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26/12/2006 I've moved!It's been fun, but as I said in my last post I needed to move to a new home and I have.
My new URL: http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/
If you have me in a feed reader of some kind or other, copy and paste the new feeds into it.
Thanks, and see you at my new home! 21/12/2006 On hiatusWith Christmas in a few days, as well as a job change coming shortly, I have decided to put this blog on a brief hiatus -- maybe a week or two -- and will be using this time also to definitely find a new place to hang my blogging shingle. This has been a lot of fun over the last eighteen months, I just need a breather right now. Thanks to all my regular readers as well as my colleagues at ProgBlogs and LibLogs as well as the diverse group at Ontario Blogs for all your support and your criticisms, both positive and negative.
I'll let you all know what my new site is when things settle down ... but will keep this for some time as a legacy site as a cross-reference for previous posts. For now, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and the best in the New Year. God bless you, and God bless Canada.
20/12/2006 Is all that there is? Rona Ambrose EditionThe auto industry and Big Oil makes cars that can run on 85% ethanol. Diesel can be made from cooking oil and other organic food wastes, blended with the normal diesel oil, and produce much cleaner output (i.e. lower sulfur content) as well as boost horsepower. With that in mind, as well as the Conservatives' plan to only begin reducing air pollution in the year 2050, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose announced oil companies will only have to have 5 percent ethanol or 2 percent biodiesel in their fuel content -- by 2012.
When a previous Conservative government -- the Progressive Conservatives, under Mulroney -- got a report saying lead poisoning was running at a rampant pace in minors, Brian didn't hestitate. He pushed forward the phase out period for lead in gasoline a full three years, in fact he gave the oil firms barely a year to make the conversion. The companies quickly adapted and found less harmful lead substitutes in no time flat. Was Canada's economy damaged permanently because leaded fuel has been outlawed here these past 15 years? No.
The infrastructure exists to produce clean fuels. One of the majors is already at 10 percent ethanol and is the market leader in Diesel #2 which has 97 percent less sulfur than the old kind. They didn't need to be told to do it, they did it because it's smart business. What, are the other companies chicken? Or did they get a deal because they're in bed (monetarily as well as Biblically) with the powers that be in Ottawa right now?
Vote for this article at Progressive Bloggers. 19/12/2006 The decline of religion in televisionYears ago, Hollywood had codes for movies and television that drew the line at what was acceptable and what wasn't. The TV Code lasted well into the 1980s, but the movie code was done away with in the late 1960s and it's worth pointing out the first winner of the Best Picture Oscar after that was dropped was the X-rated Midnight Cowboy. But let's stick with television for the purposes of this post. For most of the history of television, from just after World War II until, say, the mid 80s, ministers were regarded as people to be looked up to and it wasn't seen as a taboo for people to ask for divine intervention or even guidance to help with the struggles of daily life.
Maybe it was the rocky year in religion that was 1987 (to wit, Jim Bakker committing adultery then stealing his parishoners' money, Jimmy Swaggart doing his infamous "I have sinned" sermon, and Oral Roberts proclaiming he'd die unless he raised eight million for the missionary arm of his ministry in three months) but it was made for television. Since then, the message television has sent about religion has been mostly negative or mixed. There are noteworthy exceptions such as Touched by an Angel and 7th Heaven, but those and a few others are the rare exceptions.
On that note, the bipartisan Parents' Television Council has produced their latest study on the religion messages that the boob tube put out last season, and theirs is an especially sour one this year. I have some gripes with the PTC and its methodology, not to mention its founder Brent Bozell III. But the study put out the other day is very alarming. For the most part, all religions got a bum rap -- not just Islam as one might naturally expect, but Judaism and Christianity as well. Bottom line: 34% of references to religion were positive, 35% were negative, 27% were mixed (in that a character in question tried to play with God both ways) and 4% were "undetermined."
