Selling a dead parrot

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 21, 2012 at 10:04 AM - 0 Comments

Dan Gardner invokes Monty Python to explain the Conservatives’ carbon tax farce.

This is a perfect demonstration of why people like me are driven to distraction by this government. It’s not the policies. I disagree with many but most are pretty moderate and reasonable and a few are excellent and overdue. It’s the gobsmacking cynicism and the contempt that is its foundation. Contempt for Parliament, the judiciary, the media, and anyone who gets in their way. But most of all, contempt for Canadians. Stephen Harper is looking us straight in the eye and saying, “it’s not dead. It’s resting.”

He thinks he can get away with that. He thinks we’re morons. Maybe he can get away with that. Maybe we are morons. But still, the goddamn parrot is dead.

That noise means it’s working

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Responding to the lament of Peter Van Loan, Dan Gardner praises political gridlock.

You can find divided governments in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. The Netherlands. New Zealand. In fact, you can find them in almost any peaceful, prosperous, well-governed country you care to name. Australia has had a directly elected Senate — with 12 Senators from each state — since 1900. And yet somehow, mysteriously, it continues to prosper…

The real difference is negotiation. In the “il Duce” model, it’s not necessary. If the Big Guy wants, he can push things through in whatever form he wishes. But in a divided government, the executive has no choice but to discuss, negotiate, and compromise. Some people don’t like that. They call it gridlock. I do like it. I call it democracy. It can be messy and maddening. But it can work, if we give it a try.

The cost of crime

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 17, 2011 at 3:38 PM - 8 Comments

Bruces Foster and Ravelli argue the government is pursuing crime from the wrong angle.

Canada’s Criminal Code is already thick with laws that have lengthy sentences, yet people commit crimes every day. What our laws do not address are the root causes of crime, and the under-reporting of these crimes. For example, there is nothing in Bill C-10 that will assist an abused spouse to leave their relationship, nothing to support the child who is abused by their parent, nothing to address alleged systemic racism in the criminal justice system, nothing to address why people choose to not report their victimization, nothing to deter white collar crime.

When we hear the government is “getting tough on crime”, we want to believe the result will help improve the overall safety and wellbeing of Canadians. However, if we were to review the research (much of which was funded by the Government of Canada), we would understand that a more sound approach would be to take the billions of dollars earmarked for this bill and spend it on prevention and support programs. Every dollar wasted on ineffective law-and-order measures is money that could have been spent addressing the social and economic forces that drive the desperate into lives of crime.

Dan Gardner notes one potential absurdity of the government’s omnibus crime bill. Continue…

Debating justice reform: maybe it’ll have to happen in court

By John Geddes - Friday, September 23, 2011 at 11:29 AM - 12 Comments

Response to the government’s omnibus crime bill has been fascinating to watch. Thoughtful observers, like Dan Gardner over at the Ottawa Citizen, despair over the government’s refusal for some years now to offer anything like a reasoned argument for its approach, especially on limiting the discretion of judges by imposing more mandatory minimum penalties and no longer allowing  ”house arrest” sentences in many cases.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson doesn’t seem to feel any need to explain himself. (His office and department offered only bare statistics, for example, when I asked for some explanation about why he wants to stop judges from handing down conditional sentences for some crimes.) Given the Conservative majority, I suppose he’s right: the government has the numbers in the House to pass the sprawling law without bothering to seriously answer its critics.

Continue…

What does it all mean?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 5:15 PM - 11 Comments

Tim Flannery, an honorary pallbearer at Jack Layton’s funeral, arrives at a conclusion similar to that arrived at by Michael Valpy and James McKee.

For people the world over, Jack Layton was a bulwark against that descent into despair: the one who through his own boundless optimism and generosity of spirit coaxed us also to be generous; to trust, and to give of ourselves for the greater good. There is no politician like Jack Layton in Australia, the U.S. or Europe. Sure, those places have left-leaning parties with great leaders. But no one I know can speak to the people of the things that matter the way Jack could. And so those who knew something of Canadian politics looked to Jack for inspiration.

Dan Gardner sees a different lesson altogether.

Honouring a parliamentarian

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 12:20 PM - 19 Comments

Dan Gardner suggests a fitting tribute to Jack Layton would be the completion of a guiding document for our democracy.

There is a fitting way to honour such a man. Since the beginning of the year, the Public Policy Forum and the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights at the University of Toronto have been bringing constitutional experts together to discuss the production of a sort of pocket guide to Canadian parliamentary governance. That may sound like a trivial thing. It’s not. The Canadian system, inherited from Britain, is largely composed of unwritten rules. This project would put those rules on official paper for the first time.

It is essential that that happen.

What now?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 1:03 PM - 24 Comments

Dan Gardner considers.

In a matchup between the Conservatives and NDP, particularly at a time when voter turnout is appallingly low, the electoral math may show that moving to the centre to grab some of the dwindling number of Liberal voters is no longer the smartest option. The more effective strategy may be to identify, engage, and energize the party’s base.

That’s done two ways. One, demonize the opposition. Portray them as extreme. Call them a threat to all the base holds dear. Two, move away from the centre: Conservatives to the right, NDP to the left. If that were to happen, Canadian politics would become increasingly polarized and nasty. And Canadians would increasingly be asked to choose between two options which do not reflect the centrist views of the population as a whole.

They talk to you like you're an idiot

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 8, 2011 at 8:43 AM - 19 Comments

Dan Gardner considers the way politicians talk.

Adults do not repeat precisely the same phrase again and again unless they have suffered severe brain damage or they are following the advice of an expensive consultant who tested the phrase on focus groups and found it presses the right buttons.

Dan’s column could be paired with a column Elizabeth Payne wrote recently in response to the farewell speeches that accompanied the dissolution of Parliament last month.

How this works

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 11:45 AM - 81 Comments

Chris Selley posts the context for the latest clipped quote to appear in an attack ad.

A couple months ago I posted the article from which Mr. Ignatieff’s “beer label” reference is drawn. Last month Dan Gardner considered the context for Conservative criticism of something Mr. Ignatieff had said about Canada’s peacekeeping reputation.

When ministers of the crown tweet

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 10:06 AM - 127 Comments

Tony Clement takes on the worldwide statistical conspiracy.

dgardner So what might a professional, independent, disinterested observer think of the Harper government’s #census decision? http://bit.ly/hnzoFU

TonyClement_MP @dgardner Statisticians sticking up for fellow statisticians is your idea of “disinterested”?? You’re kidding, right?

dgardner @TonyClement_MP : No. You think professionals from another continent are biased because they share the profession? You’re kidding, right?

TonyClement_MP @dgardner If they’re from another continent, why are they sticking their noses in Canada’s business? Spare me the righteousness.

dgardner @TonyClement_MP : Oh, lord. Really? Faux populism? Rush Limbaugh territory. Don’t go there.

Easier said than done

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 5:36 PM - 70 Comments

The enduring riddle of opinion polling and the relationship between what people say they want and what people actually want is perhaps best captured by this bit from a new Environics poll commissioned by the Council of Canadians.

71% of Canadians strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement: “The money spent on wars and the military would all be better spent on efforts that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of climate change.”

Dan Gardner mocks. The necessary follow-up would be this: Do you agree that all the money in the defence department should be shifted to environment?

On Khadr's guilty plea

By John Geddes - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 9:46 AM - 0 Comments

To anyone tempted to imagine that Omar Khadr’s acceptance of a plea bargain somehow means everything the U.S. government has done to him, and the Canadian government’s refusal to intervene on his behalf, is just fine after all, I recommend a close reading of Dan Garnder’s column from today’s Ottawa Citizen.

Hookers, hacks, and Himel

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

The Citizen‘s Dan Gardner is impatient with the columnists cawing against Justice Susan Himel’s prostitution ruling. This morning he exasperatedly tweeted at them that “You don’t have to agree. You do have to read”—that is, read what Himel wrote. I’m on Dan’s side in this debate, but, hey, isn’t he being a little unfair and obnoxious? Surely respectable writers like Daphne Bramham wouldn’t denounce the Himel decision in such strong terms without examining the evidence:

If prostitution were a job freely chosen, as the pro-legalization forces would have us believe, it’s unlikely that the average age of entry into that workforce would be 14.

Damn, I guess Dan was right after all. This soundbite is a poor choice for an opening salvo against Himel, since it came up specifically in her hearing of the evidence from supporters of the existing law [emphasis mine]:

I find that Drs. Raymond and Poulin were more like advocates than experts offering independent opinions to the court. At times, they made bold, sweeping statements that were not reflected in their research. For example, some of Dr. Raymond’s statements on prostitutes were based on her research on trafficked women. As well, during cross-examination, it was revealed that some of Dr. Poulin’s citations for his claim that the average age of recruitment into prostitution is 14 years old were misleading or incorrect. In his affidavit, Dr. Poulin suggested that there have been instances of serial killers targeting prostitutes who worked at indoor locations; however, his sources do not appear to support his assertion. I found it troubling that Dr. Poulin stated during cross-examination that it is not important for scholars to present information that contradicts their own findings (or findings which they support).

Himel’s judgment gives the impression that she carefully scrutinized and weighted the massive body of evidence before her; Bramham, by contrast, uses cherry-picked stats in a way that recalls the old proverb about the drunk and the lamppost. Indeed, her column is such an impossibly confused piece of argument that one is tempted to think the drunkenness literal.

Like other critics of Himel, Bramham sneers at the idea that selling sex can possibly constitute an exercise of “choice”; you know this, she suggests, because you wouldn’t want your sister to be a prostitute. Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t want my sister to be a columnist at a Postmedia newspaper; I did that job, and, given my sister’s other options, the uncertainty and meagre pay certainly wouldn’t maximize her happiness or her income. It’s nonsensical to criticize someone’s means of earning a living from the standpoint that she could just presumably go be a master mariner or an accountant tomorrow if she didn’t have an imaginary gun to her head.

We are all trying to get by within a context of skills, credentials, abilities, and tastes, and these things are limited by our life experiences (particularly the horrible ones) and our inherent endowments. This is not the prostitute’s condition; it is the human condition. Sneering comments about the meaning and value of choice don’t reflect well on any commentator’s realism.

They’re especially odious when realism is precisely what those commentators claim to be advocating. Bramham writes: “Selling sex is dehumanizing and soul-destroying to most of the people who do it. That’s not a moral judgment. It’s fact.” This couldn’t be more embarrassing if she’d shouted “SCIENCE!” instead, could it? Has this soul-destruction been quantified by a graduate student? Is there an SI unit of dehumanization? Or is the columnist simply reluctant to admit that there might, in fact, be some irrational prejudices and scolding Methodist ghosts swirling around in her hindbrain?

Oh, not possible: Bramham eventually comes around to advocating the progressive, presumptively sex-positive “Nordic model” of prostitution—having either forgotten or never realized that the crux of the Nordic model is decriminalization of the supply side of the sex trade. It’s the pre-Himel law that’s inconsistent with the Nordic model! As Himel’s decision points out!

In Sweden, where prostitution is approached as an aspect of male violence against women and children, buying sex and pimping are illegal, but the seller of sexual services is seen as a victim and not criminalized. Public education campaigns targeting buyers of sexual services have reduced demand. Intensive police training has led to a 300 per cent increase in arrests and a reduction of complaints that the law is too difficult to enforce.

This evidence suggests to me that Canada’s prohibition of all public communications for the purpose of prostitution is no longer in step with changing international responses. These legal regimes demonstrate that legislatures around the world are turning their minds to the protection of prostitutes, as well as preventing social nuisance. The communicating provision impairs the ability of prostitutes to communicate in order to minimize their risk of harm and, as such, does not constitute a minimal impairment of their rights.

I don’t mean to pick on Daphne Bramham in particular; she’s just the latest target to pop up, and the faults in her rhetoric, enormous and fatal though they are, don’t descend to the level of Barbara Kay, who is sure that legalizing prostitution today means she’ll be clapped in irons for being agin it tomorrow. Still, at least my friend Barbara is upfront about not giving a fig about any harm done to prostitutes by the law. I was criticized a little bit last week for suggesting that opponents of the Himel ruling, people who don’t like to entertain arguments about “harm”, should logically regard serial killers as Dexter-esque defenders—perhaps distasteful but in a sense admirable—of the social order they value so highly. I’m afraid this implication is hardly even disguised by Mrs. Kay: in her first column on Himel she brings up Robert Pickton explicitly, mentions in a flat, neutral way that his murder spree “seem to have been a strong motivation for [Himel's] decision”, and goes on to dismiss the question of “harm” willy-nilly. You’re left to infer her feelings about Pickton: she doesn’t take an explicit position. I think I know that she would oppose his particular species of social activism, but given her arguments against harm reduction, I can’t really account for why she would.

Espousal of the Nordic model of supply-side decriminalization is probably more reasonable, and Bramham should be given credit for that, even if the idea collides with absolutely everything else she apparently believes. For myself, I’d prefer it if we could just get past our superstitions about power imbalance in technically victimless exchanges. Our law, in practice, now pretty much treats pot growers as Satan and pot smokers as delusional, lazy unfortunates; suppliers bad, demanders OK. When it comes to prostitution we take the opposite tack: suppliers victims, demanders monsters—though at other times, for no better reason, the reverse approach has prevailed. I’m content to let the Nordic model be judged on a close, unbiased study of its practical effects (and I certainly do believe that policy surrounding prostitution should facilitate, even encourage exit from it), but at root, do all these just-so stories make sense?

My ideology is that it takes two to tango and that people should be allowed to tango. Nobody wants to argue for a man’s right to buy commoditized sex, just as he buys commoditized brainpower (in theory) when he buys the Vancouver Sun or the commoditized sweat of Mexicans when he buys garlic and oranges from California. The anti-prostitution regiment, though it may appear in our minds arrayed in the black bonnets and hoop skirts of our Victorian foremothers, seem to me like nothing more than degraded Marxists or hippies carping about alienation, or about how we don’t deal with each other as real human beings, maaaan. We commoditize each other and are commoditized; that’s where everything that lifts us above the miseries of subsistence farming comes from.

And that’s really pretty OK. Unless you’ve breathed in too much nonsense borrowed from nitwit German philosophizing about “the I and the thou”, you know that capitalist alienation doesn’t prevent civilized persons from forming genuine connections, or acting with decency and kindness, within a client-servant framework. As prostitutes will be the first to tell you. My argument here would probably seem stronger if I had some good, obvious objects of pathos to parade—if, for instance, ex-johns wrote as many blogs and books and news articles as ex-hookers do. But that’s the price of monsterizing the john: people can blather on about how “prostitution is violence” without even having seen or heard of the widowers, the social castoffs, and the deformed and disabled who make up part of pretty much every whore’s clientele. (Whether that whore is male or female.)

This is not to say that a lot of johns aren’t woman-haters: the only question, absolutely the only question, is how best to protect the women. Which brings us back to Bramham. She cites a case, and it is a fantastically rare case, in which a Vancouver “incall” prostitute was murdered by a client in an apartment being used as a massage parlour. (OMG! Another “Craigslist killing”!) But as Bramham presumably understands, many women are killed every year by husbands, boyfriends, and acquaintances under similar circumstances; we probably cannot expect prostitution policy to make sex for pay any safer than sex in general. So how is prostitution relevant to the example at all?

If anything, its relevance would seem to be that there was a record of the man’s internet browsing, a record of the cash transaction, and security-camera images of his arrival at the illicit business. The commercial aspect of his visit is almost certainly the reason he got caught; it’s the only way Bramham is able to give us the exact amount he paid. As an argument that violence against prostitutes can’t be deterred by making indoor security arrangements legal, her anecdatum isn’t just ineffective, it’s self-annihilating.

So, too, is the quote she provides from a UBC law professor who says “says at most the decision might change [prostitution] from ‘an extremely dangerous job to a very dangerous job’.” Here, again, the idea that prostitution should be made safer is just being laughed at. We have a whole universe of occupational health and safety regulations devoted to making extremely dangerous jobs very dangerous, don’t we? Are these rules somehow bad or ridiculous?

A useful exercise in assessing columns about prostitution is to substitute “taxi drivers” for “sex workers” and see how the rhetoric holds up. Driving cab carries the highest risk of violent assault and homicide of any commonly performed lawful profession—higher, easily, than that faced by cops. So imagine Bramham writing “What are the chances, if driving a taxi really were a choice, that so many who choose it are poor, under-educated immigrants or members of minority groups?” Whoa, the demographics check out and everything! Could Bramham find a lawyer to say that it is “naive, disingenuous and dangerous to frame cab driving only in terms of safety, choice and individual autonomy”? I wouldn’t bet against it. A journalist—particularly one who’s a brilliant, tireless reporter—can always find what she has decided to look for.

'Not just a game'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 11:35 AM - 0 Comments

Defence Minister Peter MacKay writes to the Citizen to respond to Dan Gardner’s column.

I would like to point out to your readers and to Gardner that Medal of Honour is not just a game. It is a representation of the reality that Canadian Forces members in Afghanistan face every day.

When ministers of the crown tweet

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 12:22 PM - 0 Comments

Whatever the result of his last adventure in this regard, Industry Minister Tony Clement endeavours once more to engage the Internet.

dgardner David Frum takes “impartial” stock of the war on terror and concludes … he was right about pretty much everything. http://bit.ly/91kut9

TonyClement_MP @dgardner David Frum’s analysis seems spot on to me. Level-headed for someone under attack 9yrs ago today. Why so snarky?

dgardner @TonyClement_MP : I agree with some of it. What bugs me is seeing someone use his abundant intelligence to rationalize away any ...

Continue…

Video game reality

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 4:01 PM - 0 Comments

Two weeks ago, Defence Minister Peter MacKay stated his objection to the inclusion of the Taliban in a multiplayer mode of the video game Medal of Honor. In the wake of that and other statements of concern, the New York Times’ Seth Schiesel sorts through the trouble.

So what has appeared to prompt the defense ministers of three Commonwealth countries to blast Medal of Honor is their visceral reaction against the idea that the Taliban is human. The very concept that “their side” has soldiers (not thugs, criminals or terrorists, but soldiers) on an equal footing with “our” soldiers can be tough to swallow.

Is that fictional entertainment, or is that reality?

Likewise, Dan Gardner adds his thoughts.

Libertarian if necessary, but not necessarily libertarian

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 9, 2010 at 12:42 PM - 0 Comments

The research and social planner for Calgary—that bastion of nanny statists—voices his objection to the census changes. Stephen Gordon wonders if the government will do away with the coercive and intrusive Labour Force Survey (source of those job growth numbers that Conservatives are only too happy to celebrate). And now Dan Gardner gets his kicks in.

Yes, the staunch libertarian principles of the government. The Harper government. The government that thinks marijuana decriminalization is a Marxist plot, an adult who agrees to consensual sex in exchange for money should be imprisoned, the police did a fine job at the G20, and Omar Khadr can rot in a tropical gulag.

But requiring citizens to fill out a form which is absolutely essential to sound public policy and social science? An outrageous violation of individual liberty.

Hard truths for a plundered planet

By Andrew Potter - Monday, May 31, 2010 at 5:52 PM - 15 Comments

The third hour of yesterday’s Sunday Edition on the CBC featured an interview with Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion and, his new book, The Plundered Planet. The main thrust of the interview (conducted by Helen Mann) deals with the alliance between anti-poverty activists and environmentalists, and their too-often antagonism to economics and instruments that might actually work.

As Collier puts it, he’s trying to build “common ground” between environmentalists and economists. But he has a firm view of who is worth trying to woo, and who is a lost cause. He distinguishes between what he calls the ”humane” environmentalists (whom we can do business with) and the “fundamentalist” environmentalists, who are caught up in a romantic deep-ecology ideology that sees environment as something more than serving humanity. Their goal, he argues, is to focused on preserving or “curating” nature as a set of artifacts, instead of harnessing it for enhancing prosperity.

One of the most depressing aspects he highlights is the way the romantic environmentalists have become an “unguided missile” – chasing one authenticity hoax after another, leaving inadvertent destruction in their wake. As Collier explains, the romantics have become the unwitting allies of big agriculture, who leverage the political power of the romantics for their own nefarious purposes. In North America, it has led to the colossal idiocy of biofuels. In Europe, it’s the brainless opposition to genetically modified foods.

His denunciation of the “the romantic retreat into the organic holistic peasantry” is hard-hitting stuff, and not everyone will like it. Unfortunately, the ones who most need to hear it are the ones who aren’t listening.

Listen to it here. It’s Hour Three, and starts at the 20 minute mark.

Evidence matters

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 4:16 PM - 77 Comments

In his YouTube interview last night, the Prime Minister cited “evidence” in explaining his government’s crime policy. Dan Gardner congratulates Mr. Harper, then mocks.

Harper is right that certainty, not severity, deters crime. But that “certainty” is not the “certainty” of getting prison time when you stand in front of a judge to hear your sentence. It’s the certainty of getting caught. Sentencing? Is Harper serious? At the time someone is contemplating a crime, sentencing is a vague notion far away in a distant future that the would-be criminal seldom considers because — please note — would-be criminals tend to be impulsive people who do not consider the future consequences of their actions… even if they know what the sentence for a crime is, which they probably don’t because would-be criminals also tend to be badly educated and poorly informed.

Oddly enough, Mr. Harper’s Justice Department has so far been unable to provide any evidence that suggests mandatory minimums deter crime (or, for that matter, that the sentences it is legislating differ from the sentences that are already being enforced).

God save the Queen, whichever one she is

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 9, 2009 at 3:41 PM - 19 Comments

Dan Gardner wades into what our Kady, Andrew and John have spent the day variously wrestling with.

Look, I know most people think this is all about toasts at Rideau Hall and whose face goes on the coins. But it’s much more than that. This is about Canadian history and heritage, yes, but fundamentally it’s about the constitution: The Crown is the cornerstone of our legal order and the head of state is its guarantor, possessing emergency powers in the event of impasse or breakdown. Even the staunchest republican should agree that it is absurd that these changes can be made without the slightest popular discussion or consent.

If Michaelle Jean wants to be Queen, let her say so and put it to a vote. That at least would have the virtue of honesty, which is considerably better than what she is doing now.

The critics are sort of raving (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 5, 2009 at 12:16 PM - 16 Comments

Dan Gardner dissents.

So apparently the cold and ruthless android who is the prime minister of Canada is actually human: We know this because he very successfully pulled off a carefully engineered PR stunt Saturday night at the NAC.

Or at least, pundits seem to think the latter fact proves the former. Me, I’m not so sure

Objectionable reality

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 7:48 PM - 41 Comments

Having said the same thing this time last year, the Justice Minister restates his thesis on crime.

“We don’t govern on the latest statistics,” the minister told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview. ”What level it’s at right now, it’s unacceptable, and we are committed to disrupting … criminal activity.”

It was a year and a half ago, having heard the Prime Minister say something similar, that Dan Gardner was inspired to pen the phrase “an epistemological claim of staggering primitiveness.”

Mailbox horrors

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 3, 2009 at 2:38 PM - 6 Comments

Dan Gardner insists on applying reality to the Conservative mailout in Quebec. Glen Pearson questions Jay Hill’s sincerity after receiving a flyer from the government house leader. Steve Blaney invokes the Olympics to explain why the Bloc must be linked to child abduction. And Vic Toews stands by his right to selectively quote Michael Ignatieff with public funds.

All of which brings to mind the words of Jim Flaherty, our much-maligned Finance Minister, addressing the House on the afternoon of November 27, 2008.

We cannot ask Canadians to tighten their belts during tougher times without looking in the mirror. Canadians have a right to look to government as an example. We have a responsibility to show restraint and respect for their money. Canadians’ tax dollars are precious. They must not be spent frivolously or without regard to where they came from. Canadians pay taxes so governments can provide essential services. They trust the people they elect to serve society with that money, not serve themselves.

Dan Gardner is unimpressed

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 4:35 PM - 8 Comments

Dan surveys the land and is disheartened.

Let it be recorded in the annals of history that even as climate changed, terrorists plotted, soldiers fought, resources dwindled, and a grave economic crisis engulfed the world, the political class of Canada passionately debate this crap.

He will no doubt he happy to learn that CBC hasn’t spent a moment discussing Mr. Mulroney today. Granted, there hasn’t been much spare airtime what with the continuing coverage of Billy Bob Thornton’s not getting along with Jian Ghomeshi.