Democracy is Dead... Murder Weapon - The Whip

I think Garth Turner put it best:

"Far more important, and far less sexy than an MP being publicly hung, is the steady, continual erosion of the influence, respect and responsibilities of individual members of Parliament. As I have written here many times, the people we send to Ottawa are turning into so many sheets of wallpaper, as committees are weakened, party controls strengthened and unelected officials in places like the PMO assume the role of decision-makers that MPs once held. Too many of our politicians are now voting machines, expected to turn up and do what the piece of paper on their desk tells them to do."

It should be illegal for MPs to not listen to their electorate. Dion should be ousted for this.

Green Taxes

Cap & Trade - Opens up new markets, loved by economists, not really understood or directly felt by the average joe.
Carbon Tax - Easy to administrate, loved by bureaucrats, hated by the average joe... more money at the pump.
Luxury Tax - Loved by the average joe... attach a price to guilty pleasures. Hated by bureaucrats.

This budget did one thing right... it put in place the tax program that was most palatable by the Canadian public. Its a marketers budget... thats for sure.

The Film Industry and The NFB

The vision of Canada as a cultural and social entity is typically a long-forgotten debate in the mainstream media and blogosphere.

As opposed to letting Canada develop its own grassroots sense of culture - much like the USA with jazz, hip-hop, and the dense, local cultures in Mississipi, Texas, Chicago, etc the government has tried to systematically define its own vision of Canadian culture through the use of institutions and grants.

And this cultural institutionalism has plagued our cultural industries and left Canada with a rag-tag forum of a cultural and arts community - un- and under-employed. And not only are the workers un- and under-employed, the Canadian people are un- and under-served/represented/entertained/cultured and so on. By chronically trying to top-down, spoon-feed Canadians their culture we have ended up with a pitiful characterization of Canadians as a breed of happy-go-lucky, beer-swelling, white males - depicted best in Canadian iconic films such as Phil the Alien, Men With Brooms, Corner Gas, Trailer Park Boys, etc. Recently I watched a spat of Canadian shorts screened at a Canadian short film festival and found myself chronically cringing in shame at the forced Canadian 'quirkiness' found in the scripts... from lumberjacks losing arms to skinheads with dandruff... quirkiness reigned.









The National Film Board is one of the prime examples of a cultural vestibule that muddies our cultural water. As early as the 1950s the NFB was provided with an institutional mandate to create Canadian culture:

“to produce and distribute and to promote the production and distribution of films designed to interpret Canada to Canadians and to other nations.”

which has slightly softened 60 years later (in 2002) into:
“The NFB's mandate is to produce and distribute distinctive, culturally diverse, challenging and relevant audiovisual works that provide Canada and the world with a unique Canadian perspective.”

This top-down approach has led the film industry to overlook major cultural trends, to supress local cultural push, to deny multi-cultural new voices, and to continue to ride the coattails of movements from 20 years prior. Defining a national identity was a movement of the 80s that is still depicted in more recent films like the many I mentioned above. And instead of seeing a multitude of complex multi-cultural/integrated films that should be inherit in Canada - think bon-cop/bad-cop in every Canadian culture pairing possible - we are still watching our institutions and government prop up styles of yore.


And now our film industry is in deep trouble... er our non-French-speaking film industries that is. Instead of looking towards successful Canadian cultural industry examples, such as music where de-institutionalization and regulated distribution have created a healthy and vibrant industry, the NFB continues along a neo-barbaric economic and cultural view that institutions should drive our culture instead of visa-versa:

"...the Committee recommended in its report that the NFB be transformed into a research and training centre and give up producing and distributing films. The NFB rejected this recommendation..."

We have missed boatloads of opportunities to be the dominant force in multi-cultural films dripping with tension and delicate relationships. Few places in the world offer the cultural possibilities available in Toronto.

And ignorance of these cultural needs of Canadians has created an ill industry. From 1999-2005 the net results in the film industry have been this - under a Liberal government in case anybody was curious and thought the Liberals a lover of the motion arts:
-Box-office revenues fell to 1.1% of market share in english-language films
-Public sources accounting for 51% of funding
-Gross film production down to $253M, a drop of 31%
-A loss of 4700 jobs in the sector
-Foreign investment is down 13%

Given a few facts...
-The average budget for a Canadian feature film is $3M
-The production budget for NFB films was $40M which returned $181k in box-office revenue, i.e. every $1 invested results in a payback of half a cent.
-Total production in Canada is $253M which returns approximately $12M in box-office revenue, i.e. every $1 invested results in a payback of 5 cents.

...wouldn't it make sense to transfer the NFB budget into the hands of our under-employed film workers and let them produce grass-roots culture, which also conveniently improves return on investment. The average feature film requires a budget of $3 and a bit million. $40M would increase production by 13 feature films a year!

Also, letting the government funds channel through private capitalists and investment funds would create a pseudo-capital market for films in Canada, hopefully spurring on a healthier and more vibrant industry with niche indie investment, production and distribution vertical channels.

Or we could take the NFB route:

"The NFB is a unique organization — it provides an environment for filmmaking that is free of the financial pressures that mark independent filmmaking, and allows adequate time to research, develop and complete a film."

It also creates an unrealistic organization that doesn't prepare filmmakers for the real world where aligning the right investors and handling financial pressures is part of the artistic process.

I for one am tired of the NFB and Telefilm forcefeeding me their view of Canadian culture. The political parties of Canada need to take our cultural institutions into a modern area of de-centralization and let culture come from the people, instead of giving us more of this:









Sources
1. NFB - Strategic Plan 2002 - 2006, http://www.nfb.ca/publications/flash/en/strategicplan2002_2006

2. NFB - Annual Report - 2005-2006, http://www.nfb.ca/publications/en/annualreports/rep2005-2006/ONF_AnnualR_05-06.pdf

3. Canadian Film & TV Producers Association, An Economic Report on the Canadian Film & TV Production Industry, http://www.cftpa.ca/newsroom/pdf_profile/profile2006-english.pdf

4. Telefilm Canada, Annual Report - 2005-2006, http://www.telefilm.gc.ca/annual_report/pdf/en/annual_report_2005-2006_TFC.pdf

John Baird - The Veggie

According to this story on John Baird, Baird has been a vegetarian for the past 10 years.

Having been an "on again/off again" vegetarian since I was 16, this appeals greatly to me. It puts Baird into a whole new light as a reflective, well-purposed man. I no longer see him as Harper's pitbull. In fact I see him more like a border-collie - intelligent but with a lot of energy.

Memetics and Military Strategy

A professor friend of mine has been invited to a conference sponsored by DARPA on the usage of memetics in military information strategy.

I'm fairly surprised that the military is only starting to use memes this late in the game. With the success of the Bush campaigns and memetics ("Flip-floppers" and "Al Gore invented the internet") I would have thought Rumsfeld would have applied this technique ages ago.

Mostly though, the ability to manipulate information and history frightens me. Currently, the level of manipulation in our information sources - mainstream, political, etc - is ridiculous. The extra addition of military information twisting frustrates and concerns me with respect to our societal ability to function with all information spun to the umpteenth degree.

