Spending on the brain

Well, it's almost budget time here in BC, so here are a couple of snapshots from the pre-budget indrawn breath.

By Rob Shaw, via the Victoria Times Colonist: B.C. Budget 2010: Gaming grants battle, unions brace for bad news, property tax deferrals:

Thousands of community groups that normally pay little attention to provincial budgets will be keeping a watchful eye -- and their lawyers at the ready -- when the B.C. government tables its latest financial plan Tuesday.

At stake are tens of millions of dollars in government gaming grants that the charities and non-profits want restored. If they don't get it, they're threatening to take the province to court in an all-out war to reclaim the cash.

Government cut the grant money -- at least $29 million -- in its September budget update, as part of widespread efforts to slash spending in the face of plummeting provincial revenues and a projected $2.8-billion deficit.

Charities weren't the only ones hit during the fiscal belt-tightening, and they are not alone in nervously waiting for more cuts to come in this budget.

School districts are still wincing from the sudden loss of provincial facility maintenance grants, and hope new funding might help balance their budgets. If not, many school boards have signalled they'll have to continue cutting staff and closing schools.

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile, also via the Colonist: B.C. Budget 2010: Property tax deferrals may come by June; and B.C. Budget 2010: Union leaders brace for more bad news.

Well, how could this possibly go wrong?

Tony Romm, via The Hill's Hillicon Valley blog: Cybersecurity bill to give president new emergency powers:

The president would have the power to safeguard essential federal and private Web resources under draft Senate cybersecurity legislation.

According to an aide familiar with the proposal, the bill includes a mandate for federal agencies to prepare emergency response plans in the event of a massive, nationwide cyberattack.

The president would then have the ability to initiate those network contingency plans to ensure key federal or private services did not go offline during a cyberattack of unprecedented scope, the aide said.

Read the rest here. H/t to Blazing Cat Fur.

Speaking of limitations on elections spending...

Further to the post much farther below, it seems that in Quebec, it's just a wish away:

Transportation Minister Julie Boulet, February 2010: “There are rules that govern the funding of political parties. It’s legal in Quebec to engage in political financing, for companies to donate.”

Education Minister Michelle Courchesne, December 2009: “The majority of private enterprises donate to all the political parties.”

Minister for Transport Norman MacMillan, December 2009: “There’s a law that governs all this. We can’t prevent company X from donating $3,000 to the Liberal party.” MacMillan then added government ministers are expected to raise $100,000 a year for the party.

Aside from the fact they were all made by Quebec Liberals, the statements have something else in common: they’re all patently wrong. Quebec hasn’t allowed corporate donations since 1977 and the repeated slip-ups have now caught the attention of province’s chief electoral officer, not to mention that of Pauline Marois.

Read the rest at Macleans.ca.

A Whatcott victory

Well, it seems that Bill Whatcott has finally won his freedom to speech in Saskatchewan. Via the Times Colonist: Anti-gay pamphlets OK:

Saskatch-ewan's top court has overturned a human rights tribunal decision against an activist who distributed anti-gay pamphlets. Bill Whatcott will not have to pay the $17,500 awarded in 2005 to four people who complained about his flyers, the Court of Appeal ruled this week. The pamphlets were distributed in 2001 and 2002.

Read it here. More from Blazing Cat Fur: Free speech victory in Whatcott v. Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal:

CALGARY: The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) today responded to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decision in Whatcott v. Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal, a case in which the CCF had intervened in support of free expression.In a decision released February 25, the 3-member court ruled that William Whatcott did not violate section 14(1)(b) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code by distributing flyers to oppose the teaching of homosexuality in Saskatoon’s public schools.

The flyers distributed by Mr. Whatcott in Saskatoon and Regina in 2001 and 2002 were polemical and inflammatory, and the court noted in its decision that many people would find his words “crude, offensive, and pejorative.” The contents of the flyers are re-printed in the court’s decision, posted HERE.The CCF intervened in support of free expression. Its factum is posted HERE . You will note that many of the CCF’s arguments were adopted by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, sometimes with an express reference to the CCF (see paragraph 130 of the court’s decision) and sometimes without an express reference.

The Court set aside a Human Rights Tribunal Order that Mr. Whatcott pay $17,500 to four gay complainants who were offended by his flyers. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Code prohibits the publication of any statement which “exposes or tends to expose to hatred, ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of any person or class of persons” on the basis of age, race, religion, sexual orientation, and other grounds.“This court decision is good news for free speech,” stated lawyer John Carpay, Executive Director of the CCF, which intervened in support of the right of citizens to express their religious and political opinions on matters of public policy.“Unfortunately, the court did not strike down the restrictions on free speech. But nothing prevents our federal and provincial politicians from repealing these laws,” continued Carpay

Read it here.

Well, good for Bill. I disagree emphatically with what he has to say, but damned if I think he should be punished by law/HRA for it. It's a shame that it took thousands of dollars of his own money to fight for speech that should have been his own to begin with.

These are the people that run our lives - the ongoing series

An unsigned editorial from the Victoria Times Colonist: Too many laws hurt our society:

Until quite recently, most Canadians lived their entire lives without a brush with the law. Our grandparents were mortified at the thought of being detained by police or forced to pay a fine.

Only on the rarest of occasions, like being called as a witness, would they expect to find themselves in court.

Records of the day prove the point. In 1940, the crime rate in Canada was just two per cent. (That means there were two offences for every 100 people.) Even today, it's still only around seven per cent.

Yet despite that, the picture has changed dramatically. By some estimates, as many as 20 per cent of British Columbians are charged with some form of wrongdoing each year.

The reason is unique to our time. Compared with earlier generations, we use law enforcement powers to regulate a much wider range of behaviour.

One example is the huge number of misdemeanour convictions and bylaw infractions registered each year. These include everything from using a cellphone while driving to walking a dog off-leash in the park.

Precise numbers are not available. But using the amount of fine revenue collected ($63 million from traffic violations alone last year), it's possible to arrive at a rough estimate. As many as 450,000 people might be ticketed annually. For the population aged 16 and over, that's an infraction rate close to 15 per cent.

Add criminal offences and one in five British Columbians fall foul of the authorities each year.

Read the rest here.

Snapshots from Europe

Alright, here we go:

The Mail Online: Pub landlord is first person in Britain to be jailed over smoking ban ( H/t Vlad Tepes )

Vlad Tepes: More selective enforcement by the Brits on Freedom of speech.; Jyllands Posten speaks about the apology of its’ sister paper on the matter of the Motoons; and How sexy; Politiken on it’s knees for Islam.

The Daily Mail, again: Now the Government wants competence tests before you can be a dog owner ( H/t Small Dead Animals )



[UPDATE: Oh, and from Diana West: Westergaard: "I Fear This Is a Setback for the Freedom of Speech" ]

And...we're done!

I've been following the National Post's Chopping Block series off and on, but more so recently. It's actually quite interesting as the series author, Terrance Corcoran, sifts through various and sundry government expenditures and picks out this, that, and the other thing that could be cut - if only his suggestions would be followed, we'd be back in the black before we knew it ( in government years ).

Alas, that the government doesn't seem to think the same way.

At any rate, the series seems to have wound down to a close - or at least its current incarnation has. Here are the past couple of instalments:

The Chopping Block: Ottawa’s jobs bubble

The Chopping Block: Few signs stimulus working

And here was the final tally of spending cuts: The Chopping Block: What should be cut.

Check it out, huh?

The HST...

Still causing trouble.

By Bill Cleverley, via the Times Colonist: Municipalities fret over effect of HST on everything from recreation fees to parking rates:

The cost of everything from parking your car to swimming in the local pool is about to increase as municipalities grapple with introduction of the harmonized sales tax in July.

"It's something that municipalities are quite nervous about and working hard to investigate all of the impacts," Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin said.

"It's certainly something that I'm very much concerned about, because, in the past, municipalities have not paid the PST. Now that it's been harmonized with the GST there are extra costs that we're faced with absorbing within our own structure or else we have to pass it on to the consumer," Fortin said.

"Neither of those are very palatable."

Fortin said B.C. municipalities have been scrambling to get a sense of the impact of the new tax --trying to nail down what is exempt and what is not and to figure out how to most seamlessly work an additional seven per cent tax into fee structures.

Without having seen any legislation yet, it's difficult to pinpoint all the changes, says Saanich director of finance Paul Murray.

Essentially, any service that was previously subject to the five per cent GST is now subject to the 12 per cent harmonized sales tax.

Municipalities will be insulated from the new tax in their purchasing, but consumers buying services -- such as pool time or rink rentals -- will have to pay the tax, Murray said.

Read the rest here.

The latest at Defend Geert Wilders

Check it out: The Weekly Wilders Round-Up, Feb. 7th, 2010.

The secret work that saves writers' lives

By Mary Gazze, via CTV:

Three men pulled guns and shot dead Afghan TV reporter Janullah Hashim Zada on a public bus last summer.

Local newspapers suggest he was murdered because of his reporting.

He is one of the latest writers to die because of his field of work. Last year, 71 journalists were killed around the world, at least 51 of them murdered. Worldwide, at least 136 reporters are currently in jail, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Many of them were critical of the government or exposed corruption.

A team that includes Canadians is quietly and unceremoniously working behind the scenes on behalf of journalists and writers who are in prison, or targeted for execution because of what they write.

That group, the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN, is celebrating 50 years of saving lives and helping writers start new lives in Canada and other countries.

Canadian writer John Ralston Saul is the organization's president.

Saul said he cannot reveal too many specific details about PEN's work because it could jeopardize the safety of writers in danger, but he said strategies vary depending on the country.

"The ways you get these governments to back off or reform are different for every government," Saul said.

In some cases, PEN runs public campaigns to shame governments into letting writers out of prison. In other cases, PEN quietly approaches governments to avoid publicly embarrassing officials and indirectly ensuring a writer remains locked up for good.

"Sometimes it means not holding press conferences. It means trying to educate, remind, create language that will help regimes act better," he said.

Saul said that in China, PEN tries to get international organizations and other governments to convince the government that it is going against its own constitution.

Read the rest here.

Fun with the English Defense League

Via the International Civil Liberties Alliance:

The following is a statement from the English Defence League:

To all EDL members

As you may well already be aware members of the English Defence League have been arrested and charged for relatively “minor” offences.

Members who are prepared to stand up against the rising tide of Islamofascism and its adherents are being “hung out to dry” by our weak politicians in the hope they can salvage much needed Muslim votes in order to retain governance. This is just another ploy to use the “Muslim block vote” so other parties are denied potential seats in the houses of parliament.

It has come to our attention that some EDL members who are currently serving short prison time are actually being targeted by imprisoned radicalised jihadist gangs, consequently they have been beaten and will continue to get beaten as prison authorities “turn a blind eye” to events unfolding under their very roof!

We the English Defence League condemn such apathy, such wanton ignorance or, more likely, deliberate targeting of EDL members!

Read the rest here. H/t to Vlad Tepes.

Now, I must say that I do not know a whole lot about the English Defense League. If you don't like them, please, don't accuse me of being a supporter - because I'm not. But the way that they have been treated so far by the authorities has apparently been less than stellar. I find that concerning.

Are the wheels starting to come off for the Green Party?

BCL has the story.

These are the people that run our lives - the ongoing series

Vaughn Palmer, via the Sun: B.C. Liberals could learn a few lessons about openness:

-Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach last month flew to Abu Dhabi for an energy summit, where he spoke on a panel and signed an agreement with a local company to share the technology for capturing carbon emissions.

The trip cost provincial taxpayers $13,641.32 in travel expenses for the premier and the staffers who accompanied him.

I am also able to report that in the past year, Stelmach and staffers racked up $17,070.88 in expenses to meet with Western governors in Utah, $33,010.18 on a speaking trip to Texas, and a whopping $48, 775.61 for a trade mission to Switzerland and Austria.

All this and much more detail on travel spending by the premier and his cabinet -- month by month, trip by trip, minister by minister -- is readily available on the Alberta government website.

[...]

The B.C. Liberal government is grudging about the release of equivalent information. Once a year, it puts out global figures for travel spending by the premier, his ministers and key staffers. No details on individual trips. No itemized breakdowns.

If you ask, the Liberals might let out a little more detail. Or tell you to file a formal request under access to information legislation, an often-interminable process that reflects their preference for nothing-like-active disclosure.

Read the rest here.

These are the people that run our lives - the ongoing series

David Akin, via the Post: Access to information. Sometimes. Maybe.

One of the key prohibitions in the famous/infamous Accountability Act was an edict that any politician or political staff and some senior bureaucrats are forbidden from becoming registered lobbyists for five years after leaving office or their government job.

The law gave one slim out on this prohibition: If you wanted to become a lobbyist before that five-year ban was up, you could apply to the Commissioner of Lobbying, an independent officer of Parliament, and ask for the equivalent of papal dispensation to go ahead and become a lobbyist.

The commissioner, Karen Shepherd, was asked about this exemption process in October when she appeared in front of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.


I've blogged about this issue and that meeting before and this post updates that one with some new information.

At that meeting, Shepherd talked about the exemption process and noted that she had granted a handful of them since setting up shop (much to the disappointment of NDP MP Pat Martin). But she also noted that she had refused exemption applications for other political staffers. Liberal MP Michelle Simson wanted to know which staffers got turned down. Shepherd declined to respond saying that if Simson wanted that information, she would have to file a request under the federal Access to Information Act. Which is exactly what I did after that meeting last October.

The fruit of that request, such as it is, arrived this week. (Which is, sadly, remarkably fast for a ATI request these days).

Read the rest here.

Sigh...and now for the obligatory caveats

In the post below, I tried to be subtle and it apparently didn't work - which is my fault. I should have known better than to try and outsmart myself.

Anyway: Here are, I think, the basic caveats that should go with the post below:

1) I'm not advocating dishonesty. If you get something wrong, admit it, correct it, and move on. That's kind of your job as a writer.

2) People should not be discouraged from pointing out where writers get things wrong. Any jeering, laughing, and/or pointing is sort of up to them at that point.

I was not saying that facts should simply be made up to fit the narrative. What I was saying - and this is the part which I should have stressed, admittedly - is that even though certain facts might be wrong at any given time - for instance, when was Pearl Eliadis employed by the CHRC? etc. - and even though those things should be corrected, updated, and all the rest, this should not mean that the entire argument as a whole has been invalidated. Because that argument is much larger than small corrections. It doesn't matter when Pearl Eliadis was employed by the CHRC - although if you want to focus on that aspect of the debate, try to be as accurate as possible - but it does matter that the CHRC itself has over-reached its bounds as regards certain basic freedoms. And that is what must be focused upon - we can lose ourselves in the details far too easily at the expense of the basic narrative.

And that was what I was trying to say. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused - you'll just have to forgive this blogger for having an off-day.

Bogged down to their level

[UPDATE: For those of you who think your humble blogger is full of crap in this post, please see the post above. Thanks. ]

[UPDATE 2: You know what? Let's just scrap this post, shall we? I don't think it got across what I was trying to say ( although the post above does ), and as such, this post is only going to be a source of misinformation. Feel free to keep it up in the comments, though. ]

The latest at Defend Geert Wilders

Check it out: Geert Wilders Gets His Chance; and especially Lessons from Pim.

These are the people that run our lives - the ongoing series

Yep, I'm bringing this series back. Just because I feel like it.

This segment of the series is brought to you by the National Post's Full Comment podcast:

February 25, 2010: A pre-operative transsexual woman demands membership at a women's-only health club, and after four years of wrangling before the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, the case is suddenly dropped — leaving the owner on the hook for six-figure legal bills. What does this say about our human rights apparatus? Should they be scrapped, or tweaked back into coherence? Karen Selick, litigation director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, and Full Comment contributor John Baglow, join host Chris Selley to discuss the case and its larger implications.

Check it out.

Fun with alcohol

Jane Thornthwaite, the North Vancouver-Seymour Liberal MLA who got busted for drunk driving a few days ago has a little more to say:

“It's been horrible,” said Jane Thornthwaite, the MLA for North Vancouver-Seymour, who released a statement yesterday afternoon about the incident. “I made a mistake. A very serious mistake.”
Asked about a recent tweet she sent on Twitter celebrating how good taxi service is in Vancouver, she said, “The transit in Vancouver right now is really good. Not so good on the North Shore.”

Read the rest here.

Silly journalists

Cowards:

A Danish newspaper apologised today to eight Muslim organisations for the offence it caused by reprinting controversial cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, in exchange for their dropping legal action against the newspaper.

Politiken reached a settlement with the groups, which represent 94,923 of Muhammad's descendants, in which it agreed to print an apology for the affront the cartoons caused. The newspaper has not given up its right to publish the cartoons and has not apologised for having printed them as part of its news coverage.

In a joint statement, the two sides said they wanted to "express their satisfaction with this amicable understanding and settlement, and express the hope that it may in some degree contribute to defusing the present tense situation".

The decision to issue an apology for the offence caused has been met, however, by widespread condemnation from the Danish media and political parties.

The editor of Jyllands-Posten, which originally printed the cartoons in 2005 and is published by the same media company as Politiken, said that its sister paper had failed in the fight for freedom of speech and called it a "sad day" for the Danish press.

Kurt Westergaard, one of the cartoonists, who earlier this year was the subject of an attempted attack at his home, said the newspaper had betrayed its duty to freedom of speech. "In Denmark we play by a set of rules, which we don't deviate from, and that's freedom of speech," he told the newspaper Berlingske Tidende. "Politiken is afraid of terror. That's unfortunate and I fully understand that."

H/t to Vlad Tepes.

Um, what? Part three

Remember this and this? Well guess what? There's even more! Yay. Via Sean Holman at Public Eye Online:

Despite British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union concerns, a government project that will pay bureaucrats with "pop, chips, candy and Red Bull" rather than paycheques is going ahead. Earlier, we exclusively told you the government was encouraging civil service computer programmers to volunteer for that project - "an original app for the citizens of BC." By Monday, that scheme seemed to have been derailed as a result of "rising concern expressed by the Union and individuals." But, yesterday, it was announced the project will be proceeding as "originally planned" because of the "overwhelming positive response from the staff." The following is a complete copy of that email.

Read the rest here.

Maxime Bernier: Maverick

Well, Maxime Bernier seems to be getting a lot of attention lately for, well, saying the kinds of things that conservatives say. Not sure what that says about the state of Canadian conservatism, but it doesn't strike me as a good thing.

At any rate, here's Chantal Hebert on the whole...Maxime Bernier thing, and what it might mean for the Document-less Man's chances for a grab at the PM spot. Meanwhile, Susan Riley writes a rather huffy column in the Ottawa Citizen about Bernier's recent statements regarding global warming, and the current rift that seems to be opening up within the Tories regarding their approach to the environment. Joan Bryden of the Globe and Mail also weighs in, while my some-time editor Gerry Nicholls writes:

What's to praise?

Well first, there's that excellent speech he made recently in Calgary where he put forward a case for fiscal conservatism as opposed to big spending Harper conservatism.

Second, a few days ago Bernier publicly expressed skepticism regarding aspects of global warming hysteria -- the first federal politician in Canada to do so.

And lastly and not leastly, when I met Bernier a couple of months ago in Ottawa, he bought a copy of my book, Loyal to the Core!

Of course, none of the above will make Maxime Bernier any friends in the PMO, but it does give a little hope to those Canadians who believe in more freedom and less government.

Read it all here.

Finally, Maxime Bernier speaks up for himself:

My opinion piece on climate change published yesterday in La Presse has provoked many reactions across Canada. I received dozens of e-mails, in addition to all the commentaries left on this blog. Most were favourable, although I also got several messages containing insults and personal attacks. Some are telling me to shut up because I am not an expert. An editorialist at the Quebec City daily Le Soleil suggests that I move to Alberta, as if it were impossible for a Quebecer to doubt the prevailing orthodoxy.

Read the rest here. H/t to Macleans.ca, which has more here.

Nigel Farage strikes again

You may recall my growing obsession with UK Independent Party MEP Nigel Farage. That guy is just awesome. To illustrate my point, here's another video of him doing what he does best:



H/t to Vlad Tepes.

Oh, how interesting. the CRTC is about to lay down the law

I came across this a couple of days ago, and I thought it was interesting. From the Colonist:

With broadcasters and cable providers turning up the heat on Ottawa and viewers increasingly tuning out traditional TV, the country's regulator is finally prepared to hit "Play" on a new policy framework designed to stabilize Canada's troubled television industry.

A source inside the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said yesterday that the body has come to a determination on the highly contentious "fee-for-carriage" debate.

Regular readers of this blog might be aware that, way back when, while I was still writing for the Cowichan Valley Citizen, I managed to churn out a column on the fee-for-carriage debate. Long story short, I wasn't exactly sympathetic toward anyone involved. I've been trying to find that column, but short of digging around in an external hard-drive, that's probably not going to happen. Maybe to mark the occasion when the decision is finally released I'll find it, for my own edification if for nothing else.

The Internet vs. the Free World

Behold, the wrath of Italy:

On Wednesday an Italian judge delivered a stunning verdict in a long standing case against Google. The ruling sentenced three top Google executives — David Drummond, senior vice president and chief legal officer; George Reyes, former chief financial officer; and Peter Fleischer, chief privacy counsel — to a prison sentence of six months for violating privacy laws. A fourth employee, marketing executive Arvind Desikan, was found not guilty.[...]Despite the fact that the verdicts is largely a symbolic gesture, it represents a serious threat to the current way the internet is structured. To understand this, you must explore the case first.
Google describes the incident that started the case, writing, “In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate.”
Vivi Down Association, an advocacy group for people with Downs syndrome, complained about the video a couple months later to Italian authorities. Google went out of its way to try to cooperate with them. It took down the video immediately. [...] Despite that cooperation, Italian prosecutors decided to take the bizarre step of next charging a handful of Google executives for “allowing” the video to be uploaded.[...]The stunning verdict sets an alarming precedent. The decision, if upheld, threatens the freedom of having blogs, video sharing sites, internet hosting, Wiki pages, news sites with comments sections and virtually any other kind of user generated or user interactive content, for fear of criminal prosecution if users misbehave.

Read it all over at Dvorak Uncensored. H/t to Xanthippa.

I can't help but be reminded of the Fourniers' ( of Free Dominion fame ) current court battles to keep the identity of various posters on their forum private. Their case and that of Google's is remarkably similar in that both are about, simply put, the Internet vs. the Free World. It's cases like these that show just how far we have to go in order to adapt to this relatively new technology.

And now a message from the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation

Speaking of spending...

We have our government to thank - the ongoing series

Vaughn Palmer, via the Vancouver Sun: High court stands up for fair bidding process

VICTORIA

The provincial transportation ministry lost a big case recently when the Supreme Court of Canada condemned its "egregious conduct" in steering a major highways contract to an ineligible bidder, then trying to cover up what it had done.

The high court upheld an earlier, no-less-damning finding from the B.C. Supreme Court regarding the $25-million contract to build a new road through Nisga'a territory in the Nass Valley in northwestern B.C.

The court record documented a series of decisions by officials that together undermined the integrity of the ministry's own bidding process as well as its broader obligations, as a public institution, to fairness and transparency.

The trouble began when the ministry accepted a belated bid on the contract from Brentwood Enterprises and Emil Anderson Construction. Brentwood was eligible based on its involvement at an earlier stage, but lacked the qualifications to complete the project. Emil Anderson had the expertise, but was a late addition to the process, hence ineligible to bid.

The ministry not only welcomed the duo, it selected them ahead of other bids that were both eligible and well qualified. "In short," the high court found, "a bid was accepted and the work awarded to a party who should not have been permitted to participate in the tender process."

Moreover the ministry "fully understood" that it had violated its own bidding process, as evidenced by the way it altered documents to minimize Emil Anderson's involvement, making it look as if the contract had gone to Brentwood and Brentwood alone. A coverup, in other words. Or as the court put it: "The ministry took active steps to obfuscate the reality of the true nature of the bid."

Read the rest here.

More from this blog on Tercon vs. the Province of BC here and here. Meanwhile, Laila Yuile has had some great coverage of the case at her site.

Um,what? Part two

Remember this? Well there's more. Via Sean Holman at Public Eye Online:

Yesterday, we told you provincial government was looking for computer programmers in the bureaucracy who would work on "an original app for the citizens of BC" in return for "pop, chips, candy and Red Bull." But the government is now "re-evaluating" that pay plan, according to a posting on the civil service's internal Spark blog. The reason: "over the past few days we've seen and heard of a rising concern expressed by the Union and individuals that this approach is causing some anxiety." The following is an edited copy of that posting.

Read the rest here.

21st Century Breakdown

By Jim Quinn, via TheBurningPlatform.com:

“Wherever we’re headed, America is evolving in ways most of us don’t like or understand. Individually focused yet collectively adrift, we wonder if we’re heading toward a waterfall. Are we?”
Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Political leaders and the mainstream media have been blindsided by the sudden mood shift of the country in the last few years. The reason they have been blindsided is they believe world history is linear. Liberals have now begun referring to themselves as progressives. These people think the world only progresses. The facts indicate otherwise. History is cyclical. History is replete with grand empires like Rome, Spain and Britain. It is also replete with Dark Ages, depressions and wars. Strauss & Howe have established that history can be broken down into 80 to 100 year Saeculums that consist of four turnings: The High, The Awakening, The Unraveling, and the Crisis.

Read the rest here.

Allen West on the War on Terror

I don't follow American politics too closely - and I've followed the recent CPAC conference only peripherally. But I thought that this speech from Colonel Allen West was interesting:

Allen West War on Terror from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.

H/t to Vlad.

Thoughts?

[UPDATE: Thanks to The Daily Rasp for the link! He writes: NATO, Afghanistan, plus bonus video Col. Allen West on the War on Terror.

Meanwhile, via Shooting Star, Keith Olbermann gets schooled. ]

Spending on the brain

[ED NOTE: Warning: This post is probably going to be fairly rambling, and take a few sharp turns here and there. Alas that this post is serving as a kind of mish-mash of spending-related articles and suchlike that I had wanted to highlight. You're just the guinea pigs. ]

You know, I've been so busy lately that I just haven't had a chance to look at the Tories' spending plan for the next year or so. March 4th, of course, is the big budget day, but some prelimaries have already been released.

Via the Times Colonist: Feds maintain stimulus flow:

The upcoming federal budget will contain no new spending measures or tax cuts beyond what the Harper government has announced already in its plan to stimulate the economy, says a senior government official.

The budget, to be tabled on March 4, will simply implement the second year of the "economic action plan," the stimulus package unveiled in last year's budget, the official told reporters in a briefing.

The stimulus plan is injecting roughly $62 billion in public funds over two years into the economy, through measures such as infrastructure spending and tax breaks.

The official's comments appear to douse speculation the Conservatives are transitioning to a period of serious belt tightening after spending billions to kick-start a recovery. Several private-sector economists have advised the government against imposing spending cuts too soon amid a tentative economic rebound.

Last week, Treasury Board president Stockwell Day hinted the government would identify specific programs it will cut to help eliminate the deficit, projected to hit $56 billion this year.

But the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there will be no absolute spending cuts in the budget. Rather, the Conservatives will reduce the rate of spending growth across all government departments and agencies.

The official reiterated the government's pledge not to cut transfers to the provinces or individuals, a massive pot of federal cash that covers everything from health care to education and pensions.

The government's commitment not to introduce new spending or tax measures means that popular programs such as the home-renovation tax credit likely will not be renewed.

Read the article here.

Basically, it sounds as if the Tories are going to continue down the stimulus road they started on earlier this year. Fair enough, I suppose - they're in too deep to pull out now. The libertarian in me is, and has always been, fairly squemish about the whole 'stimulus' thing, but hopefully there'll be enough cuts here there and everywhere to appease the libertarian within.

Speaking of, the Post has been doing a great job with a 'Chopping Block' series on potential spending, eh....tweaks, I suppose.

For instance: The Chopping Block: End corporate subsidies, save billions

And: The Chopping Block: Own the Test Tube

And since I'm talking about spending, and the Post, David Akin had an interesting article for them yesterday: Tories hand out $75 billion worth of spending restraint:

Since they were re-elected in October, 2008, the federal Conservatives have rolled out 3,229 press releases from government departments, agencies, and Crown corporations which announce funding commitments of various sizes for various regions. We maintain a database of information contained in those releases and here's the latest tallies from that database. A chart summarizing the number of releases by the province in which the spending was announced and the total dollars committed in those releases is at the left. Here's some of the trends:

Read the rest here.

And on a final spending-related note, there's this, from the Wildrose Alliance:

EDMONTON, AB (February 24, 2010): Today, Wildrose Alliance MLA Rob Anderson (Airdrie-Chestermere) introduced Bill 204 (the Fiscal Accountability Amendment Act, 2010) to limit excessive and out of control government spending.

"Albertans, young and old alike, will be left to pay the bills that this PC government is piling up," stated Anderson. "There is nothing compassionate, responsible or conservative about plunging ourselves and our kids back into debt and risking the prospect of massive cuts to key social programs because they are unable to shut down the all-you-can-eat spending buffet."

Highlights of Anderson's private members' bill include limiting year-over-year increases in government spending to either the rate of inflation plus population growth or the average per-capita spending of Canada's remaining nine provinces.

"Several Alberta Chamber of Commerce chapters, the Taxpayers' Federation, Canadian Federation for Independent Business, Fraser Institute and multiple financial policy experts have repeatedly recommended this piece of legislation as a cornerstone of a responsible fiscal plan for the province," said Anderson.

On February 9, 2010, Finance Minister Ted Morton unveiled a budget with a true deficit of $7.5 billion. Morton's budget is not expected to end the PC government's deficits for at least three years.

"The Wildrose Alliance Caucus has offered a detailed plan to eliminate the provincial deficit in two years and get us back on the right financial track without cutting frontline social programs," concluded Anderson. "It's time that Premier Stelmach and Finance Minister Morton stop talking like fiscally responsible conservatives and start acting like it."

The Wildrose Alliance was formed in January 2008 and has three elected Members of the Legislature.

- 30 -

A new book from Salman Rushdie

It seems that Salman Rushdie is going to write a new book, about his experience while under Iranian Fatwa for daring to disrespect an Islamic religious icon.

Via The Hindu:

New York: Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie has said he plans to pen his experiences of a decade he spent hiding after a death ‘fatwa’ was issued against him by the Iranian clergy.

The Indian-origin novelist unfolded his plan at Atlanta’s Emory University, where an exhibit of his personal papers opened on Friday.

Mr. Rushdie, 62, was forced into hiding since 1989 after Iran’s late spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini ordered Muslims to kill him for his The Satanic Verses, terming it an insult to Islam. In 1998, the Iranian government said it no longer supported the ‘fatwa,’ but could not rescind it.

“It’s my story and at some point, it does need to get told,” Mr. Rushdie said at a press conference prior to the opening of his exhibits.

“My instinct is that point is getting closer, I think when it was in the cardboard boxes and dead computers, it would have been very difficult, but now it’s all organised,” the author of Midnight’s Children said.

Islamic groups still continue to protest against the author, who was knighted in 2007. But Mr. Rushdie said the ‘fatwa’ was now only more of rhetoric than a threat.

He described his days in hiding as “very nasty.”

“This was a period in my life where people said very nasty things about me and I thought during the time of the attack on that particular novel the best thing I could do is to keep writing.”

Read the rest here.

Sacrificing equality for egalitarianism

You know me. I'm one of those crazy libertarian types, which means that, in the end, I disagree with almost everybody. Even the major political party which, in theory at least, most stands for the things I stand for ( the Tories, if you haven't guessed by now ). This, naturally, has helped lead me to join in with what I like to call Gerry Nicholls' merry band of conservative malcontents ( GNMBCM - the acronym needs a little work ).

Anyway, one of the chief things that I happen to like about our merry little band is that - again, in theory at least - many of us stand and have stood against gag laws on political advertising, and caps on election donations, etc.

Sadly enough, this is something which has still not been properly addressed by the Tories, despite Stephen Harper's opposition to the damned things when he was Prez of the National Citizens Coalition. And if there's one thing I've noticed, it's that if you stamp out one gag law, another one pops up almost immediately in its place.

Hell, as far as I know, here in BC the provincial Liberals are still trying to appeal the BC Supreme Court's decision to strike down a nasty little gag law called Bill 42. Why? I honestly have no idea - as I wrote many moons ago, you'd think it would be kind of low on their priority list.

And now, another example of the Night of the Living Gag Laws seems to have arisen, this time on a municipal level.

By Rebecca Lindell, via the Colonist: Limit donations to municipal candidates: study:

Unions, corporations and individuals living abroad should not be allowed to donate to local election campaigns in British Columbia, according to a new report on financing reform by two political scientists at Simon Fraser University.

Patrick Smith and Kennedy Stewart are urging the government to put spending limits on municipal elections and tighten the rules around who can donate and how much.

"It's completely unregulated. British Columbia is literally the Wild West," Smith said. "The president for life of North Korea could decide to give $5 million to somebody's campaign to win the mayoralty and perhaps form a majority on city council -- and then decide to turn the rest of city hall into a golf course."

The duo suggests candidates should be allowed to spend only one dollar for every person in their jurisdiction and that parties -- where municipal parties exist, such as in Vancouver -- be limited to two dollars a person.

On the contribution side, they propose a ban on all corporate or union donations, a $1,000 maximum donation to candidates, a $2,000 maximum donation to parties and restricting the donor list to residents of the municipality.

Reform would return control of campaign financing back to local people and away from the unions like CUPE or the development businesses that are generally large backers of municipal campaigns, Smith said.

The recommendations are part of a long list of financing reforms submitted to the Local Government Elections Task Force, a committee set up by Premier Gordon Campbell to tackle municipal election reform. The task force is set to report back to the provincial legislature by May 30.

Smith and Kennedy also suggest prohibiting third-party advertising from endorsing candidates and putting B.C. Elections in charge of tracking and disclosing all donations.

Read the rest here.

Personally, I think that Liberal Minister Bill Bennet ( who might very well be defecting to the federal Conservatives, now ) has a healthy approach to the whole topic ( later on in the same story ):

The main solution on financing, according to Bennett, is increasing transparency through improved enforcement of disclosure rules. He rejected the assumption that money buys influence.

"You don't buy influence because you give a large donation. You give a large donation because you believe the person for the job and probably that candidate encapsulates your world view more so than the other candidate," Bennett said. "The assumption or belief that somehow or other you are buying influence is actually quite insulting to anyone who is in public office."

Precisely. Or, as I wrote way back when, provincially, Bill C-42 was first struck down:

I can understand the argument for its existence: if there are no limits on third party spending, then one or two big-time bank-rollers could potentially control B.C.'s political propaganda for close to three months -- and it's bad enough having to live through an election without having to face some union's hulked-up advertising campaign. Not to mention that one of the parties could get around their own spending limitations by outsourcing to their third-party friends. In the interests of fairness, Bill C-42 was really the inevitable conclusion.

But I think the argument against C-42 is even stronger. Yes, in the interests of fairness, we want to try and level off the third-party spending. But fairness isn't enough to counteract our freedom of expression, I'm sorry.

True, some advertising goes too far, or there's too much of it, but to just start limiting people's ability to speak their mind because you think they're talking a bit too loudly doesn't solve the problem.

It just tries to make it go away. I don't watch a lot of Dr. Phil or anything, but I'm pretty sure that's considered unhealthy behavior.

In this case, fairness demands that we all be allowed to speak our mind to the greatest extent of our reach.

That's true fairness -- not the mediocrity of capped spending because of worries over who's got more money than who.

And quite frankly, if we're able to be swayed by any argument that begins or ends with "sponsored by," then I think there's a bigger problem at hand than advertising expenditures.

Read the whole article here, if you want.

I stand by my earlier statements. True 'fairness' and equality demands that we each be allowed to speak our piece, and to give our own damn money to whichever damned party we want to. It's not the government's job to decide those things for us - and when it takes on that task, the only equality is a forced equality of mediocrity.

The latest at Defend Geert Wilders

Check it out: Menace in mad march of the thought police; and Dutch parties tussle over approach to far right.

The cost/benefit hangover shuffle

Regular readers of this blog will know that I've been pretty critical of the Olympic Games. Not because I necessarily dislike the Games themselves ( although I think the IOC kinda jumped the shark when they awarded the Games to China ), but generally because they've been a source of misinformation, disinformation, over-spending, over-regulating, and over-all bad governance in the Province over the past while.

And on top of that, I've never been fully convinced that BC will see a profit from them.

Well, maybe I'm wrong.

By John Morrissy, for the Financial Post, via the Colonist:

Olympic spinoffs and an improved outlook for forestry and manufacturing will make British Columbia the leader in economic growth among Canadian provinces in 2010, says the Conference Board of Canada.

B.C. will post growth of 3.7 per cent over the year, while renewed American auto demand will help Ontario surpass the national average for the first time in nearly a decade with growth of 3.5 per cent, the board said in its Provincial Outlook -- Winter 2010, released yesterday.

B.C. will also benefit from an estimated $770-million boost to the economy from the Winter Olympic Games.

Read the rest here.

$770 million is still significantly lower than the $4 billion and, later, 'billions and billions' of dollars projected by the BC government before the Games. But at least it's something, and combined with other factors who knows? It might even contribute to a little economic growth.

Only, as Vaughn Palmer pointed out on his blog today, this is probably not going to be the case:

Even with the projections that B.C. will lead the country in economic growth this year, the bump won't do much more than provide the revenue to fund the usual greater-than-the-rate-of-inflation boost in health care funding.

Plus the B.C. Liberals will have to table the enabling legislation to repeal the seven per cent provincial sales tax, clearing the way of implementation of the already -legislated 12 per cent harmonized federal-provincial sales tax on July 1.
Though the Liberals have taken well deserved heat for what is widely denounced as a tax -grab (and from the perspective of consumers, though not business, it is) the HST surely ranks as one the more perverse in history.

They've handed out so many exemptions, rebates and other forms of relief, that the provincial treasury will actually be collecting less revenue (about $370 million less in a full year) under the HST than it would have done if the Liberals had decided to stick with the PST.

Read it all here.

Doom, doom and gloom. Can't say I didn't warn you.

Meat follies, part two

Gary Clement offers his take, via the Post:

“You may be lobbying and don't even know it.”

Well, lord knows we wouldn't want that to happen.

Trouble in the BC Liberal caucus

First off, Jane Thornthwaite - a North Vanvoucer MLA - has gotten slapped with a drunk driving charge. Read all about it at the Colonist, The Hook, and via Vaughn Palmer's blog.

Meanwhile, Alex Tsakumis is reporting that Liberal Minister Bill Bennet is seriously considering stepping down, and running in the now-vacant riding of Kootenay-Columbia for the federal conservatives.

So all in all, not a great time for the BC Liberals.

We have our government to thank - the ongoing series

David Akin, via the Post: Canadians' right to information more broken than ever:

I'm quoted in a piece Jeff Davis wrote that was published in today's Hill Times talking about Canada's crunked Access to Information system. I told Davis that, from my viewpoint, the system was screwed up and underfunded -- but has been forever, under governments of all stripes.
"It's not that the Conservatives are particularly bad at this compared to any other group: governments are bad, I can't stress that enough," I told Davis. "Governments, historically, do not want to tell the public what's going on in a lot of areas."
Davis also interviews Dean Beeby of The Canadian Press, an ATI ace with a great nose for writing a information request that produces documents with a good story in them.
In Beeby's view -- and it's one I'll defer to as he's had much more experience than I have with federal ATI requests -- Canada's access regime has gotten worse than ever under the Conservatives who, ironically, loudly and frequently claim they've made government more accountable and transparent than ever. Beeby tells Davis he's "never seen the system so broken. Back in the eighties, when I first started using it, governments were more naïve about it and were unclear about what strategies were available to them," he said. "Over the decades, governments have gotten much smarter about ways in which the act can be circumvented or subverted.... and successive governments have become more sophisticated at finding the loopholes."
Beeby and I, though, are bit players in Davis' piece. The starring role goes to an unnamed Tory political staffer who says that it is "standard operating procedure" for ministerial or political staff to interfere with the release of documents under the Access to Information Act, a big no-no a possible violation of federal law:

Read the rest here.

Thankfully I'm homeschooled, part two

The drama continues, as more coverage starts to get going on those wierdos down in Philly.

Via the Times Colonist: FBI to probe laptop-spying fracas.

Meanwhile, Matt Gurney for the Post: Schoolboard accused of snooping on students via webcams.

We have our government to thank - the ongoing series

Vaughn Palmer, via the Sun: Sky's the limit for B.C.'s e-health spending:

-The B.C. Liberals adopted the promise of electronic health records in their first term, joining a national plan that came with federal funding in exchange for helping to develop a single, nationwide system.

Electronic records were supposed to be completely portable -- from family doctor to specialist, laboratory to hospital, clinic to emergency room, and from community to region to province.

But universal compatibility, while understandable in terms of the original vision for the project, is turning out to be one of the greatest and most costly complications of the drive for e-health.

For as B.C. Auditor-General John Doyle noted in a report released last week, the province faces a big challenge in meeting federally dictated standards to access those federal dollars.

The Liberals' preliminary estimate for the project was $150 million, with only $30 million coming from the provincial treasury. They've long since blown that budget, both in terms of the total cost as well as the provincial share.

Read the rest here.

From the department of ideas that could go horribly wrong

Via Aaron Wherry's fine efforts at Macleans.ca:

Senator Elaine McCoy makes the case for a reformed, but still appointed, Senate.

Consider what happens now when you elect someone to go to Ottawa. No sooner have they spent their first term in office than they’re emailing home to explain why they voted for something their constituents didn’t want. The reason, of course, is party discipline. They’re “whipped,” i.e., told to vote with their party or else leave caucus. Most stay and do what they’re told. Without the party, it’s very difficult to get re-elected.

It would be no different for senators if they were running for election. Most would run as party candidates. What we’d end up with is nothing more than 105 more backbenchers. Right back, in fact, where we started. So let’s start again. Let’s take the proposition that an independent, appointed Senate is, after all, Canada’s last best chance for democracy.

Read it here.

Now, on the face of it, Elaine McCoy's proposal sounds reasonable enough. One would think, though, that it's a good thing every time the voters are involved in the political decision-making process. We wonder why voters seems to apathetic - I would suggest that it is precisely because of reasoning similar to Senator McCoy's.

Sigh...yet more from the Ministry of Children and Family Development - part two

Sean Holman keeps up his coverage of BC's rather lackluster Ministry of Children and Family Development:

Three years ago, children and family development deputy minister Lesley du Toit promised she would be "fully transparent" about plans to transform her department. Now, as we previously reported, she's refusing to give any further personal briefings to the government's independent child protection watchdog about a massive effort to overhaul the way the province's children are protected. So we thought it might also be worth noting the ministry hasn't publicly posted a copy of it's so-called Transformation Update newsletter since February 21, 2007.

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile: Follow the yellow brick road!

We might not understand practice change - children and family development deputy minister's Lesley du Toit's massive effort to overhaul the way children are protected in British Columbia. But her political boss Mary Polak does. In an interview with Public Eye, Ms. Polak said when she put in charge of the ministry "we initially did not have any effective way of communicating what practice change was to anybody who didn't carry a PhD with them. So as soon as I had my briefing on practice change, Lesley and I began talking about how we could do that - how could we represent it in a way so people would understand how it is being accomplished and what it is."

"That's how we developed the products map. And we're continuing on in expanding what you can get on the intranet so that anybody who goes on the intranet can actually put their mouse over different products on the map and see where those things are. If they're completed they can actually download the product and if they're not sure what the terminology is, they roll their mouse over it and an expanded information piece come up."

The following is a complete copy of that map, which was released in October.

Read the rest here.

A ray of hope

Marc Lemire strikes another blow for freedom of speech in Canada. And good on him for it.

By Joseph Brean, via the Post: Internet rendered hate law 'outdated':

The 20-year-old legal reasoning behind Canada's human rights hate speech law is now "utterly outdated" because of the "interactive, dynamic and democratizing" effects of the Internet, according to arguments in Federal Court.

Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prohibits online messages that expose identifiable groups to hatred or contempt, was designed in the 1970s for telephone hate hotlines. In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled it a justifiable limit on freedom of expression, in part because a telephone hate message "gives the listener the impression of direct, personal, almost private, contact by the speaker, provides no realistic means of questioning the information or views presented and is subject to no counter-argument within that particular communications context."

The Internet "radically changed" that context, by allowing for instant rebuttal and discussion, according to lawyer Barbara Kulaszka.

Parliament's decision in 2001 to expand Section 13 to include the Internet -- and therefore almost every word published in Canada, whether by a blogger or a media conglomerate -- is "such a fundamental change" that Federal Court is "not only justified but required" to revisit the question of Section 13's constitutionality, especially because it does not allow for the traditional legal defenses of truth or fair comment.

The Internet "provides every means of questioning information and of counter-arguing, the two vital factors missing in the telephone message context," Ms. Kulaszka wrote in her legal submissions for Marc Lemire, webmaster of freedomsite.org. The memorandum gives a glimpse of the battlefield terrain for the upcoming Federal Court review of Mr. Lemire's acquittal last year on hate speech allegations at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Read the rest here.

Meat follies

I thought this was worth a mention. From the Post:

An eminent group of pediatricians in the U.S. want hot dogs to be redesigned so they won't be "potentially lethal" to kids (i.e. they won't be shaped like a tube that can get caught in the throat.)

They also want hot dogs to be labelled, so that parents who haven't twigged to the fact that a tube of make-believe meat can get caught in the throat, will be enlightened as to that danger.

Read the rest here.

Um, what?

Is it just me, or is this a little strange? Via Sean Holman's efforts at Public Eye Online:

Times must be even tougher than we think because the provincial government is now paying its employees with "pop, chips, candy and Red Bull," as well as "awesome bragging rights." Last week, the government told bureaucrats it was looking for computer programmers to "make history" by producing "an original app for the citizens of BC." In a posting published on the civil service's internal Spark blog, would-be participants were informed the government initiative responsible for that project would put them in "contact with experts at Apple and RIM, and...what the heck! They'll even supply the pizza and pop! This is a great opportunity for you to showcase your awesome coding skill and make a difference for British Columbians."

But when a bureaucrat whether it was a paid assignment, this was the response: "The short answer is 'no,' we're not creating additional positions and TA'ing people into them, nor are we funding overtime to have folks work on this. We're all going to be working on this because we think it's the right thing to do and are willing to invest ourselves in the process."

"Having said that...we will provide the infrastructure and tools needed for the development, we'll set up a space that's available for use after hours (and that has enough pop, chips, candy and Red Bull to keep us all going and I'm sure that we'll have some more nutritional food as well)."

"This is something of an experiment for us, one in which we're looking for folks to take up a challenge. No it's not going to be paid, but when we're successful we're going to have some awesome bragging rights..."

Er...okay.

Read the rest here.

Er...okay indeed. I appreciate the intent, but it just comes off as a bit too....what's the word? Peppy? I think that's it.

Thankfully I'm homeschooled, part two

Remember this story? Well it turns out there's more.

By Ron Todt, via My Way News:

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A suburban Philadelphia school district accused of secretly switching on laptop computer webcams inside students' homes says it never used webcam images to monitor or discipline students and believes one of its administrators has been "unfairly portrayed and unjustly attacked."

No monitoring, eh?

Harriton High School student Blake Robbins and his parents, Michael and Holly Robbins, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Tuesday against the district, its board of directors and McGinley. They accused the school of turning on the webcam in his computer while it was inside their Penn Valley home, which they allege violated wiretap laws and his right to privacy.

The suit, which seeks class-action status, alleges that Harriton vice principal Lindy Matsko on Nov. 11 cited a laptop photo in telling Blake that the school thought he was engaging in improper behavior. He and his family have told reporters that an official mistook a piece of candy for a pill and thought he was selling drugs.

Yeah, that seems pretty hands-off to me.

[UPDATE: But at least it could be - slightly - worse. H/t to Xanthippa in the comments. ]

We have our government to thank - the ongoing series

Via Sean Holman at Public Eye Online: Computing costs:

Thanks to auditor general John Doyle and the Times Colonist's Rob Shaw, British Columbians now know two of the government's major information technology projects have cost overruns totalling more than $145 million. One involves electronic heath records. The other, the management of case files at social service ministries. But British Columbia isn't the only jurisdiction with such problems.

For example, the American federal government has flagged 29 percent of its information technology projects as being poorly managed. But the difference is their lawmakers are trying to do something about that systemic mismanagement.

Read the rest here.

We have our government to thank - special human rights edition

I guess it's about time I high-lighted some of the boobs and bungles in Canada's HRCs, eh?

By Ian Hunter, via the Post: The dangerous evolution of human rights legislation:

Journalists like Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn don’t need persuading about the totalitarian tendencies of Canadian human rights commissions; they bear personal scars as proof. But anyone, lawyer or layman, who reads even part of the sorry record of jurisprudence emanating from our commissions — the bullying, condescending persecution of anyone who dares to question human rights orthodoxy — will be troubled. The attacks by human rights commissions on what are otherwise considered “fundamental freedoms” — e.g. freedom of religion in the Trinity Western, Boissoin and Christian Horizons cases; freedom of expression in the Brockie and Kempling cases — is alarming.

Some critics blame the zealots employed at the commissions; Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren recently called them “drivelling, humourless, sub-literate twits,” which is probably about right. But the problem lies deeper; it is (to use a human rights term) systemic. The problem originates in the totalitarian evolution of Canadian human rights legislation.

The first comprehensive legislation was the Ontario Human Rights Code, 1962. It was proclaimed in force on June 15, 1962 deliberately — if ironically, as things have turned out — on the 749th anniversary of Magna Carta. The code consolidated much hitherto piecemeal legislation, and it created the first government-appointed commission to enforce it.

The purpose of the original legislation was equality of opportunity. It sought to achieve this by prohibiting discriminatory practices on the basis of defined factors — race or colour. In other words, it forbade practices in hiring, renting, etc., that placed one individual at a competitive disadvantage to another because of some innate factor like colour over which the individual had no control. Such was the original equality-of-opportunity model.

Two decades later, the-equality-of-opportunity model gave way to an equality-of-treatment model. The objective here was to identify, and eliminate, structural barriers to equality; it was contended that human rights commissions must superintend not just opportunity but all subsequent consequences, to ensure that social benefits were equitably distributed.

In employment, for example, equal opportunity required that applicants receive fair, unbiased consideration. Equal treatment expanded this to require that employees receive parity: in salary, benefits, working conditions.

Equal treatment required more intrusive state action in the workplace. Under this model, the Canadian Human Rights Commission compared the salaries of telephone operators with those of linemen, and ordered millions of dollars in compensation for what was called “constructive” discrimination.

Contemporary human rights legislation has evolved again; now it reflects an equality-of-results model. What good is equality of opportunity or treatment, this view says, if nothing much changes? If those who are disadvantaged by race, colour or sex compete no more successfully after human rights legislation than they did before, what use is it? An equality-of-results model embraces “affirmative action,” “quotas” and “reverse discrimination” to achieve outcomes considered desirable by the commission.

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile, Robert Smithson writes, via the Surrey Leader: Score one point for common sense in human rights setting:

The B.C. Court of Appeal recently upheld the premise that perceiving a person to not have a disability does not constitute discrimination.

It’s amazing, to me, that this issue ever actually reached our Court of Appeal.

In 2004, Rex Yuan was involved in a traffic accident. Another vehicle struck the rear of Yuan’s vehicle while he was stopped at a red light.

Yuan made a claim for personal injuries with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

He asserted that, as a result of the accident, he suffered soft tissue injuries to his neck and shoulder.

Because the other vehicle was determined to have been traveling at a very low speed when it struck Yuan’s car, his claim was adjudicated pursuant to ICBC’s low velocity impact (LVI) guidelines.

Those guidelines effectively create a presumption that a low velocity accident victim is less likely to sustain injuries.

As a result of its scrutiny of the circumstances of Yuan’s accident, ICBC rejected his claim.

Yuan responded by filing a complaint against ICBC of discrimination pursuant to the B.C. Human Rights Code.

The essence of Yuan’s complaint was that, by slotting him into the expedited LVI claim stream, ICBC was pre-determining that injuries were not likely to have resulted from that sort of collision and, thereby, was discriminating against him.

In the words of the Human Rights Tribunal, ICBC put claims into the LVI stream “not because it perceives them as injured and therefore disabled, but, to the contrary, because it perceives them as not injured, or less likely to be injured, and therefore, not disabled or less likely to be disabled.”

The tribunal asked itself if that perception of someone as not being disabled, or less likely to be disabled, could be discrimination under the Code. It determined that this could amount to discrimination.

ICBC appealed that decision to Supreme Court of B.C. The court overturned the tribunal’s findings, stating emphatically that a perception that a person does not have a disability does not constitute discrimination against that person.

The court characterized the tribunal’s decision as “not based on reason and principle, and…therefore, arbitrary.”

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile, Scaramouche writes: Babsy Blows It:

In yesterday's National Post, Babsy Hall, Ontario's head Commissar, defended her cozy sinecure in the face of reasoned opposition:

Ian Hunter asks, "Why are human rights commissions allowed to undermine fundamental human rights?" The short answer: They can't and they don't. Legislatures make the laws that create and guide the commissions; the commissions carry out their mandates under the law. All of the decisions are subject to review from the courts and, ultimately, the legislatures have the power -and responsibility -- to change the laws as required.

A better question is "Why are human rights commissions and tribunals still needed?" One answer appeared in the same edition of the National Post, with the story, "Rights Tribunal awards $25,000 for racial slurs in workplace." Discrimination and abuse are still with us and must be dealt with effectively. Human rights commissions and tribunals are doing that job.

Yes, because if Miss Manners isn't around to micromanage us to within a millimeter of our lives, why, we might take it into our heads to act like grown ups and do whatever dangfool thing we please--maybe even (quel horreur!) let rip with the occasional Archie Bunker-like "racial slur". And that would never do in (cue the Twilight Zone music) Pierre's Trudeaupia, the Dominion of Virtue, the "nicest" doggone country in the world.

Read the rest here.

Finally, Karen Sellick writes in the Post: The human rights set-up:

One of the most preposterous cases in the field of so-called human rights law in recent years has quietly evaporated into the ether, leaving a relieved but nevertheless injured victim.

The victim is John Fulton, owner of the Downtown Health Club for Women in St. Catharines, Ont. In 2006, an individual dressed as a woman visited the club and applied for membership. The person then told Fulton, “I’m really a guy” — a man planning to have a sex-change operation.

With only one change room and shower room in the club, admitting this individual would have meant allowing a man to observe the other patrons — all female — in various stages of undress. As well, the women could have been subjected to seeing a naked man in their dressing room. Unable to figure out how he could distinguish the applicant from a voyeur or an exhibitionist, Fulton hesitated to grant him membership. Within a week, two more “transitioning” men tried to join the women’s gym, even though there’s a co-ed gym right next door. The whole scenario screamed “set-up!”

But before he could even obtain legal advice, Fulton had been slapped with a so-called human rights complaint.

At mediation, the complainant demanded a large sum of money to drop the complaint. But Fulton declined to capitulate to this example of what author Ezra Levant has labelled a “shakedown.” Instead, he hired lawyer Andrew Roman, who tells me the “going rate” for such settlement demands is $20,000 to $25,000.

Read the rest here.

Just another day in the office

Ho-hum:

Today, members of the English Defence League were arrested and denied their civil liberties when attempting to join the Scottish Defence League for a peaceful protest in Edinburgh. The EDL Leadership Team were detained without cause and arrested for “incitement to cause a breach of the peace”. Supporters who arrived at Waverley train station were forced back onto trains heading away from Edinburgh by the Police. Those travelling by road were stopped; some had their vehicles damaged by aggressive Police officers. In the City itself, the Police threatened anyone who attempted to protest with immediate arrest. Meanwhile, far-left so-called ‘anti-fascism’ protesters were allowed to wander the streets without any Police opposition. These same protesters made numerous attempts to attack EDL and SDL supporters, while nearby Police officers turned a blind eye. It is clear that today’s Police actions were politically motivated and that the Police Force as a whole can no longer be considered to be politically neutral. They have chosen their side. No further confirmation is needed other than the statement of the Scottish ‘Justice’ Minister, Kenny MacAskill (SNP), when he said that the “fact that the SDL didn’t make it out of Waverley Station is testament to good policing”.

We have our government to thank - the ongoing series

An unsigned editorial from the Victoria Times Colonist: Giant database a risk to privacy:

The provincial government has announced plans for a computer system that will give its employees unprecedented access to our personal information. The system will combine everything the government knows about us from a wide range of interactions.

Called file-linking, the project will bring together data from income assistance, employment services, child welfare, family development, child mental health and youth justice. More than 50 databases will be linked.

In later phases, personal files held by the ministries of health, education and the attorney general will be added. The project is expected to cost $180 million, and take six years to complete.

Not surprisingly, privacy experts are alarmed. Some of the information to be centralized, like names and addresses and family income or health status, is confidential.

For instance, if you apply for Fair Pharmacare, you are required to give permission for the Ministry of Health to access your income tax returns. Right now, that information is available only to officials involved in delivering the program.

However, the new computer system will make your tax files potentially accessible to staff in all the areas listed above. The government's response is that employees will only be allowed entry to that portion of the database they need for their job.

But the stated objective of the project is to give government workers a "holistic view of each citizen." Doesn't that imply widening their access to files

Read the rest here.

Speaking of...

Further to the post below, here's a short essay that I wrote for the Libertas Post a relatively long time ago on conservatism and incrementalism. It never got published for some reason or other, so I might as well publish it now while I'm in the mood:

A few weeks ago, I came out quite strongly for incrementalism when it comes to libertarian and libertarian-conservative issues. I felt that, simply put, libertarianism has such a great ideological scope and span that it really kind of defies specific definition on a lot of issues, which makes it hard for those issues to be branded, and to gain traction in non-libertarian circles.

I haven't had second thoughts about that position – but I have had some after-thoughts: namely, incrementalism itself is quite a dangerous game to play, and conservatives need to be careful in how they play it.

The reason that I say this has a great deal to do with Gerry Nicholls' book, Loyal to the Core ( I swear, I'm not getting any kickbacks from Gerry to say this ). In Loyal to the Core, one finds a perfect example of ideology put aside, presumably for the purpose of political expediency and success, in the figure of Stephen Harper.

The man who was once president of the National Citizens Coalition, and a thorn in the side of Left-Wingers everywhere, suddenly seems to have lost a lot of his principles at the door of 24 Sussex, and has shown very few signs of attempting to retrieve them since.

Harper apologists will, at this point, undoubtedly be seeking to remind me that the Harper Tories have a minority government, with a delicate balance between the Tories and the opposition parties, yadda yadda yadda.

I know the deal – I still find myself leaping to the Harper Tories' defense as a default position, too, and I still hold some faith that Stephen Harper will redeem himself yet ( in fact, one could argue that if Stephen Harper were to simply dump a few of his current advisers and inner-circlers, some core conservative ideals might penetrate the fog once more ).

However, one cannot deny that for the core Conservative base, in many cases, Stephen Harper's time in office has been a disappointment. His attempts to draw in a larger voting base among Liberal Party voters ( which has been at least somewhat successful of late ) seems to be balanced against what he thinks his core – particularly libertarian - base will put up with. And his policies seem to be reflecting what I think is the general tendency in Canadian politics: diluting ideology for the sake of 'moderate' centrism – although with the supposed hope of incrementally introducing conservative values into the mix.

And therein lies the problem. Because incrementalism doesn't work if it goes both ways. As Hayek pointed out, one must not remove freedom – the conservative bedrock – as a default position for the sake of pragmatism, or 'realism' or the like. Because the instant you allow one exception to this core value of freedom, you introduce the possibility of a whole host of other exceptions, until the freedom that once was has no meaning anymore.

This is the exact trap that the Harper Tories have fallen into: they wanted an incremental approach, but they forgot to keep the core values to insinuate incrementally. They let the incrementalism go both ways, and lost ground even as they gained it.

And this is what I mean when I say that incrementalism is dangerous. You cannot be an incrementalist unless you hold a strong, core value to be incremental about, first. And if you lose sight of this core value, then you're reduced to, really, just pure politics and gamesmanship, constantly seeking small gains, but at the cost of small losses. Like a dog chasing cars, you don't know what to do when you actually reach your goal, and by then you've run so far from home that you can't find your way back to where you came from.