Go West

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 4:49 PM - 0 Comments

According to his office, Thomas Mulcair will travel to Fort McMurray, Alberta on Thursday morning to view oil sands projects.

Presumably, James Moore will be delighted to hear this.

Standing in politics

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 4:04 PM - 0 Comments

This speech is a few months old—it was delivered in March—but it has only recently appeared online in video form (and I’ve been interested to find a recording of it since reading Joe Brean’s report in the Post). Michael Ignatieff begins speaking around the 3:40 mark.

See previously: ‘I didn’t get there’

C-38: Repealing the Fair Wages Act

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 3:18 PM - 0 Comments

Pat Martin is concerned about clause 441 of the budget bill.

One of the measures is so sneaky, says NDP MP Pat Martin, nobody seemed to notice the line buried deep in the 452-page Bill C-38 that simply states, “The Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act is repealed,” giving no explanation. With those 10 words, Ottawa intends to wipe out a 1985 law compelling contractors bidding on federal contracts to pay “fair wages” and overtime.

“I would have missed it and I’m from that industry. It was number 68 of 70 bills that they changed,” said Martin, a former journeyman carpenter and construction worker. Martin notes that unlike most measures in the budget bill, there was no prior discussion of the measure or even a signal such a change was contemplated. ”It’s a solution without a problem. The only conclusion I can come up with is that it’s a war on labour and the left. It’s what the Americans did with the right-to-work states and the end result is $8 or $9 an hour is now the average wage in places like North Carolina.”

The act is not referenced by name in the budget plan tabled by the Finance Minister in March. In an interview with As It Happens this week, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt was asked about repealing the legislation and dismissed the act as “unnecessary red tape.” Merit Canada has praised the move.

Mr. Martin addressed the change at length in the House here.

Quebec’s protests and the intergenerational question

By John Geddes - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 1:36 PM - 0 Comments

I often find arguments about “intergenerational inequity” compelling. There’s an obvious injustice when governments allow deficits to accumulate into debt, keeping current taxes low and spending high, on the assumption that future taxpayers will somehow be in a better position to pick up the tab than the current ones. Same goes for underfunded entitlement programs.

But I don’t know if John Moore, over at the National Post, has quite figured out the situation in Quebec when he argues that the province’s seemingly endless tuition-fee protests expose an intergenerational imbalance of this sort. “Quebec has had low tuition rates for a half century,” Moore writes. “That means almost every living adult in the province, having already been afforded a plum goodie, is now wagging his finger at the first generation that will be asked to pay the tab. So who really is entitled here?”

Continue…

‘Cosmopolis’: an inner space odyssey

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 1:15 PM - 0 Comments

'Cosmopolis' star Robert Pattinson at the film's Cannes press conference / photo Brian D. Johnson

David Cronenberg never fails to surprise us. This morning in Cannes, we saw Cosmopolis, his keenly awaited adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel—a 24-hour odyssey starring Twilight‘s Robert Pattinson as a Eric Packer, billionaire playboy who cruises Manhattan in a limo, looking for a haircut as riots erupt in the streets and his wealth evaporates in the twinkling of a bad gamble on Asian currency.

But we knew that before going in. Here’s what we weren’t expecting.

This is a road movie that barely moves. Most of it takes place inside an opulent white stretch limo, which crawls through the clogged streets like an urban space capsule. It’s a vehicle of stopped time. Outside rioters rock the car, paint it with graffiti and bounce off the windshield, but inside it’s so eerily silent that the commotion barely registers. The car has been “Prousted,” insulated with cork—a DeLillo detail that Cronenberg has taken to heart. Although the dialogue rarely lets up, this is one of the quietest films I’ve ever seen. It’s like a submarine movie. In fact at the press conference following the morning screening, Cronenberg referenced the German U-boat classic Das Boot.

He also recalled with perverse glee that his sound editors worried the movie was too quiet, and kept asking if he didn’t want more noise bleeding into the limo from the street. But no, he wanted to keep it Proustian. Which is disorienting, because we’re not used to watching movies without being manipulated by prominent sound design. Even The Artist, with its brash, driving score, seemed louder than Cosmopolis. Continue…

‘Wanton or officious intermeddling’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 12:08 PM - 0 Comments

Under attack from the Conservative party, the Council of Canadians maintains its perspective.

Council of Canadians executive director Garry Neil joked the Tories let his group off relatively lightly. “Unlike the epithets thrown at their political opponents, we aren’t being accused of being Nazi sympathizers, or terrorists, or being on the side of the child pornographers,” he said.

See previously: Redo the election, What happened in Thunder Bay? and A study in voter suppression

‘Basic rights for all’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 11:44 AM - 0 Comments

Foreign Affairs has posted the text of John Baird’s speech in Washington yesterday on the topic of religious freedom.

Canada has a tradition that some in our country seemed to forget during the latter half of the last century: a tradition of standing for freedom and fundamental rights, a tradition of standing against oppression. We did so in the earliest days of World War II … And yet, after the Second World War, some decision makers lost sight of our proud tradition to do what is right and just. Some decided it would be better to paint Canada as a so-called honest broker. I call it being afraid to take a clear position… even when that’s what’s needed.

So I’m proud to say Canada no longer simply “goes along to get along” in the conduct of its foreign policy. We will stand for what is principled and just, regardless of whether it is popular, convenient or expedient. We do so as part of our commitment to basic rights for all.

Laura Payton notes that the event was sponsored by a church that opposes same-sex marriage and “homosexual practices.” Four months ago, Mr. Baird championed gay rights in a speech in London.

However much the ideas of religious freedom and gay rights are actually in conflict, here is how Hillary Clinton reconciled the two in a speech last December. Continue…

Talking Internet data caps with Open Media

By Peter Nowak - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 11:39 AM - 0 Comments

When it comes to broadband Internet, it seems like you can always count on regulators to turn a positive into a negative. Such was the case earlier this week when the U.S.’s Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski defended so-called tiered pricing by internet providers–known in these northern climes as usage-based billing–as worthwhile efforts in fighting network congestion.

Critics in the U.S. quickly jumped on Genachowski for swallowing the industry’s excuses for shrinking caps, which was ironic given that his comments came only days after Comcast–the country’s largest cable provider–announced it was raising or doing away with its limits.

Up here in Canada, the reaction was similarly negative. York University professor David Ellis pointedly noted that Genachowski, who was once admired for his supposed progressiveness on Internet issues, has now apparently been suckered by the same fallacious reasoning our own regulators were once (and might possibly still be) enamoured with.

It’s a cliche that Canada might as well exist in a bubble, particularly technologically, as far as the U.S. is concerned because Genachowski should have looked north, where this topic has been debated ad nauseum, before making such a foolish proclamation. As Ellis points out, caps-as-congestion-fighters is an argument that has been largely discredited here. Too bad nobody told the Americans.

That said, I’m still wondering why many Canadians have such ridiculously low caps compared to Americans (typical plans on Bell and Rogers offer 60 to 70 gigabytes, compared to 300 or more on Comcast and the like). I put the question to Steve Anderson, head of activist group Open Media, and we ended up having a bit of a back-and-forth over email.

He said the reasons why Canadians are still paying too much for Internet services boils down to the following:

We only stopped things from getting worse with UBB – and now we’re only starting to actually fix the market – it’s a slow process. The government has completely failed to do anything to encourage next generation broadband. Other countries like the U.S. are investing I think like $100 billion. Here’s a bunch of other things they could be doing. [Network owners] repeatedly make it difficult for indies to deliver services.

Anderson also advocates patience with regulators, who are starting to come around:

I’m frustrated that we’re not really moving forward more quickly here in Canada. That said I actually think the CRTC is doing a reasonable job as of late – the state of the market developed over decades and it will take some time and multiple good decisions to fix it. I actually think the UBB decision was mostly good. They got the model right and costing wrong. The indies have survived and Distributel actually moved in to Quebec to offer serious competition to Bell and Videotron etc.. When they did so they explicitly cited the UBB decision for enabling them (they sent a letter to the CRTC to thank them). Also, more importantly – when the decision came in our main issue was that the costing was off and that they needed to start a transparent process to get at what the costs should be. The CRTC actually listened and is holding a consultation to considering that matter now… I think we need to be encouraging not slamming the CRTC right now.

I suggested that perhaps Open Media was being too Canadian, as in too polite. With Americans screaming bloody murder about their 300 GB caps, shouldn’t Canadians–and Open Media by extension–be more vocal in their opposition?

Anderson doesn’t think Canadians or Open Media are apathetic, but they’ve quieted down somewhat because there is positive movement in the right direction:

The CRTC really has taken a positive turn, and I think it’s just smart to give them space to do good things. If I just piss in their face even when they start moving in the right direction then I don’t carry much weight later when they fuck up… When the CRTC messes up, or the telecoms do something to create an inflection point – the outcry will happen again…  If you look [at] the campaigns about internet issues we’ve run in the last year and a half it’s amazing how many people are active on these things. I actually think we have the most robust pro-internet movement in the world. Groups in the US and UK are copying our campaigns, and not the parts Open Media dreams up, the parts like #tellVicEverything that creative pro-internet [people] came up with after we raised the alarm. It’s inspiring to watch the EFF try to use that with CISPA and UK with their own issues.

One other issue we touched on was structural separation, one of my favourite topics. In some countries, governments have forced telecom giants to spin off their network operations into completely separate companies. Those companies then sell access to the network to all comers on equal terms, with the idea being that no one ISP is unfairly advantaged. Each is free to compete on items such as price, speed and service.

Anderson says the CRTC is starting to seriously listen to Open Media’s suggestions that such a system should be implemented in Canada. But with incumbent companies fighting like hell to avoid structural separation in countries where there’s just one of them, I retorted by suggesting this is a pipe dream in Canada. With the combined lobbying power of a whole host of big cable and phone companies, there’s no way it’ll happen.

On that, Anderson capitulated somewhat.

“I still think it’s still worth raising separation,” he said. “It’s wise to ask for more than you think you can get.”

Byron Sonne in his own words

By Jesse Brown - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 11:09 AM - 0 Comments

Left: Pat Hewitt/CP Middle: Aaron Vincent Elkaim/CP Right: Aaron Vincent Elkaim/CP

Last week Byron Sonne was cleared of four explosives charges and one charge of counseling mischief. I’ve been covering his case since his arrest almost two years ago. I corresponded with Byron during his 11-month stint in jail and I asked him a few questions last week when he received his vindicating verdict. Until yesterday, though, I had never had a real conversation with him about his ordeal.

The extensive interview will run on an upcoming episode of my podcast. Here are some highlights:

On what he hoped to learn by “testing the system” by buying sensitive chemicals and posting controversial texts to the Internet:

“I wanted to discover how things actually work.”

On Detective Tam Bui, the police interrogator who told him “the onus is on you” to prove his innocence:

“I don’t know that they were after the truth as much as they just really wanted a confession.”

On the unwillingness of the police to accept that he was not a terrorist:

“You can’t say anything to help yourself in that situation. If you say ‘I love my mother,’ they’ll make a note: ‘loves his mother, willing to kill for her’. “

Continue…

Trying to make sense of the EI changes

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Reaction to yesterday’s announcement from Windsor, Cape Breton, Regina and Prince Edward Island. Farmers and fishermen have questions and concerns. Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter is unsure.

Elizabeth May recalls her own experience.

Ms. May said that from 1975 to 1980, she received what was then called unemployment insurance during the off-season while working as a waitress and cook at her family’s restaurant and gift shop business in Cape Breton, she says. Labelling regular users of EI, such as herself, as lazy or abusing the system is unfair, she said.

“I paid into employment insurance. When I needed it, I used it. When I didn’t, I didn’t. I raise my personal experience because I don’t think anyone should be ashamed that seasonal businesses in this country that are big, or small, have benefitted from a legal system of insurance that pays for itself.”

Will cancer screening actually save your life?

By Julia Belluz - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

(Bruce Powell/AP Photo/University of Chicago Medical Center)

“There is a powerful narrative among support groups and cancer survivors: Screening saves lives. . .  For the most part, it’s wishful thinking. And it demonstrates the growing gap between what screening (and science more generally) can offer, and what the risk-averse public wants it to be.”—Globe and Mail, May 21, 2012

A recent recommendation by a U.S. government advisory panel to ditch the PSA test for prostate cancer has reignited the call for a cancer screening rethink. It’s no longer okay to abide by the “screen early, screen everybody” maxim, the conversation goes, echoing the one that emerged when the frequency of routine screening for breast cancer was scaled back last year.

Now, it’s good to be having these discussions: We do need to change how we think about cancer screening. In recent years, with the advent of incredible technologies that detect diseases before we feel sick, we’ve seen the emergence of “overdiagnosis.” The term describes cancer that is diagnosed but would not necessarily cause death or even symptoms because the cancer never grows, it regresses, or it spreads so slowly, the person dies before knowing any harm. That’s right, not all cancers are deadly or even harmful. As well, every single body displays at least a couple of benign abnormalities that can be seen as trouble. This is why mass screening has the potential to “rapidly turn perfectly healthy people into patients,” says the Canadian health policy researcher and author of Seeking Sickness, Alan Cassels.

Science-ish, though, wondered whether PSA testing and mammograms—usually the inspirations for the anti-screening cri de coeur because they can lead to overdiagnosis and unnecessary surgeries—are the exceptions in cancer screening or the rule.

Continue…

Frozen pizza economics

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 25, 2012 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Yesterday, the Harper government announced $12 million in funding for Dr. Oetker to help the German food processing company set up a frozen pizza factory in London, Ont. The Canadian Restaurant and Food Association, while also noting the effects of the supply management system, is displeased.

We create jobs and play a key role in the economy in every community across Canada.  We do this without handouts or special assistance from government.  Our members are deeply troubled that your government is using tax dollars, paid by our members, as a direct subsidy to their competitors who threaten their market share and ongoing businesses viability.  This is on top of the $7-million subsidy this same pizza manufacturer received from the Government of Ontario last year. 

Your government’s announcement today may be good news for this foreign-based multinational, but it is precisely the opposite for CRFA members.  They are asking why is your government so ready to give multi-million-dollar taxpayer handouts to their competitors, while a “Made in Canada” policy penalizes them. 

The Conservatives say the new plant will create over 300 jobs. (When the Ontario government made its announcement, the math was a bit different.) For 300 jobs, a $12-million investment works out to $40,000 per job.

Duelling limos: ‘Cosmopolis’ vs ‘Holy Motors’

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 7:17 PM - 0 Comments

Juliette Binoche in 'Cosmopolis'

The Cannes clock is winding down. The final entry of the 22 features in competition, Jeff Nichols’ Mud, premieres Saturday. But it’s unlikely to have the high-octane impact of David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, which seems strategically placed to climax the festival Friday. I’ll see the movie early that morning at a press screening. But before trying to log a few hours sleep, some observations on where the race for Palme d’Or now stands:

In a freakish twist of synchronicity, two of the most buzzed contenders for the Palme are both odysseys about a day in the life of a man on an obsessive mission cruising a major city in a white stretch limo. One of the films is Holy Motors, by French writer-director Leos Carax, which premiered Wednesday. The other is Cosmopolis, based on Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel and set in Manhattan. Until we see it Friday, it remains an unknown quantity.

A scene from 'Holy Motors'

The level of coincidence between these two movies is uncanny. Though I haven’t seen Cronenberg’s film yet, from reading the novel I know that the narrative culminates in a vast limo garage. So does Holy Motors, as the photo opposite shows. (It makes you wonder if Carax borrowed from DeLillo’s novel.) Cronenberg’s film is the bigger production, with serious stars (Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche) and it’s a straight-ahead narrative turbo-charged with elements of genre.

Despite Cronenberg’s reputation, it’s hard to imagine that his movie is more avant garde, or innovative, than the Carax film. Holy Motors is hard to describe. It’s a riddle of narrative that follows a mysterious character as he travels around the city by limo, being dispatched on hit-and-run assignments of Mission Impossible performance, art that involve costume, make-up, martial arts, murder, abduction, and so on. He assumes a repertoire of disguises, from ghoulish monster to motion capture acrobat. He’s like a cross between a mystery hit man and a one-man Cirque de Soleil, and seems to be making a movie with no cameras—aside from those employed by the movie we’re watching. Continue…

Dear Michael Moore: Leave Canada alone

By Emma Teitel - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 4:10 PM - 0 Comments

Remember when Michael Moore was cool? That’s right: So was Coldplay. And the Leafs still made the playoffs. Oh how times have changed.

Not Moore though…

In perfect American fashion—the kind of cocky, stick your nose in everyone else’s business and weigh in on cultures and subjects you don’t know or understand kind of fashion—(hey isn’t that the kind of thing Moore hates so much?) the lefty provocateur/Twinkie connoisseur is still doing what he does best: weighing in on his nation’s big backyard: Canada, a country in which, apparently, we never lock our doors…

However, something tells me people in Montreal are probably locking their doors these days, what with the violent protest/smoke bomb trend enveloping their city. Of course Moore has something to say about that as well: “Canadians are in revolt in Quebec over new gov’t law limiting democratic rights,” he tweeted over the weekend. “Their uprising is inspiring”. So is compromise: unfortunately, a doubtful outcome when uninformed celebrities egg on violent jerks as well as peaceful protesters.

Soon he’ll tell us all (again) to “bring out our inner hockey stick”. Or offer jobs to our young dissenters. Or commend us on our gentle nature: “Canadian people have a good heart and are a peaceful people.”

Thank you for the compliments Mr. Moore. Now please go back to America and lock your door.

Meanwhile, in Washington…

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 4:09 PM - 0 Comments

One of this month’s debates in Congress may sound familiar.

One casualty of the sweeping budget bill that passed the House on Thursday was an annual survey conducted by the Census Bureau, a rich source of data that social researchers say is critical to modern demography. The elimination of the American Community Survey from the bill surprised researchers, who say they depend on it for data on everything from race to migration and poverty. It is also critical to state and local governments, which use it to decide how to spend federal funds…

Congressman Daniel Webster, a Republican from Florida who voted to eliminate the survey, argued that it “tramples on personal privacy,” and that spending taxpayer dollars on it was “wasteful,” according to a statement provided by Kelly Kwas, a spokeswoman. The statement cited questions about how long it takes to get home from work, and whether the respondent needed help to go shopping.

Catherine Rampell explains the dispute. More from Matthew Yglesias and Business Insider. The Wall Street Journal is unimpressed.

In fact, the ACS provides some of the most accurate, objective and granular data about the economy and the American people, in something approaching real time. Ideally, Congress would use the information to make good decisions. Or economists and social scientists draw on the resource to offer better suggestions. Businesses also depend on the ACS’s county-by-county statistics to inform investment and hiring decisions. As the great Peter Drucker had it, you can’t manage or change what you don’t measure.

The ACS costs about $2.4 billion a decade, which is trivial compared with the growth it helps drive. National statistics are in some sense public goods, which is why the government has other data-gathering shops like the Bureaus of Economic Analysis and Labor Statistics. The House action is like blaming the bathroom scale for your recent weight gain.

The American Community Survey is what replaced the long-form census in the United States. (Two years ago, Ken Boessenkool and Jack Mintz invoked the ACS as an alternative to our long-form census.) If you’d like to recall the demise of Canada’s long-form census, you can review the back-and-forth here.

Quebec politics amid strife: Charest, undead, lives on?!

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 3:58 PM - 0 Comments

The PQ, neck and neck with the Zombies Liberals. Courtesy Léger Marketing

Riddle me this: if, as a majority of Quebecers believe, the Quebec government’s special law regarding protests goes to far; and if, as the same Léger Marketing poll suggests, an overwhelming majority of Quebecers believe that the government should lay off the obstinacy and return to the bargaining table with the students; and if the recent 100,000-strong protest in the streets of Montreal was less about tuition fees than almighty rage against the Charest government, then why, pray tell, is the Parti Québécois still only neck and neck with with the big, bad Liberals, at 32 per cent a piece?

And why, despite having wholeheartedly embraced the student movement’s position to the point of wearing its red square on her lapel everyday, is Pauline Marois only just as popular as Jean Charest? The numbers speak for themselves: when Léger asked, “In the context of the ongoing conflict, do you have a good or a bad impression of the following people?”, Jean Charest ranked at 30 per cent good, 59 per cent bad. Marois, meanwhile, scored an equally paltry 31 per cent good, and only a mildly better 54 per cent bad. In short, despite having radically different and conflicting takes on the student movement, Jean Charest and Pauline Marois are basically within the margin of error with each other. This, after more than three months of headline-grabbing stalemate between the students and the government. What gives?

The answer, if not quite blowing in the wind, at least lies in the between Montreal and the rest of the province. For instance, 47 per cent of Montrealers are for Bill 78; In Quebec City, meanwhile, 54 percent of residents say they are for it. And while 75 per cent of Montrealers are for the City of Montreal’s ban on masks, the support is even higher in Quebec City and what is quaintly referred to as les régions: 80 per cent in both. (These numbers are from the detailed Léger that I can’t seem to find online.)

The numbers are even more stark when you consider how a large western chunk of the island of Montreal has always been staunchly Liberal. As Léger V-P Christian Bourque told me, “Provincially speaking, the west of Montreal is still very Liberal red.” Discount these Liberal red-or-die types (and they include French and English), and you have a real difference between Montreal and the rest of the province. ”We’re seeing how opinions in Montreal and the rest of Quebec is getting and further apart. Montreal is more left and open, while the rest of the province is more conservative.”

The split between Montreal and the rest of the (Quebec) world is nothing new. As long ago as 2006, the Bloc Québécois commissioned a report on the phenomenon after a light electoral spanking in the Quebec City region at the hands of The Conservatives. The ensuing “Alarie Report” noted the following: “The Bloc, its leader [Gilles Duceppe], its organization, its program, the colour and scent it puts off is too Montreal.” One anonymous Bloc candidate, quoted anonymously in the report, was quite succinct. “Our platform was too lefty, too Montreal.”

For the PQ, there is an odd disconnect in this. By tilting her party to the right of the Bloc’s traditional lefty perch—and by the virtue of largely not being implicated in the plethora of scandals wafting around the Liberals—Pauline Marois has made inroads within the province, and rightly so—though, it must be said, she was only briefly ahead of Charest in the polls even before the current brouhaha. The caveat: this support has come mostly from les regions—where antagonism against the student movement is at its highest. ”The PQ is ahead in the regions where the support for the government and tuition hikes is higher,” Bourque says. “By wearing the red square, the party has painted itself into a corner a little bit.” If the current protest had taken place in Quebec City rather than Montreal, Bourque says, “It would have been over a long time ago, and people would have been cheering the police.”

Certainly, the Charest government remains in crisis mode. Today, the Premier brought back Dan Gagnier as his chief of staff. He was Charest’s C-o-S in 2007, and managed to steady the Premier’s nosedive in the polls before resigning in 2009. Charest says Gagnier’s return has nothing to to with the student strike, which I believe about as much as his line about not paying attention to polls. And anything can happen in the coming days, weeks, and (oof) months with people and police frequently clashing in the street. And Charest will have to call an election before December 2013, when the collective memory of tear gas, strife and ugly laws (and alleged party finance skullduggery, and construction industry misery, and more mafia ties) will in all likelihood be stuck in Quebec’s collective memory.

But as dark as things are for the Premier, he can take comfort in this: his opponents aren’t fairing much better than him.

Vincent’s nature, not his tragedy: the new Van Gogh show

By John Geddes - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 3:11 PM - 0 Comments

It’s hard to look at a Vincent Van Gogh painting, especially certain great paintings, without thinking about his life. A café under a night sky is where the crazy genius stopped for a drink. A yellow house is where he lived a bit of his unhappy life. A room with a single bed must be where his troubled dreams arrived.

To try to wrench the art away from the artist’s endlessly mythologized biography would be futile, of course, but the new show, Van Gogh: Up Close, which opens at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa this week for what’s bound to be a popular summer run, offers the best chance yet to take in the paintings without summoning Vincent’s story at every turn.

Continue…

Explaining the new EI

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 3:06 PM - 0 Comments

The New Democrats and Liberals are displeased. Rona Ambrose attempts an easy-to-understand explanation.

New EI changes are like ‘E-Harmony’ for job seekers and employers: matching Cdns looking for work with available jobs, data, support.

During this morning’s news conference, Diane Finley was asked specifically about the ramifications for seasonal workers.

Reporter: How does this impact on seasonal workers … if you take a fish plant worker, for example, works six months for the season. Then there’s a job at McDonald’s available. It’s deemed similar in terms of working around the kitchen. What do they do? They work six months at the fish plant, go to McDonald’s, say to the employer I’m here for six months and then I’m back? So how does this impact seasonal workers?

Diane Finley: Well, this is going to impact everyone because what we want to do is make sure that the McDonald’s of the world aren’t having to bring in temporary foreign workers to do jobs that Canadians who are on EI have the skills to do. It’s about taking advantage of the labour and skills that we have in this country, putting them to productive use and doing it in such a way that the employers are better off but the employee and his or her family is always better off. And that’s why we’ve made other changes leading up to this announcement to make sure that the worker is always better off taking work that’s available than not. And also it means that that money is here in Canada and not going to outside workers unless absolutely necessary.

The Commons: Smiling Diane

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 2:52 PM - 0 Comments

Diane Finley entered the room smiling. The Human Resources Minister is seemingly a firm believer that—as the lyric goes—when you smile, the whole world smiles with you. Or at least that the whole world is less likely to hear what you’re saying as threatening. Furrowing of the brow is to be avoided. Bright eyes are the order of the day.

“Today, I’m pleased to announce improvements to employment insurance to make it work better for Canadians,” she said with a smile.

“Today,” she added a bit later, “I’m pleased to provide details on our plan.”

The centrepiece of this plan: more e-mails.

Canadians, it would seem, are apparently at a loss. Some are unaware of where to find work. Others do not realize that their skills match job openings in other industries. But soon, through the wonders of modern communication, the unemployed will be more deeply and frequently enlightened.

“Currently, Canadians receiving EI benefits are only sent three job alerts every two weeks. These alerts come from the job bank, which only has about 20% of the jobs that are available. And we believe that this must change. As I said, we must help Canadians who want to work get back to work,” Ms. Finley explained. “As part of our announcement, we will be sending job alerts twice a day to Canadians receiving EI. And the job alerts will come from many sources, including the job bank, but also from private sector sources.”

Some significant portion of the $21 million set aside for improving the EI system will be spent on these emails. Though presumably these new expenditures will be easily covered by the billions saved from consolidating the government’s computer systems. Perhaps the consolidated computer systems will even make sending these emails that much easier. Continue…

The Quebec standoff already has a clear loser: taxpayers

By Fatima Arkin - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 2:09 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph: Fatima Arkin

Fatima Arkin is a Montreal-based freelance journalist.

It’s hard to say who will be the winner in the ongoing struggle between the Quebec government and student activists–but there are already clear losers.

Last Tuesday marked 100 days of protest, and the list of casualties continues to grow: small and medium sized businesses in downtown Montreal are suffering, taxpayers are in for a hefty bill–now estimated to be in the millions of dollars–to pay for police overtime, and the tourism industry is fretting that the images of violence making their way into a growing number of international media will harm the city’s reputation just as high season begins.

From Vancouver to London, U.K., rioting youth has been lifting millions out of public coffers and private pockets. The Stanley Cup mayhem is estimated to have dinged Vancouverites for at least $5 million between damages and the cost of the investigating the riots itself. The the U.K.’s own spell of anarchy could cost Britons over $160 million in damages alone.

For Montrealers’ wallets, here’s what the bill looks like so far:

Continue…

David Wilks clarifies himself

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 1:21 PM - 0 Comments

Before releasing his official statement yesterday, David Wilks apparently clarified himself to an audience in Cranbrook.

“I support the budget, I support what’s in the budget, and I believe we should move forward with it,” he said. However, he soon tempered that statement by saying he didn’t agree with every one of the 60 items in the 400-page document, referring to the duty-free limits specifically. ”I may not agree with everything in this book. I can say I don’t like the tax exemption, but it’s irrelevant because it’s in the book. Taking it out of here is not happening,” said Wilks.

He admitted that he had heard from the Prime Minister’s Office after making the comments in Revelstoke, which were captured by a reporter at the Revelstoke Times Review and by a spectator who recorded video of Wilks’s statements and posted it to YouTube. ”You may not agree with all the policies but you have to pick and choose your battles. This is one I choose not to pick,” he said.

And what of how Ottawa works?

“Ottawa is run by a ton of 20-something bureaucrats who know that in three years my term is up and they will still be there,” he said.

He explained to the gathered business owners that MPs are expected to vote as a party rather than as an individual. ”If you don’t vote the way the party votes, you will be an independent the next day,” said Wilks. ”When you tell me to vote against it, I can’t unless you want an independent MP.” He also said that he would quit rather than vote against the budget. ”We do things to piss off the NDP, and they do things to piss us off. Because it’s a bloodsport. Is it right? No, but that’s the way it is,” he said.

The REAL Canadian bank bailout

By Ben Rabidoux - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 1:21 PM - 0 Comments

Woodleywonderworks/Flickr

Ben Rabidoux is is an analyst at M Hanson Advisors, a market research firm, where he focuses on Canadian mortgage and credit trends and their implications for the broader economy.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives made quite a stir a few weeks ago when they released a report detailing a “secret” Canadian bank bailout. The report focused on three programs the government used to support Canadian banks during the financial crisis–primarily the $69 billion Insured Mortgage Purchase Program initiated by Ottawa as a means to ensure that banks would be able to keep funding consumer mortgages. The report labeled the IMPP a “bailout,”but banks were quick to point out that this program presented a zero net increase in taxpayer liabilities as these mortgages were already insured by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

However, the 2011 CMHC annual report reveals clear evidence that taxpayers did in fact take on significant risk in propping up the mortgage market during the financial crisis and Ottawa owes Canadians some answers on exactly why this was allowed to happen.

First, though, some background. In Canada, bank-originated mortgages with less than a 20 per cent down payment must carry mortgage insurance, which is typically paid for by the borrower. CMHC is the primary provider of such insurance in Canada. However, banks also have the ability to purchase insurance on pools of low-ratio mortgages (i.e. where the borrowers have made a down payment of more than 20 per cent of the value of the house) if they choose. This is commonly known as “bulk portfolio insurance.”

As the table below shows, CMHC bulk portfolio insurance for low ratio mortgages ballooned in 2008 and 2009, at the height of the financial crisis, and then again in late 2011. CMHC recently announced that it is going to start heavily rationing bulk portfolio insurance as it rapidly approached its $600 billion parliamentary-approved mortgage insurance cap–which Ottawa, as I have written before, isn’t likely to raise as CMHC insurance represents a direct liability of the Canadian government (i.e. taxpayers) and stood at only $250 billion in 2003.

2011 CMHC Annual Report, p. 92

Continue…

‘The deficiencies of the power structure’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 11:35 AM - 0 Comments

One thing that might create greater independence for the likes of David Wilks is a relaxation of the confidence convention: the understanding by which a government is said to be defeated. On April 18, 1994, Daphne Jennings, a Reform MP, presented the following motion to the House.

That, in the opinion of the this House, the government should permit members of the House of Commons to fully represent their constituents’ views on the government’s legislative program and spending plans by adopting the position that the defeat of any government measure, including a spending measure, shall not automatically mean the defeat of the government unless followed by the adoption of a formal motion.

In her opening speech, she made a general appeal for greater independence and freedom in voting.

There is a feeling that if members are suddenly freed from party discipline there will be chaos with complete unpredictability in the system. Members will be voting every which way and Parliament will become unworkable and the country ungovernable. This is not where this motion leads at all. It simply recognizes that on occasion members without fear of retribution from party leadership may vote against the party line. The government will not fall. The sun will still rise in the east and I believe the interests of Canadians will be better served by their elected representatives. Is that not what we are all here to do, serve the Canadian public to the best of our abilities?

Enough about the content of my motion. Now I would like to deal with the history of this matter, a history which began long before most of us got here. It began with a feeling of dissatisfaction among the Canadian people which was detected by the Canadian Study of Parliamentary Group in a Gallup poll it commissioned in 1983. A question was asked as to how MPs should behave when voting. The response was that 49.5 per cent felt members should vote according to their own judgment. By way of contrast the view that the member should vote as the party wishes received very little support. The national average in the survey favouring the MP as party loyalists was only 7.9 per cent.

The motion was debated in the House over the ensuing weeks. And you’ll never guess who stood up to announce his full support for it.

We have suggested from time to time that the Prime Minister could rise and suggest to the House that there be the freedom to vote more freely. It is true, but in and of itself it is not adequate. It suggests that the Prime Minister possesses such power that he or she could simply determine whether or not votes were free and, that raises questions about whether votes really are free.

There are a number of mechanisms in other countries; the three line whips in Great Britain, the fact that political parliamentary parties are organized on a more bottom-up basis in countries like Australia. This allows a very different style of leadership to emerge whereby it is not just the formalities of practice that apply but there are real issues of diversity of power within political parties that give members greater say and a greater ability to represent their constituents, particularly where those conflict with more broad party interests that are not necessarily representative.

There is a lot I want to say on this issue of how we should examine the deficiencies of the power structure. Unfortunately, I do not have the time. I appreciate the Chair’s patience and I will terminate my remarks now.

The new EI

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 11:15 AM - 0 Comments

Diane Finley has just now explained how the government plans to reform employment insurance. The official news release and backgrounder is here.

Early reviews are in from the Globe.

The Conservative government unveiled a sweeping overhaul of Canada’s Employment Insurance system, creating three new tiers of job hunters that will most directly affect repeat users of the program. The new rules will mean less generous terms for frequent users of EI, while giving Canadians who rarely use the program more leeway to look for jobs in their field.

The Star.

Unemployed Canadians will face tougher requirements to hang on to their Employment Insurance benefits under a new crackdown by the Conservative government. The intent of the changes is to push unemployed Canadians off the insurance rolls and into the workforce, even if it means they must accept lower-paying jobs or work they might not want.

And the CBC.

The longer and more frequently someone is claiming employment insurance, the broader their job search will have to be and the lower the wages they must be willing to accept, according to proposed regulations outlined this morning.