Sorting Through an Economic Mess

I think the history books will remember the 2000s as the being similar to the 1970s. That era was well known in North America for its malaise with the OPEC embargo, the unpopular war in Vietnam, economic recession, Watergate, etc. Right now we're in a bit of a mess that's eerily familiar. The United States is fresh off its sub-prime lending crisis which had been threatening recession for a while. Combined with the high Canadian dollar this caused, we knew out export industries would have some problems. However, federal and provincial governments all assumed Canada could weather the storm if a recession in the US came to be. April truly is the cruelest month given that what's happened in the past 30 days has shattered this assumption. Fuel costs soared throughout April. In Toronto alone, gas prices for regular unleaded shot up 15%. Diesel has seen even greater increases. Canadians on average are paying $1.26 on average for fuel compared to $1.15 a month ago. This means shipping costs are rising dramatically. The move towards ethanol, fuelled by environmentalism and agri-politics has led to massive shortages of staple grains. This has triggered a global food crisis which is even hitting North Americans hard. Unfortunately, it seems that recession now is inevitable and Canada will not be able to weather this storm.

There's really a lot I want to talk about here. We'll start with GM's job cuts due to the ailing auto industry. 900 jobs are being axed in Oshawa, mostly due to high gas prices reducing demands for trucks. Giving the auto industry government handouts is a bad idea in my opinion since it only encourages poor business decisions. GM and the CAW should have seen this coming a mile away but did nothing to combat it. Canada is the most expensive country in the world to produce vehicles. However, if the auto industry does go under, reports from TD indicate that Ontario, once the economic engine of Canada, might become a "have not" province in two years time, comparable to the likes of Newfoundland. This would mean that Ontario would begin receiving billions of dollars in equalization payments. This has been a touchy issue in the past since the big provinces always felt they were getting the short end of the stick on equalization. The National Post also pointed out that this system was never meant to have vast sums of money going to Canada's most populous provinces. This could spell disaster when it comes time to draft federal budgets. Even if the smaller provinces loose their have-not status, it is unlikely they will be able to afford such payments to the likes of Ontario and Quebec, causing political turmoil.

Jim Flaherty was correct in lambasting Ontario recently for not cutting business taxes to encourage investment in the provice. I have long said Dalton McGuinty was an ineffective premier. When he was first elected in 2003, Ontario's economy was going strong and the future seemed bright enough. Even in 2007 when he was reelected, there didn't seem like there would be a sudden economic downturn on the horizon. With three and a half years left in his term, McGuinty is going to have to make some tough decisions. So far, all he has announced is that there will be no cuts to government services, translating to mean no budget cuts. Keynsian economics, on which modern liberalism is based, does say government spending should increase to stimulate the economy. However, there doesn't seem to be any plans to do that. Bail out packages as I have said do not work as they encourage poor decisions. McGuinty has given no clear indication of plans to help the economy other than that. The fact is that Ontario is no longer competitive and it's not the fault of NAFTA or Asian trade but rather stupid mistakes made by our own leaders. You can't simply shut your boarders anymore and hope for the best since no country is self sufficient. You also can't close your eyes and plug your ears in times of crisis and hope the problem simply goes away. Inaction usually breeds the opposite of the desired result.

That's not to say that the federal government has no responsibility in the matter. Like McGuinty, the federal Conservatives seem to have no plans to do anything to curb rampant inflation due to high fuel costs. Kim Campbell rightly noted in an interview with the National Post that Harper has become far too controlling. He's trying to do everything himself rather than relying on the tallents of his MPs. This has led to an unclear agenda as the Conservatives are begining to loose steam. As for the Liberals, Stephane Dion seems to think a carbon tax on gasoline would lower fuel prices, as he noted on an interview with CTV. That logic has holes big enough to drive the Queen Mary 2 through. I can't see how charging more for something would make it cheaper given fuel is an economically inelastic product. That means that as price goes up, demand doesn't change much. This is because fuel is an essential commodity. The NDP I have not heard much from. Jack Layton has been unusually quiet lately at a time where they should be making a fuss. I think the NDP on the federal level has become too much of a bleeding heart party and has forgotten its labour roots. The primary issue is that the Green party has been stealing votes from them, so they now focus on green issues. Unfortunately, green doesn't put food on the table or money in the bank for the average Joe. This mess must be a wet dream for these radical environmentalists though, who have long envisioned a "cooler but poorer" world as being the solution to anthropogenic global warming.
The Liberals are smart though by not pulling the plug on the Conservatives. If an election were to be called in the near future, it would truly end up as a battle royal between the three national parties. None of them have enough support for a majority and at this point, it could go either way. I'm leaning towards another Conservative victory at this point, but it would be by an even tighter margin than in 2006. The time for bickering in the House of Commons is over now. Both the Liberals and Conservatives need to start working together constructively if Canada wants to try and escape the worst of the inevitable recession on the horizon. I'm not an economist so I really can't provide specific suggestions. Right now, the best things to do would be to ban the use of ethanol for fuel as well as cut gas taxes in half at the vary least. This would help ease the pain at the pumps for consumers and businesses.

Clearly something needs to be done. If fuel goes up, that eats into profits of businesses that rely on it. That means wages go down and prices go up. I know for a fact that many people are going to be in serious trouble. Just look at all the people who live off their credit cards and only pay the minimum balance per month. Though I'm usually in favour of government staying out of business, it just can't this time around. Inaction will only breed the worst recession in decades.

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Global Warming Hysteria: Ethanol's Human Cost

Global warming is killing people, but not in the way people like Al Gore and David Suzuki want you to believe. A couple years ago, British documentary the Great Global Warming Swindle noted that environmentalism was an anti-human movement, citing pressure being placed on Africa to adopt green yet inefficient and prohibitively expensive forms of energy generation. Most of the debunkers saw that the mass hysteria of global warming was going to cause some sort of human crisis. However, many of us were surprised by how quickly it happened. 

Not too long ago, biofuel was supposed to be the great saviour since it was said to be cleaner than gasoline and also had the side benefit of cutting our dependency on foreign oil. Originally, biofuel was mostly biodiesel, which is made from old cooking grease. More recent efforts have pushed ethanol as an alternative. Ethanol is an alcohol made from distilling grain such as corn, wheat, rice, etc. It's essentially what is in booze. Rather than being used to make your favorite whisky or sake, corn and rice instead are being made into a pure ethanol solution for car fuel. This is what gives us fuels such as E10 (10% ethanol, 90% gasoline) and E85 (85% ethanol) which you can use to fuel your car. E10 fuel is required by law in Ontario. Of course, there's one obvious problem with this. 

In Peru and Colombia, there is a major problem with cocaine. Everybody knows that. Lets take Peru for an example since coca (the plant which cocaine is made from) can be legally grown. There, unprocessed coca leaves are chewed for an energy boost. It has the same effect as drinking Red Bull and is not nearly as potent or addictive as processed cocaine. So why am I talking about coke? Well, coca is a very hardy plant and grows just about anywhere with minimal human involvement. Poor farmers grow it illegally where it is sold to drug cartels, processed into cocaine, and shipped to North America and Europe for consumption. While farmers don't get even a fraction of the final street price, they do make more money than they would by growing food crops. Therefore, illegal coca plantations are a convenient cash crop for poor farmers. The same also bodes true for heroine poppy growing in Afghanistan. 

Growing ethanol grain is similar. It nets the farmer more money. The difference is that due to global warming hysteria, environmentalists have pushed governments to encourage farmers to grow ethanol grain. As if they even needed encouragement since fuel sells for more than than flour. Unfortunately, this saviour of the environment that will magically cut us from oil dependence has caused one of the greatest food crises in sixty years. 

In Asia, there is a major rice shortage. People are rioting in the streets trying to grab any scrap of grain they can get their hands on. For many people, it's forms the bulk of their diet. Similar situations have been seen in Latin America and Africa. Even us here in North America are feeling the pinch as prices at the grocery store rise. CTV described it as a perfect storm. A bad growing season in poor parts of the world has driven prices way up. Also noted was the increasing number of farmers converting their operations to grow grain for ethanol instead of food. Rice and corn are two such grains, which are major staples in the third world. Rather than going into a hungry mouth, that grain is going strait into your gas tank. It's no wonder the third world is so disgusted with the West. It is our fault for putting human lives at risk to solve a non-existent crisis. 

So what do we do to solve this. I think its time to stop beating around the bush. There is absolutely no proof that using ethanol for fuel lowers carbon dioxide emissions. As a fuel, it is also less efficient than gasoline. Laws requiring E10 fuel need to be revoked or at least put on the shelf until this food crisis is over. It would be a crime against humanity not to do so. Mr McGuinty, I'm speaking to you. 

Next, we need to address the problem of how we produce food and fuel. Free trade is needed to keep third world food moving into the West. This will encourage industrialized agriculture and overproduction in those countries. Countries in Africa have been wanting free trade for agriculture with Europe for years. Subsidies to Western farmers have become a road block since our food is actually cheaper and floods third world markets, shutting out their own farmers. International investment and genetically modified foods (drought and disease resistant) could be used to help farmers in less fertile regions to achieve this goal. We have the technology yet we don't share it, especially the boogie man of genetically modified foods. We fear them yet they could make the difference between famine and a bumper crop in many regions. We should encourage Western farmers to produce ethanol since they've long complained about how low their profit margins are. Making ethanol would generate them more money. It's not so much that we stop producing ethanol for fuel but we need to realign how the world does agriculture in order to keep food supplies in balance. Nations need to work together to accomplish this. We can't simply shut our borders on these issues. The United Nations needs to stop worrying about global warming and do something to solve this real crisis. Come to think of it, there is absolutely no reason why we should be using ethanol to begin with. Oil and natural gas are still abundant and hydrogen vehicles are on the horizon. Feeding humans should be top priority and feeding cars should always be secondary. 

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Corporations, Abusing Customers, and the Environment

Today is Earth Day so I thought it fitting to take pot shots at the environmentalists. I thought though that I'd conserve my own energy to "spend less on dinner". In other words, I'm feeling too lazy to write an article when Terrance Corcoran of the National Post does a good job summing up the same argument. Basically, his article deals with how big corporations are jumping on the environmental bandwagon and are now turning to nagging consumers. If you thought these stores treated you like dirt before, the best is yet to come.

Nag Days at the Bay

Environmentalism is PC these days and I suppose they feel the need to do this or else the eco-nuts won't shop there. As if their dollar somehow is worth more than mine. I somehow find it ironic though that these are the same places that run the heat hot as hell in the winter and the AC colder than a witch's teat in the summer. That for hypocrisy for you. I can now add the Bay to my list of insolent retailers that I refuse to shop at. Home Depot and Loblaws were already on there. Lululemon doesn't sound like a store I'd shop at to begin with.

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McGuinty, Miller Out of Touch?

Now is not a good time to go to China, especially if you're a politician. Try telling that to Dalton McGuinty though. I certainly guarantee that if this was Mike Harris doing this, there would be a lot more outrage. Yesterday, McGuinty met with Chinese business people while pro-Tibet protesters marched outside. He snuck out the back door in order to avoid them, something the National Post labeled as shameful. Also in the news is Toronto mayor David Miller's business trip to China. Milton mayor Gord Krantz will be acompanying him, as well as several other GTA mayors. All on the tax payer dollar I might add.

I find it somewhat ironic that left wing politicians in Canada would be so eagar to keep China happy when the right wing is less tolerant. Well, not so much ironic as hypocritical. The left for years has been pressing the rights of minorities in our own country yet when it comes to Tibet, they suddenly become silent. All of a sudden, it seems some cheap lead painted garbage and a bunch of jocks running around in circles is more important than the poor guy getting his head blown off for speaking out against the communist government. Then again, maybe McGuinty and Miller are trying to get some pointers from the Chinese communist party on how to subjegate their own people. I think both McGuinty and Miller are classic examples of weak leadership. They refuse to stand up to the wolf in sheep's clothing and tackle the real issues. Both say they will bring up human rights but the word of the mayor of some backwater city in meek Canada isn't going to have a lot of clout with the communist leaders. If anything, their economic summits should be postponed until at least the olympics are over, if not cancelled entirely. That would show strong leadership, that these two men actually have a backbone. Neither does though and there's ample proof of that with the way they deal with issues in their own jurisdictions.

Speaking of jurisdictions, I have to question whether individual provinces and cities should be making bilateral international deals on their own. Shouldn't international relations, both economic and political be made through the federal government? It seems to me that the feds are the only ones willing to push China on their human rights abuses. Also puzzling is why Kickback Krantz is going considering that the Town of Milton does absolutely no trade with China. The town has almost no manufacturing or natural resource industries. I can't help but think our tax dollars are being used for a summit that amounts to little more than a free vacation for politicians. It also gives Gordie a good opportunity to get out of Dodge after the huge mess he's made in the last five years.

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Stephen King on Game Censorship

Boston's mayor Menino may not be dead but his brain sure is. He's the latest to speak out on the supposed harms of video game violence. This comes on the heels of a Massachusetts law that would ban the sale of violent video games to people under 18. Stores who violate this law would see heavy fines. The king of horror Stephen King though has come out blasting the law. He is concerned about the politicians acting like "surrogate parents". King is quite right. Lazy parents are turning to the government to raise their kids for them, and this sets a dangerous precedent.

You can read the article about King here.

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Carbon Tax Would Hurt Low Income Earners

Perhaps I should go into more detail about why the proposed carbon tax has struck a nerve with me outside of my conservative mindset. Being a university student, I'm a low income earner. I drive a fuel efficient car. Yesterday, I noticed I had less than a 1/4 tank of fuel left. The gas station was selling it for $1.12. Too expensive I said. Unfortunately, the price shows no sign of dropping. Gasoline in itself is currently overpriced by a fair amount. The price spikes are fuelled mostly by speculation of investors, so they're artificially inflated. I remember hearing Liberal MP and gas crusader Dan McTage say it should be around $0.80 - $0.90 per litre given the current market. I realize that $1.12 is not really that expensive given the Canada average today is $1.18. So yes, there are people worse off then us in the GTA. I can still remember freaking out when the gas hit $1.30 after Hurricane Katrina, though fortunately, the company I worked for at the time was paying my gas bill since I was using my own car for business.

So what does this have to do with the proposed carbon tax that many economists are advocating? The answer is simple, everything! As you know, I do not support the anthropogenic global warming argument and in effect, I think taxing carbon emissions would end up doing nothing what so ever in that respect. The problem is that it's not big polluters they want to tax but rather add it to the fuel excise tax on gasoline, which would amount to a minimum of an additional $0.10 per litre. If added to today's price, that would bump up costs to $1.22! For American readers, this would roughly equate to $4.40 per gallon. British Colombia was the first province to enact a carbon tax and it already has some people in the north fuming over rising fuel costs.

What the environmentalists forget is that unless you live in an urban area, public transit is not an option. Even then, it's iffy. Rising fuel costs there have bumped ticket prices up 22% in the last five years for a one-way cash fare. I expect the TTC to raise their fare to $3 by 2009 given their current history. Also, our public transit systems in Canada are probably some of the worst in the first world. Slow, rarely on time, using outdated equipment, and run by unions who threaten to strike every five minutes. For most of us, the car is the better way, and in fact the only way. Yet there has been a march against drivers recently with higher license fees, registration fees, proposed road tolls to lower congestion, higher insurance costs, higher fuel costs. The list goes on. It's quickly getting to the point where many low income earners can't afford to drive. That means they can't get to their jobs, and are therefore out of work. There are also people who drive for a living, such as truckers, who have seen big chunks of their income taken by fuel costs. The cost therefore is added onto the final product, which is why we're seeing food prices spike.

Of course, we all know how the Canadian tax system works. Sure it's a proposed $0.10 now but how long before it's $0.15 or $0.20, which is what some climate hysterics are already demanding. Economists claim that the money will be used to lower personal income taxes so in effect, you're not really paying more. Do these people have no idea how the Canadian government works?! The original gas tax was supposed to go directly to roads and transit but it does not. Everything goes into one giant pot. It's unlikely that Liberal or even Conservative governments will give all the money back to the tax payer. We'd be lucky to get half of it back, if any at all. Besides, if that's the system you want to use, why even institute the tax in the first place. It just makes no logical sense. Then again, little concerning environmentalism and Canadian taxation does.

Carbon taxes do not punish the people driving the Escalades and Hummers because since they can afford those expensive gas guzzlers, they can afford to absorb the extra fuel costs. It's low income earners who will suffer from a carbon tax as fuel prices for their vehicles. I haven't even discussed how this would affect people who use oil and natural gas to heat their homes, because surely they'll be the next target. When does it stop? The proposed carbon taxes would do far too much harm and no good at all. They would effect the lowest income families the most, those that the liberals claim to advocate. The carbon tax is something we should not even be considering.

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Art Spiegelman on Political Correctness

Art Speigelman is well known for his graphic novel Maus, about a Polish Jewish family during the Holocaust. He is in Toronto for a lecture on censorship. An interview with the National Post explains his views on political correctness what it's not just conservatives that need to be concerned about it.

Politically Correct 'Fever' Grips Canada

His lecture is tonight at 7:30pm at Isabel Bader Theater at UofT St. George campus.

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Less for More: Garbage Collection

I've decided to start a new series of articles entitled "Less for More". One of the things I've noticed lately is how our tax bills are on the rise, yet government services that effect the average Joe seem to be on the decline. Coming on the heels of learning that the Ontario civil service "Sunshine" list (those earning more than $100,000) has grown by a huge number, I think that makes this fact more relevant.

This week is garbage collection. Recently, Halton has introduced the green bins, something many other cities have been using. I have to question if these bins really improve the garbage collection service. Here in particular, 2007 was not a good year for picking up trash. In Milton, trash collection has frequently been late. There are many days I've come home to still find my garbage sitting at the curb, only to hear the truck cruise by at dinner time, despite the demand to have your trash out by 7am. Recycle pickup was also infrequent, limited to every two weeks instead of every one, and big item pickups were every two months. Halton made some changes for 2008. Recycle and green bin are once a week now, but garbage is only every two weeks. That leaves smelly bags to fester in the garage. There are also now strict weight limits for the bags of garbage, since we can't have the big garbage men straining themselves to pick up bags my 83 year old Grandma has no problems with. Big pickup has also been limited to just three items. The supposed goal is to reduce the amount of waste heading to the landfills but I don't buy that. As for the green bins, they must have cost the region a bundle to buy them and print out the advertising campaign where it would have likely been cheaper to not introduce them. They were not widely popular in Milton. Further more, the bins require you to use special "biodegradable" bags, which further adds to the home owners expense. Halton has a very high tax rate given its lack of service.

Things get worse if you travel some 30km east of Milton to the centre of the universe, aka Toronto. Toronto has drastically cut back on garbage collection and has introduced a pay-per-bin policy which could add several hundred dollars to your annual bill no matter what you throw out. This obviously punishes larger families and businesses. In the mean time, Toronto has just levied some of the biggest tax increases in its history while the city continues to spend money like it were water on unnecessary expenditures. Of course, what could you expect from the central group of technocrats that huddle around Miller, the NDP showing its hidden totalitarian stripes. Toronto has long avoided dealing with its trash problem, trying to send their garbage (both human and otherwise) to nearby communities or to the US. The mayor and his cronies are afraid to open up a new landfill due to the "harmful environmental effects" it will have. Meanwhile, it's ok to send it to Michigan or other Ontario municipalities at huge expense to the Toronto tax payer where they can suffer the harmful effects. Ironically, I believe that having to pay-per-bin will most likely encourage people to illegally dump their junk, which Toronto already has a big problem with. So in the end, they're not saving their environment.

Taxes go up, service goes down. That's the Canadian way. I think it's time we put municipal leaders at the curb for not addressing one of our societies most basic services.

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Why Canada Should Boycott the Beijing Olympics

In 1980, Canada participated in a boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It's ironic in some ways that we'd participate in an invasion of the same country just over twenty years later, though for far different reasons. In 1984, the Soviet bloc boycotted the Los Angeles in Olympics, leading to the best medal year in US history, as the Simpsons famously parodied.

So here we are in 2008 with the Olympics in Beijing fast approaching. China is itself an odd case when it comes to liberty and human rights since nothing is ever black and white. The People's Republic of China (not to be confused with the Republic of China, aka Taiwan) runs the country in a quasi-Orwellian fashion. The government keeps a close eye on people's communications, filters out foreign news, rewrites history, and makes people disappear if they don't comply with the state's rules. Ironically, the PRC has kept up the famous Chinese tradition of petition. China is communist only on paper these days, moving to a sort of capitalistic socialism since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. The government is run by a technocratic oligarchy.

The whole issue with the 2008 Olympics comes over the region of Tibet. Up until 1950, Tibet was an independent nation, though China has always asserted some degree of influence over the nation. This is one of the few things the PRC and the Republic of China can agree on. I find this somewhat ironic since I consider the Republic of China to be an independent state, and what's to stop the PRC from putting it back under its boot heel, given the UN ignores it. I digress. Tibet is a major spiritual capital for the Buddhist religion. Famous exiles include the Dalai Lama. The exiled parliament of the nation currently holds its capital in Dharamsala, India.
China must have been pretty foolish to assume that the Olympics would not draw attention to the country's numerous and flagrant human rights abuses. Riots broke out in Lhasa, the traditional capital of the region, in protest against the Chinese government. The Chinese government shot and killed several protesters, though there are conflicting amounts of just how many. China to the rare position in which they actually admitted they had done it, though I'd be more inclined to believe Tibetan figures than theirs. Without foreign observers, we may never know for sure. In the aftermath, the city has been locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Buddhist monks, who did not participate in the riots, have been put under house arrest. Buddhism follows a principle similar to Ghandi's Satyagraha, the path of non-violent resistance. The Dalai Lama has repeatedly stressed this. Many people agree that the Chinese subjugation of the region and the oppression of its people is wrong. China has repeatedly denied that such subjugation exists. Pro-government supporters protesting in Toronto yesterday reiterated that position. With all that has gone on in China lately, as well as in the past such as the infamous Tianamen Square incident (where on this spot, nothing happened) and the bloody Cultural Revolution. The Western World obviously disapproves but will we do anything about it?

Back to the topic at hand about a possible boycott. I think Canada needs to boycott the Beijing Olympics. Not just the opening ceremonies but a total, complete boycott like in 1980. The Canadian government has been repeatedly stressing the human rights issue in China. This has been one of the corner stones of the Harper government. It has been argued that this has led to a chilling of relations between Canada and the PRC. Many argue that a boycott will not do anything to help the situation. I would be inclined to agree but it does serve one purpose, that is to embarrass China during it's finest hour. I also think it would be hypocritical for Canada not to endorse such a boycott given our supposed devotion to human rights causes around the world. The West these days is all talk and no action. What makes China any different, just because we buy a lot of junk from them? China would be foolish to stop exporting its goods to the West because it would lead to its own economic destruction, given that much of the progress made relies on manufacturing and global business. Another common argument against a boycott is that it would be unfair to the athletes who have trained for years for the games. That is a rather selfish position from supposedly caring and good liberal Canadians. No matter how much they've suffered and sacrificed to train and excel, I can guarantee the Tibetan people have suffered more under the Chinese boot. Tibet is only one such example of people poorly treated under this regime. In retrospect, it was a very poor decision for the IOC to give the Olympics to China. Toronto should have been given the games. Though I did not support their bid back then, since I believed they could not pull it off (given their current financial situation, I was right), they were second place. The IOC however has a long line of questionable decisions behind it.

In conclusion, if Canada truly believes what it preaches to the world about human rights, we should have a complete and total boycott of the Olympic in Beijing. Lets establish ourselves as a world power by being the only nation brave enough to stand up to the red dragon and say "enough"!

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Earth Hour a Publicity Stunt

I remember way back when WWF meant a good smack down. Global warming shares a lot in common with pro wrestling, namely for showmanship and the fact that it's fake. The Luddites are at it again. The latest publicity stunt by a certain animal rights group wants us to turn all our lights off at 8pm on March 29th for an hour. It's been dubbed "Earth Hour". Supposedly turning all our lights off is going to save the planet. This certain group was originally created to preserve animal habitats but I guess they've been loosing publicity due to GW so have decided to hop on the bandwagon. How does one get attention in this day and age? Bring up GW of course. Earth Hour is nothing more than a publicity stunt that's more transparent than grandma's underwear. It does give me the opportunity though to find out which people on my street are utter morons. Personally, I intend to have my house lit up like the Griswalds' Christmas in protest. Toronto hopes 1 million people will join in but recent unscientific polls show that's not the case. 64% of CTV (liberal bias) viewers said they don't think the event will have any effect. A whopping 80% of Toronto Sun (conservative bias) readers said they would not participate. This gives me some hope that there is at least a majority of people in this world with their heads screwed on right. People smart enough to separate truth from brainwashing.

I really don't see how abandoning technology for an hour would do anything, even if global warming was real. Especially in Toronto where the vast majority of our electricity comes from nuclear and hydroelectric power, which don't emit carbon exhaust. Let the Luddites freeze in the dark for an hour, looking like fools. I'll be sitting here in the toasty warm glow of my electric lights, chilling with a couple video games, a hot cup of tea from my electric kettle, and my favourite albums.

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Are Study Groups Cheating? Ryerson Says Yes

Today, Ryerson university decided not to expel a first year engineering student for hosting a Facebook study group that was allegedly used by students to cheat on assignments. However, the university is still imposing academic penalties on the student, who will loose 20% of his year over this fiasco. You can read more details in the newspapers. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe this student has grounds for a lawsuit to get his 20% back. The whole incident also exposes who far behind the most "progressive" institutions are in this country.

Sites like Wikipedia and Facebook are popular among university students. The latter is a social networking site. Recently, many students have been setting up Facebook study groups to discuss notes and assignments without actually having to meet. Gone are the days of the long hours in the small rooms at the library, though universities haven't seemed to realize that yet. I don't use social networking sites, but I can't side with the university on this issue. It's absolutely ridiculous and a colossal waste of time on Ryerson's part. How is such a group any different from the students meeting at the library and working on the assignment together? According to them, this is cheating too but those groups aren't the ones being attacked. It's also worth noting that this particular student had only started the group and wasn't responsible for the posts in question. Seems to me he is just being made the black sheep. In my opinion, no academic offense was committed here. The university acted irresponsibly and should be made to reimburse this student's year, the money he spent fighting this, plus extra for them having sullied his good name. The whole issues just shows how technologically backwards today's academic institutions are in this day and age. Sure, they have all the latest gear but they're scared to death of it, and are hysterical students will use it to cheat. I think acts like this are punishing the majority for a small handful of people who would have cheated whether the technology was there or not.

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Full Metal Ignorance: Afghanistan is not Vietnam

Anti-war protesters, though with the best intentions, are quite misguided on the subject of the war in Afghanistan. The idea comes from the unwinable war that was Vietnam and that Afghanistan and Iraq are the same things. Lets forget Iraq for now and focus on the conflict Canada is involved in. Each time one of our soldiers is killed over there, there is a great deal of outcry about Canada being there in the first place. It stems from this idea that Canada is a peacekeeping nation, which simply is not true. In fact, Canada has been involved in comparatively few peacekeeping missions. We went in there as a response to 9/11. Canadians were killed on that day, and that was a legitimate act of war. The Taliban were the primary supporters of Al Qaida and hence, that was the belligerent nation responsible for the attacks. Some seven years later and the war continues long after the main fighting has ended. Are we really in a doomed circled of never ending violence as the anti-war people say or are we legitimately doing good? I say no to the first and yes to the second. First of all, wars simply do not end when the major fighting stops. World War 2 on it's grand scale took almost fifty years to be fully resolved after it officially ended in 1945. You can't honestly expect to go into a country and then just leave. That would be irresponsible and a crime against humanity.
Canada's main role right now is reconstruction in the most volatile Kandahar region. We are training their army and teaching them to build infrastructure in hopes that they will be able to regain full control soon. Remember that this country was a mess before we went to way with them. Arguable, the Taliban represented one of them most brutal and oppressive tyrannies that mankind has ever known. If we leave now, not only do we put years of progress down the drain, we risk condemning the Afghan people back to tyranny. This is not about imperialism or pushing western values on their culture. This is about human rights. Of course we all want the troops home as soon as possible but the anti-war people need to realize that this stuff doesn't happen over night.

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Green Hysteria = Tax Revenue Gold

I opened up the paper this morning and was met by yet another story on global warming. This one disgusted me more than most since the fears of many GW debunkers are coming true. BC has become the first government in North America to institute the much dreaded carbon tax. Who will pay this tax? Not businesses but you, the ordinary citizen. Namely motorists and those who heat their houses with hydrocarbon fuels such as oil and natural gas. In other words, most BC residents will be footing this bill. The tax will be set at $10 a tonne of carbon dioxide, increasing the price of gas another 2.4 cents per liter. As you probably know, BC already has some of the highest gas prices in the country. They play to increase the tax to $30 over the next five years. They gave an example of a person driving a pickup truck $40,000 a year. This is a typical vehicle a construction worker or trades-person would drive. The tax alone would add another $500 to their fuel bill. I find that utterly outrageous. What makes this more upsetting is other provinces, particularly with less cool headed liberal governments will likely follow suit. Quebec is already talking about instituting a tax.

BC Finance Minister Carole Taylor said "We promised you green and today we deliver green." Noting that "This is an important turning point for B.C., and we think for Canada because we are out in front on this," she said, suggesting the new tax could raise up a new "social movement." So basically, this social movement means that already overtaxed Canadians will have to stretch their budgets even further in order to pay for a problem that does not exist? This is just another blatant cash grab by left wing governments looking for any excuse in the book to tax their citizens further. What makes this particularly outrageous is legions of people, brainwashed by the lies of the global warming people, will buy into it and gladly pay. This needs to stop NOW. I personally refuse to pay any carbon tax, regardless of the consequences, because I feel that the government should not be using fraud to extort even more money for citizens. This is wrong and yet nobody can see it. Global warming is the biggest money making scam since the Papal indulgences of the 16th century. Scamming lower class people to pay for lavish expenditures. At least one man was smart enough to stand up and say that was wrong. Where is the Martin Luther of global warming?

Source: National Post

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Family Day Fraud

Back during the 2007 provincial election, I laughed at McGuinty's Family Day. Well, it's now coming up this Monday and a lot of debate is stirring over it. 40% of Ontarians will not be getting it off. As for myself, it replaces an existing holiday that was scheduled before Family Day was announced. So technically, I don't consider myself as getting Family Day off.

The issue was first brought up by the Toronto police services who noted that they were the only people on city staff who would not be getting the holiday. Other people not getting the day off include contracted union workers, retail staff, and many others in the private sector. Businesses had little time to prepare and adjust contracts so a lot of people have either the choice of working or not getting paid. The holiday itself is corrupt in its nature. It was brought up when McGuinty was starting to dip in the polls as a vote buying measure. A number of foolish Canadians seem to have bought his game but for the rest of us, tough luck. It seems to me to be more of a holiday for civil servants and school teachers. This group of people already gets more time off than anybody else. Days they get off that nobody else does include Remembrance Day, Boxing Day, the day after New Years, and Christmas Eve. Now they have one more to add to this longest list. I think we should give Family Day the boot. I personally refuse to celebrate a holiday that was created for purely corrupt political reasons. To me, it makes more sense to add a holiday in June instead of the middle of winter, since what's there to do in February?

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David Suzuki: To Protect Planet, End Democracy

If you're Canadian, chances are you're familiar with David Suzuki. He hosts the low rated CBC nature show "The Nature of Things". He also has a doctorate in genetics and holds the Order of Canada. Recently, he's become a very controversial figure due to his increasingly radical views on climate change. While on a university tour recently, Suzuki remarked at the University of Toronto that politicians who fail to act against climate change should be jailed. In his opinion, failure to act is a crime. A Freudian slip maybe? No, he reinforced the remark again while speaking at McGill. His publicist noted that his remarks should not be taken literally. I'm curious how they are meant to be taken though.

These remarks remind me of the movie Being John Malcovich, since it allows us to walk inside the reads of the radical environmental left. We'll take the assumption that his jail comment wasn't to be taken literally but it does show us one important factor. That being that Suzuki feels that democracy is harming his cause, and in order to stop that, we must eliminate democracy. If a democratically elected official does not agree with our agenda, then me must make him/her "disappear". We've long been joking that denial of global warming has become equated to denial of the holocaust, but it seems like people such as Suzuki are making that closer to a disturbing truth. Terry O'Neill of the National Post wrote "We should also not be surprised at the intolerance that permeates Suzuki's "lock 'em up" rhetoric. After all, despite the multicultural mantra that we "celebrate our differences," there's a disturbingly illiberal tendency these days (as shown in the recent "human-rights" prosecutions of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, for example) to censor those with whom one doesn't agree. It's only a very small step to try to throw such disagreeable persons into prison, too. " Due to how weak the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is on ensuring our Section 2 rights, I would tend to agree.

I refer to people like Suzuki as eco-fascists. I don't use fascist to only define right-wing since I believe there are left wing fascists. Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zhedong, and Kim Jong Il are perhaps the best known. It's becoming increasingly totalitarian and it's almost taking on a religious mantra. It would not be an issue if there weren't sizable portions of the population taking people like Suzuki seriously. The issue has come to dominate the left, yet at the same time is rejecting nearly everything the left wing supposedly stands for in the west. The deniers need to begin protesting and becoming more vocal, to stand up to radicals like Suzuki. Let them know that they are wrong and their trash is no longer going to be tolerated. No liberty, no green.

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Afro-Centric Schools: TDSB's Jim Crow

It's ironic on the month that people in the US are celebrating his life, Dr Martin Luther King Jr must be turning in his grave. On Tuesday night, the Toronto District School Board, in an 11-9 vote approved of afro-centric schools. The pilot project will begin with three schools in September 2009. It's ironic that this decision was made by a socialist board that vocally advocated egalitarianism in every other issue.

This whole thing just boggles the mind. So we're going to take black kids out of the regular schools, place them in a school with only black kids, then put them in the real world back with everybody else and hope they do okay? Mind you, the United Stated ran a similar program in the south-east. Unfortunately, the program was ended in the 1960s due to those racist civil rights activists who demanded that black people shouldn't receive special treatment. The difference here is that all kids can go to these schools, in theory. In reality, we know that parents of children of other races will not likely enroll their kids in an afro-centric school.

The message I'm getting from the TDSB is that black kids are indeed inferior to kids of other races. This is why they need special treatment focusing on their special needs. It's almost as it the TDSB is dealing with bunch or retards. This plan reeks of Jim Crow even though it was developed with the best of intentions. As the old adage goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Not only is this "un-Canadian" in our supposedly multi-cultural society, the big question now is where does it stop? Will we now have to have Asian based schools, or Indian based schools? John Tory was chastised by the Liberals in the last provincial election for wanting to bring public funding to religious schools. Now the TDSB brings public funding to race based schools and the Liberals seem to be okay with it. This once again exposes McGuinty as the weak leader he is. If he truly practiced what he preached in the last election, the province would have shut this plan down as soon as the vote was tallied. McGuinty has said he will not allow these schools to open in any other boards but that does not go nearly far enough.

Once again, the afro-centric schools are a left wing band-aid solution to a major problem. As I have said, the problem I believe with black youth is internal to their own culture. Just ask people like Bill Cosby who has been saying that for years but usually gets ignored or called an "elitist". They've bought into this lie, developed by their own people no less, that they are unable to compete with whites due to systematic racism. These schools only further reinforce such a lie. To not live in the ghetto, poor and uneducated is not the "black way". Afro-centric schools don't help because the real world is not Afro-centric. It doesn't matter if the black person ends up working for a white person, or an Asian, or an Indian. Your culture means squat when you get out into the actual working world. I really don't see how these schools are going to serve these kids, or ensure their success after graduation. They may reduce dropouts, but they're setting them up for unrealistic expectations in the future. Only the black community can solve it's internal problems and these schools are not part of that solution.

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Things I've Learned About the Environment

After much study into this whole environment thing, I've managed to compile a list of things I've learned about it, and how truly catastrophic global warming is. I thought I'd share them with the blogosphere in one handy dandy compressed form.

1. Al Gore is not a scientist, serially...
-Shocking. Despite his seemingly prophetic insight into planetary climate cycles, Al Gore does not hold a science degree. Mr. Excelsior does hold a BA in government though from Harvard. People who go to Harvard automatically know everything, like Pierre Trudeau. Turdeau (oops, Trudeau, Freudian slip) didn't make a movie though. People who make movies are basically living gods.

2. The scientific method is only a loose set of guidelines...
-Rules are meant to be broken. The scientific method is just a guideline, like the speed limit or that sign that says "high voltage". Having your hypothesis disproved is not a major failure, just make up a new one to fit. Warmer oceans make more hurricanes, no wait, less, no wait more...

3. Fear will keep the outlying systems in line, fear of this crisis...
-Lemmings don't really jump off cliffs like you see in cartoons. People on the other hand do. If you scare people enough, with perhaps doomsday, they'll follow you like a deer caught in the headlights. 2008 will be a good year for the IPCC Empire. It has seen the end of GW Bush and will soon see the end of the rebel alliance, of deniers.

4. Come to the dark side, we have cookies.
-I recently discovered I was the spawn of Satan. I live in the suburbs, drive a non-hybrid car, shop at Wal-Mart, vote Conservative, and I "deny" global warming. I'm public enemy number one on Greenpeace's blacklist. Well, at least I hope I am. You haven't really made your mark on the world without having a price on your head. In the mean time, I want my Sith name to be Darth Denego, lord of denial. Bow before your master. [shocks Al Gore with Force Lightning]

5. Let's see: Tide...Cheer...Bold...Biz...Fab...All...Gain...Wisk...
-A clean mind is a happy mind. If you want people to believe the "truth", bombard them with it 24/7. They'll be happily brainwashed before long. If not, you can imprison them in the Miniluv for some "special rehabilitation" and a full frontal lobotomy. Make sure to get them while they're young too. Barney says you should poor sugar in your parents' car's gas tank. Those mean ol' polluters.

6: SILENCE! You're talking too loud...
If you don't like what people are saying about you or your theories, the best way to deal with them is to shut them up. Discredit them by dragging their good name through the dirt, even if they are right, or just outright make them "disappear". Stalin knew this. Science isn't about debating things anyway. They're always right.

7. Money = √Evil
I remember reading somewhere that Greenpeace made $1 billion last year. That's a hefty chunk of change for a non-profit group who's members look like that homeless guy who was living under the Gardiner Expressway. These are the same people who rail the deniers for receiving funds from the oil companies. GW is big business. By the way Exxon, where's my Cheque?

8. Maybe I'll make a movie. A movie starring me. Then people will take me super serial...
-Speaking of money, Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" raked in $50 million world wide since its release. According to the IMDB, it placed only seventh out of the most searched documentaries in the last week. Ironically, One Night in Paris placed first. I think it had a more believable story and better acting. Maybe Gore should go back to his search for ManBearPig. He's had more luck finding him than finding the truth about GW.
Well, as I said, people in movies and or on TV are near gods. Just ask David Sazuki who's low rated CBC nature show qualifies him to talk in depth about climatology. Anything ending in -ology though must mean the person is correct about everything, like Tom Cruise and his Scientology.
Also, has anybody noticed a dramatic decline in Discovery's science news program Daily Planet. I thought that show was about science, not fiction? Shouldn't it be moved to the Comedy Network?

9. I enjoy a nice steam bath in the sauna after a good workout...
-The local news likes to show pictures of "smoke" rising from the Stelco plant in Hamilton in order to illustrate pollution, or smog, or global warming. If anybody bothered to learn how steel is made, they'd know it's plain old steam, not smoke. Water is used to quench the hot steel and Stelco needs lots of it. Last time I checked, steam was made of water, not CO2, and water evapourates into big clouds when it gets hot.

Well there you have it. Nine things I've learned in my studies. Message to GW fanatics. You may now feel free to send me hate mail. I can guarantee your opinion will get as much respect from me as mind does from you.

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Put A Stop to 24hr Shopping

A lot of the big box stores not are going 24hrs. Got a hankering to fix your deck at 3am? Hop on over to the building supply store. Wal-Mart is open 24/7 for those who need to but an HDTV to watch the graveyard shift TV shows. This is certainly an interesting trend but its definitely having some major ramifications on society. As the world moves at a faster and faster pace, it seems like we need to be in demand at all hours of the day, every day of the year. As was argued in the Sun a couple of weeks ago, this 24hr shopping is harming us as a society because we're moving at a pace we're not designed for.

Then there are the other consequences. Crime and labour issues. Both are connected. Here in Milton, when shops began to open 24hrs, there was an increase in robberies. The old A&P was robbed less than a week after opening 24hrs. These stores are a magnet for crime since the tills are open but there are no witnesses in the store. People working the graveyard shift are usually naive teenagers who these criminals easily take advantage of. Continence stores and gas stations that are open late have always been the target of robberies. Why would Wal-Mart or the grocery store be any different in such circumstances? The issue with labour comes when these kids get hurt in the robberies, such as a young Quebec woman who was killed in a gas station robbery a couple years ago while she was working the graveyard shift.

I think it's time we looked at ourselves as a society. We need to slow down. No store needs to be open 24hrs a day. There's just not enough people doing shift work that justifies it. All these places do is attract crime. I think we need to ban 24hr shopping. That way, stores and the people who work in them won't be easy targets for would be criminals.

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Handgun Bans a Band-aid Solution

Big news in Toronto. Somebody got shot. Another innocent bystander, allegedly. That's two in a week. Once again, Dave is offering up another tall glass of his genuine Miller red. Want to stop gun crime? Why ban handguns of course. I've never been a big fan of guns. I don't own a gun, but I don't feel that banning them is the answer. It's just another typical liberal/socialist, quick fix, band-aid solution to a much larger problem.

My main issue with a handgun ban is that it ignores the basic reality of gun crime. That is that the vast majority of guns on the street are smuggled into Canada from other countries, most notably but not limited to the US. Miller et al like to claim that the majority of guns used in crimes have been stolen from legitimate gun owners, which simply isn't true. If this were the case, then these thefts are going unreported. I would estimate that stolen guns probably account for less than 10% of all guns used in crime, while legally registered guns probably account for less than 1%. Millers on a rant because one of the shootings in the past week or so was used by a legally registered firearm. So for him, all responsible gun owners who register their weapon, properly store it, and don't abuse it (the majority) should be punished because one person does something stupid. I don't really think this is so much of public safety issue but rather Miller up on his socialist soapbox again trying to force his beliefs on everyone else.

Gun crime continues for two reasons. First of all, it's very easy to smuggle weapons into Canada. There have been several stings at Pearson Airport alone in recent years that have uncovered massive amounts of drugs and weapons being smuggled into the country by the airport's own employees. Supposedly, it's so easy, one can simply mail a gun to Canada, no questions asked. The borders definitely need to be tightened to prevent this. Unfortunately, our border guards are more interested in making sure law abiding Canadian citizens are paying tax through the nose on goods they bought down south rather than making sure dangerous goods/people aren't getting in. Border guards and customs officials in this country are no more than glorified tax collectors. Half of them are students hired for the summer, and the majority of them are poorly trained. Our government needs to stop concerning itself with how much money it can squeeze out of its citizens and needs to start focusing on protecting us better.

The next issue, as brought up by Community Safety Minister Stockwell Day has to do with manditory sentences for gun crime. The law is there to stop gun crime but once again, the courts are the weakest link with their "hug-a-thug" attitudes. It's no wonder these people don't think twice. Half of these people in gangs who commit gun crime consider the law to be no more than a casual nuisance rather than something to be afraid of. They shoot somebody, they go to jail for a couple of yeas, they're back on the street, business as usual. Canada's justice system is a revolving door for dangerous offenders. I would say at least 10 years minimum for using a gun in a crime, preferably life. Judges need to realize that their primary duty is protecting people, not voicing their politics and not even rehabilitation. The only way we're going to to reduce gun crime and prevent us from turning into a "wild west" as has happened in US cities is to clamp down hard. Zero tolerance.

One final point has to deal with another obvious flaw in a handgun ban. These same liberals who want to legalize certain illegal narcotics aren't even using their same logic for guns. If the government regulates it, we'd be better off, right? Banning handguns won't stop anything. People will just continue to use black market weapons, use rifles and sawed off shotguns, or switch to knives and other melee weapons. As I said, there has to be zero tolerance. Clamp down on smuggling and make sentences stiff.

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More Grounds to Remove McGuinty from Office

An article in the Toronto Sun has suggested that Dalton McGuinty and several top cabinet ministers were directly involved with the slush fund scandal. This time, it has to do with $15 million of taxpayer money he gave to a Jewish organization, who's leader also happens to be wealthy and a top Liberal party member. Seems Ontario could have its own mini sponsorship scandal. It's unfortunate that this stuff didn't come out in the last election.
Of course it's in the Sun, which isn't exactly the world's best news source, but it does raise some questions.

With all the lies, deceit, and broken promises, why is McGuinty still premier? With record low turnout, neither McGuinty, nor any of the other provincial leaders, are legitimate. I think it's time a prompt and full public inquiry was called to investigate the Liberals, followed immediately by a general election.

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YCJA Unconstitutional

First post in some time. Unfortunately, this one begins on a sad note but also deals with the theme of censorship that I frequently discussed in 2007. Toronto's first homicide of the year saw a young, 14-year old girl stabbed and left for death in a snow bank. The accused killers are a 15-year old girl and her 17-year old boyfriend. At this point, these two have not been tried and details about the murder are yet to emerge in court. However, my point here is that the Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2001 is failing victims and Canadians as a whole. Furthermore, I believe it to be unconstitutional.

In Canada, youth under 18 are protected from adult sentencing and having their identities released to the public. The goal of the YCJA was to protect young people who make mistakes such as stealing a car or taking drugs. I think the majority of Canadians agree that young people make mistakes and shouldn't have their names forever dragged through the dirt for trivial issues. The problem comes when the same treatment is applied to youths who commit violent crimes such as armed robbery, assault, attempted murder, and murder. Such crimes are not mistakes and you can't honestly tell me these kids didn't know what they were doing. Youths convicted of these crimes will only go to jail for a maximum of five years in a youth facility. Most will not see the inside of a prison. Furthermore, they are entitled to a full university education at these facilities worth up to $100,000, courtesy of the tax payer. What makes the latter infuriating is the huge number of law abiding youths struggling to pay tuition and student loans. The newspapers have dubbed this the "hug-a-thug" attitude. It seems in general that our justice system, judges in particular, are not taking violent crime seriously.

The last straw for this unjust law is the fact that the YCJA is unconstitutional. It violates Section 2b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The section that guarantees "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication." Shielding youth who commit violent acts such as cold blooded murder is not a reasonable limit on Section 2b. The public has the inalienable right to know who these people are in order to protect themselves, especially from violent youths who have a high risk of re-offending. Any justice who tells you otherwise should be immediately removed from the bench. Once again, judges are the weakest link. This is blatant censorship by the justice system. A system that has a long track record of not fully disclosing its practices. The goal here is not to expose youths who have made the mistakes, those who have summary convictions. Those who knowingly commit indictable, violent crimes are a whole other story.
While on this topic, I'd like to discuss the failure of the media as well. If they know the names of these youth, it is their duty as responsible journalists to report them no matter what punishment the government has for it. The fact that the media is complying with this unconstitutional law only shows how apathetic, partisan, and weak journalism has become in this country.

I doubt any of this will change soon. The justice system is filled with hardcore liberals who use their position on the bench as their own political soapbox. Anybody who thinks judges in Canada are impartial is only fooling themselves. Once again I reaffirm my past proposal for a non-political, civilian body of inquiry that reviews questionable decisions of judges. Furthermore, the same body should be in charge of appointing and confirming judges in order to avoid patronage and politics from entering the courtroom. This is how things are done with the Supreme Court in the United States.
Lastly the YCJA needs to be completely scrapped and replaced. The new act should include mandatory adult sentences for youth who commit violent crimes. The act also needs to remove the censorship aspect for those who commit indictable crimes.

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Shocking Allegations

The big story of the past couple of weeks has been over Tasers and whether or not they should be used by police. This comes after the death of a Polish man at Vancouver airport after he was allegedly shocked by police. Let's start with the basics. Taser is a brand name for a device that's commonly referred to as a stun gun. The device sends 20,000 volts of electricity into a person's body via two electrodes causing muscle contractions and rendering a person immobile. Getting shocked hurts a lot but doesn't cause any lasting effects. That's because the amperage is too low to cause any damage. It works on the same principle as an electric fence. Tests by various safety auditors have show the Taser to be relatively safe. Police officers themselves are shocked as part of training to use the device. Still, some people have died from being shocked by a Taser.

By now, you've probably all seen the video of the Polish man. Judging by his facial expressions, he did not appear to be in a normal mental state. He tried to attack police and that's when they shocked him. Unfortunately, he died shortly after the shock was administered. This has sparked an outcry from the man's family, the government of Poland, and several advocacy groups. They now want Taser use by police banned and are demanding a full public inquiry regarding the issue. I can say now that such an inquiry, like most public inquiries, will be a complete waste of tax payer dollars. Interestingly enough, as one Toronto radio show pointed out, many of the people now calling for the banning of stun guns were the same people who called them to be brought in. The gun itself is a method of non-lethal force designed to control people who are violently resisting arrest. The two benefits are that it gives police something else to resort too other than their firearm, and it drastically reduces risk of injury to the officer and the criminal. Between 2001 and 2007, some 245 deaths occurred after an individual was shocked with the weapon world wide. Of those, only seven were believed to have been directly caused by the device itself. Based on these statistics, it cannot be proven that the device kills people. Doctors in BC aren't sure the Taser caused the Polish man's death. He could have had an underlying heart condition that nobody was aware of. In a situation of danger, can we really expect police to ask if some person is medically fit for the device to be used on them? Of course not. Should there be restrictions on the use of tasers? Of course. They should not be used on individuals who are not resisting police, on minors under 14, on the elderly, or as a method of torture. These are common sense. The fact is that the device does give police an alternative to using force that could harm someone. You can either shoot someone running away from police in the leg, which would cause permanent damage, or you can shock them. The police aren't out there using the device to randomly oppress and torture the public. That's not their job and they'd be fired it they did. Police need alternatives, and seven deaths world wide in six years is not enough to justify a ban.

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Censorship in 2007: Fahrenheit 8-12

Of course you can't examine censorship in the media without talking about book bans. The title of this article refers to Ray Bradbury's dystopia novel Fahrenheit 451, about a book burner in an anti-intellectual, hedonistic society. 451F is the temperature books supposedly burn at.

Now, our society has moved somewhat past burning books but the spirit of it is kept alive. The latest furor over a book comes with the Golden Compass, part of the "His Dark Materials" series written by Philip Pullmen. It is a children's fantasy book written for ages 8-12. It was originally published in 1995 according to Wikipedia, though it's only attracted attention recently due to an upcoming movie based on it. Now, what makes this particular book so controversial is the supposedly anti-religious overtones in it. Now, I haven't read it but I've heard enough commentary and analysis that I feel I can talk about it to some degree. The Catholic Church is perhaps the most vocal critic. Other religious figures feel the book should be banned from schools, other want it banned entirely. The Catholic League in the US has been waging a sort of holy war against it. According to leader William Donahue it "denigrates Christianity" and promotes "atheism for kids" and that the author is "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief." My response to this is so what? Organized religion seems to feel like it's under attack yet it is more visible and popular that it has been in decades. Moreover, if a child decides to become an atheist, why is that so wrong? Many religious people view this as leading children down a moral sewer and to eternal damnation. Apparently, that's justification for banning the book. Such statements are most likely made by people who are uncomfortable with their own faith.

It wouldn't be the first time Christians have tried to ban books for children for the same reasoning. The hugely popular Harry Potter franchise was heavily shelled by these people since it was claimed to promote black magic and the Wiccan religion. Same goes for R.L Steine's Goosebumps series. For once in ages, we are actually getting kids to read without forcing them and they put it down as being evil. Fortunately, banning books is illegal in this country as well as in the united states due to Freedom of Expression rights. Of course there's always the perennial anti-censorship argument that societies that burn books will eventually burn people. I agree with this statement, though not necessarily in the literal sense. Atheism has been under heavy attack to the point of persecution in the US and many other countries for a number of years. Mind you in the US, some atheists certainly aren't helping their cause by trying to counter religion. In this case, passive resistance works best. If the Golden Compass is anti-religious, it brings up the chance for parents to discuss religious issues with children once they get older, instead of shielding them from criticism. People need to be exposed to new ideas so they can reaffirm their views. If they choose to change them, so be it. Banning books is not the answer.

Myself, I do not believe in god and I will defend atheists. I will also defend Christians in cases such as attempts to ban nativity scenes and such. Freedom of speech is an inalienable right. Neither side of the religion debate has the right to take it away from the other, and nor should they.

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Kincardane Bridge Collapse Worrying

It's unfortunate that this news story has not received more press than it has. A bridge in Bruce County Ontario collapsed yesterday, seriously injuring at least one construction worker. My inside sources have told me that what's being reported on the TV and in the papers is not the truth of the story. Here's the story. Workers were pouring concrete on the bridge deck around noon and were almost finished. When the pour is almost finished a "screeding" machine moves across the bridge to smooth out the wet concrete. The weight of the machine moving across the bridge caused it to collapse. It appears that the pillars holding the deck up gave way under the added weight. Perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of this incident was that fact that I know the person who was operating the screeding machine. I would call him an acquaintance. I've met him on a few occasions. Seems like a nice guy. He runs a business that does just that, smooths concrete on bridge decks. My family running our own bridge construction business uses his business as a near exclusive sub-contractor. He is one of the few companies that does this smoothing who actually owns... well, owned his own equipment. The machine was destroyed yesterday. He had to be airlifted to hospital with serious injuries, though what these exact injuries are I do not know yet. It is a miracle nobody was killed in the collapse.

We've been in the bridge construction business as a family for 15 years while my father has been in it for near 30 years. Not once have any of our bridges failed. It is very rare that they do. However, very few of these incidents are freak accidents. A lot goes on in the nether world of construction that most people are totally unaware of. Our business has tried to focus on quality work and maintaining steady profits rather than sheer volume. However, this sort of thinking makes us dinosaurs. A lot of outfits now focus on sheer volume of jobs, often cutting corners or using unskilled (read cheap) labour to get the job done for the lowest cost possible. These people run into nothing but trouble using this business model, falling deep into the red, using money from one contract to pay for others (which is illegal), and running jobs far behind schedule. The bridge that collapsed was already three months behind schedule and only 80% complete at the time.
I won't name names but these people know who they are. My father, who is a civil engineer, refers to these outfits as "cowboys". Unsophisticated people who have no business doing the work they're trying to do. In some cases, these companies may not even hire engineers to make sure the job is safe. They also cut corners in terms of material and men in order to reduce job costs further. This leaves a vast number of our province's bridges with a questionable safety record.

Are Ontario's bridges safe? The answer is a definite no. Ontario's bridges are a ticking time bomb. What happened in Minneapolis, Minnisota this past summer should have been a wakeup call, but it wasn't. We still have provincial and municipal governments who refuse to allocate more funds to improve our infrastructure. They choose to go for the cheapest contractors rather than investigating their quality and reliability and are surprised when they run into the issues I mentioned above. Governments are purely satisfied with shoddy construction or patch work jobs that just barely extend the life of roads and bridges a few more years. Sure, it costs them more in the long run but they don't seem to care. Owners are not properly inspecting their jobs and sleazy contractors are getting away with blue murder. To paraphrase CTV's W-Five, it's an industry built on indifference. We have decided to retire from the industry at the end of this financial year simply because we can no longer compete against these crooked contractors.

It's not a question of "if" Ontario will experience a Minneapolis style bridge collapse, it's when. In fact, I think I can say with almost certainty that it will be some part of the raised portion of Toronto's Gardiner Expressway. Perhaps the most dilapidated structure currently in heavy everyday use in the province. It is rusted with rebar supports showing through chipped and rapidly deteriorating concrete. Imagine it's Monday morning during rush hour. Traffic on the Gardiner is crawling, and so is traffic on the Lakeshore under it. You're sitting in your car on top of the highway when all of a sudden you hear a loud groan that drowns out your radio. Next thing you know your car is plummeting some 50ft to the ground below. The cars on top leave a mess of twisted metal and carnage while everyone on the Lakeshore below is crushed to death. Disturbing isn't it. Now, I'm no engineer and I know very little about bridge construction, but it doesn't take an expert to see this coming. If you think such a thing is unlikely think of it this way. They were almost finished pouring the concrete for the Bruce County job yesterday. What if they had completed it without this happening? The structure will still be too weak. A tractor trailer or dump truck or a row of cars weighs a lot more than a single concrete screeding machine. Steady traffic causes a lot more stress, particularly over time. It very well could have weakened and collapsed after it was finished when people were driving on it. I think it's time the Minister of Transportation comes up with some answers. Our governments and the contractors they are hiring are playing a dangerous game with our lives. The safety of our roads and bridges should not be left up to a craps shoot.

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Censorship in 2007: Regulation of the Internet Dangerous

A group of artists based in Quebec has determined that the internet needs to be regulated to protect Canadian content and should be subject to the same rules as TV and Radio. I ask, is this really necessary? There's the obvious argument here that Canadians aren't interested in Canadian content at all. The proof in the pudding is all the Canadian programs on the CBC that get very low ratings yet remain on the air just because it's Canadian content. Is such regulation really protecting Canadian culture or is it just another form of censorship?

Canada is unique in that we are supposedly a multicultural society. I argue that based on this, regulation of TV, radio, and the internet in order to preserve Canadian content is inherently un-Canadian. We are supposed to be embracing other cultures and any limits placed on our ability to do so is counter to this. So what if we are swallowed by American culture. We already have been. This art group is only attempting to have the internet regulated because they are not good enough to compete on the global stage. It's typical socialism. If we can't compete, lets force everyone else out.
Regulating the internet to require a certain amount of Canadian content is an impossible task since it is so large and there are literally billions of websites in existence. The only way to do so would inherently require censorship by blocking websites from the states or forcefully redirecting Canadians to Canadian websites even though they do not want to visit them. The CRTC already does this forceful redirection with TV broadcasts and that too is wrong. The internet was supposed to be an open arena to access information. Any kind of regulation or censorship is dangerous and un-Canadian.

Besides, as the internet is an open arena, there are no restrictions on what Canadian content can go up there. Professer of Law and Technology Michael Geist at UofO correctly pointed out that there is a lot of Canadian content online and a lot of it is from Quebec. In fact, Canadians are some of the biggest internet users on the planet, all adding their thoughts and creative ideas to forums, podcasts, Wikipedia, Youtube, etc. All this is viewable by anybody in the world, unlike TV and Radio. Also unlike those other two mediums, putting content online is relatively cheap. It costs nothing to post an art film on Youtube so why would they need government regulation and subsidies to help them. Based on the National Post article, scholars are not on board with this. Once you open the door to regulation, it doesn't end there. Not only do you start regulating what content goes up there, but who can post it and what kind of content is allowed and what isn't. This same issue is strongly evident with the issues over the FCC in the united states where a bureaucracy and a handful of special interest groups control what's exceptable to put on TV and radio. If you regulate the internet for any purpose, you destroy it.

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Nobels Show How to Delegitimze a Prestigious Award

More election stuff on the way. I'm working on a huge article on electoral reform but I just had to comment on this. Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize. For those who don't know, the Nobel Prize is given to those who are supposedly the greats in their field for that particular year in chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace.

The peace prize was first awarded in 1901 and is quite the prestigious list. Rounding out some of the more known figures and organizations are the Red Cross, Woodrow Wilson, Lester B Pearson, Martin Luther King Jr, UNICEF, Mother Teresa, the UN Peace Keeping Forces, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dali Lama, Amnesty International, Yasser Arafat, and Jimmy Carter. It's quite a list of names and accomplishments, which makes my seriously question why Al Gore was given this award. Gore shares the award with the International Panel on Climate Change. Wikipedia provides a long and handy list of reasons why the awards were given to particular organizations or individuals. All were awarded for their efforts towards world peace or humanitarian causes, all except for Gore and the IPCC. The Nobel Prize Commission's reasoning states that Gore received the award for his "efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

The Nobel Peace Prize is not one without controversy. What makes Gore getting the award different is it was given not for world peace but for global warming. Gore is neither a scientist, nor has fought for world peace. Maybe he could win the literature award for best fiction if he wrote a novelized version of "An Inconvenient Truth". To me, this award seems to be purely politically motivated, which goes against the whole principle of awarding the prize. While most people don't care, I do because Gore has been spreading lies about climate change. Even the British courts have shown this, banning his movie from British classrooms due to nine major flaws in his argument. The movie can only be shown if the other side is presented, since it's considered a non-academic editorial piece. The prize should be revoked and handed to someone more deserving. I'm sure there is someone out there that has made major contributions to world peace and humanitarian issues, if the prize committee had done their job and bothered to look.

Climate Change is the biggest danger to the world today. Not because it is real, because it is not. It is dangerous due to the left wing propaganda campaign it has become. People like Al Gore are only using it to fuel hidden agendas and to gain wealth and political power. Wake up and smell the green crap.

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Time to Bring in Compulsory Voting

Yesterday's Ontario election saw the lowest turnout in the provinces history. I had originally estimated 60% based on unofficial results, however, the actual turnout was closer to 50%. I would call this election illegitimate based on that factor alone, since that was not a majority. I think Canadians, all Canadians, should be ashamed by these numbers. It seems to be a growing trend. Federal numbers aren't too bad but turnouts at the provincial, and especially the municipal level are unacceptably low. I believe it is time to bring in mandatory voting.

Mandatory voting is one of many electoral reforms that has been proposed for Canada in recent years. Some countries of note that use this system are Australia, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Greece, and Switzerland. In these countries, the punishment for not voting is usually a nominal fine. The system itself is highly controversial for a number of reasons. However, I believe the controversy to be unwarranted. Lets take a look at the reasons why people aren't voting, then the pros and cons of the system. I will be arguing in favour of it.

I believe one of the primary reasons for not voting to be simply laziness. People simply can't be bothered to do their civic duty, since they're so self absorbed in their own lives. This is the truth, however, it doesn't tell the whole story, particularly with turnout skewed towards the federal level. The irony about that is that in such a highly regionalized country as Canada is, more people tend to vote at the national level then the local one. Logically, it would be the other way around. Some political scientists have attempted to explain low turnout by saying that it's due to satisfaction with the status quo. I don't buy this, as logically, people would be mobilized to maintain it, rather than leaving the decision up to others who could possibly change things. The problem with many political scientists is they don't actually go out and talk to your average citizen. I do, and from what I've heard, people are highly dissatisfied with the status quo, but, they do not like any of the alternatives. Now, I'm no expert in the field as some of your supposed pundits and PhDs are, but this tells me something they seem to have trouble grasping. That is that leadership choices political parties are making are weak. Also, political parties are failing to gain the confidence of the people no matter who runs. Most people are unaware that they can spoil their ballot and that spoiled ballots are counted, even if it is off the record. The spoiled ballot count can be used to gauge the level of dissatisfaction.

So what if we were to impose compulsory voting. Everyone 18 and over who is a Canadian citizen would be automatically added to a the voters list. They can either vote or pay a fine if they do not. Some would argue that this is counter democratic since it's the government essentially forcing people to vote. Others say that having the uninformed vote is a dangerous prospect. I don't agree with those statements. First of all, people not voting is far more dangerous than forcing people to vote because it leaves decisions that effect everyone to increasingly smaller majorities of people. A parliament that was elected by only 50% of people does not fairly reflect society and it's current needs and values. Therefore, it is actually less democratic not forcing people to vote. The current system is ok if people are being mobilized on their own.
As for the issue of uninformed voters, I believe this to be a double failure by both the education system and the media. First of all, Ontario high schools do not dedicate enough class time to political science, aka civics. When I was going through high school, they had just brought ina mandatory civics course. However, it was only a two month half course. At university level, a basic political science course is usually two semesters long. I guess they would rather focus on more important subjects like PhysEd and Art rather than teaching kids the basics of the democratic system they live under. Ideally, I would like to see civics and law be made mandatory course in the Ontario curriculum. Civics should be a full semester. Also, there needs to be more political science offerings at the high school level at the higher grades to allow kids to further pursue the topic. Getting people interested in politics at a young age would go a long way to stamping out the apathetic and uninformed citizenry that has been plaguing the democratic process in Canada.
The media too needs to do a better job. Rather than just hiring these talking heads who drone on, they need to engage people more. Make it more interactive, and not just through online polls. The media devotes maybe only five minutes to politics on most evening news casts, yet 15min to sports. Lack of media involvement was directly responsible for much of the confusion regarding the mixed member referendum in Ontario. Once again, the media needs to be getting younger people interested. I praise efforts like Diddy's (aka Sean Colmbs) "Vote or Die", who try to mobilize young people to the polls but they still don't get them talking about the issues. That needs to change. I believe the media does have a responsibility to the public to perform such duties.

So with these failures and citizens' apathy, we need to bring in compulsory voting. We need to get people mobilized. The way I would do it is implement the Australian method. Australia is a good model to use since out of all commonwealth countries, it is the most similar to Canada both politically and historically. It's simple. If you don't vote, you have to pay a nominal fine. While fines usually don't work it will get a few more people out in the polls, since most people hate paying fines in any amount. A side benefit to the fines is that they could be used to pay for operating the election itself. A second reform would be to add a "None of the Above" choice to the ballot. Some US states use this. If None of the Above gets a majority of votes, a new election is automatically called. The problem with spoiled ballots is there is no way to tell if the person did it deliberately or accidentally. A "None of the Above" choice would count voter dissatisfaction officially. Thirdly, I think we need to make election campaigns longer. Though most people get sick of hearing it, I think one month is not long enough to properly discuss the issues. With most of Canada moving towards fixed election dates, extending campaign length is no longer the issue it once was. In the US for example, presidential campaigns start more than a year prior to the election. I'm not saying we should take it to that extreme, but 2-4 months is more appropriate. It gives citizens more time to think over choices and ask more questions and it allows politicians to reach more people in person. If we implement these choices, I believe they will go a long way to reversing declining voter turnouts.

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Ontario Election: No Change from 2003

Ontario lost today's provincial election. The only people to blame in this are the stupid Canadians. Those who would hand the Liberals another majority even after they've lied and stolen from you. This has been the most disgraceful election campaign I have ever seen. Ontarians voted clearly and they're saying: we want four more years of corruption, we want four more years of oppressive taxes, we don't care about the real issues. This election has shocked political analysts due to it's bizarre twists which morphed it into a one issue campaign about.

Now that I've lambasted you for being morons and gotten my sour grapes out of the way, lets turn to analysis. Results sit at 70 seats for the Liberals, 26 for the PC, and 11 for the NDP. The popular vote mirrors polls taken earlier in the month with 41%, 31%, and 17% respectively. From the last election, the Liberals lost one seat while the PC and NDP saw some small gains. The Green party did not win any seats but saw major gains in the popular vote, 8.3% up from 2.8%. Liberals actually lost traction in the popular vote from 2003, down five points from 46%. I've rounded off the percentages to the nearest whole number for simplicity's sake. We're basically where we were four years ago. No major changes. Once again, we see Toronto tipping the scales in favour of the Liberals, which gives them an unfair advantage in my opinion. I believe this us due to high numbers of recent immigrants (those who arrived from the Trudeau years to present) in these areas, who have traditionally voted Liberal.
The surge in the popularity of the Greens is also something worth considering. I believe they will continue to pull support away from Liberals provided the environmental movement maintains it's momentum. They likely won't effect the PC and NDP though, as this election has shown. These particular parties appeal to business and labour respectively. The environment is not traditionally an area of major concern for these two groups. The Greens strike a balance between the Liberals and PC ideology wise. They are not a single issue party, though environmentalism is a major bargaining chip.
As for turn out, I was watching the riding by riding results pop up on the TV. Results as a whole aren't available yet. 60% seems to be the average, though I consider this quite low. I would prefer to see at the very least 66% (two thirds) of voters turn out. In my opinion, an election cannot truly be legitimate if it doesn't get that amount of people turning out, since 40% is still a sizable chunk of the population. I believe it all boils down to people being too lazy. At the very least, you should spoil your ballot if you don't like any candidates. Spoiled ballots are counted, even though they don't effect the outcome. They still work by sending a message than you don't approve of anyone.
My own riding or Halton was a bit of a scare, originally reporting a Liberal victory, but it is officially a PC one. Halton has become a political football in recent years, especially after the Turner incident at the federal level. We're still without a federal MP in my opinion, since Turner is not legitimate.

One of the big things was the referendum, the first since the 1930s. Fortunately, the status quo has been maintained with 63% in favour of the First-Past the Post system compared to 37% for the Mixed Member. On this subject, I believe that Ontarians were poorly informed about the question. The pamphlet issued was of poor quality and TV ads only informed Ontarians to "understand the question" rather then explaining to them what it was about. I believed the media utterly failed on informing the public about the issue. The mixed member system is a complicated system. Despite the other problems relating to corruption which I mentioned a few months back, I believe it to be simply too complicated. I've seen textbooks that dedicate several pages to just explaining the basics of this system. It's Occam's Razor: the simplest answer is usually the best. Also, it would not lead to better democracy under our current system, since the smaller parties would still have no real power. Everything works in theory, but mixed member would have simply created more headaches than it's worth. If you truly do want to make Ontario more democratic, you would have to scrap the parliamentary system entirely and replace it with a US-based republic, or go with the full proportional system. The latter of which is used in a lot of European countries, but is prone frequent to political deadlocks.

So what does the next four years hold. I expect more of the same. Ontarians have shown that they're highly resistant to change. I believe McGuinty's first win was purely the result of strong dissatisfaction with the Harris government. I expect the turmoil from that last 20 years will start to cool down. Will this mean a "big red machine" is on the horizon. Perhaps, though it's far too early to call that. McGuinty is also riding on a time when the economy is relatively strong. If he continues more of his crap and we enter a recession, it may spell the end for him. Fortunately, this time he won't be able to break his promises, considering he made none to begin with.
As for John Tory, I think it would be best for him to resign as PC leader. He held to the religious school funding issue, even though he did not even have majority support in his own party. While his change of heart on the issue does show he listens to majority, the issue as a whole only provided cannon fodder for McGuinty. If he could not get the majority of his party to agree to it, the issue should have been dropped before it became public. That's a poor way of doing things. It would be wise for the PC party to elect a leader who is a veteran MP rather than a newcomer. Especially considering that Tory had already lost a major election campaign to become Toronto's mayor.
I would like to see Howard Hampton stay on as NDP leader, since I feel he was the only strong leader out of the three major parties, and the only one willing to discus real issues. He is certainly a far cry from the weak leadership of Bob Rae

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Road Laws Tougher but...

I'd have to say that Canadians are some of the worst drivers around. I've been to Mexico, the US, Latin America and nobody drives as aggressively as we do. The summer of 2007 was one of the worst summers for road accidents in recent OPP memory. Indeed, you see bad driving everywhere from people tailgating, speeding, driving way too slow, forming the impenetrable wall of cars in the middle lane on the 401, illegally overtaking, drunk driving, the list goes on. A new set of laws went into effect a week ago that would see people driving 50km/h over the limit, street racing, or driving aggressively have their license revoked for one week and their car impounded. Some say this violates due process of the law but others feel it will send a message to people. The OPP has said that they are averaging one impound every 30 minutes on Ontario roads. Some 150 cars were taken off the road at last check. In my opinion, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It's rare you go out in your car now without having some sort of unpleasant experience due to dangerous driving. It seems drivers think they won't get caught or simply don't care. No matter how tough the fines are, people still do it. Case in point the deaths of two Brampton women last week at the hands of two young street racers driving daddy's cars. The women were killed when the younger brother attempted to illegally pass a dump truck on the gravel shoulder, and lost control. The incident triggered a chain reaction crash leaving two dead and a husband horrified as he watched his wife die. Now, you either have to be living under a rock to not know the OPP were out in full force targeting that kind of behaviour, or very arrogant to simply not care. They have been charged with criminal negligence causing death. The irony of the event is they received only minor injuries in the crash, likely because the one young man who caused the accident was driving an Audi, which are heavy vehicles that are built like tanks.

The problem with many of these dangerous driving cases once again happens in the courts. Take the case of the Toronto cabbie that was killed last year in a street racing incident. The two young men who killed him were given a slap on the wrist. Another incident that killed a Richmond Hill mother and father and the same kind of sentence was given. Once again, we have the tough laws there and the police are willing to enforce them, but the court system fails to treat such crimes seriously, even when guilt is proven far beyond reasonable doubt. I feel this is where things need to change. Until we get a court system that actually wants to apply the laws fairly, these incidents will continue.

Finally, we really do need more police on the road. Living in Halton, I rarely see the regional police patrolling the roads where as I see them all the time in Peel. The municipalities and regions are currently a road policing hole. There simply aren't enough cops out there enforcing the rules of the road. More need to be hired to do so. Also, the quota system should go for road infractions, in order to force police to target more serious vehicular offenders. Road safety should not be about how much money municipalities can make through fines.

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Weird Election Campaign Wrapping Up

I haven't posted anything for a few weeks, simply because this election campaign is just a joke. The Ontario election has turned into a one issue campaign on faith based schools. Though I disagree with this, it isn't a major concern, considering McGuinty's track record of outright lies and scandals. I'll say it, anybody that votes Liberal is simply an idiot. All they do is lie to you and take your money to give to their friends and to buy votes. If you vote for them, you deserve it, but I don't think it's fair to the other hard working people.

Howard Hampton put it correctly, trying to discuss the issues in this campaign is like trying to nail jello to a wall. So far, all McGuinty has done is discuss the faith based issue. That's despite long wait times, job losses, oppressive taxes, and a LONG list of broken promises from the 2003 election. Though I disagree with a lot of the NDP policies, Hampton seems to be the only strong leader who is willing to actually discuss the issues and what his party will actually do. All McGuinty does is toot his own horn about stuff he's never done. Opening, not closing hospitals?! What about trying to close Georgetown hospital and William Osler hospital in Brampton? Better education by dumbing down standardized tests to boost scores. He had to institute the health premium, the largest income tax increase in history, because he didn't know about the deficit?! He must have been the only person who didn't know about it. Has health care improved from the tax? Well, no it hasn't. No new nurses or doctors are being hired and wait times are still upwards of 9 hours in many hospitals. So basically, you're spending what amounts to 2-3 weeks worth of groceries to get no better service in return. Jobs lost, electricity rates going up, out of control urban sprawl, high tuition fees. All things McGuinty promised to change and never did. Why do we buy into this garbage that the Liberals keep feeding us? Why? Because the Liberals are good at telling people what they want. Ontarians, Torontonians in particular, are like lemmings, when one jumps off a cliff, the rest follow. Polls are putting the Liberals in a strong lead. I don't usually like to follow these polls since they're typically only focused on Toronto but they still paint a disturbing picture. Hopefully we'll end up with a minority government if the Liberals are given a win. If now, we're in for another four years of lies.

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