Quotulatiousness

March 16, 2010

Trudeau’s part in Cuba’s economic non-liberation

Filed under: Americas, Cancon, Economics, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

William Watson mentions, in a review of Just Watch Me, volume 2 of a Pierre Trudeau biography:

But to me the strangest and most alarming passage was this one, on page 617. Referring to the optimal speed of transition for countries exiting communism, English writes: “Trudeau’s concerns about making haste too quickly, with potentially disastrous results for the health of any society, were apparent in the mid-Nineties, when Castro’s Cuba, reeling from the impact of the abrupt end of financial support from the Soviet Union, considered opening up its rigid state socialist system. Because of its historic economic ties with Cuba, Canada became involved in discussions with the Cuban government. James Bartleman, then the chief foreign policy advisor to prime minister Jean Chrétien, later indicated that Castro abandoned his plan to loosen socialist restraints after a conversation with Trudeau, who cautioned him about its impact on the social health of his country. No record of Trudeau’s conversation is available, but Bartleman’s account rings true because of Trudeau’s friendship with Castro and his respect for the gains achieved by Cuba in the areas of health and education.”

Fidel must have been deeply grateful for Trudeau’s advice; the Cuban people, not so much.

It must be said that Castro probably welcomed Trudeau’s advice partly because it aligned closely with his preferences anyway . . .

March 15, 2010

PSAC president says public servants not paid as well as private sector workers

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:55

In direct opposition to common belief, John Gordon of the Public Service Alliance of Canada says that civil servants are worse-paid than private sector workers:

“Here we are again,” says John Gordon, the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada that represents 165,000 workers.

“Every time the government gets into [trouble] they kind of ramp up the rhetoric and the Canadian public starts to believe them . . .” he said.

In general terms, he added, his members’ wages run behind those in comparable positions in the private sector.

His workers are an easy target, he said, because the government fails to explain what it means to get rid of public servants — that services provided to the public would be affected.

For example, Mr. Gordon points to the work done by federal public servants during the H1N1 crisis to get vaccines in place and deal with the pandemic.

“It’s easy to broad brush it and say they should be freezing wages, which they have already done and cutting public services, which they are already doing . . .” he said, but added that the public has to ask itself what services it would like to see gone.

You see, unlike in the bloated private sector, where jobs are for life, and pensions are awesome, civil servants are overworked and underpaid. Any hint of reducing the costs of the civil service will automatically produce the most painful cuts for the public — that’s how the game is played. Even a freeze would somehow, through the arcane alchemy of public service financing, result in cuts only in the services most visible to the public.

Update, 16 March: An interesting sidelight to this is reported in Hit and Run:

California citizens are now encountering “state and local government officials [who are] increasingly . . . blaming budget cuts and furloughs when they withhold or delay the release of information requested under the state Public Records Act.”

March 13, 2010

Privatization? Let’s not be ideological!

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:03

Robert Fulford on the problems with unions in the public service:

Unions hate the very word “privatization.” And no wonder. Their present system is close to perfect: Their workers can’t be fired but can strike, as they do from time to time, demonstrating their power. They win most of their struggles with politicians, who throw billions at them just to keep them quiet. (After all, it’s not as if the politicians were spending their own money.)

This arrangement became commonplace in Canada about half a century ago, turning public-sector employees into princes of the working class who make more money than other people doing the same jobs, and receive more generous benefits.

Union members passionately believe this is no more than their due. The unions and their friends believe public ownership is fundamentally good, private ownership at best dubious. In 1994, when it seemed possible that Ontario would privatize liquor sales, the Ontario Liquor Boards Employees’ Union commissioned a study by a York University economist, Nuri Jazairi. He found, no surprise, that this was a bad idea and that the provincial government should continue to control every ounce of liquor sold within provincial boundaries, presumably for eternity.

But his report was most revealing when he turned to the motives of those who favour privatization. He suggested the idea sprang from “purely political and ideological reasons,” among which he listed “the control of public expenditures” and “limiting the role of government in managing the economy.”

It’s no surprise that the folks who benefit disproportionally from the current arrangement are the most vocally opposed to any changes which would reduce their advantages. If the government did get enough political will to go ahead and privatize, there’s no way (unless the government tied their hands in advance) that private enterprise would give — or could afford to give — their employees the same pay and benefits they currently enjoy under public ownership.

Update: Speaking of situations which could only arise under public ownership, here’s a perfect example:

More than 1,250 Ontario Ministry of Revenue employees will soon be receiving severance packages of up to $45,000 each — but they won’t be out of work. Most of them aren’t even switching desks. They’re simply being transferred from the provincial payroll to the federal payroll when the province moves to a federal harmonized sales tax this summer.

March 10, 2010

Mr. Miller’s media gotcha

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 18:30

Police funding: Toronto increases budget, reduces staffing

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:07

Toronto’s police force is going to have to cut back on the number of officers on the beat, in spite of a $33 million budget increase since last year:

At an emergency meeting at police headquarters, the board voted to find temporary savings, which would bring spending down to the $888.1-million approved by the city in February, avoiding a clash over a $5.9-million disparity.

Police Chief Bill Blair said even temporary budget reductions would mean fewer officers on staff, and concerns about a reduction in the force’s effectiveness.

“At the end of the day, this is what you need to fund these service levels. The city doesn’t want to come back and say, ‘cut police officers,’ because politically, that is a difficult thing to suggest,” Chief Blair said. “But what they instead say is, ‘We won’t give you enough money to pay their salaries.’ So inevitably we have to cut the number of police officers.”

Last year’s budget was $854.8 million. So an increase to “only” $888.1 million means automatic cutbacks to staffing levels. That must make sense to someone, but it seems like only in the public sector can an increase in funding go hand-in-hand with a decrease in provided services.

March 9, 2010

We’re pulling soft drinks from schools, but we’ll now charge for water

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Education — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

680 News had this delightful little news item in the round-up this morning:

Some parents are questioning a plan by the Toronto District School Board to put a vending machine in a Parkdale elementary school that sells water refills and flavoured water.

The vending machine is scheduled to be installed at Fern Avenue Public School, near Queen Street and Roncesvalles Avenue.

The machine will charge students 50-cents for filtered water and $1 for flavoured water.

The pipes at the school apparently need to be replaced, which has some parents concerned that this little “convenience” will come to replace the water fountains altogether. If that happened, the 50-cents-per-drink machine would be a nice little earner for the school board.

After this became news, the board decided to delay the installation until after a meeting to consult with concerned parents. (Translation: the phones were melting down from the angry responses the board was getting, so they’re at least pretending to pay attention to parental concerns.)

March 8, 2010

This sounds familiar

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Economics, Europe, Government, Greece — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 17:39

The other day, I wrote:

Once upon a time (and this is becoming long enough in the past to qualify as legend), government work was less well-paid than equivalent work in the private sector. The advantage of taking the lower-paid government job was job security: government workers had a “job for life” and a nice pension at the end of it. Private sector workers got more in the weekly pay, but generally had worse pensions and more uncertainty for long-term employment.

During the last generation or so, this basic trade-off has been lost. Government workers now get better paid than their private sector counterparts, still get practically guaranteed lifetime employment, and not-just-nice-but-very-nice pensions. No wonder governments have become the employer of choice.

Clearly I’m not the only one thinking this way, as Kelly McParland makes a similar pitch:

I like they way they put “bail out” in quotations, as if devoting billions of dollars to the rescue of Greece isn’t really a bail-out. Because in union-land, it isn’t. By definition, everything a unionized worker earns is deserved, because someone, somewhere agreed to pay it — especially workers employed by the government, who make up the bulk of the protesting Greeks. And since they earned it, there’s no reason they should make any sacrifices to help the country avoid economic disaster. No, that’s for little people, who don’t have government jobs.

Canada isn’t Greece, but it’s no healthier here to have a country divided into two classes. Class One: Public sector workers with safe, secure, well-paid jobs it is almost impossible for them to lose, with generous holidays, guaranteed pensions and protection against the economic cycles that prevail in the private sector. Class Two: Everyone else.

It used to be that the people in Class Two had an incentive for risking exposure to economic ups and downs. The pay was generally better, and it was possible to spend an entire career with a successful company and enjoy a pension at the end. Not any more. If events of the past few years have proved anything, it’s that no company is too big to fail, and there’s no guarantee benefits promised when you were hired are likely to be there when you leave. If the pension goes splat, like so many have, you’re on your own.

While the incentive to face the risks of the private sector have diminished, life on the government payroll has never been better. After all those nasty cutbacks imposed by Finance Minister Paul Martin, the Conservatives were elected in 2006, and have been spending wildly ever since. All the staff reductions have been reversed and the public payroll is bigger than ever. Salaries have largely caught up with private sector levels, and the pensions are just as rock solid as they’ve ever been. And you can’t be fired, short of indictment for murder.

At some point (and that point may be sooner than anyone believes), growth in civil service has to stop: there won’t be enough non-civil service jobs to pay for all the rest. Especially as government jobs become more and more attractive over their private sector counterparts. Why not take a job paying more money, with longer vacations, guaranteed pensions, and no risk of losing the job? You’d be crazy to take a job anywhere else, wouldn’t you?

March 5, 2010

New economic term: the Jukebox economy

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:33

Terence Corcoran endorses a neologism from Bob Hoye, which seems to perfectly capture the current notions about the role of government in the economy:

In the economic culture of our time, in which government is seen as the engine of growth and prosperity, maybe it is too much to expect anything more. We live in what veteran Vancouver investment advisor Bob Hoye has called a jukebox economy. “Jukebox economics,” he wrote recently, “is a suitable description of the notion that the economy can only be kept going if the government feeds it quarters.”

So long as jukebox economics is the dominant economic ideology in Canada and elsewhere, the orthodoxy that guides our politicians and the conventional wisdom our media feeds off, we will continue to get budgets like the one Mr. Flaherty delivered on Thursday. In his speech he kept pumping quarters into the machine, calling the spending “investments” and describing the outcome as “jobs.”

Quarters in, jobs out. “We are in the middle of the largest federal investment in infrastructure in over 60 years. We are putting Canadians to work.” Are these good investments producing worthy jobs? Will they boost productivity and real economic gains that will actually generate what Canada desperately needs, which is greater wealth and progress that actually increases the standard of living for Canadians?

Nobody’s really counting. The word “productivity” didn’t cross Mr. Flaherty’s lips, even though it is universally acknowledged as Canada’s single greatest weakness. Even in the best of times, Canada falls behind. In the 424-page official Budget 2010 document assembled by scores of economic experts, the productivity problem is studiously avoided. The case is never made that the massive multi-year spending plans could really generate productivity gains, most likely because Finance Canada officials know they don’t exist. Of about 15 mentions of productivity gains, most are associated with a few tax cuts and the tariff reduction on manufacturing equipment imports — one of the few worthy measures in the budget.

It’s become a common notion that the government has a tap, marked “jobs” which they can easily turn on and off. This is why so many journalists demand that the government “create” jobs — they think that not only is it the government’s role, but that it’s a unique one. Individuals and firms don’t create jobs, in this mental model, unless the government prods them into doing so.

It’s another example of cargo cult thinking . . . that by some form of sympathetic magic, the government can induce the sky gods to produce the required manna on demand.

March 4, 2010

Canadian air travel now to be subject to US oversight

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:11

I’d always suspected that the close co-operation between Canadian and US officials meant that even theoretically domestic flights might be scrutinized by the other country, but now it’s official policy:

Starting in December, passengers on Canadian airlines flying to, from or even over the United States without ever landing there, will only be allowed to board the aircraft once the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has determined they are not terrorists.

Secure Flight, the newest weapon in the U.S. war on terrorism, gives the United States unprecedented power about who can board planes that fly over U.S. airspace — even if the flights originate and land in Canada.

The program, which is set to take effect globally in December 2010, was created as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, adopted by U.S. Congress in 2004.

Parliament never adopted or even discussed the Secure Flight program — even though Secure Flight transfers the authority of screening passengers, and their personal information, from domestic airlines to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

March 3, 2010

QotD: Canada’s national inferiority complex

Filed under: Cancon, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:37

But when I refer to casting off our national inferiority complex, I don’t mean the permission we suddenly seem to have given ourselves to be overjoyed by our nation’s athletic accomplishments. Rather, I’m talking about the way most of our major national policies of the past half-century have really just been masks for our national angst. Multiculturalism, universal health care, soft power diplomacy, economic and cultural nationalism and others are all, in part, efforts to downplay our own fear that we are an insignificant nation. Through them, we reassure ourselves of our moral superiority, especially toward the Americans.

Maybe Vancouver finally made us willing to stop defining ourselves through our belief in giant government programs and our fear and resentment of the United States.

Now, perhaps, we can also give ourselves permission to stop trying to manufacture a distinctly Canadian culture and just let one evolve naturally.

We are not Americans. We are never going to be Americans. No amount of economic or cultural protectionism is going to keep U.S. influences out. But also, American influences were never going to impoverish us or strip our identity away.

Maybe now, with the Olympics over and our new-found national confidence high, we’ll get past our common belief that universal health care makes us a better country and gives us superior care. For far too long we have planned health care through this sort of political filter rather than a medical one.

Perhaps instead of sneering at the Americans about their melting pot approach to immigration and insisting our multicultural approach is superior, we’ll now come to see the two as different sides of the same coin.

I think we have already come to understand that while we were tremendous peacekeepers under the UN, what the world needs now is peacemakers. There was nothing wrong with our old role. We were very good at it. But now we have moved on. We have re-equipped ourselves and are getting on with the heavy lifting of fighting in hot spots and bringing aid directly to stricken regions.

Those who still cling to the old notion of Canada as only ever a non-fighting nation, that works only through the UN and cares deeply what the rest of the world thinks of us, have been left behind by events.

Lorne Gunter, “In Vancouver and Whistler, shades of Vimy”, National Post, 2010-03-03

March 2, 2010

Linking Olympic glory with jackbooted thugs?

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Sports — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 17:14

Frequent commenter “Lickmuffin” responded to the post entitled SWAT forces now spend more time doing non-SWAT policing with a long comment tying together the Olympics and the omnipresent SWAT teams:

I have to say that I really don’t understand your views here.
Olympic fascist spectacle: A-OK!
The actual functional trappings of a police state: Boo, hiss!
You can’t have one without the other. As the man said, you have to break a few skulls to make Olympic Gold. Or something like that.

Lickmuffin then provided an extended discussion on the same theme:

It’s quite simple, really: if you want to host the Olympics, and you want to have a succesful national Olympic team, you have to have armed-to-the teeth SWAT teams.

To fund the Olympics and Olympians, you need to have confiscatory tax rates.

When you have confiscatory tax rates, you’re going to have people trying to avoid the taxes.

Some of those people are going to engage in dodgy and risky behaviour, such as importing, growing, manufacturing or just generally dealing with narcotics.

Some of those people are going to use violence to protect their businesses.

To deal with those guys, you need heavily armed and specially trained police.

Just three degrees of separation there, really, but it works out to something like this:

Publicly funded Olympics = SWAT teams on every corner.

What do we tell people whose family members are killed in no-knock raids where the cops had the wrong address? “Sorry about that, but that snowboarding dude needed a gold medal.”

It’s ironic that the first snowboarder to win a medal for the sport — a Canadian — tested positive for weed.

It’s not ironic at all that the same dude wants to become a Liberal MP. Snowboard boots, jackboots — same thing, really.

It really does cover all the ground, doesn’t it? Just lacking the obligatory German rendering of SWAT as Sturmabteilung, and we’re golden, as they say.

Military neglect: “it’s how we’ve always done it”

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Politics, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:23

Matt Gurney discusses the military share of the federal budget, in light of proposed spending restrictions in the upcoming throne speech:

It can’t be denied that the Harper government has delivered what the troops needed. German-made tanks, American transport helicopters and British artillery cannons have made our troops more effective and harder to kill. But it has also revealed an enduring flaw in Canadian military procurement policy: In peacetime, we convince ourselves we’ll never need a military, and in wartime, we pay through the nose to buy one off the shelf. From building virtually a whole new navy and air force to battle the Nazis, to the recent race to get drones and helicopters into Kandahar in time to make a difference, it’s how we’ve always done it. This must change.

Neglecting our Forces in peacetime and then racing to properly equip them once they’re already committed to battle not only puts our men and women in danger, it’s fiscally inefficient. It would be better, both for our military and our treasury, to commit ourselves to maintaining a large, robust military in peacetime that is capable of going to war on short notice, with all it needs already on hand. That means maintaining a high tempo of training, recruiting enough manpower to fill the ranks, and replacing obsolete or worn out equipment promptly.

[. . .] arguably, each branch of the Canadian Forces, most particularly the army but certainly the navy as well, ought to be considerably larger than it is. Even if Canadians are willing to settle for the status quo — a small military that uses technology and guts to punch above its weight — we’re going to need to spend to keep us there.

Many will no doubt argue that Canada doesn’t need a powerful military. But to their credit, the Conservatives, who’ve spent the last several years positioning themselves as the party that gave the military its pride back, aren’t taking that line. Thursday’s budget — and those that follow it — must put the money where their mouths have been.

Historically, Canadians have not supported military spending outside wartime. The necessity of paying for salaries, training, and equipment when they’re not actively being employed seems to most Canadians to be wasted spending. Even when the government manages to overcome its hesitation to spend money on new kit, it is viewed primarily as a source of regional development assistance, political patronage, or industrial policy, rather than providing the troops with the tools they need to do their jobs.

It’s (barely) possible that the goalposts have shifted over the last several years: Canada’s military has a higher profile in public eyes than at any time since 1945. Canadians are far more individually supportive of soldiers, sailors, and airmen than ever before. Perhaps there won’t be the political cost to the government for paying the extra financial costs to keep our military kit up to current standards.

But the smart money isn’t betting on that as the most likely outcome.

Those ominous parallels again

Filed under: Cancon, Sports, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:53

I originally just added this as a comment on this post, but it appears to have a bit more life in it.

Gil LeBreton made this pithy observation in his column about the Vancouver Olympics on the 28th of February:

After a spirited torch relay ignited pride in every corner of the country, the Olympic Games began and quickly galvanized the nation.

Flags were everywhere. The country’s national symbol hung from windows and was worn on nearly everyone’s clothing.

Fervent crowds cheered every victory by the host nation.

But enough about the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

I thought it was amusing, so I just added it to the comment thread, but I guess I wasn’t the only one to notice Mr. LeBreton’s insight:

So true. The parallels between Berlin 1936 and Vancouver 2010 are clear, if you just pay attention.

Not everyone has the perspicacity to discern the neo-Nazi threat north of America’s borders. Fortunately, Mr. LeBreton does. Because he’s more observant than most. He makes the cognitive connections others miss:

“For 17 days we were barraged with Canadian flags, rode buses and trains with people in sweatshirts and jerseys adorned with Canadian maple leafs, and were serenaded at venues by Canadian spectators, lustily cheering for Canadian athletes.”

My God. It’s spine-chilling.

The rest of the world was lulled into complacency and Olympic fever. But the Star-Telegram’s crack reporter wasn’t fooled by the crafty Canucks. Their display of patriotism reminded him of something. Something terrifying.

“I didn’t attend the ’36 Olympics, but I’ve seen the pictures. Swastikas everywhere.”

You see? Maple leaf flag equals swastika. Damn you, Canada.

He’s so right. Connect the dots! Look it up, sheeple!

March 1, 2010

QotD: The game

Filed under: Cancon, Quotations, Sports, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:30

It may not have been the most important hockey game in Canadian history; the 1972 Summit Series has a pretty good argument, and does the 1987 Canada Cup. There were no political implications here, just sporting ones.

Nation-stopping sporting ones, true. If you ever wanted to knock off a bank in Lloydminster, Sask., this was probably a good day to try.

The game was played with a desperate ferocity, and at eye-watering speed. Every goal-mouth scrum was the fall of Saigon; bodies were being thrown around as if everyone involved forgot there is a quarter of the NHL season left to play. Every puck mattered; every play mattered. Everything mattered.

And there was hostility but no fighting; hitting but no headshots; talent so rich that when the NHL starts again today, it will look like a pale shadow of what the game can be.

“I think both teams are winners,” said Wilson. “And maybe more than anything, hockey in general.”

Bruce Arthur, “Crosby makes leap from superstar to legend”, CBC Vancouver Now, 2010-02-28

February 27, 2010

Podium odium: Canada’s Olympic shame according to British journalists

Filed under: Cancon, Sports — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:11

I’ve mentioned Fleet Street’s disdain for the Vancouver Olympics before. It’s become its own little side-story to the coverage of the games. But it’s not just the Brits.

After the exit of their men’s hockey team from the games, Russian opinions were channelled by that staunch Slav Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey in Pravda:

We all knew it weeks before the game started, with accusations about doping being levelled at Russian athletes, and we all saw it on day one of the games, with the death of a Georgian athlete on a corner which miraculously was elevated the following day. Vancouver is not fit to hold the Winter Olympics.

[. . .]

We all know Canada has problems with the future lines drawn on Arctic maps and we all know Canada lives in the shadow of its larger neighbour to the south. The abject cruelty shown by Canadian soldiers in international conflicts is scantily referred to, as indeed is the utter incapacity of this county to host a major international event, due to its inferiority complex, born of a trauma being the skinny and weakling bro to a beefy United States and a colonial outpost to the United Kingdom, whose Queen smiles happily from Canadian postage stamps.

Maybe it is this which makes the Canadians so…retentive, or cowardly.

[. . .]

Everybody who knows anything about Olympic skating, Winter Olympic sports and international politics will infer from the pitiful and dangerous conditions provided by the Canadian authorities, which already caused one death, that Vancouver is mutton dressed as lamb. Take off the outer veneer and the stench is horrific.

However, not to be outdone by a mere “Russian” journalist, the mighty Times of London weighs in with their more nuanced condemnation of Canada and the Vancouver Olympics:

The idea was for Canada to emerge as gracious hosts of the Winter Olympics and glorious winners as well. Alas, the Canadians have come across as a bunch of mean-spirited, chippy, unsporting losers.

Things have come to a pretty pass when you find yourself rooting for the United States. But I really have been cheering for stars and stripes rather than maple leaves. The Canadian shenanigans in Vancouver have alienated the entire world.

[. . .]

The Canadians have taken an aggressive line towards any criticism. This kneejerk reaction is both small-minded and small-nation. It is not hostile to point out an error, particularly when the error is rudely thrust in your face.

It is customary at the Olympics to say that the nation holding them has “come of age”. China “came of age” in 2008; Australia “came of age” with the Sydney Games of 2000. In fact, Australia also “came of age” with the Melbourne Games of 1956; that’s because this observation has become an Olympic custom.

But Canada has not come of age in Vancouver 2010. Canada has regressed into a sneering but ultimately impotent adolescence. It’s been — well, rather unattractive on the whole.

So, there you go, Canada. Aren’t you ashamed? Don’t you feel properly dressed down by your betters? Or, like Simon Barnes’ “adolescent”, do you feel like telling him to STFU and GTFO?

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