Freedom of speech and freedom to manipulate speech are two very different beasts.

The Liberal Track Record Part III - The Economy

When I went about tackling the Liberal track record on the economy I thought it would be fairly difficult. After all, if there were glaring discrepancies I'm sure the public media would have picked it up...

My thought process was very simple:
1. Is the average person better off today?
2. Will the average person be better off tomorrow?


Wealth Distribution
So, we all know that since the economy is better and GDP has increased, the Average Joe is better off... correct? After all, the expected result of an improved economy is a better standard of living for all. Well, according to Stats Canada research on wealth distribution this is not the case:

"In 1984, young families with children - that is, those in which the major income recipient was aged between 25 and 34, had a median net worth of $44,000, according to the Assets and Debts Survey. In 1999, the SFS showed that this net worth had declined 30% to $30,800."

Furthermore, Stats Canada goes on to make the following clear conclusions from their research:

"only the 10th (and for some samples, the 9th) decile has increased its share of total net worth".

Other research shows similar patterns. Saezz and Vaell show conclusive growth in inequality in Canada upto the year 2000, with peak gains in the Liberals stalwart years:


From 1999 to 2005 the economic boom continues. According to the 2005 Survey of Financial Security published here by Stats Canada family net worth has increased by a further 23%!

But of course the trend is more of the same - the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. From 1999 to 2005 the stats are:

"Family units in the top 20% of the
wealth distribution had a median net worth of about $862,900 in 2005, up 28.5% from 1999. The 20% at the low end
of the net worth scale had a median value of $1,000, a 9.1% decline from 1999."

What about the middle class from 1999 to 2005?
Increase in wealth - 8.4%
Inflation - 15.2%


Sure is hard to afford a Molson Blueport round here


Debt Reduction
In the end though maybe one could accept poor wealth distribution if money was being kicked back into paying down the debt, which would help reduce tax and increase net worth across the board for future generations. After all, the Liberals were the great budget managers of our era. They brought the deficit in-line and wrangled Canadian books into an unprecedented era of surplus.

Right??


Gross Debt March 31, 2001 - $613B
Gross Debt March 31, 2002 - $632B
Gross Debt March 31, 2003 - $695B
Gross Debt March 31, 2004 - $701B
Gross Debt March 31, 2005 - $701B
Gross Debt March 31, 2006 - $705B


Wait, something isn't adding up?

These numbers come from the Annual Debt Management Strategy Reports prepared by Finance Ministers. They are all signed by Paul Martin or Ralph Goodale.


Yes, Mr. Speaker, I know I'm lying... but its ok... we have a majority and Izzy Asper owns the media!

Read all of Paul Martin's speeches, the debt never fell, the debt to GDP ratio fell... obviously since the GDP was rising! Or he talked about how debt services fell as a percentage of taxes... well of course, interest rates plumetted in the same period! Liberal debt management is one of the biggest marketing scams in the history of governance.

New Markets
Well then at least if the Liberals were unable to extend the red hot economy into the pockets of the common man... and if at least they weren't able to pay down the debt and look after future generations... I'm sure they were at least able to properly invest in research and development to ensure Canada could readily position itself in new markets and economic opportunities. In the 19990s new markets for economic activity were opened by the 'knowledge-based economy' and the internet. Canada, quite frankly, "missed the boat" as stated by Icelandic economist Manuel Trajtenberg in a comparison of G7 countries.
Stats Canada's own research shows this, in the G7 Canada has the second lowest share of patents:


In addition to patent output, the Liberals also repeatedly underinvested in research & development, compared to the G7, thereby ensuring our knowledge-based economy and r&d output stayed relatively 'behind the pack' for the near future:



Trajtenberg perhaps sums up the Liberal r&d and technology policies best:
"The technological composition of Canadian innovations is rather out of step with the rest of the world, with the share of traditional fields still very high in Canada, whereas the upcoming field of Computers and Communications has grown less in Canada than elsewhere."


Conclusions

After all of this research a few facts have become fairly obvious:
1. The Liberals made the rich richer, the poor and the middle class poorer.
2. The Liberals lied about debt reduction, at least implicitly.
3. The Liberals were poor at investing in r&d and ensuring Canada remained an innovator that cracked new markets, opening up new opportunities for tomorrow.

The real question then is why are the Liberals so renown for their economic policies? This graph mapping Alberta's economic growth versus the rest of Canada sure paints a different picture of Canada's growth:


With oil being found in the oilsands, Newfoundland oil, the emergence of natural gas, and the artificial USA high-tech boom it seems as if the Liberals may have ultimately just gotten lucky.

Sources and Further Reading
Kerstetter, Wealth Inequality in Canada http://policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/rags_riches.pdf
Stats Canada, The Wealth of Canadians: An Overview of the Results of the Survey of Financial Security, http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/downpub/listpub.cgi?catno=13F0026MIE2006001
Inflation - http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/81-004-XIE/2006004/teach.htm#g
Cross & Bowlby, The Alberta Juggernaut, http://www.statcan.ca/english/ads/11-010-XPB/pdf/sep06.pdf
Intellectual Property and Innovation in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Intellectual Property Policy, http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/en/ip01243e.html
Trajtenberg, Is Canada Missing the Boat?, http://www.tau.ac.il/~manuel/pdfs/Is%20Canada%20Missing%20Tech%20Boat.pdf

Collaborative Democracy

I have a problem with the current Canadian electoral system - it connects what we should do as a country with who will lead and represent us.

While I prefer Stephen Harpers ability to lead, I sometimes find myself at arms length from his policies. Contrarily I find myself in favour of many Green policies, but Elizabeth May turns me away from a leadership and political experience perspective.



Great policies, but would you really give her the keys to the country???

This has led me to ask - "why must there be a coupling of policy and person?" Why can't we give the government a mandate and vote for the best person to deliver on said mandate.

In most modern organizations there has been a clear separation of power. For instance in the corporate and NGO world - 'What we should do' typically falls under marketing, product management and the executive ranks. Who should lead us falls under human resources and the executive team.

My Proposal

The Liberals of the 90s started a new phase in electoral concepts by introducing the now infamous Red Book. It gave the people a view of the party's vision. Online collaboration and e-government have potentially given us new and exciting tools for collaborative creation. Before any upcoming elections why not have a nation-wide 'brainstorming' and 'prioritizing' session to let the people define a vision for Canada... instead of having the party and prime minister define a vision.

For instance, any citizen could simply add an idea to the list - online, wiki-style or via their current MP. After all ideas had been listed, managed and collated, citizens would have the ability to 'vote' on the list. The parties in this stage would ultimately try to educate us on issues in order to have the people skew their opinion towards that party; thereby educating us more and more on the particular issues. And hopefully the result would be a grassroots vision of what Canada will do for the next 4 years.

Party elections would follow. The elections would undergo a change of focus into who could deliver best and who most embodies the vision of Canada as defined by the people. The elected government would then be given an outline of a mandate for their tenure.