I'm as much for free speech as the next person. It's one of the bedrocks of democracy. However, I also believe that television while waning still does have an influence on people and that it needs to show the consequences of doing right versus doing wrong. There is nothing wrong with expressing one's faith in a positive light or doing well by others. In these times, we need people from both sides of the aisle who lead by example both in the characters they play as well as in their personal lives. Shows like Little House on the Prairie, Bewitched and even All in the Family have stood the test of time because all dealt with the issues of cause and effect. Today, the top rated shows deal much more with gore (such as CSI and its offspring) or the paranormal (e.g. Ghost Whisperer) and spend very little time discussing faith or lack thereof. Surely, cops and mediums have personal relationships with God as well. Why are they deemed irrelevant to plotlines?
One can't really say that TV and by extension music are the cause of all the ills of society, of course. But with less religion has come a greater level of cynicism and I think that may be partly the explanation why divorce and other family problems are so prevalent. As religion and families came to be ridiculed on television, problems in ordinary households also increased.
That's not to say all religious families stick together -- the divorce rate compared to non-religious clans actually runs about the same on average. But the healing process, I think, is much more accelerated after a breakdown if there is faith. I know my faith saved me from insanity when my parents divorced. I also think having a common faith leads to unions based on common sense rather than convenience, and much better sex.
We're supposed to be created in the image of God. It seems more and more we're trying to be the carbon copy of the media. If it's okay for two-time mother Britney Spears to flash her labia in public (not shown on TV of course, but mentioned with references to YouTube) that sends a message to parents and to kids that it's okay to go around town with unfurnished basements -- and tops. That's not to say she would not have done what she did even if religion was tops with television; of course she would have but she would be called for what she is rather than just dismissed as a show-off in the post-modern world.
Bottom line: It may be true that Americans have the right to bear arms while Canadians have the right to bear breasts, but just because both are legal doesn't always make it right. In the same way, just because it's legal to burn a flag or to make fun of religion (two rights which I also defend fully) doesn't make them right either.
18/12/2006 Why did the Mounties keep a file on Tommy Douglas?Here's a pleasant way to start the morning: The Mounties hated Tommy Douglas. So much so that they kept a dossier on him dating back to 1939, five years before he became Saskatchewan's first socialist Premier, and kept it up until he died in 1986. Why? They thought he was a closet Communist.
I'm not entirely surprised but pretty disappointed as well. Like most democracies, we keep a deliberate distance between the permanent police and the transient polticians. This ensures law enforcement can act independently and enforce the law and not the whims of whoever happens to be inhabiting the corner office. It's only fair and appropriate that the cops keep a dossier on potential security threats. But it's another thing to keep a file on someone who wants to change the system through entirely democratic means.
Tommy Douglas was no angel, but his advocacy for nationalized heath care was just part of who he was. As Premier of Saskachewan, he actually ran a pro-business government, contrary to expectations -- vastly improving the roads and communications networks, for example. He was hardly a bleeding heart either, he actually believed that a government had to be both tough on crime as well as on the causes of crime. Later in his life, he stood up for the refusniks, the Jewish dissidents who were consistently refused exit visas from the Soviet Union. So why would the Red Serge find him a menace?
He stood up for the common person. Just like the Mounties are supposed to do. What were they afraid of -- he was going to disband them if he had ever become Prime Minister? No way that would have happened, given just much importance the RCMP has out West. He would have made sure they had the money to do their job and do it right.
The NDP is no more of a threat to Canadian values than most other parties, except for the Conservatives. Douglas deserved better than that. The Mounties owe his daughter Shirley Douglas and her son Kiefer Sutherland, an apology.
17/12/2006 Time's 2006 Person of the Year is ...16/12/2006 Abbas rolls the diceI guess there's so much a man can take, and it looks like Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has had enough. The successor to Yasser Arafat and the leader of the Fatah faction, Abbas has gotten so fed up with the impasse with Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Assembly, that he has called a snap election and is putting his own job on the line.
Didn't we see this a year ago? Fatah called an early election to consolidate their power in the fractious legislature, and although opinion polls suggested it would get a majority it was Hamas that gained the upper hand. I have to admit that Abbas has guts but if Palestinians think they're having a hard time negotiating with Israel, wait until whoever Hamas is led by this week -- as Israel has a well known policy of assassinating the Hamas leader of the week -- gets the wheel.
