed an order for 50 EH-101 Cormorant helicopters (for both naval and search-and-rescue operations).
- In 1993, the Campbell government reduced the order from 50 to 43, theoretically saving $1.4B.
- In 1993, the new Chrétien government cancelled the “Cadillac” helicopters as being far too expensive and started a new process to identify the right helicopters to buy. The government had to pay nearly $500 million in cancellation penalties.
- In 1998, having split the plan into separate orders for naval and SAR helicopters, the government ended up buying 15 Cormorant SAR helicopters anyway — and the per-unit prices had risen in the intervening time.
- In 2004, the Martin government placed an order with Sikorsky for 28 CH-148 Cyclone helicopters to be delivered starting in 2008 (after very carefully arranging the specifications to exclude the Cormorant from the competition).
- Now, in 2012, we may still have another five years to wait for the delivery of the Cyclones.
Update: In the National Post, Kelly McParland tries to draw some useful conclusions from the longest-running Canadian comedy act:
If there is a solution to this farce it’s not easily identified. Canada desperately needs the helicopters and it is far too late to return once again to the drawing board. The blame is so widespread that politicians barely bother to bestir themselves to try: if Jean Chretien’s government hadn’t maliciously cancelled Brian Mulroney’s original 1992 purchase, a full decade might have been cut from the script, but there is no guarantee other mishaps wouldn’t have occurred. Ottawa’s only option now is to hound Connecticut-based Sikorsky relentlessly and mercilessly, recover every cent possible for its repeated failure to live up to its promises, and accept nothing less than full compliance with its contracted responsibilities.
The greater lesson lies in the nether world that surrounds military procurement. It’s a world where no promise can be accepted as reliable, no cost guarantee assumed to be binding, no contract treated as worth the paper it’s written on. The federal Conservatives should think long and hard on the Sea King saga as they push ever deeper into their own purchase of new fighter jets, whether the F-35 or otherwise. Prime Minister Stephen Harper would be well-advised to abandon his usual aggressive approach and tread warily. The uncertain costs, the shifting due dates, the obdurate insistence of the military mandarins on having their way, the determined stonewalling of the politicians : it has all the identifying markings of a Sea King re-make.
Update the second: On Facebook, Damian Brooks suggests that Kelly McParland is only able to see the humour because he hasn’t been close enough to the situation: “I’d be curious to know if McParland’s ever flown in one of our Sea Kings, with tranny fluid dripping down the fuselage, practicing autorotations ad nauseum (literally). I suspect not. If he had, I have a feeling he’d find the situation much more disgraceful and much less funny.” He also posted a link to this:
July 3, 2012
Ontario government considering “streamlining” universities, reducing from four-year to three-year degree programs
I rarely find anything interesting in Heather Mallick’s Toronto Star writings, but her Sunday article on possible Ontario government changes to the university system raises some valid concerns:
The Ontario government has run a hasty educational reform plan up a flagpole and is hoping you’ll salute it. Don’t.
The discussion paper, titled “Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge,” is as mystifying as the gentlewomen’s pompous, verbose porn novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which reads to me as if it were written by a small weird girl-child, or perhaps Conrad Black.
Without Star education reporter Kristin Rushowy to translate the jargon — which curses the education sector more than any other — I would not have known that basically the McGuinty government wants to cut four-year university degrees to three and “support flexible degree structures that provide new learning options made possible by advancements in technology,” which means online degrees.
[. . .]
This report heralds bad things for Ontario students.
I opposed ending Grade 13 and was proved right, universities frantically offering catch-up courses for students who couldn’t spell or add. I opposed the “30% Off Ontario Tuition Grant for students from middle-income families” that the report boasts of, because the $160,000 cut-off is far too high. I opposed turning colleges into universities because a diploma is just as valuable as a degree, but they are not interchangeable.
And I oppose cutting degrees to three years, not just because other provinces and countries won’t accept this, but because fourth year is when you come into your own intellectually. The report refers repeatedly to the unfortunately titled Bologna Declaration aimed at harmonizing EU higher education — trans. “Yurp does it so we can too” — although I note that there has been talk in Britain of “accelerated” two-year degrees, at which point I despair.
H/T to the Phantom Observer for the link, who twittered:
https://twitter.com/PhantomObserver/statuses/220178327166648321