We also have to allow for vision and ideas from the parliaments and executive branch, who are presumably political 'experts'. At the point of establishing government we could allow the House of Commons and the Senate to weigh in on the vision. The ideas of the people would have some sort of priority or weight vs the priorities of the legislature vs the priorities of the executive vs the priorities of the senate, ultimately giving us a top 20 goals or 'to do' list.


I'd vote for him... but not so much his so-con agenda

Given that there will be unpredictable reactionary elements to governance (CN strikes, wars in Afghanistan, recessions, etc), the government clearly needs flexibility in delivery. Mandating delivery of the given vision would clearly be a mistake.

Instead clear reporting should be in place, via mass media, to indicate what had been done by each parliament and why. Mass media and government communication channels would be required to be delivered. Expectations would be for MPs to deliver a statement of progress periodically, as well as in a reactionary fashion to any government changes in priority. At the end of each parliament a more detailed report outlining what has been delivered and what has not been delivered would be provided with various explanations and recommendations for a path forward.

Effectively my proposal is an in between of participatory/grassroots and representative democratic systems. Ultimately the politics and consensus building in a grassroots democracy could lead to NIMBYism and a severe lack of productivity. The idea is to let the public provide a participatory mandate & vision but let the government deliver, or not deliver, in an efficient and lean/productive manner.

Advantages of this Proposal
The system allows a clear decoupling of what and who. This system would allow the people to define the vision of Canada, instead of the party. This system would allow us to find the best prime minister to deliver on our vision or who best embodies this vision of Canada.

Disadvantages of this Proposal
Clearly it would make the electoral system more expensive and slower.
Demographics could also heavily drive the vision with Ontario voting power and declining participatory rates between older and younger generations.
Wedge issues, such as in the US, could be more prominent with the new emphasis on the issue versus the party.
Finally there would be huge education cost. Clearly the more participatory the democracy the more education is required on governance and issues. New innovative, continuous, adult education programs would be required at a real cost.

The Liberal Track Record - Part II - Parliamentary Activity

"Screw work, when we're done this lets go get drunk and puke on some foreign officials"

Since reporting on legislation began in 2001 the Liberals have managed to maintain an appaling productivity rate.

The CPC and Alliance introduced bills at a rate three times higher than the Liberals since inception. Below you can see an analysis of work levels of each party since 2001.

The Liberals as a majority were significantly outworked by the CPC & Alliance, highlighted by the Alliance introducing a whopping 3 bills per member to a dismal Liberal .7 bills per member rate in 2002.

And this is why I don't trust Stephane Dion. He is part of a holdover group of Liberals who are used to a laidback, style of governance. Stephen Harper is clearly a more effective leader, motivator and manager as demonstrated by the work ethic of the Conservatives over the Liberals.


"Excusez moi, do you know where the house of commons is... I'm late for my first day of work as leader of the hopposition?"

Productivity Statistics
This Parliament, still current - CPC Minority Government
Conservative Party - .7 bills introduced per member
87 bills introduced, 124 members
Liberals - .5 bills introduced per member
55 bills introduced, 103 members

Last Parliament - Liberal Minority Government
CPC - 2 bills introduced per member
131 bills introduced, 66 seats
Liberals - .82 bills introduced per member
111 bills introduced, 135 seats

37th Parliament, 3rd Session - Liberal Majority
CPC - 1.8 bills introduced per member
131 bills introduced, 72 members
Liberals - .7 bills introduced per member
119 bills introduced, 172 members

37th Parliament, 2nd Session - Liberal Majority
Alliance - 2.8 bills per member
190 bills introduced, 66 members
Liberals - .75 bills introduced per member
128 bills introduced, 172 members

Sources - http://www.parl.gc.ca/LEGISINFO/

The Business of Climate Change

Well many economists and politicians have looked at both the cost of reducing GHGs and the cost of not reducing GHGs, not many have publically looked at the opportunity afforded by GHG reduction.

But apparently big business has...

As reported here, TXU will be acquired by a massive financial conglamurate, for the world's largest acquisition ever. Out of that comes a promise from the conglamurate to bury the proposal of building 8 of 11 coal-fired plants. Clearly a very financially savvy group thinks there is money in other alternative sources.

Other mergers have happened as well in energy and emissions management. A euro/american merger of carbon-credit trading companies was announced here today. Mergers and acquisitions could be early indicators of a blooming industry where profits are expected.

Trading-wise, Wall Street has also jumped on board with several emerging technology funds for investing in green technologies:

PowerShares Wilderhill Clean Energy Portfolio (PBW)
PowerShares Wilderhill Progressive Energy Portfolio (PUW)
PowerShares CleanTech Portfolio (PZD)

The three funds have all had recent gains upwards of 6% as reported here.

And if Green seems to risky there are a number of 'sustainable business' investing options such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Fund.

On top of that there is no shortage of green investment advisors on the web:
SustainableBusiness.com keeps a handy track of the top 100 Sustainable Stocks and outlines global green investments topped $30B last year!
GreenMoneyJournal.com offers a slew of green investing advice.
And so on.

The morale of the story is that money will be made in the green movement. Just like the boom of the internet, we're seeing the early stages of a green crest, an enabling 'technology' that will create more jobs in a new sector and massive economical transformation. Much like in the industrial era, jobs were lost but new and better jobs were found. Oil & gas profiteers and government bureaucrats need to get out of the way and let the market take its course.

The Liberal Track Record - Part I - The Environment

Sometimes I am amazed that most people don't understand the depths of incompetence of the Liberal governments - and how little they invested in new infrastructure or put through meaningful legislation for most of their time in power. Ministry by ministry one can easily go through and see incredible lack of thought and progression. While there was a brief moment of movement under the Paul Martin government, without true pressure from the general population it seems generally that the Liberals acted like resource rich despots and took the country for granted. So here goes my department by department criticism of the Liberal government of yore:

Environment

David Anderson
Environment Minister
Dog's Name - Kyoto

Stephane Dion

Environment Minister

...later named his dog Kyoto

Without a doubt the Liberals were one of the worst environmental government this side of WWII. Under a period of shifting environmentalism Canada continually ranked last in the 90s amongst the OECD and were generally slow to adopt mainstream policies in the US and Europe. Some of the highlights of their incompetence are well known:
1. GHG emissions up by 26% over their tenure
2. Canada becomes the worst per capita consumer of energy, overtaking the USA in 2001 (source OECD).
3. Canada went from an environmental leader to laggard ending up in second last place in the OECD across a broad spectrum of environmental issues (source OECD).

But those are widely known and discussed - what about some of the lesser known facts:
1. From 1998-2000 the USA decreased toxic air emissions from plants and mills by 8%, while Canada increased by 7%. Thats right, all the criticism we direct towards the USA is a double standard. (source Commission for Environmental Cooperation)
2. Canada lagged behind the world in creating effective policy on SO2. While in the USA they passed nation-wide legislation capping SO2 and NO2, in Canada only Ontario has such a system in place. I mean the USA passed legislation when Regan was in government! The following diagram shows a US vs Canada graph of oxygenation improvements:




But I thought all of our smog came from the USA? Thanks Liberals!