Five more years of war. Yikes. Last thing the Middle East needs right now unless the Jewish state has a plan to wipe out Hamas once and for all. Not that Fatah is much better ... but at least Arafat's not around anymore to kick.
Vote for this article at Progressive Bloggers. 15/12/2006 The Belgium break-up hoaxSome have often joked that the difference between Canada and Belgium is you just have to substitute English for Dutch -- and it's not far off from the truth. The tensions between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia (as well as the small German community which mostly populates the far eastern part of Wallonia but would also like more autonomy) have gone on for years but have been exacerbated for the last two decades, dating back to when the two regions -- plus a third, Brussels, the bilingual capital -- were given extensive autonomy. Not so much because of the grant of autonomy but because economic disparities have grown since then, with the Dutch north getting wealthier and wanting to keep that wealth -- not unlike Alberta wanting a firewall to ensure no equalization payments flow from the province (a misconception since such payments come out of general revenues across Canada). Or the northern part of Italy which wants independence because they're sick and tired of subsizing the less affluent south.
A couple of days ago, the stakes in Belgium were raised much higher than anyone could have imagined. The French language arm of the state broadcaster, RTBF (the Dutch arm is VRT), suddenly announced Flanders had unilaterally declared independence and the King and Queen of the country had fled. TV pictures showed very convincing demonstrations. The diplomatic corps were up in arms wondering to whom they had credentials. 30 minutes into the program, RTBF admitted the whole thing was a hoax. They said they were trying to discuss the very real consequences of secession.
But no one in Belgium is laughing, especially not the Premiers of both Flanders and Wallonia who both condemned it.. Both want a better deal for their regions but have stoppd short of calling for a breakup of the country. Moreover the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, which has a fully open border with Belgium (as do its other neighbours), said playing politics like this wasn't appropriate.
The way this played out must be disconcerting to other potential breakaway movements across Europe. Think of Scotland in the UK, Eusakdi (the Basque Region) of Spain, Corsica in France, or even Aland in Finland. Imagine the panic, for instance, if on the regional BBC newscast in Edinburgh the announcer suddenly announced that Alba had shaken off its oppressors. Who would the Black Watch -- probably the toughest commando unit in all of Europe -- owe its allegiance to? The Queen, or the head of the Scottish National Party?
The lessons for Canada? We get almost complacent about Québec at times, but there is a very strong undercurrent of resentment against Canada in that province and the results of the 1995 referendum -- barely a percentage point saved Canada -- should serve as a reminder that packaged properly, independence could pass. More importantly, a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) is not exactly out of the realm of possibility. After all, the constitution of the Parti Québécois says that they support achieving independence for the province through solely democratic means, but this could be interpreted to mean just winning the National Assembly and not necessarily holding a referendum. Clarity Act or not. To use the same military example, would the Royal 22e Régiment suddenly be willing to stop saluting the Governor General and start owing compliments to -- André Boisclair?
If the CBC ever tried a stunt like this, people would demand heads roll, even the front line reporters not in on the joke. Such a purge wouldn't happen, though, since most Canadians are too complacent about our public broadcaster; not to mention the fact that a foreign invasion hasn't happened since the Fenians tried to "liberate" Canada in 1866 -- which failed, because even most Irish Catholics in Canada were against them. Maybe it's the fact the Belgians saw their country occupied twice in the last century that makes them take a practical joke like the one RTBF pulled the other night so seriously. It might give some radicals in the country some pretty weird ideas.
We can't ignore the sleeping giant and must never ignore it. To ridicule the independence movement in Québec only helps to embolden it. For what it's worth, I don't think the Canadian press considers Belgium enough. It might provide some notes on how to deal what is sometimes the paradox we call Canada.
14/12/2006 Again with the "holiday" treesOne again in the never-ending attempt to be "politically correct" at this time of year a Toronto magistrate, Judge Marion Cohen, ordered the removal of a Christmas tree from the lobby of the courthouse because it might "offend" non-Christians. A flustered Dalton McGuinty, who's Roman Catholic, doesn't seem to be too pleased and pointed out no one raises any hackles when Queen's Park lights up a menorah or marks Eid.
When the devoutly Jewish Mel Lastman was mayor of Toronto, he actually got through a by-law that said a Christmas tree is not a "Holiday" tree but a Christmas tree, no more or less. If he doesn't have a problem with it, why should this judge? I wrote about this last year around this time and my thoughts on it haven't changed at all. "Season's Greetings" just doesn't cut it. If I'm greeting someone I know to be a Christian, I say Merry Christmas. If I know they're not or if I'm not sure, I say Happy Holidays.
I don't put up a tree for personal reasons, but that doesn't give me the right to be a Grinch and tell someone to take down theirs. Judge Cohen should reconsider. Her ruling is not only offensive, it's also patently silly -- and for what it's worth, a Christmas tree is for the most part much more of a secular symbol in this country than a religious one.
13/12/2006 The return of Dr DeathIf there are two things which divide people in this country or any other country, it's the beginning of life and the end of it. Dr Jack Kervorkian, of course, became infamous for his approach to the end of life. I still remember when he first gained national attention appearing on Donahue, in fact I remember the very episode where he announced he was taking lethal injections from the death house to the operating room. He claims to have helped 130 people die, either via injection or carbon monoxide poisoning. In each of those cases, he just provided the means to the end for it was the dying patient who "presed the button."
But it was one case where he actively euthanized a patient with Lou Gehrig's Disease, Thomas Youk, that finally crossed the line. Kervorkian was convicted of murder two and got 10 to 25. Tonight, we've learned he'll be paroled after serving just eight years.
End of life issues have always been tough for me, particularly since I've lost both my mother and an aunt to cancer. On the one hand, I can undrrstand fully the need to end needless suffering and that some patients just don't want to put up with the agony anymore. On the other, as a Roman Catholic, I always worry whether any such decision has an element of coercion involved. And the fact is, while I appreciate the point Kervorkian was trying to make I had a very hard time with his modus operandi. There is a fine line between mercy and compassion; but the problem is that Kervorkian never really demonstrated either. He was a smooth operator in for the cash, no more or less.
So, bad health or not, I really can't agree with Kervorkian being released from jail. It's not like he committed crimes of passion. He knew exactly what he was doing, and as such should continue to be in the custody of the state until he finishes his sentence -- when he turns 95.
The big crisis facing health care systems will be the aging population and how to deal with them. Do we just write them off as dispensible? Or do we expand the system of long term care, including nursing homes and hospices? And of course, palliative care will always be an issue with all age groups since sudden health emergencies can happen at any age. Having him released only complicates the issue, and this is one punch line I'm not looking forward to on the next Air Farce.
Mulroney: It's the environment, stupidIt's hard to imagine Brian Mulroney and Stéphane Dion agreeing on anything. However in a rare interview previewed this morning on CBC Radio One, Mulroney said the next election may very well be fought on what's becoming a huge concern for Canadians: Having a sustainable and green economy, and which party -- the Conservatives or the Liberals -- present the best hope in that field.
Mulroney said what a lot of Canadians have been thinking: The Clean Air Act as currently written has a lot of holes in it, enough to drive anything through it. The only thing Harper has going for him right now is the promise of more tax cuts.
Say what one will about Brian, but he's got a point, and he does have several marks in his favour on that count. He led the fight to ban CFCs in aerosols and cooling units. He was also among the leaders who endorsed the recommendations of the Bruntland Commission and at the Rio Summit in 1992 made an unusual offer to developing countries: Clean up their acts, he said, and Canada would forgive their debts and lower import duties. He also lobbyed hard to get America to toughen its Clean Water Act (which it eventually was), and here in Canada he expanded the national parks system substantially.
He does have a point about the previous Liberal government being "tiptoe through the tulips" about our air and water, and Dion has a lot of explaining to do to reburnish his credentials. Dion may have won the Liberal leadership over the issue, but winning over a party and winning over the country are two different things. On the other hand, what has Harper offered so far? One national park, and a plan to get rid of toxic chemicals. Both fine ideas to be sure, but it's just a nosejob.
Over the coming holidays, I'd like to hear more about what both Harper and Dion have in mind. I have a feeling the election will be sooner than when the pundits are saying, and even in Alberta people are starting to get worried about what damage has already been done to the water supply by the oil sands, not to mention what's yet to come.
Mulroney may be a pitiful fellow, but at least he did something. Harper has no right to claim his legacy or that of any other Prime Minister regardless of stripe.
12/12/2006 Kate Winslet draws her line in the sandGood for Kate Winslet. On the heels of recent annoucements by the catwalks in London and Paris that they will no longer allow chronically underweight women to participate in the spring and fall fashion shows, Winslet has publicly said that she and her husband (director Sam Mendes) make a point of not allowing any fashion magazines in their house in case their kids get the wrong idea and think it's cool to be anorexic.
I wish more Hollywood moms would take the hint and lead by example not just for their kids but also for themselves; and the same goes for the likes of Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie and Lindsay Lohan. It's hard to imagine that in a course of twenty years we've gone from a world where it was pretty easy for a woman to get a starring role if she was a 10, 12 or even 14, to one where Tinsletown and the papar****s won't even give her the time of day unless she's a four or less. The current "in" size for female celebrities is zero, and some fashion designers are actually creating dresses for negative sizes. Negative.
Meanwhile, the rest of us, hypocrites we are, are pigging out a storm and facing a life of obesity. That's a fine future for the health care system, including publicly funded ones like ours in Canada. Making sure the underweight and overweight merely stay alive!
It takes courage to do the right thing. Kate Winslet is fine just the way she is. Maybe a few extra pounds, but she doesn't need implants, a facelift or anything else to make her presence both on and off the screen. She deserves an Oscar just for saying enough is enough.
11/12/2006 Tread carefully with deregulation of phonesOn the way home from whatever I was doing today, I heard on the radio that the federal government is planning to -- finally -- deregulate the local phone business in Canada. For people in most major urban centres, this is supposed to mean lower phone bills.
I'm not so sure that's going to happen.
When long distance was deregulated and competition was allowed, those rates went down, so much so that the traditinoal telcos were forced to match the rates or improve their quality standards. The problem was the higher long distance rates meant that they were subsidizing local phone service. With the cap gone, the rates went up substantially, hitting people with fixed incomes the most.
I find it very difficult to believe that in an environment where shareholders demand maximum returns, they would tolerate cuts in local rates. After all that would mean less profit and therefore lower dividends. The only way the phone companies could make it sustainable is to dramatically increase rates for people in rural areas. They are compelled, by CRTC fiat, to provide 99% of communities with access to at least one locality with a local dial-up Internet connection. That explains why, for instance, the hamlet of Jarvis, in another area code, is a local call for Hamilton but the much closer Six Nations is not (they're in Brantford's local area) or why Dunnville is local but Oakville is long distance. (Oakville is much closer, by the way, but for historical reasons it falls under Toronto's local area.)
The fact is we in the big cities are subsizing the services in smaller areas -- equality of sacrifice, which is fair because we don't want farmers to get stiffed. And there's no way rural people will want to pay more for the limited local access they already have. So who gets to pay? People in the cities, and we will wind up paying more.
The only way I could support this is if deregulation also allows the phone companies to resurrect the plans the CRTC deep-sixed during the 1990s to greatly expand the local calling areas of the largest centres -- for Bell's territory, that would be Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau and Montréal. The fact is, places like Hamilton and Oshawa are very much in Toronto's shadow, and it's not fair that neighbouring towns can call Toronto locally while we have to pay long distance charges or use a rerouter or VoIP to make it "local." It'd be nice to keep in touch with many of my friends by voice rather than the e-mail I have to rely on without having to move.
I hope they tread carefully with this one ... and make sure the results are in fact better service and more reasonable rates.
Interesting they're saying that the one major city that could get really screwed, even presuming this works the way it's supposed to, is Halifax. Guess it's Harper's way of punishing the city for sticking with the Liberals and NDP through thick and thin.
10/12/2006 Will Mohammed al-Fayed just give up already?While I continue to believe there are still many unanswered questions about the murders of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, as well as about the events of 9/11, I've never been one for major conspiracy theories. It's just that everything usually has a logical explanation and it's usually the simplest one.
For nine years, Mohammed al-Fayed, the controversial owner of Harrod's, has insisted that his son Dodi (the flamboyant Hollywood producer who financed, among other films, Chariots of Fire) and Princess Diana were murdered by the British secret services because someone in the government or at Buckingham Palace didn't want the ex-wife of the heir apparent Prince Charles and the mother of the heirs presumptive to the British throne, Princes William and Harry, to marry a Muslim. One of the keys items underlying this ridiculous allegation was evidence that the blood-alcohol test applied on driver Henri Paul after he, Diana and Dodi were killed in the car wreck (and a fourth individual, Trevor Rees-Jones, was badly injured) was faked to make it look like it was an accident.
The BBC reported last nght, however, that a DNA test proves the blood from the sample was that of Paul, and he was definitely drunk -- in fact, he was three times over the legal limit.
What of the other claim, that Dodi had proposed to Diana that night or was about to? After all, he did lavish her with a rather expensive ring. I very much doubt that too. After getting burned by Chuck, and still recovering from bulimia and five suicide attempts, Diana would hardly have made such a rash decision, at least not without consulting her kids. After all, William is destined to be head of the Churches of England and Scotland. Would he tolerate having had a stepfather who was Muslim while holding such a position -- no matter how much respect "The Firm" has otherwise expressed for their brothers and sisters of Islam?
Besides, Diana politely declined police protection after her divorce from Charles even though she was entitled to it for the rest of her life. She wanted to be her own person -- and I have every reason to believe that both John Major and Tony Blair fully respected that. They would have told MI-5 and -6 to back off.
The coroner who's investigating this should just say this is an open and shut case. The papparazzi were irresponsible in their decision not to try to save her life -- which violated French law -- but the accident was entirely the fault of Henri Paul. Diana and her companions in the car were not murdered, they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Case closed.
09/12/2006 I'm entitled to my entitlements: Hydro One editionThis is beyond unbelievable. Despite getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar -- or to be more accurate, having his secretary spend $45,000 of his personal expenses on her corporate credit card -- Tom Parkinson resigns from Hydro One with a severance package of $3 million. Last year, he used the corporate helicopter, really the property of the people of Ontario, to fly to his cottage in Muskoka.
Once again, there are two sets of standards -- one for public servants, another for the rest of us.
A number of years back, I read about a court case where a guy who served his company for thirty-five years was fired after some pretty strong and credible accusations of sexual harrassment. Along with the dismissal came the forfeiture of his company pension, perhaps in the six figures each year for the rest of his life. He said he was entitled to it regardless of his behaviour or alleged behaviour, since he fiercely denied the improprieties. He initially won, but then the company appealed; and the Ontario Court of Appeal said that the company was in the right, since even though he wasn't a member of the union as an executive, the wording of the collective bargaining agreement made it clear that the "morals clause" applied to everyone from the top down, and since management co-signed what was essentially a legal contract, they had to abide by the rules too. Since the executive violated the anti-discrimination policy, he had to accept whatever penalties came with his dismissal.
Last I heard, the jerk -- can't remember his name -- was on the streets panning for money. Sweet justice.
We go ballistic if someone steals paperclips from a secretary, or abuses the "take a penny, leave a penny" incentive. But when it comes to the public service, we must pretend as if we see, hear or speak nothing. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother.
08/12/2006 Twelve Days of Christmas "story" just a mythWith nothing on my mind today, I offer you this link to an entry at the urban legends site, Snopes.com that answers something that even fooled me a few years ago: Is the song the Twelve Days of Christmas just a song, or does it have a religious connotation? The answer, sadly, is the former.
But it's a very, very cute story.
For the record, my favourite secular Christmas song is Gordon Lightfoot's Song for a Winter's Night. And my favourite religious one? Without a question, and especially for a world at war with forces even darker than Hitler, O Little Town of Bethlehem, by Phillps Brooks and Lewis Redner
UPDATE: Fixed a really, really bad link. Also, I'm probably going to be moving this blog to another hosting service in the next couple of weeks ... so stay tuned for details on that.
07/12/2006 When will the other shoe drop?I just wanted to talk this morning about the resignation of Giuliano Zaccardelli as Commissioner of the RCMP -- essentially Canada's top cop.
I think it's just the first shoe dropping. I don't think we've quite heard all the answers quite yet from the whole Maher Arar affair and there are still people left in both the Liberals and the Conservatives who have to answer for what happened to him. The fact is, though, the Mounties have the most to answer for, especially the senior management of "The Force," as the RCMP calls itself.. They are not just a symbol but our national police force and militia, with major roles in fighting organized crime and running counterintelligence, and in most provinces they are the highway patrol as well. They are a part of the fabric of Canadian life far beyond the Musical Ride. That goes without saying of course, but the twenty-one thousand women and men who wear the Red Serge deserve far better leadership than what we've gotten the last six years under Zaccardelli.
Why do they deserve better? Simply put, Canadians see those who have been invited to join The Force as the best of the best. We expect the Mounties to live up to the highest moral and ethical standards. That's true of all cops, but for some reason (maybe because of the stereotypes Hollywood has played out) we think they are a cut above. Slipping erroneous or misleading information about Maher Arar was not just a mere slip-up but a serious lack of judgement. In the private sector, such actions would lead to dismissal. In self-regulated professions like the law or accounting, being outcast and certainly public humiliation.
But the public service? The rules seem to be different for them, as we all found out from the Gomery Report.
There has been talk the last few days that the Mounties may need someone from the outside to step in and clean up the image of The Force. Maybe the real solution is to do below the Deputy Commisioner level and find a man or a woman -- and at this stage, I'm kind of hoping it will be a woman -- who's been on the front lines all these years and who's actually handled all the bric-a-brac they do rather than just been sitting behind a desk pushing paper. If it was a Deputy, I think the other shoe would drop very quickly if he or she had even the slightest hint of taint in the Arar scandal or anything else of disrepute.
We can't have democracy without law and order, which the Mounties normally exemplify. Zaccardelli's leaving is the first step. The question that must ultimately be asked is, what did both Irwin Cotler and Stockwell Day know, and when did they know it?
06/12/2006 "No easy solutions"Very interesting. The Iraq Study Group has said what a lot of people have been saying for months: The United States needs to re-establish full ties to Syria and Iran; and a comprehensive Middle East peace must be negotiated including a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Beyond that, the States also has to get other countries involved, including the European Union and Russia. (PDF of recommendations here.) Jim Baker III and Lee Hamilton were pretty blunt about it, there are "no easy answers" in their words.
Trouble is, if Dubya and Tony had heeded precisely that four years ago when the mess all started and had gotten NATO onside to deal firmly with Saddam Hussein, the US and the UK would not be in the pickle they are in right now. Matter of fact, there might not have even been a war. But America made its choice and they're stuck with what Gen. Colin Powell called the Pottery Barn, you break it so you buy it. Interesting the ISG isn't calling for either an immediate pullout or a mass mobilization of new troops but rather a phased withdrawal with some brigades moving back to the States as early as 2008.
From what I see, they're going to need a massive UN peacekeeping and peacemaking force the size of which has never been seen before -- at least a hundred thousand or more. And the key will be making the peace, as much as it in Afghanistan -- or at least trying.
Naturally, the televangelists are going to pounce on anything that appears to be even a slight amount of appeasement to the Muslims they hate so much. For once, I'd like to see Bush stop listening to the false teachers and listen to some common sense. This report may not be the be all and end all, but the recommendations should at least be taken seriously.
1989-12-06 Remembered; Ontario Auditor-General ReportI will never forget what happened seventeen years ago -- what Marc Lépine did, and what he failed to do. It was not just a mass murder but a political act, as much as the decision of the other men who were there that day not to lift a finger to help their sisters in need was also a political act -- and we must never allow those kinds of politics to take Canada over again, ever. I know it's unpopular for me to say this, but the blood is still on the hands of all men in Canada, not just that of Lépine.
On a much more sublime but no less outrageous note the Ontario Auditor General, Jim McCarter, released his 2006 annual report, the first since his office got an expanded mandate to take a look into the activities of Crown Agencies and not just provincial departments . Especially coming under harsh criticism are the almost unaudited government credit cards that wound up being used for personal expenses such as DVDs and leather jackets and even flowers for one's own birthday. The worst violators were employees at Ontario Power Generation (the main electric producer), Hydro One (which owns the transmission lines) and the Children's Aid Societies (who should be spending that money on foster care).
Most perplexing for me, however, is that even with the introduction of photo health cards with expiry dates several years ago, there are still 300 000 more cards than residents in Ontario. The government denies this, saying there are actually fewer cards than residents -- but I believe the AG and his assertion it's costing us taxpayers $150 million per year. Who will stop the fraud?
It's the feast of St. Nick today. Who's been naughty and nice on my list? Um, that will have to wait until Christmas Eve.
05/12/2006 Watch where your donations goAn item this morning on the regional news of CBC Radio One brought back some bad memories. Last week the Mayor of Stratford, Dan Mathieson, went on the air and encouraged people to give money -- as much as a day's pay -- to a charity called Pediatric AIDS Canada. No sooner than he made that announcement than he started getting flooded with complaints about the group. We in Hamilton are all too familiar with this one, a not-for-profit group that in the past has been investigated by the local press for spending way more on administration than on actually purchasing anti-viral drugs for kids. Besides, I thought our health care system took care of such catastrophic drug costs already. So this morning, the mayor pulled his support and said he needs to do more research.
He had better. For at one point in my life, I was unwittingly part of such a scam. Desperate for a summer job in high school, any summer job, I went to work for this little firm called Great West Entertainment -- GWE -- and got a job in their boiler room, raising money for any of a number of charities. I was so burned out doing futile cold calls to people who normally hang up right away (one had to meet a quota at that level in order to be eligible to call people who actually donate on a regular basis to various groups), that I quit within a week and a half. And this was in the days when call centres used handsets and wrote everything on paper, not the kind I work at now where it's mostly paperless and hands-free. Imagine my shock and anger when I later found out -- thanks to an investigation by CBC's Marketplace -- that my former employer and its then main competitor (can't remember which one) often took a commission of 60% right off the top for its services. The claim was made by the executives that ran them, that they were entitled to it since they were doing a job that smaller charities -- say Big Brothers or the Wheelchair Basketball Association -- couldn't do or be bothered to do.
Which really bothered me, and for this reason: If the consulting firm was collecting a fee of 60%, that only meant 40% was going to the charity. And they have their bills to pay too -- utilities, food and lodging, etc. So when all was said and done, they maybe were left with a quarter or even less if that.
So if I had a hundred bucks at the end of the year and I wanted to make a donation, where do I send it? To a smaller group who has to rely on these big guys, even in the age of the Internet when it's much cheaper to run a secure on-line site? To an established group like the Sally Anns or the Red Cross? Both of those generate a tax receipt but in my bracket I only get back barely 21 cents on the dollar. If it was just those two choices, I'd rather give it to the bigger groups who keep their administration costs down so I know my donation goes to those in the greatest need.
Then there's the third choice, making a political contribution. On donations up to $400, the rebate come the new year is 75%. Doesn't take a genius to figure out which one's the best one from a tax standpoint.
Even if I just decided to go the altrusitic route, it's a good idea to do some research. Ask some tough questions. If they spend more than 25% on administration year after year, then you have to wonder whether it's a group that has just registered as a charity to avoid paying taxes. It's also worth (as well as a bit of work) checking into the lifestyle of those who run such groups. One can't exactly expect such leaders to live on the street, of course, but if their travel is anything above business class and for anything other than work specific to the group (think, for example, of Benny Hinn's "layovers") then look somewhere else to donate.
It's the end of the year, the time for the greatest need. The last thing we need is people being exploited for selfish reasons. So watch where your donations go. And another thing: If you see those donation boxes or kettles, ask if there's a toll free number or website -- then make your donation directly so you actually get a receipt. Screw Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty for once and keep at least some of that pledge in your pocket.
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