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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Premium Issues

Back in 2003, Dalton McGuinty promised, in writing that he would not raise taxes. He won that election and then proceeded to levy the biggest tax increase in Ontario history. That was the controversial Health Care Premium. The vast majority of people are unaware of how much health tax they are paying, since it's hidden within income tax. Knowing people who work within payroll, it actually equates to $700 - $800 on average. Surely this has improved health care, right? Well, no. Wait times are still high and there is still a doctor shortage. Some would say service is getting worse, and we're actually paying more for less. I agree with that. Even routine things must be booked months in advance. The health premium is one of many hidden taxes that Ontarians pay. Another example is the so called "debt retirement charge" on your hydro bill, which directly does into general revenue. If people would actually take the time to look at the Ontario government budget reports, they'd be surprised about where taxes come from and how much the government actually spends on things. The reports are freely available online.

So now that we're in election mode, the opposition is trying to make the health premium a major issue. Once again we have Dalton promising he will not raise taxes, but refusing make that promise on camera or in writing. Why should we believe him? On the other hand, you have John Tory planning to scrap the tax. Howard Hampton wants to cut the tax for low income families and plans to reduce it by $450 for middle income earners. Hampton's plan still doesn't solve the problem, since the tax is in place. McGuinty is still blaming Mike Harris, even though he knew about budget issues before he made the "no new taxed" promise.

I'm still a fan of two tier health care for solving the problem. It would give some extra income into the system since high income earners will use it instead. It would relieve some of the pressure on the public system, and the high income earners would still be paying tax into it. It would also give Canadian doctors more incentive to remain in Canada. To keep doctors working in the public sector, we could mandate that a doctor has to work so many hours a week in public hospitals and clinics to maintain a valid doctor's license.

As for the taxes themselves, I think we as Canadians simply pay way too much already. Governments are running surpluses. It's ok to save for a rainy day but the government is not and should not be a for profit organization. Europeans have high taxes but get far better public service. As it stands, Canada's health system is really no better than the US system in which we constantly attack. Sure, everyone is entitled to equal service here no matter their income, but by the same token, that equal treatment usually amounts to only the bare minimum, if that. There is nothing about Canadian health care to be proud about. Ontario is particularly bad since there are more people in the GTA than hospitals can handle, and it's usually the GTA hospitals who are capable of providing more advanced services. We're paying through the nose, having our savings whittled away, so the government can provide sub-standard services.

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Liberal, NDP Platforms a Joke

This election is turning into a three ring circus. There are no strong leaders and even weaker platforms. All three major parties have successfully managed to outrage me. The Liberals themselves are up to their usual antics. Dalton once again claimed he would not raise taxes, but according to CTV, when pressed by reporters he refused to make that promise on camera. This is a major red flag. He says he will review the controversial health tax, but has already refused to reduce or repeal it, making a review pointless cajoling of the electorate. For the spending McGuinty is doing, tax increases are very likely in the near future. I expect the same round of broken promises as we say last time around.
The liberals also plan a province wide ban on cosmetic pesticides. Products which are safe and legal according to the federal government. Such a ban would put hundreds of landscapers out of a job. Most of the other pledges are attempts to buy votes. $300 for university and college students for text books. A little too late for me. Another $3.1 billion by 2011 to an already well funded education system, likely for the sole purpose of increasing teacher salaries. I expect very little of that would actually end up in the class room. Also a ban on trans fats in school cafeterias. Also he plans to cut the PST on bicycles and helmets. Why not cut the PST on necessities instead like say food and clothing? Many US states don't pay sales tax on those items. From the looks of it, this platform seems to be targeting a specific group. It's heavy on the environment and social services, stuff that's only important too... you guessed it, the City of Toronto. Well not so much the city itself but the crunchy granola types that live there. Interestingly enough, there was no word of a financial bail out for the city, perhaps the only smart decision McGuinty has made. However, like so many Liberal election plans, Ontario ends at the Toronto city limits.

Now for the NDP. They're big on the environment. I've been repeatedly questioning why this is even an issue. One NDP plan is good, rapid rail on busy routes, though I expect only for Toronto. Howie also wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions by closing all coal power plants. One thing missing is new power plants. It's amazing that in such a society that it totally dependent on electricity that anybody would even consider reducing supply. Also he want to cut emissions on the road. I'm not sure what that means. The news report on CFRB didn't go into depth about it. In my opinion, the environment is not an important issue considering all the other crap that's been going on.

I still hold onto my 10 things I would like to see that I wrote back in June. So far no party is offering anything close. I have to say that the 2007 Ontario election is offering up the worst crop of politicians since the Peterson/Miller/Ray days. Unfortunately the alternatives to the big three don't have a snowball's chance in hell so it leaves many big questions of who to pick, or whether to vote at all. I cannot bring myself not to vote but I expect low turn out this time around. On that, I say this to McGuinty: a low voter turn out does not mean you're doing a good job.

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Religious School Funding a Bad Idea

I think this is one of the first election's I've experienced where I did not know who to vote for. It seems that all three candidates running for the major parties are poor. I usually vote conservative but John Tory has struck a nerve with me on the issue of religion and schools. I consider myself a secular conservative, a Libertarian Republican to borrow a US term.

I strongly believe that church and state should be separated. To use an extreme example, take a look at Iran of pre-2001 Afghanistan. The merging of church and state clearly has been a negative for those countries. Here we try to keep them apart, and so we should. That is why Tory's plan to extend funding to faith based schools bothers me. There are two reasons why it does. First of all, why do we need multiple education systems when the public system is fine as it is. School is supposed to prepare one for higher education or the job market, not for religious instruction. That's what church is supposed to be for. I have been a strong opponent of the Catholic school system for that reason. I'm not one of these people who wants "God" removed out of every government context like many atheists in the US however, I don't think its unreasonable to keep it out of schools. This is yet another case of multiculturalism run amok. This country spends way too much time and effort trying to please everyone, which is impossible.

Secondly, there are also numerous economic factors that make this a huge problem. The Ontario government spends a huge chunk of the budget on public education. Despite what Liberals and teachers would have you believe, it is a very well funded system. However, full funding to faith based schools would put a serious strain on the budget. Now you may be saying "But Mike, I choose which school I pay for through my property taxes." Maybe so but 100% of education is not funded that way. Most money goes into a single pot and is dolled out according to what these schools "need". They'll all want new buildings, their own texts, supplies, hire their own staff, etc. to fulfill their "special needs" as a faith based institution. All that costs money, money that has to come from somewhere. By doing this, we will cheapen the public system and then we really will have funding issues. I don't like the idea of my tax dollars going to fund a system that supports something I don't believe in. My tax dollars don't fund the local church or mosque. Why should they go to find religious schools?

Yet another thing regarding religion and schools mentioned by Tory as also upset me. He supports creationism in schools. In an article with the Toronto Sun, he noted that he supports evolution as part of the Ontario curriculum but also would like to see students learn about the alternatives. The problem with these "alternatives" is that they have absolutely no scientific merit. Where are we, Kansas? Evolution is a proven scientific theory. Creationism, or intelligent design, or what ever the hell you want to call it has no place in public schools.

I want Mike Harris back.

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Family Day?

Wow, just... wow. The Liberals actually think that making a statutory holiday in February will get Ontarians to give them their vote. While I've seen many tactics for buying votes, I have to say this is a new one. I have to say that this both disgusts and insults me at the same time. Quite a feat.

The sad part is, the Liberals may be onto something. The fact that this is even being discussed is a great piece of social commentary. It just goes to show how full of ourselves we must be that the Liberals would even consider this to have even an off chance of working.
The cause for these desperation tactics has become obvious. Back in January, I predicted that the Ontario Liberals would receive a minority government in the October election. Sure enough, that's where they stand right now. They hold 40% of the popular vote, which just stuns me after all the crap they've pulled, but this still isn't enough to claim a majority of seats in the legislature. The Liberals are hinging this holiday on that. They say that they will only make Family Day a statutory holiday if they are given a majority. This is essentially blackmailing voters.

Will this tactic work? Who knows. An informal internet poll done by CTV (with 350 respondents as of right now) shows that 69% will not change their vote based on this. Still, 31% said they would. While this only reflects CTV viewers, it presents a nice snapshot of our society. At least 108 people can be bought with something so cheap and selfish. It also seems to be an integral part of what's amounting to a poorly managed political campaign being put forth by the Liberals. In essence, McGuinty is just throwing last minute money at people in hopes of buying votes. This has what the Liberals have done time after time (more notably at the federal level) yet people still keep falling for it.

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Treason of Seoul

South Korea has greatly put the Afghan mission in danger. They did the one taboo in international politics, negotiating with terrorists. As such, the lives of both civilian and military personnel in Afghanistan, including Canadians, have been put in great danger.
Back in February 2002, South Korea sent a token amount of 99 troops on the mission. Canada has about 2500 troops in the country and is one of the few that allowed to actively engage the Taliban. If South Korea wanted out, there were better ways to do so. They weren't doing anything useful anyway. You really can't with so few in such a large country.

This past summer, several Korean Christian missionaries were captured by the Taliban and held for ransom. As difficult and seemingly heartless a concept to grapple, the responsible thing to do would have been to allow them to be killed. It's a very difficult decision for a government to make because on one hand you have citizens and family from your own country demanding action while on the other, you have to look out for the greater good. By not negotiating and allowing them to either be killed or forcing their release, you loose moral high ground domestically but gain it internationally. Negotiating with terrorism serves the opposite effect, and also sends a powerful message to the criminal actors. You're basically saying that terrorism works. The Taliban now believe that this is an effective means of getting their way.

The Taliban itself has one goal, to restore itself as the rulers of Afghanistan. Most Afghans don't seem to want this. Before 2001, the Taliban regime was perhaps the most oppressive government in the world, perhaps exceeding the brutality of the North Koreans. The difference between the Taliban and Kim Jong Il is that at least the later tries to cover up atrocities. Since then, a small amount of progress has been made. Small in North American eyes anyway yet huge to the people there. Not without struggle and dissent within the country of course but nobody said it would be all smiles and sunshine. Military strikes have been making dents in the Taliban, weakening their resolve. Then South Korea does this. Effectively that act boosted the morale of the Taliban, they will fight harder, more brutally, and use more terror tactics. You'll see plenty of Iraqi style kidnappings and murders after this point in conjunction with the increasingly popular roadside bombing tactic. (As a side note, the Taliban likely does not know much about what's going on in Iraq and the tactics their counterparts are using.)

Make no mistake, the South Korean government is responsible for what will inevitably come. They have put everyone in that country at serious risk. I think its important to note that the group that was there, a Christian mission group, should not have been there to begin with and despite any good work they were doing. Naturally, the Taliban would assume they were trying to convert Afghans to Christianity, which is likely what made them a target. They were almost asking to be captured. When it comes to war like this, there are no rules. Korea must be held responsible, either financially or through some other means, for any future problems their actions will cause.

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Gangs of Toronto: Troubled Youths or Mafia

I talked about Toronto's gang problem a couple years back during the so called "summer of the gun" in 2005. The whole thing has remained a major problem facing the city and Canada at large as violence seems to spill outwards into the suburbs and even rural communities. There have been numerous efforts to curb the violence but all have failed. In this article, I'll look at why this is.

Imagine you're Don Michael Corleone. You've grown up around crime and after years of resisting you decide to join the family business. The government's response to you doing this is to build more football pitches. After all, Italians love football (soccer) and so more places for them to play will keep them out of trouble. Do you honestly think Don Michael is doing to give up the family business now that he has a place to kick a ball around? What if there were more honest work though. Do you think Johnny Tightlips is going to give up his job at the union racket now that he can work at a near by McDonalds for $7 an hour? Yeah right.

Isn't this the same philosophy Toronto socialists are using to combat black gangs in the city? I know if I were the leader of the local Crips or Bloods, I'd feel a little insulted by it. Do they really think that these people are going to give up joining gangs because they build a basketball court, or that they'll stop dealing drugs for $2000 a day to make $70 a day at the local fast food joint? I think that's even a little racist since they're assuming that all blacks love basketball. Why don't they just open up some watermelon stands and a few KFCs in the area? Maybe that will work too.

The mistake Toronto's socialist leadership make is assuming that the city's gangs are simply loose organizations of thugs who became such because they're troubled youths. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are mafias. Any black gang in Jane and Finch is just as highly organized as the Gambinos. They know the business and they know they can make big bucks, especially with the drug and prostitution rackets. The structure is complex and widespread from smuggling schemes at Pearson to extortion, robbery, and small scale terrorism. The violence itself comes from disputes between the different "families", just as it did in Chicago back in the 1920s. Youths join the gangs because they know they can make more money than doing any honest job. They don't care about the risks associated with it. Imagine $2000 for simply working a couple hours an evening selling crack. You're armed, you get the latest wheels, and most importantly, you're feared and respected. It's a mighty tempting prospect for any of us. The reason most of us don't do it is we stick to our moral system or we fear getting caught. That's not the case in these gangs. With the way the legal system is, gang crimes are not harshly punished or the race card is pulled and they get off on a technicality. Just like a mafia don. They're released and the cycle continues. They are neither poor, nor oppressed, nor troubled. They are simply bad people.

I don't really know how to solve this problem, but I do know that people need to start seeing it for what it actually is before we can even talk solutions. We keep fooling ourselves, especially with mothers' pleas on how such a good boy Shaquan was before he was shot. Chances are the mother knows about or is part of the family too. The issue is not about race. Its not a black issue or a white issue. It's a justice issue. Until we start treating them like the mafias they are and not as if they're troubled youths, this problem is just going to continue.

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Made In China: Corporate Greed or Cheap People

I was reading in the Post today about the continuing saga of unsafe Chinese products. More toys are being recalled, taken away from teary eyed youngsters because their Batman action figure could kill them. Well, maybe it's not such a bad thing to have killer toys because it would remove the surplus population of stupid children in the world. I kid of course.
Now the socialists are inevitably blaming corporate greed for this problem.

According to the article in the National Post, one man only going by the name of Dennis noted that "The first thing it makes me think is these companies are only thinking about money. They want to make money, they’re outsourcing their manufacturing and basically contributing to exploitation" (CanWest News Service, August 15 2007)

I have to say that "Dennis" is way off base here. Do corporations have to share some of the blame for this? Definitely they do since they should have been paying closer attention to their contractors. It's negligence. However, I don't think corporate greed is at the root of these problems. These corporations aren't exploiting the workers either. The Chinese government is. Remember that the People's Republic of China is supposed to be a communist country. The Chinese government and its people don't really give a rat's backside as to whether or not their products are dangerous as long as we keep buying them. Indeed we are the real problem.

North Americans demand luxury goods en mass at the lowest price possible. Most goods made in China are luxury goods. You don't really need that Chinese made video game or toy to survive. Ironically, we want luxury on the cheap and we won't pay more. We as consumers are the ones that are fueling demand. Such so that in a population of over one billion people, China actually has labour shortages in some regions. China is good at mass producing things and they can do it cheaply. Corporations turn to Chinese factories not because of greed or the desire to exploit workers but because nobody would buy their products if they were made in North America. Why? Because it's several times more expensive to produce goods domestically due to high taxes and union fees. It's been proven that consumers will not absorb the costs. Businesses exist to make money. They're not their for your egalitarian benefit. If businesses don't make profits, nobody will invest in them and our economy goes down the toilet. They cannot sell domestically produced goods since people deem them to be "overpriced". Therefore they turn to other countries to manufacturers at a lower cost. If you don't want to buy inferior Chinese goods, then you're just going to have to get used to paying more, or doing without.

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Panhandling a Free Ride for Youth

This past week, Toronto experienced it's 51st homicide of 2007. In this particular case, a man was stabbed to death after an altercation with four panhandlers. Apparently this man had refused to give them money. The four accused range in age from 21 to 22. This got me thinking. I'm around this age and I would never think to do that, or think to be homeless. What causes these kids to go out and do these things. One of the most common explanations that left wingers put fourth is some kind of a failure in the system to protect these youths or to ensure their safety in shelters so they're forced to turn to this.

In Canada, very few people are ever forced to turn to that lifestyle. For the most part, your average street kids actually come from fairly well off families. They're lazy and refuse deal with the rules of their parents and of society. While there maybe some legitimate cases where youths turn to this lifestyle due to lack of jobs or abusive families, they are a minority. This lack of respect for rules is also why they avoid homeless shelters. The shelters don't give them infinite freedom. They cannot smoke, drink, or do drugs in them which they somehow feel to be going to far. They still seem to understand that they need money to support their habits. That's how that man got killed. People are beginning to wise up and are not giving money to these people. We will likely see an increase in similar acts of violence committed by aggressive panhandlers.

So what do we do. Well, aggressive panhandling is supposedly illegal but there seems to be a lack of will to enforce it. I would go one step further and make all panhandling illegal with enforcement. NDPers and people like OCAP need to realize that panhandling is not an appropriate lifestyle and it is not in the best interests of these people to allow them to keep doing it. There needs to be programs and enforced laws in place to get these people off the street. Our nation's cities will be better for it. We won't have incidents like what happened in Toronto, and the former panhandlers will have better lives in the end.

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Polygamy in Canada

I was going through the usual newspapers today when I came across an article in CNEWS questioning recent legal decisions regarding Polygamy in BC. I'm sure you've heard by now about the Bountiful community in BC. It's an orthodox Mormon community that embraces having multiple wives, to the point of claiming it's some sort of sacrament. For the life of me, I can't understand why any man would want more than one woman. All kidding aside, this poses an interesting problem for Canada's justice system and whether or not the government should indeed concern itself with the bedrooms of the nation.

They're not the only men to have more than one woman. Here in the rest of the world, we call them adulterers. Personally, I think a man who cheats on his wife is a despicable man-whore. This, however, is different. These marriages are open, for lack of a better term. Well, that's what we'd like to think. Some parts of the world, notably in Africa, do embrace this lifestyle but its not common. Biologically, humans are semi-monogamous. We may have multiple mates during our lives but usually we only have one at a time. Whether the person is heterosexual or homosexual doesn't matter; the rule still applies. Therefore, we can consider this semi-monogamy to be normal. Therefore polygamy is not normal. Of course, you'll have people who will dispute that, vigorously, whether they believe in it or not.

The problem with the Bountiful community however is the attitude they share towards women. They are radical Mormons linked to a similar sect in the US. In fact, that US sect's leader was on the FBI's most wanted list for numerous charges including abuse. He was arrested a few months back. There have been numerous proven cases where women and young girls are being abused sexually in these communities. Girls in their early teens are often being forced to marry much older men. In that community they call it a sacrament, in our world we call it pedophilia. Women have little to no rights in these purely patriarchal communities and they often end up abused or neglected.

Another problem is that the law is unclear. Or is it? Even if the laws concerning polygamy itself are uncertain, the laws concerning abuse and pedophilia are very clear. They're indictable offences. Many of these problems are stemming from the concept so by association, polygamy is and should be illegal. There are some questions as to whether anti-polygamy laws would stand up against a Charter challenge based on Section 2's guarantee of freedom of religion. I think the law would stand. According to the Rastafarian religion, marijuana smoking is a sacrament but we don't allow them to do that. Pedophilia and sexual abuse are far worse acts than smoking weed. If pot smoking is considered to be a reasonable limit on freedom of religion, then certainly the abusive acts that happen in these polygamous communities are. It's not an issue of discrimination sexual identity like gay marriage was. It's a question of protecting people in situations where they cannot protect themselves.

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Made In China

There have been several scandals involving Chinese made goods. If it's not toothpaste made with antifreeze, it's lead paint on children's toys or toxic cough syrup. Canned fruit tends to be the worst. Thankfully those little oranges come already in their own wrapper.

Back in the mid 20th century, the Made in Japan used to be the mark of inferiority. That changed in the 1980s when companies such as Sony and Honda began making names for themselves. Now, many of these big companies contract out their manufacturing to the lowest bidder. It's a fairly common business practice in both the private and public sector. The problem is that Chinese businesses always seem to be the low bidder. Sony does this, so does Apple, and HP in the case of electronics. Many of those contract companies are based in the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) but have factories in the People's Republic of China. (Two different countries despite what the UN claims) This is done to skirt around certain laws. The PRC itself is managed by an oligarchy of elites under an authoritarian system. It is not a communist country, despite what they claim. Displays of freeing oppressed workers and executing corrupt officials on the spot are only done to appease us foolish westerners into thinking that they're on top of things. The truth is that Chinese officials let A LOT of things slide. What we know about is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm also sure that what the Chinese government knows about is also but a small portion of what actually goes on.

The big problem is that China truly is now the 'world's factory' as one person put it in the Financial Post today. I have several items sitting on my desk right now. My Sony PSP was made in China. Ironically, the game currently inside it was made in the US. The remote for my DVD player was made in china. My Camera bag was made in China. My laptop, and Apple iBook G4 was 'assembled in China.' The laptop's power supply was also made in China. In fact, I'm willing to bet most items in any given room of your home were made in China, contain parts that were made in China, or were manufactured using equipment made in China. Everything from the furniture to the light bulbs. The cloths on your back are probably the only exception, most of which are now made in India or Indonesia. The first world is sure fueling the third world's economy. Many big businesses have turned there to avoid lawsuits from litigation happy/disgruntled customers, costly fights with greedy unions, high taxes, etc. It's just cheaper and easier to do business in those countries. It's not that these companies are evil (well, maybe Sony is), it's just that it's become very difficult to do business and remain competitive in North America. Such so that it's now actually cheaper to make items for local consumption half-way around the world. It's easy for us to say "I support Canadian workers" or "I'll only buy Canadian goods because I know they're safer for my kids to use." Guess again. As I said, it's impossible to find any item that isn't somehow linked to the Chinese economic leviathan. It's really our fault for not maintaining a competitive edge in manufacturing. Not all North American goods are of top notch quality anymore. I think cars are the best example where Hondas and Toyotas tend to have double the shelf life of Fords and GMs. Ironically, cars are the one few thing China doesn't produce for a global scale, though parts are still made there. That's about to change though. My point is that we here in North America still happily feed the beast, sometimes without even knowing it. The fact that these dangerous products exist is because we buy them. As for the poisoned products, sometimes even the companies that contracted out the work may not even realize what the Chinese are doing. It's ignorant of them, that's for sure and they should have been testing these products more closely. These Chinese factories are infamous for making unilateral decisions as to what materials to use in order to cut costs. They're not above using stuff that's known to be downright dangerous.

So what can we do to solve this problem? Well, it's already happening. Businesses are becoming more reluctant to contract their work out to Chinese manufacturers and consumers are beginning to demand more domestically made goods from reputable places like North America, South Korea, Japan, and Europe. Here in North America, we definitely need to encourage manufacturers to open up shop here and to stay here. Particularly through tax incentives and discouragement of unions form gaining too much power. I'd tackle the union issue by opening up government led arbitration systems by setting up an impartial tribunal to hear both sides and make judgments based on law. That would end some of the bickering and greed. Since strikes usually benefit nobody but fat cat union bosses, this system would certainly be a much better alternative. Thirdly, pressure needs to be put on places such as China. If they don't shape up, we'll put trade embargos on goods deemed to be dangerous. Without their badly needed North American markets, the Chinese government would certainly begin to sweat. Let them know we don't tolerate crappy, unsafe goods.

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How Environmentalism Entered the Mainstream

If you've been reading this blog for some time, you know I've been highly critical of the modern environmental movement. It is by no means something new. It has evolved over the centuries to evoke different meanings with different ends. However, it has only recently broke into being the mainstream. I'm pretty sure when someone 20 years from now asks what the 2000s were like, I think environmentalism will be what defines it just as much as hippies did in the '60s. It will be one of those movements that gains mainstream ground for a decade of so to the chagrin of realistic thinkers but by decades out, likely around the mid 2010s, it will have lost its steam.

Environmentalism, as we know it today evolved with the hippie movement in the 1960s and began to bloom out in the 1970s. Greenpeace got its start in the 60s, founded by environmentalists such as Hunter Thompson, best known to younger audiences as a disheveled man who used to read from newspapers in his bath robe on CITY TV's Breakfast Television.
I think we all remember Jane Fonda's "China Syndrome" warning us of the perils of nuclear energy, which turned out to be mostly false. Chernobyl being the one major exception due to its lack of proper safeguards but even many experts say that aftermath of the disaster was largely inflated by the media. Indeed the 70s and 80s were filled with fears of the "nuclear bogeyman" as Mr Burns of Simpsons fame put it. The 70s also hailed fears of global cooling. That we would be entering another ice age by the 2000s. That idea was developed as early as the 1950s but never came to pass. Then in the 90s we had the rain forest "crisis" and "save the whales." The Ozone Layer hole was another big thing in the 1990s. This eventually transitioned into global warming.
Global warming itself is not new either. It was first talked about in the late 1800s. At UTM in Mississauga Ontario, there is a photo from a news clipping taken around that time of smoke stacks, captioned with worries about pollution.

The environmental movement has always been preaching apocalypse. The global warming "crisis" is no different. What has perplexed me is why this has become a mainstream issue. The problem with humans is that we are sheep. We'd follow the flock of the end of a cliff if the Sheppard directed us there. The Christian church has been using the sheep analogy for centuries now. We have to stay with the fold or else we've strayed. That explains the stigma against those people who have done the research and choose not to believe in global warming based on hard science. Celebrity has largely been feeding the anti-global warming movement. Big names like Arnold Schwarzenegger have feed the flames. Al Gore, once regarded as a dull, bland second banana to the charismatic Bill Clinton has now gained celebrity status in his own right, surpassing the fame of his former boss. I think its worth noting that Schwarzenegger was the first person to own a civilian Humvee. Before, the gas guzzling leviathan of the roads was strictly an armored military transport. Shortly after, the H1 was introduced for general sale. Al Gore himself lives in a huge mansion more than double the size of George W Bush's ranch house in Texas, and consuming just as much more electricity. That coming from someone who's advocated downsizing to reduce energy needs. Gore also flies everywhere in his own private jet, rather than commercial. Ironically, he demands that only sedans, not SUVs pick him up at the airport to take him to events. I highly doubt that Gore (or more precisely his hired help) drives that Prius to 7/11 when he has a midnight craving for Twinkies. I also doubt that Gore's gardener cuts the grass of his massive property using a push mower. These people are hypocrites in every sense of the word yet people still follow them, blindly.
Gore's reasons are obvious. He's an attention whore. I haven't yet ruled out of running for president in 2008 either. He says he won't but most think he will. It would certainly give him quite the edge over his competitors, namely Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. The latter of which being the only breath of fresh air in the US Democratic party, which has flip flopped on nearly every single issue, particularly Iraq. The same reasons go for the Governator Arnold. Arnold is a Republican (who won be default I might add) in California, a stanch Democratic state. He needs the issue to stay in office.

All that though still doesn't explain why ordinary people hopped on the bandwagon to be led to slaughter. Why people would now pay $200 for clumsy and inefficient push mowers and buy hybrid cars that do 0-60 in 3.6 minutes and use no less gas in the long run. I guess there's no doubting the lemming effect and human stupidity in general. Humans are very easily frightened. Disturbing indeed because once you get them scared, they will do just about anything.

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The Law's Fine, Courts are the Problem

Once again, there's a lot of talk about out legal system. The usual argument is that laws are not tough enough, especially concerning dangerous offenders. The laws themselves are A problem but they are not THE problem concerning the rather lax attitude towards criminal justice in Canada. The youth criminal justice act is one such example of a series of laws that are too lax for their own good. However, criminal laws are relatively easy to change. They're introduced in federal parliament and they're voted on. Well, of course it's not that simple but it's still far easier than the court reforms that this country badly needs.

I remember a joke someone once told me. What do you call a lawyer who's too stupid to get a job at a good law firm? ... "Your Honor." I think this rings especially true in this country. It seems that judges and justices of the peace are too quick to hand out easy bail and lenient sentences, even if the crime is a very serious one. Last year, CTV did a series of reports following suspects accused of vile crimes living high and mighty while out on bail. In cases of child sexual abuse, many get two years less a day, or even house arrest. Summary sentences of indictable crimes. The fact is that the court system, notably those sitting on the bench, just don't seem to take these indictable crimes seriously. This is why there has been a movement in this country for mandatory minimum sentencing. That would work to an extent, except that the courts would simply hand out the minimum in every case, no matter the circumstances.

There are numerous other options we can follow. Judges are supposed to be impartial but I believe there needs to be some sort of system put in place to ensure they're acting appropriately. This would be similar to the various civilian review boards that monitor the police, another component of the justice system. It would allow the decisions of justices to be questioned in cases where the sentence given was too harsh or too lean for the crime in question. Of course it would not be open for all decisions to be questioned, just the more serious ones. Also, it's time we left more of the sentencing decisions up to juries, as it done in the United States. Judges should only sit as moderators and administrators of the court, as well as jury advisers. However, it should be up to juries to make the final decisions.

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Harsher DUI Sentences Needed

Once again, we've had a rash of drunk driving cases. The latest here in Milton in which a drunk driver rear ended a older couple Thursday night, sending their car into the path of an oncoming train. The two were killed instantly.

There has been a massive campaign to get people to stop driving drunk but such campaigns don't work. The reason is that most people would never think to drive drunk while sober. The problem is that when someone is drunk, they don't believe themselves to be drunk so they drive anyway. There has been a bit of a movement to put the onus on party hosts and bar/restaurant owners if their guests drive drunk but the truth is that people can leave unseen. Taking away keys is obviously the best course of action but it isn't fool proof.

What is needed is harsh criminal sentences to strongly discourage drinking before someone drives. First of all, on first offense blowing over .08, I would raise the license suspension from 90 days to one year. Second offense would be 5-10 years and third offense would see the offender's license permanently revoked. If someone is injured by a drunk driver, mandatory charges would be raised from "impaired driving causing bodily harm" to "assault with a deadly weapon". If someone is killed, the charge should be manslaughter. Lesser charges should only come into play if the Crown is sure it cannot get a conviction on the higher charges. These higher charges would ensure lengthier, and thus more appropriate jail times. Loopholes that allow drunk drivers to get off charges all too easy also need to be closed. Zero tolerance is also something that needs to be implemented. If we do this, we'll have safer roads by discouraging people from getting drunk in the first place.

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Evironmentalists Gloat But Still no Consensus

Environmentalists are gloating today thanks to a new study that shows that "climate change" is not being caused by cosmic rays emitted from the sun. This was one possible theory to explain the cause of a slight increase in global temperatures. As a result, the greenies are using this study to reaffirm their "consensus". However, the cosmic ray theory never was a widely supported theory to begin with. There is also definative proof that man made carbon dioxide also has not caused the temperature increase. I feel this is likely an attempt by the greenies to cajole critics by making it seem like they're trying to establish a debate. A common criticism against them has been that if they believe in their findings, why aren't they encouraging debate to prove that they're right. Therefore they pick the weakest argument that everyone knows is the weakest argument and publish it to the media as a chance to say "I told you so." However, their own arguments are fairly weak and strong historical records back up a case against man made global warming.

There has never been consensus in science. What makes this any different?

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Boycott Li(v)e Earth

As I'm sure most of you know, Al Gore is putting on a little concert this Saturday. Yet another one in the "Live" series (Live Aid, Live 8, etc). This latest shindig is in order to fight Global Warming. If you've been reading this blog long enough, I think you can guess what my take on this is. Global Warming, the fake crisis. All this concert amounts to is simply a massive political rally for Al Gore's run for office in 2008. If not that, then its simply for money and publicity to make a round of celebrities and their pathetic fans feel good about themselves.

Though I'm a big advocate for free speech, I do feel that this recent rash of politically motivated concerts is not a positive thing. They distort the issues either by making them seem more serious than they really are, or in the case of Live Earth, put forth issues that don't even exist. They also can serve to trivialize important issues as well, as in the case of Live 8, which accomplished nothing in the end. For Live 8, I think it would have made more sense to mobilize fans on a grassroots campaign to get them out in the field, rather than "harassing" politicians by listening to crappy music. I think the South Park episode "Die Hippie, Die", which aired in 2005, illustrates this attitude pretty well. As character Stan Marsh pointed out "Maybe instead of complaining about corporations being selfish, we should look at ourselves. I mean, is there anything more selfish than doing nothing but getting high and listening to music all day long?" In other words, these people have all kinds of great ideas on how to fix the world but they're too apathetic to do anything about it.

As for Live Earth, I believe it to be no more than a massive political publicity stunt by Mr Gore. One of the primary reasons he lost the presidency in 2000 was due to lack of Charisma. Through this, my guess would be, is to try and connect with young voters, to mobilize them en mass. Something the other candidates are not doing. Gore claims he's not running for office though his recent actions sure do look like a political campaign to me. He's found the perfect issue and now he's brainwashing people to make himself and his fellow tree huggers look like the only saviors we have from the evil global warming menace. Therefore, I'm asking people to show their support for the truth and boycott these concerts. Don't let your money fund their political machine.

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We'll Keep Watering Until They Stop Building

Halton is yet another region to enact a mandatory outdoor watering ban. This ban holds no authority to me so I'll keep watering my lawn as I see fit. The reason why I refuse to comply? Simple. The cause of the recent watering bans and electricity shortages in Ontario is the result of government incompetence and not people running the AC or watering the lawn. The question nobody seems to ask is this; if we don't have enough water or electricity to go around, then why do governments continue to allow development at an out of control pace?

It is in the best interests of citizens to refuse to comply with these bans in order to get the message across, we won't stop using water until you stop allowing more housing developments to go up.

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Natives Have Rights, But Not To Special Treatment

Native Canadians are planning to block highways and rail lines on Friday in order to protest slow movement on land claims. This irresponsible act just shows what goes on in the minds of these people. The basically think that all of Canada owns them something because us evil white men supposedly raped their land. Every time I hear that, it makes me laugh. How I can be blamed for something that happened when my family was still digging in their own waste in jolly old England.

Studying Canadian politics, I cannot help but come across a wide variety of academic papers that argue in favour of native land rights. The media often puts forth the views of these talking heads as something that is shared by the majority of Canadians. The people I've talked to who come from all walks of life and across the political spectrum don't seem to agree. My view is that Natives do not and should not have land rights that go beyond those of the average Canadian. Who owns this country anyway? I would argue those who fund it to keep it operating, which is the tax payer. Natives don't even pay tax on land, or on anything else for that matter. Yet somehow, we always seem to be at the whim of backwards thinking radicals within the aboriginal community who seem to view all other Canadians in a unjustifiably negative and racist light. Considering that we're pretty much paying to keep them afloat because they have refused to adapt to the modern world. If they want the land they claim, they should buy it in the same way everyone else has to. No more freebies.
As for the protests, I hope my fellow Canadians would ignore these children, since that's what they are. In a civilized country, we don't block roads because we have grievences with the government. Now I'm not saying that all aboriginals are like this because they are not, but the system we are keeping them under is harmful. It keeps them trapped in their lot simply because they have no incentives to work. Maybe if we started making them pay for things, they'd finally have some motivation to improve themselves. The reserve system and land handouts is worse than welfare.

As for these radicals, the military should get involved. Obviously the OPP is too incompetent to deal with them.

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Lakeview Demolition Symbol of McGuinty Failure

Today, demolitions are planned for the old Lakeview coal fired plant in Mississauga, ON. In many ways, Lakeview is a symbol of the incompetence of McGuinty's Liberals as well as the energy crisis in this province.

Back in 2003, McGuinty promised that all coal fired plants in Ontario would be shut down by 2007. Well, it's 2007 now and they're all open save one. However, just taking that one power plant off the grid has created an energy crisis. Every hot day in the summer, the electricity operators are literally praying for rain. Further feeding the crisis and displaying the incompetence of local and provincial governments is the out of control development. Each year, thousands of new houses and condos are being put up where we barely have enough electricity for the ones that already exist. Therefore, the province has to rely on fear tactics (threatening rotating blackouts) and forced conservation (smart meters) because there simply is not enough to go around. We live in a digital age in which we rely on electricity. Our economy relies on it yet governments have no interest in improving the system, just charging more and telling us to use less.

Once again, the biggest problem is the fear of investment in infrastructure. Windmills and solar panels simply cannot provide the electricity we need. They are expensive and inefficient. We need nuclear plants. We also cannot be shutting down coal fired plants either for the same of reducing smog and "global warming".

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Afghanistan Is Important for Canada

Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Canada has lost 60 of our troops with some 270 injured. This has made the war very unpopular in Canadians' minds. However, I think we're doing pretty good. Canada's finest hour in military history, D-Day back in 1944 saw 340 Canadian troops die in a single day with 739 injured in action. That's almost six times the number of losses in a day than Canada has lost in six years. Of course I'm not trying to make 60 dead seem unimportant. One death is too many but this is war and death is something that cannot be avoided.

Our efforts in Afghanistan somewhat mirror what was done in WW2. For starters, we were not the aggressors in this war, unlike the US in Iraq, which is what Afghanistan is frequently being compared to lately. Innocent Canadians died when Taliban supported terrorists figured it would be a good idea to slam a couple planes into buildings. Though it started as a war to catch Bin Laden, it has become a war of liberation, and it has severely weakened Al-Qaida's capabilities. Despite what the majority of Canadians think, life is beginning to improve for the Afghan people. For the first time in decades, women are allowed to get an education and hold jobs. I think the major problem is people expect dramatic changes overnight and when that doesn't happen, they oppose the situation. It is madness to think that way. The combat deaths echo this as all people see is a slow moving situation and begin to think about how many more are going to die. You can't think that way. We need to consider whether or not their deaths meant something, which in my opinion they have. The Afghani people and their government want us there. To leave now would be abandoning them, which is irresponsible and inhumane. So often are societies defined by combat, and Canada is no exception. WW1 established us as a nation, WW2 established us as a force in the world, and Afghanistan establishes us as a nation trying to make a difference. By the simple fact that we are making a difference to improve their lives is a sign that we are winning this war.

Which brings me to the case of liberal hypocrisy and comparisons to Iraq. The Liberal Party has turned Harper into an almost Nixon like figure in the case of Afghanistan. Chiding the Harper government into keeping the troops there. However, it was the Liberals' decision under Cretien to send them there in the first place. So they're basically making Harper accountable for something they did, something they certainly didn't see as a mistake when they were in office. Something they defended while they were in office. This exposes a major flaw with the way our parliament operates. That is that governments are no longer responsible for their actions once they leave office, and can even have the balls to attack another government for something they did. It's pure hypocrisy what the Dion Liberals are doing. Is the Liberals had an ounce of honor, they'd at least stand by their decisions; or at the very least hold civilized discussions rather than shouting and screaming hypocrisy in the Commons.

Then there's the third side of the issue. The Socialists. Namely the NDP. The NDP has never been in support of the mission since they are an anti-war party. That is their choice obviously, yet they have been trying to force their position on others. To them, this is Vietnam. The recent actions of Toronto's city council is a sign of this. There is a non-political, multi-partisan campaign right now to support our troops. The basic action is letting them know we're thinking of them. Support is shown by attaching a yellow ribbon to one's clothing or vehicle. Toronto emergency service workers had attached these ribbons to their vehicles. To them, the troops are their brothers. It hits especially close to home when so many emergency service workers died in the opening battle of this war on 9/11. Everything was just peachy until some smart mouthed Toronto councilor demanded the ribbons be removed stating that they were a political statement in favour of the war. They obviously weren't, but it is highly likely that they would have been forced to remove them had three of our soldiers not have been killed that day. The decision to put up the stickers on emergency vehicles wasn't politically motivated, but the decision to remove them clearly was. The rhetoric was definitive, Toronto city council does not support the war and that's why they wanted them removed. Even if emergency workers were making a political statement, it shouldn't have mattered because they are Canadian citizens and should be entitled to the same freedom to express their beliefs as all other Canadians enjoy. This was a shameful and cowardly act on behalf of the NDP. If they have a problem with the way, they should hold peaceful protests or debate it in the Commons. Don't force your beliefs on others. Afghanistan is not Vietnam.

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Want My Vote? 10 Things that Need to Change

We're coming up to another Ontario election and boy, we're in quite a mess. McGuinty hasn't exactly been honest with the public and has made many questionable decisions. So, here's a list of 10 realistic things that need to be done to fix Ontario.

1. Eliminate the Health Tax: The controversial "health care premium" enacted by McGuinty after promising not to raise taxes. Ontarians on average are paying $900 more in tax to the province while the health system has seen little improvement. Scrap it.

2. Eliminate the City of Toronto Act: This act gave Toronto special privleges and taxing powers. So far, Toronto's socialist city council has been abusing it and threatens to tax the city into the ground. Does Toronto really need all that power? It's also highly unfair to other communities that end up paying the bulk of the cash used to fund the cities projects.

3. Return Municipal Terms to 3 Years: McGuinty, in order to suck up to David Miller, made municipal council terms four years instead of three. Four years is far too long a term for those positions in my opinion and makes councils even less accountable.

4. Keep Coal Plants Open: Coal fired generating stations should remain in operating indefinitely. Clean coal technology should be put into place to cut smog if that's such a big concern. McGuinty's concept of forced conservation needs to stop. Smart meters should also be eliminated. Lakeview power plant in Mississauga also needs to be reopened and we need more nuclear plants to keep up with demand caused by excess development.

5. Improve Transit Outside of Toronto: Every time McGuinty announces a new transit plan, it only benefits Toronto while ignoring other growing communities. GO service on the Milton line (which services two major cities) for example needs to be more regular. It's also time to plan for the future. Diesel GO trains should be phased out in favour of high speed electric trains. This type of train which is used extensively in the United States and Europe and can travel up to three times as fast as the current diesel models; and they build them in Canada! There's a lot of talk but we need to stop being afraid to invest in infrastructure.

6. Reduce Fees for Higher Education: It has been recently found that certain user fees colleges and universities have been charging are illegal. All incidental fees that do not directly fund education (ones that fund so called "campus life") should be either optional or eliminated all together.

7. Quit Dumbing Down Education: School is a place to learn, not a place to pad standardized exam results to make Ontario students look better than they are. We need to make schools more student friendly, unlike what has happened in recent years that's made them teacher-centric again. Teachers are there to do a job and they should be fired if they cannot do it. Let their union whine. We're only selling short our kid's futures if we let them have their way. We also need to make school boards more fiscally accountable.

8. Slow GTA Development: GTA growth is happening at an out of control pace due to corrupt municipal councils. Make the Green Belt means something and put the breaks on urban sprawl.

9. Get Tough on Crime: Ok, so Ontario doesn't make the laws in the criminal code but it doesn't mean that it can't fund police better. The OPP also needs to be made more accountable as in the past couple of years, they've become increasingly incompetent.

10. Fix the Health Mess: Americans often tout our health system and we sure like to toot our own horns about it but it's certainly not something to be proud of in its current state. People, even those in serious need, often get ignored in emergency rooms for hours on end, or have to wait months for badly needed surgery. Start opening up some private clinics to ease the burden and try and encourage more clinics into communities that lack them. Many people end up in the ER because they lack family doctors and have nowhere else to turn, which is what's causing the ER crunches. The health system needs reform, not more money.

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Yet More Global Warming Garbage

The Toronto Sun is running an informal poll on their website today asking readers whether they think the Conservative government really cares about the environment. A better question would be should they care. Of course they should not care simply because it is not an issue. Still it dominates discussion and is the big thing at the G8 meeting, detracting from more important issues on the table. In fact, it's an issue that is stalling the entire political process here in Canada as it dominates House of Commons sessions as the opposition repeatedly attacks the Conservatives for not supporting the deeply flawed Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto would cut emissions dramatically at the expense of an economic recession. Is this really worth putting people out in the cold? These sorts of things usually equal job losses. CAW union president Buzz Hargrove has already mentioned that his union is not in support of Kyoto and that they support the Conservatives on this issue. For everyone else, the science is out and the debate is long over, which it isn't. Many of the world's top scientists do not support the idea of man-made global warming. Even those who do support it feel that the information being put forth by people like Al Gore is padded to fit with their agendas. I can say the majority of scientists do "support" it simply because it gains them research grants, as was mentioned in the Great Global Warming Swindle. (That movie by the way is available on Youtube for those who want to see it. I'm not sure if it's on DVD or if/when it will be shown on Canadian TV.)
Much of that stuff above is stuff I've already said before but it's important to keep mentioning it simply because so many blindly follow it without questioning where the research came from. Science, after all, is about questioning things. You'll find the debate is rarely out on any topic like this, which is what makes man-made global warming an unusual case.

Fortunately, Canadian apathy is working in our favour for once. Though Canadians do believe it, they don't really want to do anything about it. That means we aren't at risk of going into the crap hole... for now. Some disturbing news has cropped up this week that does worry me. I'll start with the least disturbing article of the pair first.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May has suggested we institute a nation wide carbon tax. This tax would roughly amount to an extra 12 cents per liter of gasoline. That would raise the national average price for gas to $1.24 per liter if it were instituted today. That would be an 11% increase in the price of fuel. As it stands, 35% of the price of gasoline in Canada is tax. That's according to GasBuddy Inc, a consumer organization that tracks gas prices across North America. There is a 10cent per liter national excise tax on gas right now. In Ontario, the provincial gas tax is is 24.7 cents per liter. Additionally, a 6% GST is charged on top of those, essentially taxing a tax. The original idea behind gasoline taxes was to repair roads and subsidize public transit. However, most of this money collected goes into general revenue. This is essentially one big pot that is divided up at budget time so the actual amounts of the gas tax that actually go to it's intended places is random. The United States, by contrast, has taxes that only amount to 20% of the price of gas. That money collected usually does go into roads and transit. The highest gas taxes are in Quebec, Newfoundland, and the Maritimes. Many Maritime provinces charge full HST 14% on top of the additional federal and provincial taxes. Nunavut has the lowest gas tax at only 16 cents per liter, three cents cheaper than the next lowest in Alberta. It's important to note though that the people of Nunavut require fuel for survival which could account for their lower taxes in order to ease economic burdens. There was no data on what gas actually costs per liter in the territories. We can expect it to be quite high simply due to logistical reasons.
So there you have it, that's what the government takes of the top of that $1.03 Ontarians are paying right now. For May to suggest taxing more is ludicrous but she's certainly not the first one. Most Canadians, including all currently sitting parties in federal parliament, oppose this tax increase. The idea behind it for May was to get Canadians to drive less. Something her fellow environmentalists share. I don't think it will, and it will just mean more of our hard earned money going to the government when we're already being sucked dry as it is. It proves how out of touch the Greens are with Canadians. However, this carbon tax idea is not going away entirely. Quebec has instituted a provincial one but they are taxing oil companies directly. They have asked them nicely to absorb the cost and not pass it onto the consumer. Yeah right, they're living in a dream world if they think that will happen.

The next piece of news has to do with Kyoto and the Harper government. Seems the federal opposition parties are threatening to call a vote of non-confidence if Harper does not immediately enforce Kyoto. What a flagrant abuse of our parliamentary system that Canadians would be forced to go to the polls for something so trivial and unncessary. This responsible government crap often does more harm than good, which is why I advocate a US style republic for Canada. While this Kyoto fighting goes on, many of Canada's more important problems such as gunplay in our cities, health care wait times, etc, are simply being pushed to the back burner. That's not right. Shame on all the federal parties for doing that. However, the most blame should go to the opposition for making mountains out of mole hills and filibustering their way into an untimely election. Canada does not need this crap right now. We can only hope that when the next election does come around, we will have a Conservative majority and finally put this environment crap to bed.

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