In 2004 the annual Taking Stock report issued by NAFTA was pretty clear in its prognosis "Canada lags behind U.S. in curbing toxic emissions".

Some interesting notes in the report:
"Although total North American emissions declined by 18 per cent from 1998 to2001, Canadian emissions rose three per cent. "\
Canada's poorer record in curbing toxics is probably due to the lack of federal air-quality legislation, William Kennedy, executive director of thecommission, said in an interview. The U.S. Clean Air Act sets binding regulations for air polluters, butOttawa depends mainly on voluntary and negotiated agreements. "

3. Between 1990 and 2000, in an era of OECD led energy conservation, automobile travel increased 9% and the corresponding fuel consumption increased 21% - led by the constant criticism of Canada's poor attempt at a national railway system.

Even worse is when you look outside the common environmental KPIs of GHGs and air quality.

Canada is second worst to only the USA in terms of water consumption, ranking 28th out of 29.
Nuclear waste - Canada is set to surpass the USA in total volume of nuclear waste in 2010... a country 10x our size!
But its ok... because for overall hazardous waste in 2001 we ranked 24th out of 27 nations. With agricultural outputs its only more of the same, 22nd out of 28 for pesticide use and 25th out of 28 for fertilizer use.

Even worse is that by increasing GHGs, Canada explicitly violated the UN framework for climate change and ruined all the hardwork we had done as a country in the 1980s based on the Montreal Agreement and elimination of CFCs and decimated the international view of Canada as the ultimate green country. Thanks Liberals - we love being light years behind Europe!

For more reading on the environmental trends of Canada in the 90s you can read:
http://www.environmentalindicators.com/htdocs/PDF/FullReport.pdf
or read the book Unnatural Law.

Next up is fisheries, foreign aid, military and peacekeeping, first nations, etc, etc and maybe for fun I'll take on the Liberal stalwarts of education and economy.

Who Likes White People - Diversity in the Judiciary

Some of us believe in having judges play a larger role in selecting judges and that Harper's movement away from that is wrong. This is what happens when judges self-appoint:


The Supreme Court of Canada - 2006, Aren't we a multicultural country?


Here's a list of all the CJC members. Count out the women and minorities yourself:

Canadian Judicial Council Names -
The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C., C.J.C. (Chairperson)
The Honourable John D. Richard, Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Appeal
The Honourable Allan F. Lutfy, Chief Justice of the Federal Court
The Honourable Donald G. H. Bowman, Chief Justice of the Tax Court of Canada
The Honourable Gerald J. Rip, Associate Chief Justice of the Tax Court of Canada
The Honourable Edmond P. Blanchard, Chief Justice of the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada
The Honourable R. Roy McMurtry, Chief Justice of Ontario
The Honourable Heather J. Smith, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Justice (of Ontario)
The Honourable Dennis O'Connor, Associate Chief Justice of Ontario
The Honourable J. Douglas Cunningham, Associate Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Justice (of Ontario)
The Honourable J.J. Michel Robert, Chief Justice of Québec
The Honourable François Rolland, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Québec
The Honourable Robert Pidgeon, Senior Associate Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Québec
The Honourable André Wery, Associate Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Québec
The Honourable J. Michael MacDonald, Chief Justice of Nova Scotia
The Honourable Joseph P. Kennedy, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia
The Honourable Deborah K. Smith, Associate Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia
The Honourable Robert F. Ferguson, Associate Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, Family Division
The Honourable Ernest Drapeau, Chief Justice of New Brunswick
The Honourable David D. Smith, Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of New Brunswick
The Honourable J. Edward Richard, Senior Judge of the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories
The Honourable Richard J. Scott, Chief Justice of Manitoba
The Honourable Marc M. Monnin, Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba
The Honourable Jeffrey J. Oliphant, Associate Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba
The Honourable Gerald Mercier, Associate Chief Justice, Family Division, of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba
The Honourable Lance Finch, Chief Justice of British Columbia
The Honourable Donald I. Brenner, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia
The Honourable Patrick D. Dohm, Associate Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
The Honourable Gerard E. Mitchell, Chief Justice of Prince Edward Island
The Honourable Jacqueline R. Matheson, Chief Justice of the Trial Division, Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island
The Honourable John Klebuc, Chief Justice of Saskatchewan
The Honourable Robert D. Laing, Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench for Saskatchewan
The Honourable Ronald Veale, Senior Judge of the Supreme Court of the Yukon Territory
The Honourable Catherine A. Fraser, Chief Justice of Alberta
The Honourable Allan H.J. Wachowich, Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta
The Honourable Neil Wittmann, Associate Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta
The Honourable, Clyde K. Wells, Chief Justice of Newfoundland and Labrador
The Honourable J. Derek Green, Chief Justice of the Trial Division of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador
The Honourable Beverley Browne, Senior Judge of the Nunavut Court of Justice


Wow - I don't think there is one non-white person name there. For a country of immigrants that sure is a lot of white people!

You can go through the Provincial Courts of Justices and find the same issue repeatedly.

Here's some stats from the CJC itself:
Females - 26%
Minorities - this is from the Canadian Judicial Council and I love it... "To the best of our knowledge, no such information exists."

Sorry isn't this the year 2007? Why is our judiciary living in 1967? Because oligarichal structures have a tendency to promote the 'like begats like' phenomonen and because our system has and is broken. Harper's changes change nothing... the system is broken, politicized, not representative, and so on and so forth.

Also we incorporated French Civil Law into our constitution, why didn't we include Aboriginal Traditional Law - where are the first nations on the supremely white court and in the constitution of Canada?

The Mysterious Case of the Missing Cod Solved

The who-dun-it mystery of the disappearing cod of the 90s has finally been solved. And the culprit is... the Beaufort Gyre, thats right the Beaufort Gyre. Bloomberg reported here today that science has solved the mystery.

We've heard all the spectacles of dragging nets and fishing well over-quota. We've all heard blame being shifted onto those pesky Spaniards, Portuegese and British boats.

But now in the aftermath we learn this from Bloomberg:

A reversal of wind direction with a record drop in arctic air pressure pumped the water through the Canadian archipelago in the late 1980s and 1990s, according to a study in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science. The cold water helped spoil the cod habitat while improving conditions for snow crab and shrimp.

The cool water comes from a large body called the Beaufort Gyre, which borders the arctic ice shelf. Clockwise-turning winds build up water from rain and melting ice. About every 10 years, the wind direction reverses, dumping the Beaufort Gyre into the surrounding ocean. Increased rain and melt-off, possibly due to global warming, contributed to the record spill.

Sorry???? Huh???? By Beaufort Gyre do you mean evil Spaniard boats with big dragging nets? I'm befuddled - is nothing ever what it seems it is in this crazy complex eco-system of ours. So who exactly is the bad guy? Mother nature?

All this article has done is temporarily frustrate me and remind me of my hatred of the media and my hatred of environmental reporting. Its taken me back to the frustrating world of 'alarmists' vs 'denialists'. The 'denialists', 'skeptics' and 'moderates' will jump all over this tomorrow and say this is proof that all is not what it seems. The 'dirty hippies', 'greens' and 'progressives' will spin the science behind this article away and revert to the very large body of existing evidence that points back to overfishing and dragging nets. And I'll be confused with one more culprit on my list of potential murderers - dragging nets, dirty europeans, and now one Monsieur Beaufort Gyre.

Canada's Politicized Judicial Selection Process

"Everything else about the appointing process is left to the discretion of the appointing Cabinet, and it remains shrouded in vagueness, and unsubstantiated rumour and gossip." - Professor Zeigert, 1985.

The process with which the Canadian federal government selects judges has been under scrutiny the last few days following the controversial policies of Stephen Harper to try and create a 'tough on crime' ideology in the courts of Canada.

Many persons have both accused Harper of politicizing the selection process, ruining judicial Independence and creating a scenario where rule of law no longer exists. In this discussion, I will attempt to counter each point based on historical context, political theory and law. Afterwards there is a discussion on possible models for Canada and what potential Canada has for progression of judicial independence.

Politicizing the Selection Process
Since the Constitutional Act of 1867, appointing of judges in the upper courts has been the sole prerogative of the executive branch of power, the Governor General, in whom they divest the power to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice. Prior to 1967 there was no set process used within the judicial system for recommendation or selection. Not to surprisingly, the Canadian Bar Association found that in the 1950s and 60s most appointed judges were supporters of the the party in power at the time (CBA, 1985).

In 1967 the CBA established the National Committee on Judiciary, a committee intended on evaluating potential judges from within the judicial and legal system, on behalf of the Minister of Justice. But since the Minister of Justice was performing the original shortlisting the selection process was still heavily partisan, eventually erupting with the Trudeau and Turner era of mass cronyism and patronage appointees.

All of this led to the McElvy Committee, which indicated that patronism was abundant and that reform was required, and also partially led to the fall of Trudeau and Turner era and the rise of Mulroney.

In 1988 Mulroney's government made meaningful contribution when he introduced a process whereby potential judges applied and were screened by a committee, compromised of:
-a local CBA member,
-a rep of the chief justice of the province,
-a rep of the attorney general,
-three reps of the federal minister of justice,
-and a non-voting member of the office of the minister of justice.

Originally this process was used for provincial court appointments, in 2004 Paul Martin extended it to selection of judges for the supreme court (CBA, 2004). Prior to 2004 there was no committee system in place for the supreme court!

Ultimately though the end decision always has and most likely will reside with the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister - who are free to appoint candidates, recommended or not, on the list or not.

So the question is - what has been the impact of this change in process to include a an initial committee review structure outside of the legislature? Did this change in selection de-politicize and remove partisanship from the judicial selection process? Did this change result in better judges?

Three major research projects answer 'no' to the question of partisanship. All three based on matching party donations to judicial appointment found a clear pattern of partisanship. On one extreme the Ottawa Citizen reported the Liberals as nominating judges who had made donations 60% of the time at the lowest extreme draft research by Ridell found from 1989 to 2003 that 32% of nominations were connected to party donours. In addition there is the accusation of Benoit Corbeil during the Gomery Enquiry, claiming that Quebec lawyers were appointed based on campaigning for the Liberal party.

Some may argue that partisanship is inherit in the system. This would force us to perform comparison to other Commonwealth nations. Sir Robert Megarry argues that patronage was non-existent after 1950 in Britian, and the recent change to a completely non-governmental judicial selection committee effectively eliminates the possibility. Malleson and Roberts highlight patronage as an issue in Canada but not in either of New Zealand or Australia in a comparative study of appointees.

Ultimately, in a historical context, Canada has been fairly poor in its process of judicial selection.

Now lets take Stephen Harpers proposed change in that historical context.

Harper has included police in the committee that reviews potential judicial appointments. His list of potential police reviewers are, as reported by the media, to largely consist of Conservative supporters.

Ultimately the partisanship of the committee does not matter because it is the minister of justice and prime minister who make appointments. Harper could nominate 'tough on crime' judges without bias police being included on the committee. Therefore police being included on the committee has no impact on the politicization of a system that is already, intentionally, politicized, partisan and filled with patronage appointments.

Ruining Judicial Independence

In the historic case of Valente v. The Queen, the Supreme Court defined the notion of judicial independence as the following three core characteristics:
1. security of tenure,
2. financial security, and
3. administrative security.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Judicial Independence further expands independence to include the following tenants:

4. Independence of judiciary enshrined in the constitution or legislation.
5. Immunity
6. Accountability


Independence of Judiciary Enshrined
In Canada independence has been granted since the Constitution Act, 1867. These originally included right to tenure and right to salary determined by the Parliament. In 1982 the Charter spread independence through the criminal lower courts (i.e. federally related lower courts) as well as higher courts. Finally in 1997 the Supreme Court, in the Provincial Judges Reference indicated that independence was given in the original constitution act throughout all judges - including provincial civil law judges.

Security of Tenure
The Canadian Judicial Council is a self-regulating council which receives complaints and can direct committees to perform inquiries on a judges competency. If deemed incompetent the judge can be removed from office. Note that in Alberta Ralph Klein was famous for his "if we hired him, we should be able to fire him" comment and attempt to change provincial law, and breach security of tenure.

Financial Security
Every three years an independent commission is appointed by government to inquire into the adequacy of salaries.

Administrative
In Canada the courts have control over downstream budgets for court staff and other administrative functions.

Immunity
In Canada Judges are immune from civil and criminal law in respect of judicial decisions. For instance if a judge gave the death penalty they could not be tried for murder.

Accountability
Judges are accountable first and foremost to the rule of law. They must decide cases based on evidence and the law. With the exception of the highest appellate court all judgements as well as the manner in which they were conducted can be appealed. All judicial proceedings are conducted in open court under the scrutiny of the bar, the public and the press. Judgements are under scrutiny by courts of appeals, by other judges, the legal profession, academics and the press and public.

As shown above by the Canadian and UN defined notions of Judicial Independence, Harper's changes have no resultant impact on any of the key tenements of independence.

Rule of Law
John Adams' quote is my favourite definition of rule of law -
In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.

Clearly adding police to the appointee review committee has no wherewithal in terms of creating a change in power between executive, legislative and judicial powers. The Prime Minister always has and most likely always will have full executive power over appointments. Whether or not his review committee suggests judges with a particular bias doesn't impact the division of power in the country.

Concluding & Going Forward
While in the past most appointments were made in-line with the general consensus and moderation of Canadian people - there is a strong history of partisanship in Canadian judicial selection process. Harper's changes to a committee that reviews potential appointees still have no bearing on actual selection.

Stronger arguments would be that Harper is committing judicial activism, as he is attempting to vote judges with a specific agenda in mind. But that is his democratic prerogative because of the power vested in him.

As stated in the Ethical Principles for Judges, the underlying code of ethics for judges in Canada:
“True impartiality does not require that the judge have no sympathies or opinions: it requires that the judge nevertheless be free to entertain and act upon different points of view with an open mind.” The judge’s fundamental obligation is to strive to be and to appear to be as impartial as is possible.

Professor Ziegel, a renown Canadian expert on Judicial independence, also intimates -
"…Supreme Court judges should not be clones of each other but should have varied background and experiences and should represent a spectrum of philosophical positions on the most pressing constitutional issues…"

So it is clear that Harper, in the future, will be appointing judges with a different frame of reference. But does that mean our system will become less independent or not under the rule of law? Clearly by the inherit definition of independence itself and the constitutional split in power.. it will not.

Ultimately the question will lay on the quality of the judges selected. Will Canada continue to appoint "high-quality" judges? Harper's current track record indicates so, but only the test of time provides proof.

Going Forward
There are various other systems available -
1. Keep the power in the executive
2. Switch the power to the legislature - the US style of Senate hearings
3. Switch the power to the electorate - US state style
4. Switch the power to the judiciary - now Britain style

Ultimately the question is do you believe in the need for democracy in the judiciary?

Professor Ratushny of the Ottawa Law School explains:
"It may be confusing then to refer to a perceived need to “democratize” appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada or to reduce the “democratic deficit” in the judiciary. The Supreme Court of Canada is not a “democratic” institution even though it is an essential institution within our democratic system under the rule of law. Its role is not to be democratic, but to be judicial. It is not elected by the public and it is not accountable to the public for the content of its decisions."

All the systems have strengths and weaknesses.
Electorate means judges have to pander towards the populous, and has generally been publically accepted as not desirable in Canada.
Executive means there may be a democratic deficit or partronism as visible in Canada.
Legislature means there will be messy scrutiny, as visible in the US system.
Judiciary is prone to oligarchism and generally bringing about a system of "old, white, christian" men as reported by Malleson in Britain.

Perhaps some balance can be found in new models - but for now there does not seem to be a ready answer for Canada's politicized judicial selection process.

Sources:
A Place Apart: Judicial Independence and Accountability in Canada M.L. Friedland
Sir Robert Megarry, 2002
Malleson & Russel, 2006
http://www.icclr.law.ubc.ca/Publications/Reports/RuleofLaw.pdf
http://www.cba.org/CBA/submissions/pdf/04-10-03-eng.pdf
http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2006/Riddell.pdf
http://www.laws.qmul.ac.uk/staff/p_article/malleson_article.pdf
http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/conferences/judiciary/readings/confhearings.doc
CBCs Ideas on Judicial Activism, http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20061113_1185.mp3

1993 Election All Over Again?

Jim Elve wrote a good post at Blogs Canada outlining new polls from the Strategic Counsel for CTV and The Globe and Mail:

When asked how respondents would vote today, the Liberals showed a significant drop since Dion first won his party's leadership race (percentage-point change from a Dec. 3 poll in brackets):

Liberals: 29 per cent (- 8)
Conservatives: 34 per cent (+ 3)
NDP: 14 per cent (none)
Bloc Quebecois: 11 per cent (none)
Green Party: 12 per cent (+ 5)
(Full article)

His article prompted me to respond as such:

Remember 1993... is the next election all playing out like some perverse reverse image of it:

1. Doesn't Dion kind of remind you of Kim Campbell in terms of perceived weak character, lack of leadership, etc? Will we see him nude in the Toronto Star?

2. Much like the Bloc and Reform fractured the PC vote... the Greens and NDP are fracturing the Liberal vote.

3. The Greens definitely represent the Reform from 1993... a one issue party. Now the real question is will we get the Green equivalent of the late election Reform melt-down so-con comment? Some sort of late in the game eco-terrorist comment???

4. Do you remember how nobody really trusted Cretchien, but they felt they had no other choice with Kim Campbell and Preston Manning as the other two candidates? Is that Harper now with Dion and Layton?

5. There is one change... the federal NDP isn't hopelessly paralyzed by Bob Rae's Ontario provincial government!

6. How do you differentiate Dion, May and Layton? Aren't they all the same to the average voter... green, socialism lite and progressive?

7. Do you think all the past Liberal stalwarts that were ballied around as competition to Paul Martin are kicking themselves for not hanging around... Alan Rock, John Manley, etc? Isn't that kind of like Joe Clark not getting in after Mulroney?

Anyways, I'm calling for a CPC majority if the election occurs in the next 4 to 6 months.

5 Easy Steps To Climate Change

They have enough of these for consumers... so I thought I'd write one for the various governments. The Dan Morel 5 easy steps to making climate change effective, recommended for any policy maker.

1. Ban 200 year old technologies that are energy inefficient:
-such as Australia and banning the incandescent light bulb.
- make long term plans to ban coal burning

2. Use market solutions:

- Deregulate energy. Nothing makes people conserve energy better than high prices - just ask Victor Danilov-Danilyan, a member of the Russian academy of science,
"But in Russia, energy use per unit of GDP is 3.1 times greater than in the European Union (before the admission of new members).... it will not be difficult for Russia to abide by its commitments; it has amassed a huge reserve of emissions credits because of an economic decline in the 1990s. Despite its growing economy, by 2012 Russia will by no means exceed the level of emissions in 1990.The energy-saving process began in Russia in the 1990s entirely as a result of market prices."

- Cap n' trade - California has done it, the entire US north-east coast has done it, much of Europe has done it, China is doing it... just do it. Market-based solutions provide impetus for action.

- Introduce net metering. Its a fancy word that lets small generators and people with their own energy generators (solar, diesel, etc) sell back to the grid.


3. Grants & Incentives

- Create grants that incentivize corporates and industrials to upgrade old equipment.

- Create rebate programs that incentivize homeowners to upgrade old appliances and adopt new technology.

- Help create a healthy investment community for Green retailers, technologists, manufacturers, etc. Provide funds via grants to venture capitalists, banks and other investment sources.

4. Regulation
- Cars - regulate lower emissions on vehicles like in California, make city fleets use bio-diesel, introduce a carbon-tax and/or a luxury tax on poor fuel-economy cars.
- building codes, make them comply with the latest energy effiency standards
- appliances & industrial equipment - make them comply with the latest energy efficiency standards
- regulate laws that make you hit specific targets

5. Planning
- Stop urban sprawl
- Come up with a vision such as Toronto 2020.
- Take whatever urban planning the GTA-905ers did in the 1980s and 1990s and do the exact opposite.
- Invest in mass-transit,
- build up not out,
- Integrate services into the community and don't build strip malls that have to be driven to, etc.

Can Kyoto be met?

As reported today in the Ottawa Citizen, carbon dioxide emissions dropped to 24.6 megatonnes in 2006 in Ontario, down from 29.2 megatonnes one year earlier, a reduction of nearly 16 per cent.

Other smog-causing pollutants, like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, were down by 44 per cent and 46 per cent respectively since 2003.

So what does that mean with respect to our Kyoto targets?

A drop of 5 megatonnes equates to 2% towards our goal. Lets assume for some reason that Ontario can maintain 5 megatonnes from here until 2012. That basically gets us 14% towards our goal.

But hey, if Ontario, Canada's worst offendor, can turn it around who says the other provinces can't. Well this graph does:



But I still have hope. I believe in the snowball effect and I believe in the growing call to arms against climate change. Ontario dropped 5 megatonnes without even barely trying... I bet 10 is possible next year. All you readers out there need to take it up a notch and try doing just one or two little things to conserve a little more energy this year - like change your lightbulbs to flourescent or set your thermometer one degree less (in winter).

China Overtakes the US

China is currently delivering a serious barrage of attacks on the USA, coming from every given direction. They are whooping them in policy areas typically 'owned' by the USA.

Foreign Policy
1. USA Middle East debacle.
2. China got North Korea to dearm and open up.

Environment
1. China announced a nation-wide plan for a carbon trading exchange and carbon trading legislation
2. The USA has already put in place a carbon trading exchange (Chicago)... but any carbon trading legislation has been put in place at the state level.

Trading
1. Recent tri-lateral China-Pakistan-India deals, investment deals with Africa, continuing to dominate the trade deficit with the USA.
2. The USA is becoming less and less popular as a source of foreign direct investment. The USA has to realize its not just about money, its also about image. Foreign policy is a critical marketing tool if you want to be able to invest.

I recently read a very interesting economic comparison of China vs USA here. China's economy is still largely state driven, and there are a number of unprofitable state-run businesses allowed to operate because of the Chinese business culture of quanxi(i.e. connections). In order to componsate the economy has become reliant on massive exportation and re-distribution of capital via quanxi channels.

Alternatively, the USA economy is based on constant financial speculation in the markets and is therefore typicall overvalued - which means they should have rampant inflation. In order to keep the inflation in check they require cheap imports.

Currently the USA and China are an economic match made in heaven. Having said that, it seems that solving China's problems are easier then solving the USA. China's issue can be resolved with more open markets and deregulation, the USA's issue can only be solve by removing social/cultural get-rich-quick tendencies.

I am looking forward to the continued growth of China, competition provides impetus for new ideas and stimulates growth and efficiency.

And the winner is... The Environment!

Firstly, there was huge news this week with respect to China. China has indicated that they will put a carbon trading program in place.

This is earth-shattering for several reasons:
1. It places China higher in the ranks of green than say Canada and the US.
2. It adds significant momentum to blooming business of carbon trading - estimated to be a $30B industry by 2010 (get on board!)

Secondly, I found this company called Gexa Energy, operating out of Texas.

They offer a 'green' energy plan at 16 cents per kWh. The green plan is generated 100% clean. Classicaly prices are around 10 to 14 cents depending on contract-length, etc in Texas.

The company is performing extremely well financially - in 2003 they pulled $2.5M in profit off of $115M in revenue.

This company gives a lot of hope for the future of alternative energy and its marketability. People seem to be willing to pay a slight premium to 'go-green'.

The Go-Green movement is gaining steam. Governments need to create market-solutions, get out of the way and let it happen on its own.

Support Democracy

Personally I think its absolutely outrageous that Canadian media gets to decide who is involved in the national debate. It is clearly undemocratic and I would say borderline unconstitutional... absolutely ridiculous. See below to fill the petition for the greens.

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I wanted to let you know about this website that is being used to help get Elizabeth May, O.C., Leader of The Green Party of Canada included in the televised leader's debate in the upcoming election. Please visit:
www.demanddemocraticdebates.ca

Please take a moment to fill in the on-line petition.

Male Narrative in Political Blogging

Recently, I was watching a movie on an experimental film maker, The Search for Maya Derem. Maya Derem was one of the firsr writers of feminist film and she was one of the first propagators of the theory known as female time vs male time. The theory is along the lines that male time is narrative, linear and often goal-oriented. Female time builds, basing off of the theory that women see life and time as a process of building through the birth and child-rearing process, while men are action and problem-solving oriented.

This led me on a tangent in terms of the blogosphere and the style used in blogging.
Is the style of narrative used in blogging and more so in political blogging inherently male? The style is typically characterized as impersonal and linear in narrative. Classic female narrative is personal, emotional and building.

Retrospectively, female narrative has been dismissed, for example Nathaniel Hawthorne's quote “damn’d mob of scribbling women”. Presently, female narrative is still dismissed - some of you may remember Hochman's NY Times article on Mommy Blogs that was underhandedly sarcastic of the entire mommy blog diaspora of writing. Or the fact that any serious political blogger considers himself infinitely superior to the personal online diary blogger (classically represented by the female teenager).

Or even worse is the online seperation of male and female occuring in the blogosphere: www.blogher.com, www.feministblog.org, Wikichix, LinuxChix, Ubuntu women, etc. But is the online seperation essential in order to recover/make prominent the female narrative? Is there a universal, happy-medium style of narrative that men and women can co-agree on that takes both sides into the equation? Or am I missing the feminist argument completely?

Interestingly as well was Maya Derem's skill in choreographing the camera into the film shooting sequence, literally moving the camera as if it too was a dancer in the play. Famously she filmed a kung-fu artist and had the camera react to his movements. Do we understand or take narrative structure into a choreographed dance as we blog? One can see a much more liberal style being applied in commenting - from the short and sarcastic tort, to the reactionary repeat your line and comment, to the formal, essay structured retort. Unforunately there isn't a whole lot of variance in actual writing, it is still in a journalistic/essay driven style.

Funny - I thought about how I could try to write this piece in female narrative, in a way that it 'builds'. But ultimately it hurt my brain as I'm about the most linear-minded person around - but maybe some of you will find this less linear then my other posts.

Harper - defining Dion's Brand for him

This is actually a response to a blog entry written here by Ken Chapman. He questions the effectiveness of the Dion attack ads based on various research polls - while providing a lot of insightful information as to the status of current polls.

One question that remains unresolved is -
Is this a one-off reactionary attack or part of a greater marketing campaign?

If the latter (which I'm going guess at) then we have no idea of the impact and how it flows into the rest of the ads.

Kellogg's School of Management latest literature on branding (Kellogg on Branding, 2006) differentiates between two important styles in creating a brand:
1. Advertising on long term brand 'pillars' (this is who we are and what we stand for)
2. Tactical advertisting on why buy now (promotions, pricing)

As an example Verizon in the USA has some element of "can you hear me now" in every advertisement and they have entire "can you hear me now" campaigns. "Can you hear me now" is their brand pillar. Tactical examples would be when they started a campaign and promotoin on the KRZR, but always included a "can you hear me now" element at the end.

Kellogg's goes on to indicate that when creating a brand the initial split needs to be forward thinking - i.e. more money needs to be invested into creating and advertising 'brand pillars'. Then once your brand is well-defined and understood you start with tactical plays.

But... most corporates do not do this because they have to trade-off immediate pay-back vs long-term pay-back. So many marketeers are much more tactical right off the bat so they can hit numbers. Long-term pillar campaigns are not reliably understood until several months or years out.

Clearly the CPC advertisements is meant to brand Dion for himself and they are building pillars for him.

The pillars right now seem to be:
1. Ineffective
2. Doesn't talk/act like a leader - he is very stumbly and talks in a very high pitch voice and frankly unfair is not a word a leader should use

I think the conservatives will use the next few months before elections to continue the campaign of building Dion's brand pillars for him. Then once elections start they will be go tactical on issues and Dion's capabilities on those issues.

Thus it is premature to yet gauge the results of these ads because it is only the seeds of brand building.

Also Dion needs to get his own marketing team into high gear before Harper's marketing machine effectively markets Dion out of the race.

Scientifically Reducing Our Way to Understanding Climate Change

When evaluating large, complex, chaotic systems - humans seem to have taken an approach of reducing the problem to isolated parts. The isolated parts are smaller and simpler and therefore can be understood. When the isolated parts are rolled upwards the larger system can then be viewed as a series of small parts and we can draw conclusions.

As we stumble forward in our investigation of the climate and climate change I have problems discerning the actual opinion of scientists. The nebula of the internet brought me a location that neatly summarizes many of the important studies on climate change:

Arnell, N.W., 2005. Implications of climate change for freshwater inflows to the Arctic Ocean. J. Geophys. Res. 110, D07105, doi:10.1029/2004JD005348.

Boyd,P.W., Law,C.S., Wong,C.S. et a. 2004. The decline and fate of an iron-induced subarctic phytoplankton bloom. Nature doi:10.1038/nature02437 (on line).

Crutzen, P.J. 2006. Albedo Enhancement by stratospheric sulphur injections: A contribution to resolve a policy dilemma? Climatic Change 77: 211-219.

Anderson, T.L., Charlson, R.J., Schwartz, S.E., Knutti, R., Boucher, O., Rodhe, H., Heintzenberg, J. 2003. Climate forcing by aerosols- a hazy picture. Science 300:5622 : 1103-1104.

Damon, P.E., P. Laut, 2004. Pattern of strange errors plagues solar activity and terrestrial climate data. EOS, 85, 370 & 374.

This is actually the summarized list of science being done on the climate 'simplified' and made available by Environment Canada. The IPCC has taken this global body of science and created a report that authoritatively gives views on climate change.

Kevin Kelly is one of the pre-eminent authors on technology in our era and gives a great quote in discussing reductionism - "There are problems with this approach to understanding the world because very complicated being and behaviors are synergetic – they are wholes that are greater than the sum of their parts. The classic example is the bee hive. The behavior of a hive of bees is found nowhere in any part of the hive. It is not found in an individual bee (the part), it is not found in a bunch of bees. It can only reveal itself when the bees co-create a hive. Thus, there is something in a hive that cannot be found by examining bees or the parts, no matter how carefully, thorough or scientific it is done."

How can one take Dr. Boyd, Law and Wong's research on iron-induced phytoplankton bloom and assume to understand this in relation to other studies and come to the conclusion that climate change is real? If the science shown being done by Environment Canada is in fact at the level shown on their website I would heavily accuse them of scientific reductionism.

While I personally believe in reducing our eco-footprint and believe that it is obvious we emit an unhealthy level of CO2 that has an undeterministic, potentially catastrophic impact on our society - I really question the scientific methodology we have used to determine this. And mostly I really misunderstand how science is left as some stand-alone amorpheous blob that is not reportable to the general public and left to make its own conclusions without integrating their believes into something real that the rest of the world can relate with. Is simply the act of having scientists scientific reduction itself?

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Sources:

1. Environment Canada, http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/education/scienceofclimatechange/publications/developments/index_e.html
2. Kevin Kelly, www.kk.org/thetechnium

Debates I'd like to see

Koby wrote a really interesting piece here last week. I wanted to further expand on this question: "if the liberals were to win what issues would need to gain top-of-mindness in the public psyche"

Instead of asking a partisan question I wanted to ask: "which issues are ignored the most which shouldn't be?"

1. Native rights & culture
Canada has been reprimanded by many human rights organizations for its continued degradation of first nations people. Most recently the first nations have sued over policies that favour putting first nations children into non-first nation's foster care homes over providing welfare assistance to the natives directly. Statistically, the first nations have shown the Canadian government actually on average pays less welfare per head to natives than non-natives.
Canada needs sweeping reform on how we treat natives. Natives need equivalent distinct status to at least that of Quebec. I want to see national public debate on this topic and strong policy introduced. Below are some of the ideas I'd like included:
-recognition and use of the word 'genocide' when talking historically about what happened between the Americans, British, Canadians and the people of the first nations
-formal apology from all those governments for policies that to this day result in the repression of first nations persons
-an update in all curriculum to talk about native society before colombus and how technologically, socially advanced they were
-an update in all curriculum to talk about how malicious and systemic the 'whites' were in the continuing genocide of first nations
-an update in all curriculum to teach first nations culture
-recognition of major native holidays and festivals
-native american history month/week/year
-formal inclusion of natives into the constitution and into government structures to provide proper representation in the senate, commons, etc

Who owns this issue between the parties - Nobody! Could someone make it into a debate of national interest? Maybe?

2. Female and minority representation in the government
Representation of women in the government is horrendous. Unfortunately the partisanship name calling of Belinda Stronach was one of the least mature, unprofessional and disappointing moments in political history. Yes one could debate the ethics and merits of Belinda as a politician but lets face it - calling her a dog in national, public debate is appalling. The reaction of the media of having a strong woman running for political office was even worse - does anybody remember the original discussions on how she dressed, comparisons to Paris Hilton, etc - read this article by Dr. Linda Trimble, professor of political science on Belinda being framed. As a conservative or as a liberal she was continually attacked unfairly and sexistly by media and politics. And the media and current politicians probably detered many potentially talented females from entering Canadian politics.

And while I am using Belinda as an example one could also look at Ambrose, Kim Campbell, Sheila Copps, and many other examples of women who have been attacked by their own parties and the media more so than men in similar positions.

I'd like to see debate and policy as to how this could be altered:
1. Mandatory representation of minorities and women in the houses?
2. Mandate specific marketing spend directed to attracting women by political parties.

Who would own this issue? NDP - they have been systemically inclusive of women in their party.

3. Health, nutrition and community building
I'd like to see a lot more discussion in increasing recreational services for adults. More recreational and co-ed adult sports leagues are required - and more playing fields and parks to play them. This is one of the easiest ways to rapidly increase our health. Look at the athletic club structures of turkey or italy where community members belong to a local athletic club where they have varying levels of competitive sports played between different communities.

Read a great book called Bowling Alone to read about the recent collapse of community in the western world in the youngest generations and how they don't vote, don't phone friends, don't go out, etc - something needs to be done and urgently to get people together and communicating again and public debate and awareness needs to occur. The modern day community center panders towards the older generation. New community centers (privatized and commercialized??) need to be developed and marketed with the right sets of services to get people together again.

Who owns this debate? I'm not sure anybody - maybe the NDP.

I'd love to hear about other issues people feel that are not sufficiently represented in the national public debate.

Sources:
1. Assembly of first nations, www.afn.ca
2. http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca, Dr. Linda Trimble
3. Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam