Quotulatiousness

November 30, 2011

George Jonas: “All governments are communist”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:52

George Jonas looks at how the government of Ontario managed to go a quarter of a trillion dollars into debt:

All governments are communist. Please, relax. What I mean is that all governments expect to be recompensed, not according to the value of their contributions to society, but according to their needs.

Marxist mythology defines progress as capitalism changing into socialism and socialism into communism. Under socialism, everyone contributes according to his abilities, and is compensated according to his contribution. This is an improvement over the vagaries of the market, but communist society goes further. While citizens still contribute according to their abilities, they’re compensated according to their needs.

[. . .]

In a free-market-cum-welfare-state such as Canada, people contribute to society according to their abilities, and are compensated for it at the whim of the market, minus the whim of the government, a.k.a. the taxman. Governments also contribute according to their abilities, but then compensate themselves according to their needs. Their needs vary as they aren’t equally corrupt or ambitious, though they seem equally insatiable. Premier Dalton McGuinty isn’t a communist but Ontario’s debt increased by $110-billion since his party came to power in 2003. We could have had Fidel Castro for less — well, Raoul, anyway.

A gentleman has his hand up. Yes? “Didn’t the debt go up because McGuinty kept his promise and didn’t raise taxes?” Nice try, sir, but no. He did.

November 29, 2011

Stephen Gordon: Governments should favour consumers over producers

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:40

In his latest post at the Globe & Mail‘s Economy Lab, Stephen Gordon points out that governments get the entire prosperity thing wrong:

The next time a political party vows to defend the interests of the producers in a certain industry, you should ask why it isn’t choosing to defend the interests of consumers instead. Because the contribution of an industry to the public good is not its ability to provide large incomes to those who work there; it is its ability to produce things that people want to buy.

Business groups may give lip-service to the benefits of competitive markets, but their heart isn’t in it; they know that their real interests are best served by providing reduced output at high prices. And that’s exactly what we get whenever governments set policy in order to benefit producers: see, for example, our dairy industry.

The motives of producers who call for special treatment in the name of consumer protection are equally suspect. Producers are not in business for their health, and they definitely are not in it for your health. So when producers call for regulations in the name of protecting consumers, you can generally assume that the real and intended effect is to exclude potential competitors: see, for example, our dairy industry.

November 28, 2011

Who won the War of 1812?

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:09

According to an American historian quoted in the National Post, Canada won:

In a relatively rare admission for an American scholar, a leading U.S. historian who authored a provocative new tome about North American military conflicts states bluntly that Canada won the War of 1812.

Johns Hopkins University professor Eliot Cohen, a senior adviser to former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, writes in his just-published book Conquered Into Liberty that, “ultimately, Canada and Canadians won the War of 1812.”

And Cohen acknowledges that, “Americans at the time, and, by and large, since, did not see matters that way.”

The book also echoes a key message trumpeted by the federal Conservative government in recent weeks as it unveiled ambitious plans to commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812 over the next three years: that the successful fight by British, English- and French-Canadian and First Nations allies to resist would-be American conquerors — at battles such as Queenston Heights in Upper Canada and Chateauguay in Lower Canada — set the stage for the creation of a unified and independent Canada a half-century later.

“If the conquest of (Canada) had not been an American objective when the war began, it surely had become such shortly after it opened,” Cohen argues in the book. “Not only did the colony remain intact: It had acquired heroes, British and French, and a narrative of plucky defense against foreign invasion, that helped carry it to nationhood.”

November 23, 2011

BC Supreme Court upholds law against polygamy

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:34

I’m somewhat surprised that the court upheld the existing law: I’d expected them to strike it down as overbroad.

Polygamy remains a crime in Canada, B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman ruled Wednesday. In his ruling, Bauman said the law violates the religious freedom of fundamentalist Mormons, but the harm against women and children outweighs that concern.

Bauman reserved judgment on the landmark case in April, after hearing 42 days of legal arguments during the unusual reference case, with opposing parties arguing the right to religious freedom and the risk of harm polygamy poses to women and children.

The constitutional issue was referred to the B.C. Supreme Court by the provincial government after polygamy charges laid against Bountiful, B.C., Mormon leaders Winston Blackmore and James Oler were stayed in 2009.

While this particular case involved Mormons, the majority of people whose marital arrangements would be affected are Muslims: there are an unknown (but growing) number of polygamous marriages among recent Muslim immigrants to Canada. If the existing law had been struck down, there would have been a scramble among regional and local government agencies to cope with the expected increase in demands for appropriate housing and support from newly legal multi-spouse families.

November 22, 2011

QotD: Our Charter of “rights” and “freedoms”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Law, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:14

On the evening of January 12, 1981, justice minister Jean Chrétien sat in front of the special parliamentary committee on the Constitution. “I am proposing that Section 1 read as follows: The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society,” he said.

“This will ensure that any limit on a right must be not only reasonable and prescribed by law, but must also be shown to be demonstrably justified.” Translation: “This will ensure that even though we pretend the public has rights that are fundamental to any free and democratic society, we can take them away at will, so long as we can convince a judge that such measures are justified.”

The language used by Mr. Chrétien would eventually become Section 1 of the Charter, which gives government the constitutional cover to infringe the supposedly “fundamental freedoms” that follow it. In order to figure out when such infringements are in fact justified, the Supreme Court came up with the Oakes test.

Using this two-step process, laws that violate our Charter rights must have a “pressing and substantial” objective, and the means of effecting the limit must be reasonable and proportional. The infringement has to be connected to the law’s objective; it has to be as minimal as possible; and it must balance the consequences of such a limitation, with the objective that is being sought.

Jesse Kline, “Freedom shouldn’t come with caveats, but it does”, National Post, 2011-11-22

November 21, 2011

Michael Geist on the CRTC’s usage-based billing decision

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:56

It’s not quite what it seems like:

My weekly technology law column [. . .] notes the resulting decision seemed to cause considerable confusion as some headlines trumpeted a “Canadian compromise,” while others insisted that the CRTC had renewed support for UBB. Those headlines were wrong. The decision does not support UBB at the wholesale level (the retail market is another story) and the CRTC did not strike a compromise. Rather, it sided with the independent Internet providers by developing the framework the independents had long claimed was absent — one based on the freedom to compete.

For many years, Canada has maintained policies theoretically designed to foster an independent ISP market. Those policies required the large Internet providers such as Bell and Rogers to make part of their network available to independent competitors. Since the large providers were not supportive of increased competition, the CRTC established mandatory rules on access, pricing, and speed matching.

Yet despite years of tinkering with the rules, the independents only garnered a tiny percentage of the marketplace (approximately six percent). The UBB issue illustrates why the independent providers have struggled since the original proposal would have allowed Bell to charge independent ISPs based on the amount of data used.

While that sounds reasonable, the cost of running a network has little to do with the amount of data consumed. Rather, it is linked to the capacity of the network — the fatter the pipe, the greater the cost, irrespective of how much data is actually consumed.

November 20, 2011

In praise of Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Filed under: Cancon, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:22

A conservative senator writes of the greatest Liberal prime minister in Canadian history:

Today, almost 100 years after Laurier’s death, I believe as strongly as my grandfather did that great figures from our history like Sir Wilfrid and Sir John A. should be celebrated and honoured, regardless of party.

Like John A., Laurier had that special touch and talent that makes nation-building possible. He was a visionary leader who built upon the foundations laid by Macdonald and brought Canada into the 20th century with success and a healthy confidence. In a country so divided in the early days — divided by race, religion and geography — the guiding principle and mission of his life was the unity of our nation.

Some have said he was the perfect prime minister — too French sometimes for the English, and too English sometimes for the French. He challenged both main language groups in Canada, while simultaneously opening the door to the settlement of Western Canada by immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Shortly before his death, Laurier addressed a group of youth in Ontario. His words are as inspiring in 2011, 92-years-later, as they were when he first spoke them. Canadians, particularly our youth, would do well recall his advice.

“I shall remind you that already many problems rise before you: Problems of race division, problems of creed differences, problems of economic conflict, problems of national duty and national aspiration,” Laurier said. “Let me tell you that for the solution of these problems you have a safe guide, an unfailing light if you remember that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate. Let your aim and purpose, in good report or ill, in victory or defeat, be so to live, so to strive, so to serve as to do your part to raise even higher the standard of life and living.”

November 19, 2011

Conrad Black sneers at your various eagles and praises the Canadian beaver

Filed under: Cancon, History, Humour — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:42

There’s been a crack-brained effort in recent weeks to dispense with the beaver as Canada’s emblem animal and replace it with some frozen-footed albino bear. Conrad Black objects:

It is with regret that I take issue, and square off, with my esteemed friend of many years, Senator Nicole Eaton. But I am scandalized by her rude and almost unpatriotic attack on the noble and distinguished national animal of Canada.

The beaver is an almost incomparably exemplary and original national animal. Eagles abound; Germany’s scrawny black eagle, a panoply of other Alpine, Andean, and Central American eagles, including Mexico’s rampant and belligerent version, Egypt’s somewhat pudgy and suspiciously vulture-like eagle; all compete with the grossly overworked American bald eagle. The official American eagle has been press-ganged into every task from proclaiming a missive from the president to warning the non-paying guests of the Bureau of Prisons of the evils of suicidal thoughts.

No one would take issue with the British lion as a great beast, except that the United Kingdom no longer governs anywhere where the lion is indigenous. The king of beasts (or as the Toronto Zoo calls the lion, the “prime minister of beasts”) is even more majestic when set off against the foil of the unicorn.

[. . .]

If the beaver were a contemptible animal, it would never have been adopted and would certainly be disposable now. But it is a remarkably commendable animal, possessed of a formidable work ethic. (I can’t abide rhetorical questions but am sufficiently overcome by inter-species moral outrage to ask if anyone has ever been described as “working like an eagle” or “busy as a lion,” unless they were preying on the defenseless, or, respectively, overcome by lust or narcolepsy?)

More impressive, the beaver is a natural engineer, who not only grasps but by his own adaptive ingenuity, implements the basic principles of irrigation, flood and drought control, and in most of its elements, power generated from water courses. Apart from the honey bee, which was part of the national symbolism of France under the Bonapartes, in deference to the 500,000 Frenchmen who dutifully gave their lives in the great campaigns of Napoleon, the only other national animal that has made a direct constructive contribution to a country apart from the beaver is the elephant of India, often useful in construction and both civilian and military transport.

November 15, 2011

Stephen Gordon: One does not simply end supply management

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Food, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:29

Stephen Gordon in the Globe and Mail‘s Economy Lab on the economically indefensible Canadian anomaly known as “supply management”:

The best way to get a rise out of Canadian economists is to ask us about our dairy supply management system. It’s simply indefensible: a government-enforced cartel whose only purpose is to generate high prices for what most would view as essential goods. This sort of arrangement wouldn’t be — and isn’t — tolerated in another sector of the economy. Nor is it tolerated anywhere else in the world. So the news that the federal government is considering putting supply management on the table in order to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is guaranteed to generate a certain amount of excitement among my colleagues.

It’s hard to believe that the interests of 13,000 Canadian dairy farmers could consistently trump the interests of 34 million Canadian dairy consumers, but yet the system is still with us. Why can’t we simply end supply management and let consumers benefit from lower dairy prices?

The problem is that current dairy farmers are — for the most part — not earning monopoly rents from what they produce. In order to sell their output, dairy farmers must first obtain a permit to do so, and dairy quotas are not cheap: more than $25,000 per cow. To a very great extent, the higher prices that they receive simply cover this initial investment.

November 13, 2011

Stephen Harper’s government is not small-c conservative

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:44

The National Post editorial board surveys the federal government’s economic record and discovers it’s really the old Liberal party in disguise:

There is no question the Harper government has been profligate and could easily cut federal spending dramatically without doing further damage to the economy. Since 2006, the Tories have increased nominal federal spending from about $175-billion to just over $250-billion. That’s a shocking rise of almost 43%. Even after accounting for inflation and population growth, plus factoring out the money the Conservatives have spent on anti-recession stimulus (over $75-billion), the real growth in federal spending since 2006 has been nearly 10%.

The size of the federal civil service has increased rapidly, too, as has its composition. The Tories have added 13% to the rolls of the bureaucracy in just five years. Some of this is the result of their expansion of the military, police and border service, but much of it has nothing whatever to do with national security. Health Canada, for instance, has seen a nearly 50% increase in its staff under the Tories, the largest percentage increase of any department.

Mr. Flaherty would not have to be motivated by ideology to pare some of that spending and hiring back. If the Tories simply reversed federal spending to the levels they were at when the worldwide financial crisis hit in the fall of 2008, Ottawa’s budget would be balanced this year. Even if the Tories wanted to hold off on any cuts in transfers to individuals — such as pensions and GST credits — and preserve provincial transfers, they could still find enough cuts to non-essential spending to return to balance in two years.

November 12, 2011

Mission Hill wins InterVin 2011 Winery of the Year award

Filed under: Cancon, Randomness, Wine — Tags: — Nicholas @ 11:21

Margaret Swaine reports on the recent Intervin 2011 competition:

Competitions like the InterVin International Wine Awards can and do make wines better. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, as wineries strive to produce medal winners and competitions aim to attract entrants worthy of medals. Happily, as a competition matures, so does the wine industry in the country where it’s held. Both can emerge victorious.

This year’s three-day blind-tasting competition was held in August at White Oaks Resort & Spa in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Nearly 1,100 wines from 15 countries were judged by a panel of sommeliers, vintners and wine writers, including yours truly.

When all was said and sipped, the 2011 InterVin Winery of the Year medal went to a Canadian winery, Mission Hill, a well-deserved victory. Results for the honours were based on the top five scores from a winery’s entries. The Okanagan Valley-based Mission Hill Family Estate reigned supreme, winning 20 medals spread across virtually every category. Their award-winning wines covered most grape varieties and quality levels within their portfolio, with major awards being earned by top-tier luxury wines and value labels alike.

November 9, 2011

This is not news: Toronto is Canada’s least-liked city

Filed under: Cancon, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:07

In fact, a strong case could be made that hating Toronto is one of the key factors that binds the rest of Canada together:

Ontario’s capital not only had the lowest rate of positive responses, it also had the highest rate of “very negative” responses. “Many Canadians have a hate-on for Toronto,” said Myer Siemiatycki, a Ryerson University politics professor. “Toronto is regarded as totally self-indulgent, so there’s a sort of ‘Who do they think they are believing they’re the centre of the country and the universe?’” Jim Milway, executive director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, said the poorer perception of Toronto — 19% of respondents gave negative responses — is due to animosity more than anything else. “It’s not necessarily that people like their city more than Toronto,” he said. “It’s that people just don’t like Toronto, period.” Prof. McGrane, of the University of Saskatchewan, said the “grudge” is rooted in historic grievances, particularly harboured by westerners who have long felt “left out.” “It’s not that we hate (Torontonians), but we’re a bit suspicious about them and their motives,” he said.

I can’t claim to have been everywhere in the country, but from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, hatred of Toronto and distaste for Torontonians is almost universal among Canadians.

November 6, 2011

QotD: The Occupy movement

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 15:01

There are lessons in this history for the leftist protester. The Occupy movement is bristling with changes it wants made (I’m told we’re not supposed to call them “demands”); these changes won’t, and shouldn’t, happen outside the ballot box. The goal of protest in a liberal-democratic society must therefore be to advance one’s pet issue further ahead on the agenda of the sympathetic, for when they do attain power, and to weaken the morale of moderates on the other side. One must locate specific injustices rather than nebulous cosmic ones, confronting them and defying their perpetrators directly. Deeds will accomplish more than any amount of eloquence. And it should not be necessary to claim to be a majority (let alone a majority of 99-to-one); one individual suffices, where he has a true claim to our attention.

It’s not really clear, anyway, how an “Occupation” that is meeting no serious resistance from authorities anywhere is supposed to elicit sympathy. The main effect of the movement so far seems to have been an elaborate proof-by-demonstration that Canadian municipalities are incredibly respectful of political protest and fawningly deferential to the Charter of Rights. So . . . hooray?

Colby Cosh, “Want political change? Talk to a farmer”, Maclean’s, 2011-11-06

The “shale gale” blows away Canada’s illusions of being an “energy superpower”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Environment, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:50

Terence Corcoran pours cold water on the notion that this is the moment for Canada to become a major player in the world energy markets:

In recent weeks, Canada — a self-proclaimed global energy superpower — has been trying to throw its weight around over the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada Corp.’s $7-billion project to ship oil sands production from Alberta to Texas. In Houston on Tuesday, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver let the Americans know that Canada had other options. “What will happen if there wasn’t approval [of Keystone] — and we think there will be — is that we’ll simply have to intensify our efforts to sell the oil elsewhere.”

Canadian oil executives, who have a lot invested in the superpower notion, are also issuing aggressive-sounding statements aimed at the United States. A headline in The Globe and Mail Friday sounded like a threat: “Oil patch to U.S.: OK pipe or lose our oil.” The story didn’t quite back up the headline, but the sense was that Canada was developing alternatives and that China is the big alternative.

[. . .]

While Canadian government and industry officials have a lot invested in the idea of energy superpowerdom, few outside observers share the vision. Canada barely rates a mention in The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World, Daniel Yergin’s new book on the world energy market. A few pages are devoted to the oil sands, mostly to review the high costs and technical difficulties. “As the industry grows in scale, it will require wider collaboration on the R&D challenges, not only among oil companies and the province of Alberta, but also with Canada’s federal government.”

Far more impressive for the world’s energy future will be the impact of shale gas and shale oil. The “shale gale,” as Mr. Yergin calls it, has already transformed the U.S. gas market and shale oil could be next. Since Mr. Yergin’s book was written, the shale revolution has swept Europe and is about to transform China’s energy market.

November 3, 2011

“It’s easy to give up a liberty that is unimportant to you”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:33

Lorne Gunter explains why giving government the power to limit one liberty inevitably leads to the government limiting other liberties:

My interest in guns is purely philosophical: I can’t trust any government that doesn’t trust my law-abiding fellow citizens to own whatever guns they want. It’s the instinct to ban — rooted in the notion that governments or “experts” know better than we ourselves what is best or safest for us — that scares me far more than the thought of my neighbour owning a sniper rifle. The banning instinct is never slaked. Once it has succeeded in prohibiting guns, it will turn itself to offensive speech or unhealthy food.

[. . .]

But above all, it always worries me when the concept of “need” enters the debate, as in (to quote one of my colleagues): “Why do farmers and hunters need sniper rifles?”

The concept of “need” is antithetic to freedom in a democracy where the citizens are sovereign. No one needs a car that goes more than 110 km/ hr, because that is the highest speed limit in the country. So should any of us who want to drive more than a Smart Car or Fiat have to go cap in hand to a government official and explain our “need” for, say, a sports car, before we are granted the right to buy one? Many more Canadians — thousands more — are killed by speeding automobiles each year than by high-powered rifles that are beyond what ranchers “need” to kill coyotes.

If you are guilty of no crime, what you “need” is none of my business, or the government’s. In fact, it is the reverse. Any government that seeks to restrict the liberties of law-abiding citizens should have to prove it needs to do so, and that it is not just pandering to popular emotions and political sentimentality.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress