Quotulatiousness

November 26, 2010

British Columbia: Canada’s Banana Republic

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:50

A story in the Globe and Mail on how Elections BC rigged the rules after the fact to reject a petition:

Elections BC rejected a Fight HST recall application as too lengthy — but did so using rules that were drafted after it received the application.

The rejection has led recall organizers to suggest the province’s chief electoral officer deliberately thwarted their attempt to get approval to launch a petition to oust a Liberal MLA who supported the harmonized sales tax, and should step down.

While Elections BC has defended its new rules — which pushed the Fight HST application over a 200-word limit by counting the acronyms MLA and HST as eight words instead of two — recall organizers expressed concern that they were not included in the application form when they downloaded it from Elections BC’s website.

“It’s a total joke. This is the kind of thing they do in banana republics … when they don’t want to have elections or they don’t want people to win. And we’re doing it right here in Canada,” said Chris Delaney, an organizer of the Fight HST campaign.

H/T to Steve Muhlberger for the link.

Marni Soupcoff says get the government out of the marriage business

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:18

Although the column was prompted by the attention-whoring actions of a British couple, the basic principle still applies in Canada:

It really doesn’t make sense for the government to be divvying up rights and benefits based on the sexual orientation of its citizens. Yes, marriage has an undeniably rich history in our cultural and serves very useful societal purposes — I don’t buy into the arguments that marriage is dead. But it’s ultimately a moral and, in some cases, religious matter that should be sanctioned (or not) by a couple’s peer group, religious group and family. It’s not rightfully a spot for government to be sticking its nose, and the fact that it does so puts it in charge of decisions it has no business making — like who is fit to be called a married couple and who should get special tax treatment based on the status relationship.

The preferable scenario, and the one which would forestall lawsuits like the Goggin/Skarsholt one, would be for the government to remove itself from the marriage business altogether.

That would mean no more government-sanctioned civil unions or marriages or references thereto in the law. Yes, that would also mean massive revisions to the tax code, family law, criminal law — really reams and reams of laws from which the government would have to extricate its judgments about couples’ legal standing.

It would also nicely short-circuit the ongoing debate on polygamy (currently active in BC, but due in your local courtroom very soon too).

Canadian retailers are “furious” at customers for looking to the US for cheaper prices

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:16

A brief filler piece on the Canadian Press newswire explains only part of the reason so many Canadian shoppers are headed south to do their Christmas shopping this year:

This is Black Friday in the U.S., but many Canadian retailers are a furious red at the thought of consumers heading south for bargains.

The Retail Council of Canada says there is a long list of reasons to shop north of the border.

It says retailers are a vital part of any community’s economy and it employs 10 per cent of the workforce.

It also reminds consumers that Canadian taxes — which cause much of the traffic south — help pay for health care and education.

The higher taxes are certainly a big part of the explanation, but even if you control for tax, Canadian prices are generally higher than their US counterparts. For example, a paperback I picked up at random from our coffee table (published quite recently) has a price of $7.99 on it. If you’re an American, that is. Canadians pay $10.99. The Canadian dollar is around US$0.98.

Nice little markup, eh? Add the 13% Hack-and-Slash Tax on top of that, and you know exactly why thousands of Canadians are willing to put up with long lines at the border to do their shopping in the States.

November 25, 2010

QotD: “The Traitors and the Spendthrifts”

Filed under: Cancon, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 14:17

The Coalition horrors warned of by the Conservatives have come to pass, at the hands of the Conservatives themselves. They have spent like drunken Trudeau-era Grits. They have compromised their principles and told a key part of their base to stuff it. They have put patronage ahead of promise in their Senate appointments. Short of holding another referendum on national unity, they are as bad as what they claim to abhor.

It should then come as no surprise that Stephen the Spendthrift is rumoured to be in bed with Giles the Traitor. The deal at hand is classic pork-barrelling: Federal subsidies for an uneconomical Quebec City NHL arena. The region is the Tories only stronghold in La Belle Province, naturally a little electoral sweetener wouldn’t go amiss. Tis’ the season to be generous, with other people’s money. The Bloc serve no function except as a pressure group for the Quebecois. Their tautological platform has only one plank: What is Good for Quebec is Good for Quebec. It’s a deal made in political heaven, or hell for those who believe that principle should play a role in politics.

The much-abused Tory base remains loyal. The question is to what? To conservative values? Unlikely. Yes, the Tories have a minority government. That does limit what they can do. Lester Pearson also had two back to back minority governments, and he introduced sweeping changes to the country, albeit most of them bad.

Is the failure of the Harper Tories one of opportunity, or courage? And should the Conservatives at long last win their majority, what mandate will they have? They have governed from the center for so long, how can they justify governing from the RIght? Won’t the rationale then become we can’t take risks because we might lose the majority? So when will the Reform come? As time passes it becomes clear that many Conservatives’ loyalty lies with Team Blue, not conservative ideas or values.

Publius, “The Traitors and the Spendthrifts”, Gods of the Copybook Headings 2010-11-25

Publius argues against Julian Fantino’s candidacy in Vaughan

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:50

Publius thinks that Julian Fantino does not deserve the easy ride he’s getting in his attempt to win the Vaughan by-election:

The image of the crime-fighting crusader contrasts sharply with the OPP’s inaction during the occupation of the Douglas Creek Estate. Fantino’s status as a star candidate for the Conservative Party belies opposition from genuine conservatives.

In his four years in power Stephen Harper has played bait and switch with the Canadian electorate. He has talked of conservative values, and fear mongered on the dangers of a Liberal-NDP coalition government, while running a government which is fiscally to the Left of those of Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. In Julian Fantino he has again offered Canadians a false bill of goods, a law and order candidate who, as OPP commissioner, failed to uphold basic law and order.

What has allowed the Prime Minister to get away, so far, with the candidacy of Julian Fantino is the near silence the MSM has offered on the Caledonia tragedy. With the honourable exception of Christie Blatchford, the media has largely ignored the near anarchy which persisted for years in a Canadian small town, all within driving distance of Toronto. Canadian television journalists should long ago have stopped, if only for a moment, chasing down crooked used car salesmen, and paid attention to what should have been the biggest news story of the last five years. Placing the violence of Caledonia in Canadian living rooms, might have ended the tragedy and pain much sooner.

November 18, 2010

Another Helpless excerpt

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:09

I picked up my copy of Helpless yesterday at the no-longer-accurately named World’s Biggest Bookstore in downtown Toronto. It appeared to be the only copy, and was well-hidden in a corner of the Canadian Political Science section, on the next-to-bottom shelf, partly hidden by other books. I’m sure that’s just a co-incidence.

The third in the series of excerpts being run by the National Post. This is a question from Detective Sergeant Roger Geysons, who was president of number 3 branch of the Ontario Provincial Police Association:

“Are OPP members allowed on DCE? Can you provide to our members written direction?”

OPP deputy chief Chris Lewis answered.

“We’ll address that,” he said. “This is actually news to me that this was still an issue. There is obviously a communication issue.”

Then Lewis delivered a bombshell: “Short of somebody having a kid kidnapped and running onto the DCE, we’re not going to go onto that property. It’s just a recipe for disaster, and it will set things back there.”

Lewis also confirmed that the Aboriginal Relations Team (ART) was still calling the shots — which meant, to those in the know, that the occupiers were still running the show.

“There may be times that we have to go on there,” Lewis said, “but at the same time, we’ll do it and negotiate that through ART [to] the leaders in the First Nations community.”

He also said that the OPP would respond to calls — meaning emergencies — on the Sixth and Seventh lines, but general patrols would not take place in that area because “they [Six Nations] can’t control all the people in their community . . . So it’s a commonsense issue, and certainly, we’re not saying we will never go on there, but we really have to be very selective of when we do and how we go about it.”

Another fan of Christie Blatchford’s Helpless

Filed under: Books, Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:47

Father Raymond J. deSouza points out that the actions of the OPP in Caledonia have ended up hurting peaceful native and non-native Ontarians:

If you are pressed for time, abandon this column now and immediately read the excerpt in these section from Christie Blatchford’s new book, Helpless. In that book, she details how two-tier justice came to Caledonia, Ont., in 2006 — immunity for native Canadians; and neglect, contempt and harassment for the non-native victims of crime. It is a scandalous tale, simply told.

[. . .]

Lest anyone think that Blatchford’s book is an attack on native aspirations, consider who suffers the most when lawlessness is permitted in native communities: the natives who live there. Not enforcing the law in native communities puts out a large welcome mat for organized crime and corruption.

[. . .]

Yet Blatchford’s book is not about native issues. It’s about the failure of the provincial government and the OPP to enforce the laws — even after a judge issued an injunction to end the illegal activity. Moreover, it’s about the OPP’s abuse of power. The most disturbing pages are about Julian Fantino, then OPP commissioner and now Conservative candidate in a federal byelection, who came perilously close to using police force to restrict the liberties of a free citizen with the temerity to protest the OPP’s policy of non-enforcement in Caledonia.

I noted with disgust that the federal Conservatives had not only nominated Julian Fantino for their candidate in the byelection, but were being quite open about protecting him from questions on his conduct of the Caledonia affair. If I’d ever considered voting for a Conservative candidate in the next federal election, that alone would make me reconsider.

November 17, 2010

“My plan is to make you guys look like a bunch of assholes”

Filed under: Books, Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:50

More of Christie Blatchford’s Helpless from the National Post series of excerpts:

“We’ve been sitting there pretty much most of the morning looking for ya, just because we wanted to have a couple words with ya.” He added that police had “some concerns today for you and the safety of the community,” and “it’s our belief that if you or anybody else attempts to erect flags or ribbons directly across from Douglas Creek Estates, that it may cause a confrontation, and we can’t let that happen, and we won’t let that happen.

“We will allow you to raise flags and ribbons, just not across from the Douglas Creek Estates. Okay, and anybody that — anybody that attempts to do that, to raise those flags and ribbons in that restricted area, will be arrested for breach of the peace.”

McHale, of course, asked, “So have the natives been arrested for putting up their flags?”

“They have not,” Cowan replied.

“Why?” McHale asked. “You said ‘anyone.’ Your words were ‘Anyone who tries to put up flags will be arrested for breach of the peace.’”

“That’s today I’m talking about,” Cowan replied.

Around and around they went, with McHale pressing his point and Cowan’s only answer for it that, when natives put up their flags, it was “a long time ago.”

“And I’m not here to comment on that,” Cowan said. “I’m just telling you what our plan is today, and that’s what my purpose is.”

“Well,” McHale said, “you know what my plan is.”

“What is your plan?” Cowan asked.

“My plan is to make you guys look like a bunch of assholes,” McHale said, “and you’ve done a great job [of helping achieve that]. The media will be here, and it will be quite clear to all Canadians across this country, because they will see the native flag. The cameras will show the native flag. And you’ll be there, and your officers will be there, saying, ‘If you put up a Canadian flag, we will arrest you.’”

November 16, 2010

Helpless

Filed under: Books, Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:17

The National Post is publishing some exerpts from Christie Blatchford’s latest book, Helpless:

But now, occupiers were showing up in force, at least a dozen of them converging on the lone OPP officer, who had already determined that the driver had no licence, no permit and no insurance — oh, and that the car had no plates. He called for backup, a plea that, in the normal course of events in the policing world, usually brings an enormous, instantaneous, gut-level response: Every cop who can get there does.

No one arrived.

In what was probably the single most important early indicator of how the OPP was disintegrating from within, its officers were no longer answering a call for help from one of their own. The constable had been left to fend for himself.

Furious, heartsick, he did what he could — cautioned the driver — and left before things got ugly. Back at the station, he filed a formal complaint. Within a matter of weeks, he was verbally disciplined for having created a possible “flashpoint.”

It was a sign of things to come. The occupation was just a month old, and whenever OPP officers dared speak up about the way things were going, they were slapped down.

November 15, 2010

QotD: “Stop crediting the Tories with scruples they show no sign of possessing”

Filed under: Cancon, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:10

Someday, historians will write about those Tory ministers who, under pressure, had the courage to do the wrong thing. Still, after so many such examples, it might occur to someone that these are their principles: not the ones they are presumed to have, based on past statements, but the ones they actually practice.

[. . .]

I suppose it’s possible these other Conservatives exist in theory, as a kind of Platonic ideal form. And so the principles commonly ascribed to them may also be said to exist, as abstractions. But if they never actually act on them, of what real-world significance are they? How is it meaningful to talk about them?

Perhaps there may once have been this great tension between Harper In Reality and the Harper Who May Exist in Theory, wrestling with each other over every great decision. Probably it was a struggle, jettisoning long-held convictions for short-term political gain — the first couple of times. But after the 50th or 60th time I can’t imagine he even notices. So we should stop pretending he does: stop crediting the Tories with scruples they show no outward sign of possessing.

It’s not as if this is anything new, after all. The Tories have been signalling their disdain for principled politics for—well, since their founding, or indeed before. The lesson the party’s leadership drew from the Reform-Alliance experience was not that these parties had been undisciplined or ill-led, but that they had been too radical, too honest, too principled. And the lesson they had absorbed from the Liberals’ success was the corollary. So: make no promises, if you can, or if you must make some, do not be bound by them, or indeed by anything else. And now we have two such parties.

Andrew Coyne, “Politics all the way down: Stop crediting the Tories with scruples they show no sign of possessing”, Maclean’s, 2010-11-15

November 14, 2010

Life replicates art, kinda

Filed under: Books, Cancon, Education, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:02

As one of the comments on this article in The Cord points out, it’s highly ironic that “at a speech about a book detailing how the police did nothing to uphold the laws of the land the university did exactly the same thing.”

What was scheduled as a speech by Globe and Mail columnist Christie Blatchford turned sour tonight as protesters opposing the journalist’s new book Helpless: Caledonia’s Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us took over the stage.

Three protesters locked themselves together at the centre of the stage where Blatchford was meant to speak at the University of Waterloo’s (UW) Humanities Theatre in Hagey Hall, with another individual acting as their “negotiator”. A fifth, Tallula Marigold, acted as the group’s media representative.

“We don’t want people who are really, really racist teaching [the people we love],” said Marigold of Blatchford. “And we don’t want that person to have a public forum because it makes it dangerous for others in the public forum.”

If nothing else, the passion of the protesters has persuaded me that I must buy and read Blatchford’s latest book . . .

November 12, 2010

Another G20 meeting, another blow against free speech

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:45

If you followed the progress of the last G20 meeting in Toronto, you’ll recall the street theatre it gave rise to. The politicians meeting behind barricades, barbed wire, and thousands of police and soldiers weren’t the story — the story was the protest. In turns, it was peaceful, randomly vandalistic, and then violently suppressed. I was generally against the whole thing, both the G20 itself and the protests that were generated by its presence.

Christopher Hume has been attending the Canadian Civil Liberties Association public meetings about the events of that weekend:

In anticipation of the violence that has become de rigueur at such gatherings, South Korea has mobilized 50,000 police officers and put its armed forces on the highest security alert.

Sound familiar? It should. We did exactly the same thing — and in the process revealed ourselves to be oafs. And not just oafs, but nasty oafs.

Just how nasty is being documented by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It’s holding public meetings this week in Toronto and Montreal to hear from victims of police violence at the G20. Their stories were at once riveting and tedious. Riveting because the pain is so obviously real; tedious because they’re all the same.

The fact is that G20 summits have no place in the city. The gatherings, which come with full imperial trappings, are a contemporary version of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. That was the legendary meeting in 1520 between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France. As the name implies, it was a diplomatic extravaganza where fountains flowed with wine, where palaces were constructed — and where nothing was accomplished.

[. . .]

A city is its infrastructure. That infrastructure is what we inhabit, and what enables us to inhabit the city. But because of security concerns, G20 organizers and their uniformed henchmen feel they must shut down that infrastructure, and with it, the city.

The tales of police callousness and brutality being heard at the CCLA are a disturbing reminder of the lengths to which the state will go to ensure its safety even at the cost of ours. It’s like the old line from the Vietnam War about having to destroy a village in order to save it. In this case, Torontonians, and by extension all Canadians, had their right to security suspended so as not to compromise the participants’ security — or, more to the point perhaps, not to inconvenience these terribly important people.

Earlier posts on the G20 idiocy here.

November 11, 2010

Chinese wine buyers get all-VQA store that Ontario wine buyers can’t have

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, China, Law, Wine — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:56

I’m all in favour of improving the visibility and availability of Ontario’s VQA wines in other markets, so this news is both good and infuriating simultaneously:

A couple of weeks ago the Government of Ontario announced the opening of an all-VQA wine store in China (in the city of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province). Oh happy day — now the Chinese can drink (and copy) all the Ontario icewine they want . . . but this begs the question: why should the Chinese have an advantage that we Ontarians do not? Do the Chinese drink more Ontario wine? Why is it so important that China get the opportunity to drink Ontario wines that folks in Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury can not?

I have nothing against the Chinese getting their hands on our wine; I’m glad to see a country embrace our wines as so many of us have embraced their food. But seriously, why should folks living in China have more and better access to Ontario wines then those of us living in the actual province. When I first heard the news, all I could say was an incredulous, “Seriously?” Has Ontario really become, as wine writer Dean Tudor puts it, every time he mentions Ontario, “a have not province”? When it comes to our own wine industry it keeps getting more and more “have not” and won’t get.

See what I mean? Great that they’re opening outlets in a new foreign market, but we still can’t get that kind of opportunity to buy here at home? All-VQA stores have been discussed (and rejected) before, but they’re apparently a great idea for foreign markets.

Update: Fixed the broken link.

November 9, 2010

How to create false sympathy for “victims”

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:16

Adrian MacNair gives a couple of examples of how to manipulate your reader into a sympathetic view of someone who isn’t actually a victim:

In the first instance we have a story about a court pondering whether a person can agree in advance to unconscious sex. It’s not a particularly edifying piece of news as it discusses an Ottawa court case involving a kinky couple who were involved in sex involving asphyxiation.

Although the article focuses on the court’s upcoming ruling of “sexual autonomy”, a quote from a woman’s legal advocacy group, and the background details of the alleged assault, we only learn in paragraph nine about an extremely important detail:

“The woman took her complaint to Ottawa police two months after the alleged assault, when she was seeking custody of the couple’s toddler.”

Two months after the fact, while embroiled in a custody battle. Sounds like something that could have been delivered a little higher in the story. Indeed, one could rewrite it in such a way that implies this parent is using the legal system in a manipulative way that challenges sexual autonomy just to win her kid.

The second case involves the new parents who “lost their seats” on a flight:

And then we get to salient information in paragraph 11. The couple arrived through security 20 minutes before takeoff, and then decided to run their baby [to] the bathroom because he soiled his diaper. This diaper changing took so long that apparently the airline gave away their seats to standby. Sorry, so sad. Too bad.

Journalism students are taught to find a hook or an angle to make the story of interest to the largest possible audience, but these two cases sound like the story is actually being distorted to fit a pre-decided agenda.

November 8, 2010

QotD: “Melticulturalism”

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:58

So, the majority of Canadians are in favour of a system that seeks to respect and preserve cultural differences, just as long as people from other cultures don’t actually preserve those differences but assimilate into Canadian society. Call it melticulturalism1: You can be as different as you want, just as long as you act like everyone else.

How Canadian can you get?

1 h/t to Tasha Kheiriddin for “melticulturalism”

Kelly McParland, “Canadians overwhelmingly favour melticulturalism”, National Post, 2010-11-08

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress