My latest at the Libertas Post

Here it is: The Slow Transition to Government Transparency. Check it out, huh?

From the inbox: freedom of speech in Cuba

I've ended up on Amnesty International's UK email list, and while I know that some of you are probably scoffing at that ( after all, isn't Amnesty International a lefty organization ( or somesuch? ), I think they're spot-on when it comes to some things, and one of them is freedom of speech, particularly in Cuba. The following is quoted from my inbox:

For years Cubans have lived with really tough restrictions on free expression and opinion, meaning that any journalists who dare to criticise the authorities may find themselves intimidated, arrested for no meaningful reason or, worse, sent to prison.

As Amnesty’s new report today on freedom of expression in Cuba points out, this Caribbean country remains a difficult place to work as an independent journalist -laws are vague, with terms like ‘social dangerousness’ and ‘contempt of authority’ used to silence dissent. More recently critics of the government who were brave enough to speak out have relied on the blogosphere to get their opinion across. Pablo Pacheco – an independent journalist who’s been sentenced to 20 years in prison - said that blogging is ‘an excellent form of free alternative communication.’ But recently the authorities have clamped down on even this space, by setting up filters which prevent people accessing blogs which criticise the government. In its new report Amnesty’s calling on the Cuban authorities to ease the restrictions on free expression and opinion. Those of us with the freedom to express ourselves openly online can use it to demand the release of Pablo Pacheco. He’s one of the 53 prisoners of conscience in Cuba whom Amnesty is urging should be released. You can do that here.

By writing about this, your blog may well be filtered out by Cuban authorities. Don’t let that put you off. You’re exercising a right for which hundreds of bloggers in Cuba would do anything for. Even go to jail.

Spread the word, etc.

The Author: comin' out of Vancouver

I'm working my way toward a regular writing schedule again - took a couple days off for some other business for a little while. Thanks for bearing with me.

The latest at Defend Geert Wilders

I managed to crank something out after all: The Wilders Round-Up, June 27th 2010.

The author: still alive

Yep, I'm here. I went from housesitting to work to a seminar - and I'm headed to Vancouver for a couple of days starting tomorrow.

Feel free to hang around, though. I might actually post something of substance.

So I'm guessing Giacomo Vigna isn't so 'serene' these days, eh?

Ezra Levant and Giacomo Vigna went head to head yesterday. Via the Winnipeg Sun:

OTTAWA - Free speech advocate Ezra Levant was in an Ottawa court Thursday for calling a human rights commission lawyer a fibber.

The defamation suit argued Thursday, one of five currently underway, is the first to go to trial.

In it, Human Rights Commission lawyer Giacomo Vigna alleges Levant damaged his character by calling him a fibber on Levant's blog in 2008 for Vigna's actions at a commission hearing a year earlier.

At that hearing - unrelated to Levant - Vigna asked to adjourn the hearing early because he wasn't in a "serene state of mind" and couldn't continue.

In a March 2008 blog, Levant said Vigna's actions were like a student pulling a fire alarm to avoid an exam and called it “fibbing.” Vigna argued that amounts to calling him a liar, and "seriously” attacks his “credibility in the courts and in public."

Levant defended his blog, saying his definition of a fib is a "meaningless lie.

"I think it's clear you wanted to get out of court that day," Levant said Thursday, adding he didn't think Vigna's serenity excuse was "credible.

"I think you fudged your answer that day and I think everybody in the court knew it,” Levant said. “It was an embarrassment."

This defamation suit is expected to wrap up Friday, but Vigna — who has filed 15 complaints with the Alberta law society against Levant — served him another libel notice this week for a different blog post.

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile, Xanthippa was able to attend the proceedings:

Today (thanks to email by BCF alerting me to this), I went to watch what happened during the court case where Mr. Vigna is suing Mr. Levant for defamation or libel (I can’t keep those two things straight…), based on what Mr. Levant wrote about Mr. Vigna on his blog. It was the second last scheduled day of the trial: Mr. Levant finished his testimony and Mr. Vigna began his cross-examination of him.

Tomorrow were supposed to be the closing arguments only, but Mr. Vigna was unable to finish his cross examination today. The judge suggested another day be added to the proceedings: this seemed (in my never-humble-opinion) to throw Mr. Vigna into a panic! He promised to be more focused and brief – he already has his closing argument written up (he said). To a non-lawyer type person like me, the level of Mr. Vigna’s agitation at the suggestion that another day be added to the proceedings seemed rather out of proportion. What do I know!

Anyhow, after Mr. Vigna swore up and down that he’d be brief (sic!), the judge just said we’d start earlier in the morning so we could hope to get through it…
So, what went on today?

I am a notoriously slow thinker. It will take me a while to mull this through – so, these are really really really preliminary observations. I’ll do a better write-up, with the proper links and all, later.

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

Oh, meanwhile

Here's some light reading. Nate Hendley, over at the Libertas Post, has been providing some original coverage of the upcoming G20 summit:

The G20 Summit by Numbers

Life Under Lockdown: Our Impressions of the G20 Summit:

Three young women are incongruously decked out like 1920s flappers, with sleeveless dresses, bright makeup and fake dollar bills stuffed in their outfits ... the trio represent “Billionaire Lesbians for G20” ... a clever bit of street theatre. When I approach, they stay in character and make catty remarks about poor people ... there is more street theatre at Queen Street and University Avenue ... the person with the big paper-mache Stephen Harper head wobbles about as an off-key women’s chorus sing songs about how much they hate our Prime Minister.

Life Under Lockdown - part two - G20 Paranoia Strikes Deep

Check it out, eh?

My latest

Here's my latest for the Libertas Post blog: Who knew regulation was so expensive?

While I'm away

I will hopefully be able to keep up with posting over the next few days, but if I disappear don't be alarmed. I shall return.

Meanwhile, here's a picture:

Die, Human Rights, die

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal would appear to be short-staffed. Via Canada.com: Key aboriginal child welfare case delayed by staff shortage at rights tribunal:

WINNIPEG — The Harper government has left Ottawa's human rights tribunal so short-staffed that a landmark case on aboriginal child welfare funding is being stymied, a lawyer charges.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is down to one full-time adjudicator — chairperson Shirish Chotalia.

"That is a big reason why this case has been stalled and delayed," said Paul Champ, a lawyer acting for the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. "If the tribunal's work grinds to a halt, I don't think the Harper government cares at all."

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

I cannot tell you how awesome it is to know that yes, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is in nearly as desperate a condition as the human rights of the Canadians that they've been dragging through the muck for years. Finally, parity!

My latest

Here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: Geert Wilders stands down as city councillor in The Hague.

UPDATE: also, this: The Wilders Round-Up, June 24th 2010.

UPDATE: and, for the Victoria Politics Examiner, this: Political change in BC will depend on Vander Zalm once more .

Too Small To Matter

By Jim Quinn, via TheBurningPlatform.com:

As I watched the documentary GASLAND last night on HBO my blood began to boil. I’m sure my blood pressure went up dramatically during the 1 hour and 40 minute film. After watching our corrupt government decide that the biggest baddest banks on the planet were too big to fail over the last two years and giving my children’s and their children’s money to these behemoth criminal enterprises, I was not surprised to see poor working class Americans treated like dirt by these same corrupt politicians. Big corporations can buy off politicians to ensure profits. The “small people”, as the Chairman of BP likes to call them, are expendable and can be ignored. They are too small to matter.

Read the rest here.

Canucki Jihad

Binks has done it again.

Economics reading

From our friends at the Mises Institute:

There are other grave flaws in Garraty's treatment of these economists, not so much errors of commission as of omission; thus, he leaves out crucial explanations of their theoretical frameworks. Garraty never explains their analysis of why the Western world was plunged into the Depression in the first place — a topic of equal import to the problem of how to get out of it. While Garraty briefly summarizes other business-cycle theories held at the time, he omits the main competitor to the Keynesian theory, the view adopted by Robbins and the others: the "Austrian" business-cycle theory of Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek. The Austrian theory, which sees the root of the boom-bust cycle in government stimulus to inflationary bank-credit expansion, is not even mentioned. In fact, Mises is only mentioned briefly, and then not for his business-cycle theory. And, astonishingly, Hayek (now a Nobel-laureate in economics), who elaborated Mises's analysis into a full-scale explanation, is not cited at all, even though he was the best-known and most influential opponent of Keynesianism in the 1930s. The great Swedish economist Knut Wicksell, whose theories provide the basis for the Mises-Hayek-Robbins doctrin, is only noted in passing. Garraty fails to discuss Wicksell's major contribution to the cycle theory: his insight into the importance of interest rates and their effect on the cycle.

Read the rest here.

Seriously, subscribe to their daily articles. There's some really interesting content in there.

My latest

Here's my latest for the Victoria Politics Examiner: Harmonized Sales Tax back and forth. Check it out, huh?

UPDATE: Another article for the Victoria Politics Examiner: BC NDP shouldn't get too comfortable.

UPPERDATE: here's my latest for the Libertas Post blog: The Australian state runs amok. Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

UPPERUPDATE: and here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: Geert Wilders: Change Jordan’s name to Palestine; and The Wilders Round-Up, June 23rd 2010.

My latest - June 22nd

Here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders round-up, June 22nd 2010.

Fun with copyright legislation

Via Boing Boing: Speak out against secretive copyright treaty: sign the ACTA declaration!

"The statement below was drafted at a meeting of over 90 academics, practitioners and public interest organizations from six continents gathered at American University Washington College of Law, June 16-18, 2010. It has been endorsed by over 200 organizations or individuals in the last 24 hours. The thrust of the statement is that: 'we find that the terms of the publicly released draft of ACTA threaten numerous public interests, including every concern specifically disclaimed by negotiators.' The statement is now open to individual and organizational endorsements. Please send endorsements to: acta.declaration@gmail.com The final statement will be released to the public with endorsements on Wednesday June 23 at 10AM. Endorsements for this release will be accepted until June 23 at 9AM."

"I suppose that we could breed politicians in vats, engineer them to live like hermits and kill them at the end of their terms. Any takers?"

That would be awesome.

Fun with Freedom of Information

The good, via The Hook:

After years of legal battles, the B.C. government was forced yesterday to reveal the full text of its controversial contract with Maximus BC Health Inc. for the delivery of MSP and PharmaCare services. It also must disclose to the public any fines imposed on Maximus regarding its performance level.

The bad, via The Hook:

Vancouver city hall is refusing to release the names of people invited to the city's Olympic pavilion at David Lam Park.

CityCaucus.com and 24 hours' columnist Michael Klassen received 32 pages of guest lists for Vancouver House via Freedom of Information. Names of city staff and politicians were included. Affiliations, but not names, of guests were blacked-out. City corporate information and privacy manager Paul Hancock claims it would be an invasion of privacy to provide such information.

And with that...

...posting might well be light over the next few days - perhaps even for a couple of weeks. A conspiracy of house-sitting, work, and travel have seen fit to rob me of a lot of time that would otherwise be spent blogging.

I'll do my best, but honestly, most of my blogging energy over the next few days will probably be spent on other online projects.

Expect to see a few updates, though, including a special guest poster in the next few days.

UPDATE: there is, of course, the possibility that posting will not be noticeably interrupted. I've noticed that when I give advance warning that posting will be light, posting isn't light. I guess blogging is just hard-wired into me at this point.

But, I am saying that things could be light over the next few weeks. There, I've clarified things. I think I'll lie down now.

Money and freedom

Speaking of the $42,000 sucked up by Pearl Eliadis for research, courtesy of the CHRC, it seems that Jennifer Lynch and Co. have spent another 83 grand doing their damnedest making sure that Marc Lemire, an unobtrusive web administrator from Ontario, suffered mightily:

Recent documents posted on the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s website show that they have spent close to $85,000 of tax-payers money to uphold their censorship franchise.

The money went to a lawyer representing the CHRC in the Marc Lemire case. A lawyer aptly named Margot BLIGHT, who is a lawyer with Borden Lander Gervais LLP.

Blight has represented the CHRC, dating back to Giacomo Vigna’s mental serenity issues on May 10, 2007.

The following are from the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s website:

Vendor Name:
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Reference Number:P1000208-1

Contract Date:2009-07-17

Description of Work:
0410 Legal services

Contract Period:
2009-07-20 to 2010-03-31

Delivery Date:
Contract Value:$28,302.50

Comments:
Sole-Sourced Contract - Amendment


Vendor Name:
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Reference Number:P1000478

Contract Date:2010-02-25

Description of Work:
0410 Legal Services

Contract Period:2010-02-26 to 2010-09-30

Delivery Date:

Contract Value:$12,789.00

Comments:
Sole-Sourced Contract



Vendor Name:
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Reference Number:P1000208-2

Contract Date:2009-07-17

Description of Work: 0410 Legal Services

Contract Period:2009-07-20 to 2010-03-31

Delivery Date:

Contract Value:$42,288.50

Comments:
Sole-Sourced Contract - Amendment

TOTAL: $83,380.00

But hey, what the hell. It's not like it's their money anyway, is it?

It must be good to be Pearl Eliadis

Remember Pearl Eliadis, one of the few people in Canada who continues to defend Human Rights Commissions - well, publicly, that is?

Well, it turns out that she's also being paid quite well by those very same commissions:

Vendor Name:
Pearl Eliadis
Reference Number:
P1000455
Contract
Date:
2010-02-11
Description of Work:
0492 Research
Contracts
Contract Period:
2010-03-22 to 2010-08-13
Delivery
Date:
Contract Value:
$42,000.00
Comments:
Competitive Contract

Sounds like a nice gig, if you can get it - in a 'competitive' process, of course.

Fresh Binks Links

Binks is back working that strange magic that he does at Free Canuckistan. Check it out.

My latest

Here's my latest article for the Victoria Politics Examiner: A brief analysis of BC government contracts .

UPDATE: and here's another article for the VPE: BC Conservatives don't know if they're coming or going .

UPDATE II: at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, June 21st 2010; and Geert Wilders’ Mohammed cartoon plan scuppered.

Elmo and Jenny

Ezra Levant is calling Jennifer Lynch an anti-semite. My my, the persecution just keeps going on and on, doesn't it?

Jennifer Lynch, the chief commissar of the Canadian Human Rights Commission is a lot of things -- a liar; an employer of corrupt staff; a wastrel of public monies; an anti-Alberta bigot.

But is she an anti-Semite?

Until now, the only evidence we had for her anti-Semitism is that, under her watch, nearly a dozen of her staff were members of neo-Nazi organizations, with her full knowledge and consent. Those staff wrotes hundreds of filthy, filthy anti-Semitic and other racist comments on neo-Nazi websites like Stormfront. And when this fact became public, Lynch proudly stood by her own Aryan Guard.

Disgusting.

But here's the news: in a speech delivered last week, Lynch says she is building bridges with the new Nazis: radical Islamists who believe that Jews should be murdered.

I speak of the anti-Semitic Canadian Islamic Congress.

Readers will know that the Canadian Islamic Congress once declared that it is legitimate for anyone to kill an adult Israeli -- that such terrorism is morally acceptable.

Read the rest here.

Now, if I can make a slight distinction, it was actually the head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed Elmasry, who said that it was legitimate for anyone to kill an adult Israeli. He's since moved on from the CIC to greener pastures - indeed, the current leadership of the CIC seems to have rather disowned him; Elmo's life is quite a sad tale.

Still. Be that as it may. Should a quasi-judicial investigative body like the CHRC even be forming partnerships with third party advocacy organizations?

I mean - seriously. The CHRC can make someone's life hell. They can refer people to an administrative tribunal which can, and does, deal out punishments.

Do we really want such an investigative body to be buddying up to advocacy groups?

But then, the CHRC doesn't even have an ethics code. How could we expect them to behave any better?

Lynch my information

Jennifer Lynch, of, you guessed it, Canadian Human Rights Commission fame, has apparently decided that the gravest threat to human rights in this country today is a small gang of recalcitrant bloggers:

The Commission has seen this first hand. We have spent considerable energy trying to repair our reputation after bloggers – who misrepresented the Commission and the administrative justice system as a whole – were able to influence the tone of the discussion.

Outraged that the Commission even received the complaint, some began describing the Commission and its employees as “thought police,” “fascists,” “neo-nazis,” “totalitarian” and “the politburo.” The Tribunal was described as a “kangaroo court” and a “Star Chamber.”

Here are some examples of how the mainstream media later portrayed the Commission:

* “Human rights commissions have been set up as a kind of parallel police and legal system, yet without any of the procedural safeguards, rules of evidence, or simple professional expertise of the real thing.” – Andrew Coyne, Maclean’s, April 6, 2009 (online April 2, 2009)
* “…our human rights commissions have flown under the radar of public attention for too long, ignored by … a judiciary that has inexplicably allowed these pseudo-courts to flourish under their very noses.” – Andrew Potter, Ottawa Citizen, April 12, 2009, page B1.
* A former Cabinet Minister recently wrote: “His [Ezra Levant] story of the terrible abuse of power at the Canada Human Rights Commission is a bone-chilling horror story. God help you if you get caught in (a human rights commission’s) crosshairs, because if it investigates you, the ordinary rules of justice don’t apply, including the normal legal protections for the accused.” - Monte Solberg, Sun Media, April 14, 2009.

This new reality is also having an influence on public discourse. And so, today, two years after the complaint was dismissed, the credibility of human rights commissions and tribunals continues to be threatened.

Well, lord knows we can't allow that to happen. Speaking as one of those recalcitrant bloggers ( Hell's Bells, I started a blog called The Lynch Mob that routinely attacked the woman - and it's still running ), I can tell you that nothing would make me prouder than to have helped make Human Rights Commission a dirty term in these here parts.

Mark Steyn comments:

I don't think the CHRC's "credibility" is really in doubt, is it? Take those three quotations from Maclean's, The Ottawa Citizen and the Sun papers. Is Commissar Lynch something is inaccurate in those statements - and, if so, what?

Meanwhile, Blazing Cat Fur breaks outside of his usual silent mockery with a nice, long post on why Jennifer Lynch is such an idiot misinformed person:

I'm thinkin it's time you moved to friendlier pastures Jen. This whole democracy thing, well it's just making you too sad. How about North Korea Jen? They might not trust you either sweety, but they'd sure appreciate your methods and your understanding of Free Speech.

You know, I think Jen might even have a tough time in North Korea. After all, you think we're ungrateful. Try some starving peasants. Now there's ungrateful.

Stimulus monies

Thomas Sowell has an excellent article up at RealClearPolitics on why government intervention in financial crises, at least in the States, simply doesn't help matters:

This is more than just a question about history. Right here and right now there is a widespread belief that the unregulated market is what got us into our present economic predicament, and that the government must "do something" to get the economy moving again. FDR's intervention in the 1930s has often been cited by those who think this way.

What is on that one page in "Out of Work" that could change people's minds? Just a simple table, giving unemployment rates for every month during the entire decade of the 1930s.

Those who think that the stock market crash in October 1929 is what caused the huge unemployment rates of the 1930s will have a hard time reconciling that belief with the data in that table.

Although the big stock market crash occurred in October 1929, unemployment never reached double digits in any of the next 12 months after that crash. Unemployment peaked at 9 percent, two months after the stock market crashed-- and then began drifting generally downward over the next six months, falling to 6.3 percent by June 1930.

This was what happened in the market, before the federal government decided to "do something."

What the government decided to do in June 1930-- against the advice of literally a thousand economists, who took out newspaper ads warning against it-- was impose higher tariffs, in order to save American jobs by reducing imported goods.

This was the first massive federal intervention to rescue the economy, under President Herbert Hoover, who took pride in being the first President of the United States to intervene to try to get the economy out of an economic downturn.

Within six months after this government intervention, unemployment shot up into double digits-- and stayed in double digits in every month throughout the entire remainder of the decade of the 1930s, as the Roosevelt administration expanded federal intervention far beyond what Hoover had started.

Read the rest here.

I'm not so sure this is a good thing

A big fat h/t to Blazing Cat Fur for this piece of news, via the Globe and Mail: Tribunals can apply Charter rights, Supreme Court rules:

A landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling has significantly widened the reach of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, handing a broad range of administrative tribunals the right to find Charter violations and create legal remedies.

In a 9-0 ruling on Friday, the court said that administrative tribunals – quasi-judicial bodies that hear cases involving everything from labour relations and school boards to human rights – are perfectly capable of applying the Charter in their fields of expertise.

“We do not have one Charter for the courts and another for administrative tribunals,” said Madam Justice Rosalie Abella, the architect of the transformation.

Read the rest here.

Now, you know what I'm going to talk about, right? You got it: Human Rights Tribunals. In the past, especially in Alberta, they have been shown to actually make illegal rulings by, you got it: real courts.

So I'm thrilled that administrative tribunals can apply the Charter to their decisions now, but I'm not convinced that they will. See my post just below for a lay-out of just how much Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals seem to care about little things like freedom of speech, press, religion, and even the concept of private property. Furthermore, to actually give these bodies the ability to help shape the evolution of our charter rights would be a scary, scary thing, as far as I'm concerned.

My latest work

Here's my latest article for the Victoria Politics Examiner: Full impact of the Blair Lekstrom situation yet to be seen.

Happy Father's Day

My father knows who he is, but Happy Father's Day to him anyway. If I had any money, I'd consider getting him one of these cakes:

It's not too late for you to get one, though. Just sayin'

You can't be serious

This is a column that has, apparently, failed, as I haven't heard anything back after submitting it to a publication that shall not be named.

Here it is:

Alright, full disclosure. I'm a pasty-faced, out-of-shape white guy. I'll readily admit to that, and I thought I'd get that out of the way before I go any further with this article.

Because, you see, it seems that I must find myself in the position of criticizing a religio-ethnic lobby group. The Canadian Muslim Forum to be precise. ( Yes, yes, I know, Islam isn't a race – but let's all just admit there are racial elements to the discussion and move on ).

Now, the reason I bring up the Canadian Muslim Forum is that they have recently done a few things to severely annoy my person. I'll lay out these things one by one and hopefully by the time I'm done you'll understand my grievances, which are helpfully written down in the Brockville Recorder & Times.

Here's number one:

The Canadian Muslim Forum is calling on the federal government to strengthen Canada's human rights commissions.

"The commissions are the first line of defence for marginalized people," Sameer Zuberi, a spokesman for the forum told QMI Agency.

"If these commissions are undermined, these people have a limited chance to access justice."

O.K., let me stop you right there. “The first line of defense?” Are you kidding me? Even assuming that a case works its way through the human rights system without taking years to come to a conclusion, delays which have been known to happen, it's rather sad that organizations like the Canadian Muslim Forum have decided to rely on quasi-judicial bureaucracies as their 'first line of defense for marginalized people' in the first place. Wouldn't they rather rely on the justice system, which is, you know, designed explicitly for the purpose of justice-type things for marginalized-type people?

Sameer might argue, though, that because human rights commissions cover the costs of complainants in their investigations, and in later human rights tribunal proceedings if investigations are taken that far, they have an advantage over their brethren in the justice system which don't cover initial costs.

Alright, fair enough. So why not argue for legal aid for marginalized people in the justice system, instead of making a quasi-judicial bureaucracy the only means of recourse for people who need a little help with their bills?

Indeed, isn't it a little odd that an organization which is, presumably, there to represent a minority community, is taking the line that members of communities just like theirs should basically ignore the justice system? After all, human rights commissions are their 'first line of defense'. Shouldn't Sameer instead be advising the members of his community, and other minority communities, to be involving themselves in court actions with real justice?

Hold up, Sameer might argue, what's so wrong about human rights commissions anyway? Sure, they're quasi-judicial, but they might get the job done at a much cheaper cost to the complainant, and much more easily to boot.

Again, fair enough. But let's look at how human rights commissions operate, shall we?

Complainants in human rights cases have their costs covered, but defendants don't. Defendants have to pay their own way. And if they're proven innocent in the end and the complainant was just trying to bog them down with legal papers? Well, sorry, there's no means of suing for costs in the human rights system.

Meanwhile, there is no surety in human rights cases to even know the identity of your accuser if you're a defendant. There are also no provisions in place to ensure that complaints can't be filed against someone in multiple jurisdictions, so that even if you're proven innocent in, say, Alberta, you can still be found guilty in, say, Ontario. Oh, and the right to due process? Sorry, no dice.

Furthermore, the federal Canadian Human Rights Commission ( CHRC ) has no actual code of ethics – it just subscribes to Canada's general civil servants' codes. And have I mentioned that one of the provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act, Section 13(1), which the CHRC and its human rights tribunal counterpart are charged with upholding, has been ruled to be unconstitutional by one of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's own 'judges', Anthanasios Hadjis?

Is this really a system that the Canadian Muslim Forum would like to encourage its members, and the members of other minority communities, to involve themselves in, and potentially trust their rights to?

But I digress. Let's move on with the article:

Zuberi said the attacks on commissions, coming mostly from conservatives, are resulting in an erosion of Canadians' freedoms and rights.

Er, you heard me say the word 'unconstitutional' didn't you? As in, 'violation of rights'? Let's investigate that a little further, shall we? In 2006, in an Albertan provincial human rights case, a magazine publisher by the name of Ezra Levant was investigated by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for...publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohamed in his magazine. My, my, that certainly sounds like a violation of freedom of expression to me. You know, a right?

Meanwhile, Stephen Boissoin, a former youth pastor in Alberta, wrote a letter condemning homosexuality being promoted in the classroom to the editor of a newspaper called the Red Deer Advocate. The Alberta Human Rights Commission investigated him too. And the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal fined him, and banned him from ever saying anything 'disparaging' about homosexuals again, even in private correspondence.

Upon appeal to the Court of Queen's Bench Alberta, that ruling was over-turned. Indeed, not only was it over-turned, but the remedies included in the tribunal's decision were even termed 'illegal' by the judge presiding over the appeal.

But that's just in Alberta, right? Well, no. In BC, another magazine called Macleans – you may have heard of it – was put through a one-week show trial for...publishing a book excerpt critical of Islam and not allowing a small group of offended Muslims to publish an editorial to rebut it. There goes that freedom of expression again.

Do we need more examples? Alright. Federally, there's John Ross Taylor, who was punished under the aforementioned Section 13(1) for putting antisemitic messages on an answering machine and encouraging people to call in – he was actually the first to be punished under Section 13(1)'s provisions. That's right: the precedent for Section 13(1) cases, the test case, was some guy leaving messages on an answering machine.

Lately, it's been Marc Lemire, a webmaster who has defended himself for years at his own expense because of articles which he re-published on a website called Freedomsite.com, as well as for racist comments which were made on that website's forums which weren't even his – he just didn't delete them. Again, he was investigated, and almost punished by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. If the member presiding over that hearing – Hadjis - hadn't declared the current use of Section 13(1) to be unconstitutional, he would have been. Meanwhile, during the Warman v. Lemire hearing, Dean Steacy, infamously said “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value," as if the CHRC's disregard for freedom of speech weren't made explicit enough.

Just in case we need one more piece of evidence, Barbara Hall, the chief commissioner of the Ontario Commission for Human Rights, has openly advocated for a mandatory national press council to keep newspapers, well, nice I guess. She doesn't seem to care about freedom of speech either, or a free press, or for the concept of private property and ownership, either – better to nationalize.

But there I go digressing again. It's conservatives like me whose 'attacks', to use Sameer's term, are leading to 'an erosion of Canadians' freedoms and rights.'

To continue:

Representatives of the Canadian Muslim Forum were in Ottawa Wednesday to urge parliamentarians to enact a motion condemning Islamophobia and discrimination.

Zuberi suggested discrimination is on the decline but aboriginals and Muslims are the top targets, especially when news about violent Islamists makes headlines.

Um, no. Have you taken a look at hate crime statistics in the past few years, Sameer? Not discrimination – actual criminal action motivated by hate. Because you know who's way up there at the top of the list? It's not Muslims. It's not even Aboriginal people. It's Jewish people and African Americans.

Yep. Oldest hatreds and all that. And let's not even get started on 'a motion condemning Islamophobia and discrimination.'

Actually, let's. Condemn how? Does the Canadian Muslim Forum just want the government to tell everyone to play nice with Muslims? Do they want actual laws put in place to make 'Islamophobia' illegal, like their more extreme Islamist brethren are trying to do in the UN? What exactly would the purpose of such a motion be?

I must admit, I'm losing patience with Sameer. It's not because he's a Muslim and I'm a pasty-faced white guy. It's because, while people like me busy trying to fight a piece of bureaucratic machinery that cares very little for our freedoms and rights, for our tradition of civil liberties and legal equality, for the things which make Canada and the West stand out in the world, Sameer, a man who by all rights should be fighting in the same trenches, is busy cozying himself up to said machinery.

Why? What would possess an organization like the Canadian Muslim Forum to ally themselves with Canada's human rights commissions? Why does the Canadian Muslim Forum encourage its members, and the members of other minority communities, to involve themselves in a process that clearly cares very little for the freedoms that many in those minority communities came to Canada to possess? Why has the Canadian Muslim Forum decided to mislead the members of minority communities – some of whom undoubtedly are not as well versed in the ideology of civil liberties as Canadian-born citizens – into involving themselves in such an illiberal process?

It boggles the mind. Unless, of course, the Canadian Muslim Forum is not interested in freedom, or civil liberties, or equality under the law, or due process. Unless the Canadian Muslim Forum is only interested in what the Canadian Muslim Forum can stand to gain by playing illiberal politics.
Of these two options, one wonders which is the better to hope for: complete ignorance, or willful blindness. The situation is sad nonetheless.

The truth is out there

Who knew? Apparently people are people. Except for Disney actors. They're spawned in cloning labs deep beneath the Earth, in California.

At any rate:

An Okanagan Valley man's argument that he shouldn't have to pay taxes because he isn't a "person" was rejected by a B.C. Supreme Court judge on Thursday.

David Kevin Lindsay, who also goes by the name David-Kevin: Lindsay, had appealed his 2008 conviction and sentencing on five counts of failing to file income tax returns. He argued the appeal on the grounds that he is not a "person" as defined by the Income Tax Act.

Read the rest.

Copyright in the news

Alright, I'll admit that I'm shamefully just ripping off Boing Boing here, but I still wanted to share this information with you, dear reader.

Via BB:

Industry Minister defends the Canadian DMCA

US record labels starts fake "citizen's group" to support Canada's DMCA

Canadian copyright astroturf site gives marching orders to its users

Copyright astroturfers target Torontoist

The author: alive

And...we're back, here at the Blog of Walker. Posting shall resume.

There's awesome...

...and then there's awesome:

A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria when he ‘mooned’ a group of Hell’s Angels, hurled a puppy at them and then escaped on a bulldozer

I just had to rouse myself from my 'sleep' to share this bit of news.

Carry on.

The author: not dead....

...just sleeping. Things'll be back to your regularly-scheduled programming any day now. I promise.

My latest - for the Victoria Politics Examiner

Check it out: A Harmonized Sales Tax reading round-up.

The latest at Defend Geert Wilders

Here it is: Interesting Parallels in Germany – part seventeen.

Two Decades of Greed - The Unravelling

By Jim Quinn, via TheBurningPlatform.com:

We are currently in the midst of a Fourth Turning. This twenty year Crisis began during the 2005 – 2008 timeframe with the collapse of the housing bubble and subsequent repercussions on the worldwide financial system. It is progressing as expected, with the financial crisis deepening and leading to tensions across the world. It will eventually morph into military conflict, as all prior Fourth Turnings have. The progression from High to Awakening through the Unraveling took from 1946 until 2006. The most treacherous period of the Saeculm is upon us. The intensity of a Crisis is very much dependent upon how a country and its citizens prepare for the Crisis during the final years of the Unraveling. The last Unraveling period in U.S. history from 1984 through 2005 was symbolized by Boomer greed, materialism, debt and selfishness. When Michael Lewis graduated from Princeton University in 1985 and joined Salomon Brothers, I’m sure he didn’t realize that he would end up book-ending the Unraveling period in his two best-selling books about Wall Street.

In his latest book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Lewis seems bewildered by the fact that his first book Liar’s Poker, written in 1989, didn’t dissuade college students from pursuing careers on Wall Street. If Lewis had read The Fourth Turning by Strauss & Howe when it was published in 1997, he would have understood why the people on Wall Street couldn’t change.

Read the rest here.

Some morning video

Avenue Q: Everyone's A Little Bit Racist:



Smyke in the comments for context.

My very first article for Enter Stage Right

I was lucky enough to be published in Enter Stage Right yesterday. I got to talk about my very favorite topic. Can you guess what it is?

That's right: Section 13(1). Cue groans from the people who are absolutely sick of my talking about it, but hey, check out the article anyway: Speaking of Freedom. Thanks to ESR for publishing the article.

The latest at Defend Geert Wilders

Check it out: Interesting Parallels in Germany – part sixteen.

Meanwhile, The Wilders Round-up, June 13th 2010; and Geert Wilders to enter Dutch government after support for anti-Islamic party triples.

Some light reading

What better time than a lazy Sunday afternoon to do some light reading about everybody's favorite topic: Human Rights Commissions!

First, here's Ezra Levant in The Mark: Reform the CHRC:

The Conservative government is getting the big issue of the day right: the economy. Canada leads the G7 nations in almost every measure; we were the last into the recession and the first out, and it was less deep here than in other countries. Not a single Canadian bank failed or had to be bailed out. Contrast that with the ongoing debt crisis in Europe and America's 10 per cent unemployment rate. It's not surprising that Canada's opposition parties and the media have chosen instead to focus on ephemera or spectacles, like the Jaffer-Guergis story.

The government is wise to concentrate on the issues that matter to Canadians and to tune out the chattering class in Ottawa. But there is a policy project they should adopt: reforming the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

Read the rest here. H/t.

Second, Cris Best, via TheCourt.ca: SCC to Decide if Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has Authority to Award Legal Costs:

In December of this year, the SCC is scheduled to decide if the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (“CHRT”) has the authority to award legal costs under the Canadian Human Rights Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. H-6 (“CHRA”). In Mowat v. Canadian Armed Forces, 2006 CHRT 49, the complainant, Donna Mowat, alleged that while a member of the Canadian Armed Forces (“CAF”) she experienced discrimination on the basis of gender, which included sexual harassment. The CHRT awarded her $47,000 in legal costs in addition to $4000 plus interest for “suffering in respect of feeling or self respect.”

In part, the CHRA provides individuals with the ability to challenge a discriminatory practice in areas within Federal jurisdiction. A complaint must first be filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission which then decides whether or not to forward it to the CHRT for adjudication. In the present case, the CHRT ordered the CAF to reimburse Mowat’s legal costs pursuant to s. 53(2)(c) of the CHRA, which states:

If at the conclusion of the inquiry the member or panel finds that the complaint is substantiated, the member or panel may, subject to section 54, make an order against the person found to be engaging or to have engaged in the discriminatory practice and include in the order any of the following terms that the member or panel considers appropriate:…(c) that the person compensate the victim for any or all of the wages that the victim was deprived of and for any expenses incurred by the victim as a result of the discriminatory practice;

In Canada (Attorney General) v. Mowat, 2008 FC 118, the Federal Court upheld the CHRT ruling by concluding that the appropriate standard of review of the CHRT decision was “reasonableness.” The CHRT was reasonable in its determination that it had the authority, pursuant to s. 53(2)(c) of the CHRA, to award legal costs to a successful complainant. The Attorney General (“AG”) appealed and the Federal Court decision was subsequently overturned in Canada (Attorney General) v. Mowat, 2009 FCA 309. Mowat did not appear before Court of Appeal and the CHRC intervened on her behalf.

Read the rest here. H/t.

Finally, I'll leave the last word to Jesse Ferreras, commenting on the Pivot Legal Society complaint against the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association before the BC Human Rights Tribunal: If the Pivot case against DVBIA weren't bogus enough already...

...a ruling handed down from the BC Supreme Court just made it worse.CityCaucus.com is reporting that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) did NOT break a confidentiality agreement, as the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal alleged.

Some months ago the DVBIA disclosed to the media that Pivot Legal Society and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) had no documentary evidence to disclose in their human rights complaint, which alleged that the DVBIA's Downtown Ambassadors program has been systemically discriminating against homeless and aboriginal people in the Downtown Eastside by harassing them.The DVBIA's executive director, Charles Gauthier, released a letter in which Pivot admitted it had "no documents to disclose in this matter." The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal later ruled that the DVBIA had violated a non-existent confidentiality agreement and fined them $2,000 - a fine that the Supreme Court overturned because there was no agreement to begin with.

Pivot and VANDU are still, however, proceeding with their complaint. One of the most recent rulings at the Tribunal had them ordering the DVBIA to hand over some databanks that they have at Pivot's request. They had no evidence of their own, so they requested theirs.

Read the rest here.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone.

Fun with interviews

My pal Eeyore over at Vlad Tepes has been busy with the interviews lately.

First, there's his interview with Bat Ye'or:



Part two:



And then there's his interview with Sam Solomon:



More on that here.

Fun with Freedom of Information

Via Andrew MacLeod at The Hook:

A ruling earlier this week by British Columbia's acting information and privacy commissioner Paul Fraser shows what's wrong with a committee's recommended change to the province's freedom of information law, said Freedom of Information and Privacy Association policy director Vincent Gogolek.

The all party Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act recommended in its May 31 report that the law be changed so that “decisions on the privileged status of materials when FOI requests are made must be referred to the Supreme Court of British Columbia.”

That change would take such decisions—where the requested records involve legal advice—out of the hands of the commissioner, and put them into court. It would add complication and expense for applicants, said Gogolek, as well as tying up the province's courts.

Read the rest here.

UPDATE: Also via The Hook: Advice from lawyers 'sacrosanct', must be private: committee chair.

Fun with taxes

Via Alex Tsakumis:

From within the Ministry of Finance in Victoria comes word that a senior mandarin has suggested to Minister Colin Hansen’s office that, as a way of increasing badly flagging revenue, the government may wish to collect taxes on lottery wins.
The proposal being flown is to tax similarly to capital gains.

Now, if there is one way to send lottery ticket buyers and other smaller scale gamblers running in the opposite direction of the 6/49 or LottoMax counter, this must be it.

I have no reason to doubt Alex Tsakumis' word on this.

The Binks does it again

Binks over at Free Canuckistan has another heaping helping of links and thinks for chills and thrills: check it out.

So your stimulus didn't work either, and assorted notes on why I'm right about everything

Readers may recall that I've been dithering on about Canada's stimulus spending - and the apparent ineffectiveness of same, according to the Fraser Institute, Canada's business leaders, Canada's GDP reports, and perhaps even Stephen Harper - for a few months now. And yet, people keep demanding more evidence before they'll join me in saying, once and for all, that all that stimulus spending was a bad idea.

Fair enough. So let's look across the border, shall we? How has the stimulus spending in the States worked out so far? Via Morning Bell:

Last Friday’s Department of Labor jobs report, which showed private sector job creation fell by 190,000 between April and May of this year, jolted markets worldwide including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which fell 3.2% Friday to its lowest level since early February. In total the U.S. economy has now lost a net of 2.2 million jobs since President Barack Obama signed his stimulus bill, and his administration is now 7.2 million jobs short of what he promised his $862 billion stimulus would help create by 2010. This morning on MSNBC, former Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-FL) pressed prominent Keynesian economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs on whether it was too early to declare President Obama’s stimulus a failure. Scarborough had to ask the question twice, but Sachs finally relented: “It did fail.”

Read the rest here.

Well that's not good. If only someone would have warned Obama that dumping billions into the economy wouldn't work.

Oh, someone did? Never mind, then. A big fat h/t to Jim Geraghty for that piece of news.

But wait, there's more. Via Kady O'Malley at Inside Politics:

Meanwhile, over at Transport, Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy is hoping to score points against both the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois with a study on the impact of the stimulus deadline on infrastructure projects funded under the RINC and PRECO spending initiatives -- apparently, there's a "Harper-Bloc coalition" that has stymied his efforts to call municipal officials forward to explain how it just hasn't worked out well for their respective regions, according to a news release that his office put out last night. Also potentially intriguing: an investigation into the funding of festivals by Industry Canada, which gets underway today at Canadian Heritage.

Read the rest here. Now, why would the Tories be interested in stone-walling an enquiry into stimulus spending in municipalities? Could it perhaps be that, you know, it didn't work nearly as well as the Torie spin-bots have been saying lo these many months?

If I sound like I'm gloating, it's because I am. I've been saying that this spending didn't work for months now, and yet the spending keeps getting defended, by Tories no less. But it didn't work in Canada, and it isn't working in the States. So why defend it? Indeed, the only Tory defense that's even half decent is this: if the Tories hadn't caved in on the spending, they would have been over-run by some spooky Coalition of the Left that would have then proceeded to bankrupt the country with National banks and free hundred dollar bills for every third homeless person. Jack Layton would have gone dancing up and down the streets of Ottawa, flinging handfuls of cash up in the air, pinging loonies off of cars. Gilles Duceppe would have taken up permanent residence in Alberta in a mansion built of Progressive Conservative skulls, and Michael Ignatieff would be in a bunker somewhere, sending up occasional broadcasts via the CBC for people to send down food.

Or somesuch. I don't buy this argument - any strategist worthwhile hiring on a federal level by the Tories should have been able to tell them how to frame the terms of the stimulus discussion, but that didn't happen. Instead of debating over whether or not to have the spending, the Tories were pushed into a debate into how much spending they were going to have. So whether or not you agree with me on whether the spending was worthwhile, I don't see how you could argue that Stephen Harper is a good leader: he obviously isn't.

But never mind me. I'll leave the closing words to Mike Brock, over at the Shotgun Blog:

Who would have thought, that all these years later, a libertarian capitalist like myself could long for the days of the Chrétien Liberal's? It's not an endorsement of the consummate Liberal platforms of yesteryear, but a culture of fiscal austerity -- although, not far enough did it go -- that incontrovertibly laid the foundations to Canada's relative strength in the world today.

Certainly, there was waste in government. Certainly, the Liberal Party had it's objectionable policies for both conservatives and libertarians. But the idea that Canada's position has strengthened under the Conservative Party is a myth. We live in the afterglow of the competitive foundations that were laid in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives have managed to come within a swinging distance of out-doing Pierre Trudeau's increase in the size of government. By sheer numbers, the Harper Conservatives have increased the size of government since they took power by somewhere in the range of 26%. And they are also running the largest deficit in Canadian history, to boot. Adding insult to injury, conservatives have made a wholesale embrace of neo-Keyensianism, kicking fiscal conservatives and libertarians to the curb. Literally.

Read the rest here. H/t to Jay Currie.

You know, I actually wouldn't mind seeing Paul Martin back at the fiscal reins. Now there was a man who could run a budget.

I guess I gotta be the guy...

As kind of an interesting exercise, and because I've been invited to, I will now make an argument against raising BC's minimum wage laws.

Bear with me.

First, the lead-in, from fellow blogger Smyke:

The Fraser Institute is widely considered to be the "Fox News" of academia. Any statement made by this organization is most likely made with the intention of discouraging government interference in something. Personally, I think it would be a worthy investment as taxpayers to ship all of these people to Somalia so they can see the kind of feudal system that develops when there's no government intervention in private enterprise and by extension no obstacles for private institutions to declare themselves governments be they democratic or not.

The Fraser Institute recently supported the position of the BCRFA in opposing a minimum wage increase with a publication they made suggesting that 52 000 jobs could be lost if we were to raise the minimum wage from $8/hr to $10/hr. Their arguements were all made while suspiciously avoiding the most logical compairison of the minimum wage to the poverty line and also avoiding figuring out how many people would see their wages go up as a result of this legislation (Here's a hint. It's more than the 62 000 people in BC who are currently making $8/hr). I find that the Tyee offers the best comprehensive rebuttal here which contains a link to my second favorite rebuttal here.

BC's minimum wage needs to be raised and if the provincial government doesn't do it then our municipal governments will long before private enterprises pick up the slack (although I must give credit where it's due). As a matter of fact, if my attempt to lobby the BC Liberal Party fails I think I'll go to the Resort Municipality of Whistler city council as a back-up plan and see how extensive their jurisdiction reaches for our own "living wage" law.

Read the rest here.

Let me just start by saying that I'm all for the idea of raising the minimum wage in British Columbia. Speaking as a writer, which will mean that I am probably going to be doing my fair share of minimum wage work in the years to come to actually pay my bills, I like the idea that I might be making a little more every hour that I spend working some dead-end job somewhere.

That being said, let me lay out a couple of arguments as to why the minimum wage shouldn't be raised.

1) It's an unfair burden on businesses, who will be forced to employ less people because it takes more per employee, thus driving up unemployment and generally not benefiting the economy as a whole.

2) The government shouldn't be in the business of telling people what to pay their workers in the first place.

Now, I tend to be a believer in the idea that a market can absorb new costs eventually - so the first argument, I think, doesn't hold too much merit in the long run. In the short run, there would be some pain and dubious benefit to all concerned, but in the longer run I think businesses could bear the cost - although it might take an according rise in the value of goods to offset the whole thing. In that case, we'd all bear the cost of, essentially, our own employment, which I don't have too much of a problem with.

The second argument is also rather doomed to fail. I actually agree that it shouldn't be the government's job to set minimum wage levels - I think that's a matter for the employer and the employee to work out via contract. But the issue here is that, well, that's just how it goes. Government is in the business of setting minimum wage levels, and it's going to be for a long time. To remove that control, while from my point of view an ideologically good thing to do, would involve a chain of reforms that would make getting a root canal seem like a tropical cruise. Not to mention that there would probably be unforeseen fall-out to deal with. And so while I tend to favor the ideological 'none of your business' argument, it's just not viable.

So: fire away with minimum wage increases. I would be interested to see how the employment numbers shift, if they do, and how the economy in the province changes to adapt to the new pressures.

However, I would argue that with the Harmonized Sales Tax coming in, now might not be the greatest time to make a change in minimum wage rates as well. Consumers and certain businesses are already unhappy - hitting them with a wage change would probably be better received a little further down the line.

There. That's my two cents, for what they're worth.

Fun with copyright legislation - part two

Again, via Boing Boing:

Canada's version of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been introduced, and while it offers a host of promises about consumer rights (such as the right to record a TV show with a PVR or rip a CD and put the music on your computer), it also allows rightsholders to confiscate those rights merely by adding a "digital lock" (also known as DRM) to the work. Breaking these locks is illegal in itself, so you don't get any rights if a rightsholder chooses to use one.

Michael Geist sez, "The digital lock provisions have quickly emerged as the most contentious part of Bill C-32, the new Canadian DMCA. This comes as little surprise, given the decision to bring back the digital lock approach from C-61 virtually unchanged. The mounting public concern with the digital lock provisions (many supporters of the bill have expressed serious misgivings about the digital lock component) has led to many questions as well as attempts to characterize public concerns as myths.

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile: Dutch court rules that discussing piracy is the same as committing piracy.

UPDATE: Again from Boing Boing - India to WTO: Secret copyright treaty is illegal!

In which I take issue with arts spending, once again

Adrian Chamberlain in the Victoria Times Colonist is understandably upset about cuts to arts and culture funds by the BC Liberals:

Things just seem to get worse for arts and culture in Victoria and the rest of British Columbia.

I'm not talking about the quality of the offerings, which often reach artistic levels that delight and surprise. Rather, it's our provincial government's mulish insistence on pretending the cultural industry in B.C. no longer exists.

The Liberal government's message is: "We are no longer interested in funding the arts. Fend for yourself. If your product is any good, the market will support it." Such an attitude shows, at best, a lack of understanding -- and at worst, blind ignorance. It's as if we've suddenly become a Third World country.

The latest head-scratcher is the government's declaration that arts festivals will no longer receive gambling grants. This means, for example, that the highly successful Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival is cut off. About 23,000 people attended that festival last year -- a 30 per cent increase from the previous season.

The Liberals had previously announced they would cut off annual gaming grants for arts companies. But (for some reason) they'd promised a reprieve for festivals run by such companies. Now, even that funding has vanished.

Not long ago the government decided to shift the bulk of gaming funds to programs for youth and children. Originally the phrase "arts and culture programs that involve youth participation" was used. Now, the government says "programs in which youth are only part of the audience are not eligible." This suggests youth must be an integral part of a company -- performing or even helping run it. Many worthwhile B.C. companies that perform for children will be cut off.

Overall, I wonder if this so-called initiative for youth is a red herring. The intent, perhaps, is to lull the public -- casually perusing headlines -- into believing some great new thing is being done for youth. The person might think, "Helping youth? Involving youth? Well, I guess that's good," and turn the page. It's all about the optics, as they say.

Ian Case, manager of Victoria's Intrepid Theatre, which runs the Fringe Theatre Festival, says these days government officials seem uninterested in discussing policy or receiving any input. As far as he's aware, no arts group was consulted before the latest gaming grant announcement.

When it comes to the arts, a fundamental Liberal philosophy appears to come into play. The Liberals like the notion of the businessman who does it himself without government "handouts." The attitude is, why can't arts groups do the same?

Why indeed? It depends, I suppose, on how you define the arts. One arts leader suggested to me that many politicians' notion of a successful arts enterprise is something like the Blue Man Group or The Lion King.

These are largely commercial enterprises -- and I question their artistic merit, no matter how crowd-pleasing. Our Belfry Theatre stages bona fide theatre that has enduring artistic value. Such ventures are extremely labour-intensive and, therefore, costly. At $23 to $38, Belfry tickets are relatively cheap (I just returned from New York where Broadway tickets cost $125). Not surprisingly, Belfry ticket revenues cover just half the cost of the show. Certainly, they could double the price of tickets. But then they'd lose most of their audience. And it would put theatre beyond the reach of many.

I think Victorians deserve -- and should demand -- better treatment for the arts and culture in this city.

Read the rest here.

I feel Adrian's pain, I really do. But here's the thing. A while back, in the wake of cuts to funding for British Columbia books and newspapers, including BC Bookworld, I wrote in response to British Columbia Association of Book Publishers executive director Margaret Reynold's reaction to the news:

What's telling to me is Margeret Reynolds' reaction to the news; her assumption that it is a mark of a society's sophistication that such funding exists.

I would suggest that it's a mark of a society's lack of sophistication when such funding is deemed necessary.

I hold to that analysis. Some arts are, and always will, be underfunded, but I am simply not convinced that it is the government's role to support them, no matter the pain that this underfunding might cause. And I say this as someone who is hoping to make a career as an artistic writer type. The reasons are myriad:

• The role of the artist in society is often that of a social commentator - often at odds with the government. It rather perverts that role to be receiving funding from the government at the same time one is railing against it.
• Furthermore, whenever you're providing funding, you're providing a say. As soon as some government ministry or other starts giving you money, it opens a door to them having a say - perhaps even indirectly - in what it is that you produce, or how you produce it, or where you produce it, or when.
• While some deserving artists don't receive the funding that they need in a free market-type system, at the same time artists that do not deserve funding receive it in a government funding system. This is just as unfair, as it makes the truly good artists just as mediocre as the truly bad ones.
• Artists have always been starving. This is part of what makes their art good - art through adversity and all that. A true artist produces work even if it doesn't provide a cent of income - they find a way to produce it, whether or not it pays.
• To suggest that a free market-type system would not provide the necessary funding is, quite frankly, rather insulting to every Canadian who lives in this country. Are we such philistines that we cannot be depended upon to form a culture and provide art?

Need I go on?

It's not the mark of a third-world society that an artist should have to fend for himself. Being broke isn't necessarily a bad thing; not achieving all your dreams is part of the experience. Some of the best writers never accomplished what they wanted to or achieved the success that they would have wished. I would argue that this is part of what made them such good writers - who knows what they might have churned out if they knew that, regardless of the quality, they would still get the money? That their art didn't matter - merely that they were producing something that they could call 'art'. Far from enhancing them, arts funding devalues artistic expression.

I agree that there should be better treatment for the arts in British Columbia and Victoria. Let's start by actually funding some ourselves.

My latest - giving the BC NDP a hard time again

I'll eventually get around to giving other parties a hard time. It's just that I think the BC New Democrats could do so much better. At any rate, here's the article: BC NDP need to muster some energy.

My latest - for the Libertas Post blog

Here's my latest blog post over at the Libertas Post: A sad situation that was bound to happen. I get all fatalistic and depressing about the state of political messaging in this country. Fun stuff.

UPDATE: And one of my earlier blog posts for the Libertas Post has been reposted as an article, too: The Devolution of the Conservative Party Under Harper. I'm on fire today!

"Alas, if I were 20 years younger and not married, I would want to have your babies."

Now why can't I get letters like that? Must be the beard...

My latest - for the Victoria Politics Examiner

Here it is: Bill Vander Zalm still taking the lead for BC NDP. I get to have fun giving the Dippers a hard time.

The Grant decision in action

Jay Currie: responsible communicator. Sure cleans up nice for a blogger-type.

UPDATE: Even cleaner.

Erm, can we start panicking now?

So it seems that the new Supreme Court Justice nominee in the States doesn't believe in freedom of speech:

According to an explosive special report on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s views on the First Amendment right to free speech, in September of 2009 Kagan encouraged the Court to adhere to a new philosophy on the First Amendment that would allow the government to censor posters, pamphlets, and TV and radio content–and the Internet.

In a stunning news report issued today by CNS, the following information was disclosed:

“The Government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern,” wrote Roberts. “Its theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations—as the major ones are. First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.”

Read it here.

Does anybody else get the creeps at the thought that someone like Elena Kagan wants the government to start waging a PR war against corporate business in America? Am I the only one?

Because that's essentially what that position would mean: it would mean that the government could crack down on any form of expression that is deemed to be backed by corporate dollars. It would mean that any corporate entity's dabblings in media would be subject to government oversight.

And of course, this would mean absolutely nothing: there would be ways to get around that, just like there are ways to get around bans on corporate donations to political campaigns, or corporate involvement in, well, just about anything.

And in the meantime, little things like freedom of the press, freedom of speech, private property and ownership, well, they'd be out the window.

So yeah, Kagan seems like a really nice pick.

My latest - for the Victoria Politics Examiner

Check it out: BC Liberals implemented HST for federal dollars, not economic sense.

Does the political left have a hard time with economics?

I'm not sure that anything too sure can be drawn from these numbers, but Daniel Klein had an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today all the same:

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.

To be sure, none of the eight questions specifically challenge the political sensibilities of conservatives and libertarians. Still, not all of the eight questions are tied directly to left-wing concerns about inequality and redistribution. In particular, the questions about mandatory licensing, the standard of living, the definition of monopoly, and free trade do not specifically challenge leftist sensibilities.

Yet on every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).

The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.

Read the rest here.

Make of that what you will...

UPDATE: Xan makes an excellent point in the comments:

I would be REALLY interested to see this same study, but broken down by 'class' of employment: public service sector vs. unionized job vs. private enterprise. I would also be interested in learning the breakdown by the size of their employer: my guess would be that the larger the employer, the more collectivist (on average) the views and the less realistic the understanding of basic economic realities would be.

My latest - for the Libertas Post

Here's my latest at the Libertas Post, for their blog: Tory Evolution. Tom Flanagan, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, and the development of internal party strategy. Interesting stuff, I tell you.

UPDATE: And I have an article for the LP up to boot: Expenses 'Scandal': Just Another Brick in the Wall? While you're reading, feel free to check that one out too. This is getting to be like homework, eh?

My latest - for the Victoria Politics Examiner

Here's my latest for the Victoria Politics Examiner: BC NDP shouldn't act so surprised about new appointments. Check it out, eh?

Fun with copyright legislation

Never let it be said that I don't offer variety, here at the Blog of Walker.

Here's Michael Geist, explaining the gist of Canada's newly-proposed DMCA legislation:



Thanks to Boing Boing.

The children of pot dealers deserve homelessness - don't you know?

Alright, I'm paraphrasing the BC legal system a little. But not by much. Via the Colonist:

A B.C. Court of Appeal panel on Friday dismissed the appeal of Cuc Van Bui, the registered owner of the house in Nanaimo where RCMP executed a search warrant on Sept. 3, 2003, finding more than 600 plants.

Bui and his wife, Thu Thi Tran, were convicted of production of marijuana, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking and theft of electricity.

The trial judge, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ross Lander, imposed 12-month conditional sentences on Bui and Tran and granted the Crown's application for an order forfeiting Bui's entire interest in the property.

Bui appealed, arguing the trial judge failed to properly consider the impact the forfeiture would have on his children and argued partial forfeiture would be more appropriate.

But Appeal Court Justice David Frankel disagreed.

Read the rest here.

Welcome to British Columbia, folks. Our premier was collared in the States for drunk driving; so was one of the Liberals' MLAs. But a family man trying to put a roof over his childrens' heads? F*ck'm.

What a farce.

Fun with audits - round two

Lorne Gunter, via the Post:

Throughout the six-week controversy over whether MPs should be subjected to a performance audit by Sheila Fraser, the auditor general, Parliamentarians have insisted there was no reason to examine their expense accounts because the House of Commons’ own board of internal economy (BOIE) does a bang-up job of ensuring members make only authorized expenditures. Environment Minister Jim Prentice went so far as to claim, “There are a set of rules and the expenses are scrutinized through the Board of Internal Economy … We have a system that has been working.”

[...]

It’s easy to understand why Canadians, stung by the smug intransigence of their MPs over the audit issue, might be a little suspicious of the Sgro set-up: Buy a condo for $138,000 in 2001. Transfer it five years later to your kids. Then start claiming an extra $11,000 from taxpayers.

If the controller finds Ms. Sgro in breach of the ethics code, it will not be enough for her to prove her commitment to the rules by ceasing to claim the rent she pays her children. She should have to pay back the estimated $30,000 she has claimed to day.

How many of these cozy little deals are there lurking on MPs’ books? Clearly the BOIE is incapable of detecting them and unwilling to let the public know, even when the odd one is uncovered. The BOIE’s scrutiny is wanting.

Read the rest here.

My latest - for Total Dick-Head

Regular readers of this blog might know that I'm a pretty big fan of the writer Philip K. Dick. I'm so much of a fan, in fact, that I've contributed a guest post to a blog devoted exclusively to the man called Total Dick-Head. Check it out, eh: Another Look At PKD Otaku with Walker Morrow.