Quotulatiousness

January 15, 2013

HMCS Athabaskan finally makes port

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:04

As reported more than a week ago, HMCS Athabaskan has been having issues getting back home to Halifax. She had been refitting at Seaway Marine and Industrial Inc. in Welland, Ontario, but the work had been extended longer than planned due to issues discovered while the work was underway. Instead of being back in service by the end of the year, the ship had to be towed back to Halifax with the work incomplete.

On the way, the tow line broke and HMCS Athabaskan drifted for several hours off Scatarie Island. At some point, the ship took additional damage (the darkened areas around the hull number below):

HMCS Athabaskan under tow in Halifax
(Screencap image detail from Halifax Shipping News)

January 10, 2013

Recapping the awful legal conditions for Ontario wineries

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Cancon, Law, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:44

In the latest issue of Ontario Wine Review, Michael Pinkus explains why the outcome of the last provincial election dashed a lot of hopes in the Ontario wine industry:

Give an Ontario winery the chance to vent its spleen, especially about the recent provincial election and the future of the wine industry in the province, and you can sit back, pour a glass and listen to what has been described as “years of frustration”. Ontario remains one of the most backward places to make and sell wine and the rules and regulations are just so 1920s (the decade our monopoly was formed). One of the most telling problems about our system is how many winery principals are afraid to go on the record with their comments. “I will ask to remain anonymous as quite frankly I am afraid of LCBO backlash. We are spending more and more time getting to know the LCBO system [as one of the only ways to grow our business] … and I am sure with one phone call the buyers will drop us … without the LCBO we are screwed.” Now, you would think we were discussing selling forbidden information in communist Russia or talking against the state in Stasi-controlled Cold War Germany, instead of discussing election results in a “free” country like Canada. [. . .]

“We are definitely one of the worst regulated wine industries in the world. No other jurisdiction has supply-managed grapes and government-owned monopoly distribution (a system designed to fast-track imported wine into Ontario). In fact, I am hard pressed to think of any other industry in Canada that has this type of anachronistic regulatory burden. Off the top of my mind, a list of products more dangerous than 100% grown Ontario wine that are less regulated: hunting rifles, cigarettes, pseudoephedrine, ATVs, fast food, pointy sticks, etc.” (AWP)

So what can you as a consumer do about this situation? First of all, you can of course become more informed, look into why you can’t order wines from other provinces, question, and why you can’t buy local wines at wine shows or farmers’ markets. Find out why wineries are limited to where they can sell their wines and why only a handful of wineries are making money hand-over-fist because of the ability to blend foreign wine with domestic wine (yet over 98% of wineries cannot use that practice) and why those same wineries can sell wine in off-site stores, while smaller un-grandfathered post-1993 wineries struggle to sell wines in one of three places: their cellar door, restaurants and the restrictive LCBO. Many wineries won’t go on the record against the biggest wine buyer in Ontario (so much for free speech).

[. . .]

Problem One are direct sales to restaurants and other licensee holders (banquet halls, etc). One AWP says OMAFRA (Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs) puts ridiculous regulations in place. “If I sell a bottle of wine at the winery for $10.00 (including all taxes etc), I get to keep $7.55 of that. If I deliver that wine to a restaurant, I get to keep $4.03, rather than $7.55. Although LCBO has not touched that bottle, I have to pay the equivalent of LCBO warehousing charges. This overhead is not warranted as cost recovery by LCBO, as its only responsibility is the audit of winery reports.”

Remember the LCBO had nothing to do with the sale, yet it makes money on it.

Problem Two is that market share is actually declining. According to numbers obtained by the Winery and Grower Alliance of Ontario (WGAO), Ontario’s market share of wine, in its own market place, is actually declining — although an agreement made years ago stated that the LCBO would work towards a 50% target for Ontario market share compared with imported wine. The numbers show a different story. In 2010/2011, imports had 61% of the market, while Ontario had only 39%, of which 29% were International-Canadian blends (the old Cellared in Canada) … leaving Ontario VQA wine (100% Ontario product) with a measly 10% (WGAO newsletter — August 2011) … Ontario is losing ground in its own market — and that’s not because of low quality wines, that’s because access to market is curbed. Says one winery principal on the subject: “The present situation is choking the wine industry in Ontario” while another says, “it is very apparent that the LCBO is unable or not interested in growing the VQA wine industry.”

January 7, 2013

“[N]o person in Canada stands above or outside of the law”

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Media, Railways — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 15:09

Christie Blatchford on the inability of Canadian police to shut down protests by First Nations groups that violated the law:

Saying “I do not get it,” an Ontario Superior Court judge Monday bemoaned the passivity of Ontario police forces on illegal native barricades and issued a lament for the state of law-and-order in the nation.

“…no person in Canada stands above or outside of the law,” Judge David Brown said in a decision that was alternately bewildered and plaintive.

“Although that principle of the rule of law is simple, at the same time it is fragile. Without Canadians sharing a public expectation of obeying the law, the rule of law will shatter.”

Judge Brown was formally giving his reasons for having granted CN Rail an emergency injunction last Saturday night, when the railway rushed to court when Idle No More protesters blocked the Wymans Road crossing on the main line between Toronto and Montreal.

January 4, 2013

HMCS Athabaskan damaged while under tow

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

One of the Royal Canadian Navy’s destroyers was supposed to have finished a refitting back in November, but due to delays in the work had to be towed back to Halifax. On the way, further problems arose:

A navy destroyer moored in Cape Breton has been damaged and was set adrift while under tow after problems arose with repair work carried out at an Ontario dockyard, the military said Thursday.

HMCS Athabaskan drifted for several hours off Scatarie Island on Friday after the tow line broke, said Capt. Doug Kierstead of the Royal Canadian Navy in Halifax.

Kierstead said there is damage to the hull behind the ship’s identifying numbers, though he declined to say what the damage was and how it came about.

“At this point all I can say is that we are aware that there is damage visible,” Kierstead said in an interview.

He said the vessel was supposed to have undergone a routine refit by the end of November last year and was expected to be capable of sailing after that work was completed at Seaway Marine and Industrial Inc. in Welland, Ont.

HMCS Athabaskan 282
Photo from Wikimedia

January 3, 2013

The Avro Arrow model hunt

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:00

Updating an old story (original posting at the old blog from 2004) on the search for the scale models used to develop the Avro Arrow:

Andrew Hibbert knows they’re down there somewhere. At the bottom of Lake Ontario, with more than 50 years’ worth of zebra mussels clinging to their hulls, sit nine models of the Avro Arrow.

The models were part of a program to test the hull design of the legendary Canadian plane, cancelled before it could truly soar. Strapped to high-powered booster rockets, the 10-foot models weighed nearly 500 pounds and flew over Lake Ontario at supersonic speeds. Their onboard sensors — revolutionary for the 1950s — relayed information back to the launch site at Point Petre, in Prince Edward County.

The models represent a key part of the development of the scrapped plane project.

The Avro Arrow made its first flight in 1958. The interceptor was widely regarded as ahead of its time in terms of aerospace technology. Its Malton plant employed nearly 15,000 people.

But development was cancelled abruptly in 1959, after five Arrows had flown. All were ordered destroyed, along with any documentation and related equipment.

The models, however, were safe from the scrubbing, protected by 30 metres of water.

Eleven models were tested in total: nine at Point Petre and two in Virginia. None has been recovered yet, but that hasn’t stopped so-called “Arrowheads” from hunting for them, often at great cost of both treasure and time.

The Arrow story has shown up a few times on the blog before.

Update: Colby Cosh is always good for summarizing:

I put it in a more wordy form in an earlier posting:

Even people who care less than nothing about aircraft or military technology seem to have opinions about the Avro Arrow (usually allowing them to take free shots at former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker for the decision to scrap the plane). It’s far enough in the past that the facts are more than obscured by the myths of the cottage conspiracy theory industry (artisanal Canadian myth-making, hand-woven, fair-trade, and 100% organic).

December 6, 2012

Toronto’s unusually expensive school maintenance costs

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

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

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

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

[. . .]

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

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

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

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

H/T to Chris Selley:

December 4, 2012

An American view of Canada’s immigration policies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

November 29, 2012

QotD: Transforming Ontario’s wine market

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

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

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

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

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

November 28, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

November 16, 2012

Windsor’s new city slogan, courtesy of Stephen Colbert

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

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

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

November 4, 2012

Remembering the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway

Filed under: Cancon, History, Railways — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:13

My friend John Spring is sharing some of his vast collection of railway film and photos with Canrail Video, and they’ve posted this excerpt of footage on the railway, including some of the last runs under steam on the TH&B:

TH&B Steam from the collection of John Spring. Copyrighted material ©2012 Canrail Video Productions. All rights reserved. You can however, link to this show from your site. This video will be shared for a short time only. You can view is and other John Spring films on future Canrail/Green Frog productions in the near future.

For more information on the railway, check the TH&B Railway Historical Society page or the Yahoo group (full disclosure: I founded the historical society, although I’m not currently active with the organization). I’m also the moderator for the discussion group.

November 3, 2012

Context matters

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

Queen’s University may eventually have to consider apologizing for their ham-fisted treatment of Professor Michael Mason:

“If I were to continue teaching I would feel that there was somebody up on the stage with me making shorthand notes — a phantom censor,” he said. After the complaint was filed, the university said he could only continue teaching if the department chair sat in on lectures from time to time. He wouldn’t comply. Classes were cancelled and Mr. Mason was “banned,” as he puts it. He was never formally let go or asked to leave — health problems eventually had him sidelined.

Mr. Mason never disputed what was said, but the complaint didn’t divulge the context, he said.

The words “f—ing rag head,” “towel head,” “japs” and “little yellow sons of bitches,” did indeed cross his lips, he said, but he was quoting from books and articles on racism in that era.

[. . .]

Mr. Mason says he feels anything but supported by the school, which did not acknowledge the context of his statements nor let him explain himself, he said.

“I didn’t do it, I’m not guilty of it, they screwed up. The administration screwed up, mishandled it. They should have done it much more openly and honestly and fairly and they didn’t. And now they’re just saying ‘go away, we’re not going to deal with it.’”

He maintains that only one teaching assistant from the faculty of gender studies made the complaint, but the university and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, Local 901, which represents the TAs, say there were complaints from TAs and students.

October 28, 2012

Toronto accused of being deadly waypoint for migratory birds

Filed under: Cancon, Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:11

In the New York Times, Ian Austen examines claims that Toronto’s downtown core is taking a huge toll of migratory birds every year:

There is no precise ranking of the world’s most deadly cities for migratory birds, but Toronto is considered a top contender for the title. When a British nature documentary crew wanted to film birds killed by crashes into glass, Daniel Klem Jr., an ornithologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., who has been studying the issue for about 40 years, directed them here, where huge numbers of birds streaking through the skies one moment can be plummeting toward the concrete the next.

“They’re getting killed everywhere and anywhere where there’s even the smallest garage window,” Professor Klem said. “In the case of Toronto, perhaps because of the number of buildings and the number of birds, it’s more dramatic.”

So many birds hit the glass towers of Canada’s most populous city that volunteers scour the ground of the financial district for them in the predawn darkness each morning. They carry paper bags and butterfly nets to rescue injured birds from the impending stampede of pedestrian feet or, all too often, to pick up the bodies of dead ones.

The group behind the bird patrol, the Fatal Light Awareness Program, known as FLAP, estimates that one million to nine million birds die every year from impact with buildings in the Toronto area. The group’s founder once single-handedly recovered about 500 dead birds in one morning.

Rob Silver finds the claim to be a bit unlikely:

October 25, 2012

A contrarian view of the proposed Detroit-Windsor bridge

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:02

Terence Corcoran points out that the proposed new bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor is not quite the simple story of Canadian generosity to cash-strapped Michigan:

In this view, Mr. Harper as Captain Canada had vanquished not only the state of Michigan and its governor, Rick Snyder. He had also declared war on the real battle target, the private corporation that controls the other Detroit-to-Windsor crossing, the Ambassador Bridge owned and controlled by the Moroun family, headed by 83-year-old billionaire Manuel Moroun.

Mr. Moroun, whose family has owned the bridge since the late 1970s — maintaining it and collecting all tolls — is portrayed as an influence-buying Tea Party capitalist who seeks tax breaks to prosper, a monopolist who wants to keep out competition, a symbol of all that is wrong with America’s special-interest dominated governments. Mr. Harper and Canada stand as principled, influence-free promoters of international trade, commerce and the public good.

It takes a lot of ideological twisting to reach that conclusion, especially for Conservatives who portray Mr. Harper as the economic good guy — despite all evidence to the contrary that Mr. Harper is the heavy-handed statist attempting to cripple a private entrepreneur. What Mr. Harper is really doing is using government power to do what Canadian governments have wanted to do for at least five decades: thwart the private ownership — and if possible take control — of the Ambassador Bridge.

[. . .]

So Mr. Harper, by moving in to fund a competing bridge using taxpayers’ dollars, is re-enacting the Trudeau policy, using more direct methods. Ottawa will pay to build a second bridge, potentially driving the Moroun family out of business.

Being a billionaire, Manuel Moroun isn’t a sympathetic figure. He is described, among other things, as being a fake capitalist, a rent-seeking monopolist who does not want to face competition. It’s a charge that belittles Mr. Moroun and elevates the dubious intentions of the government. When a foreign national government shows up on your door, with the support of the governor of your state and likely the president of the United States, to announce that “We’re from the government and were here to compete with you,” Mr. Moroun has good reason to run to the courts and the political process.

For doing so, Mr. Moroun has been described as litigious, a wealthy manipulator and a purchaser of political favours. When it comes to manipulation, however, it’s hard to beat Ottawa and the massed forces of special-interest industries, unions and government bureaucrats who have joined to promote and build a new bridge at government expense.

October 24, 2012

Persuading Michigan voters to refuse a new free bridge to Canada

Filed under: Cancon, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:05

The announcement back in June must have appeared too good to be true: a new bridge between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario to be completely funded by Canada. Michigan voters are being urged to refuse the deal:

Canada, understand, has agreed to pay for the bridge in full, including liabilities — and potential cost overruns — under an agreement that was about a decade-in-the-making and officially announced to much fanfare, at least on the Canadian side of the border, by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in Windsor/Detroit in mid-June.

For Michigan, it is a slam-dunk arrangement. As Mr. Norton told one audience: ‘‘If this proves to be a dumb financial decision, it’s on us, not on you.’’

It’s a free bridge, a vital new piece of publicly owned infrastructure — for both countries — and yet one that is in grave danger of being demolished before construction even begins when Michigan voters head to the polls for a ballot initiative attached to the Nov. 6 elections.

[. . .]

Manuel (Matty) Moroun, an 85-year-old self-made billionaire who owns the 83-year-old Ambassador Bridge, is Cynic-in-Chief. The Ambassador is currently the only transport truck-bearing bridge in town. Twenty-five percent of Canadian-American trade, representing about $120-billion, flows across it each year.

It is a perfect monopoly for the Moroun family, a golden goose that just keeps on laying eggs, putting upwards of $80-million a year in tolls, duty free gas and shopping sales in their pockets. Allowing a Canadian-financed competitor into the ring without a fight isn’t an option.

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