Well, it looks like Justin Trudeau can kiss the hard-core pothead vote goodbye. The NDP have just figured out a way to take it away from him.
At the cost of economic disaster, mind you. But all the same.
Recently, the NDP rolled out a proposal to increase Canada's federal minimum wage -- the minimum wage applicable to federally-regulated industries -- to $15 an hour. Sounds great, right? Well, not if you pay attention to history.
Here's what history tells us about raising the minimum wage, at least under certain circumstances: as of 2014, Canada's minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, was all of one cent more than in 1974. In 1974 the minimum wage in Ontario was just $2.74. Forty years later, it's $10.14. That might seem like a significant increase, until you consider that $2.74 adjusted for inflation is $10.13.
There's a reason for this: wage pressures are inflationary. And when a wage pressure is government-induced, that inflation is guaranteed. It's basic economics: if you increase the cost of an input, such as labour, entrepeneurs will increase the price they demand for their product. Suddenly everyone is paying more for everything so everyone's dollar is worth less.
So will a $15 minimum wage really improve things for minimum wage earners? As it turns out, no. Not only would it not really improve anything for minimum wage earners, it would result in catastrophic losses for the middle class, and more-bearable-losses for the wealthy. As the price of everything from housing to utilities to groceries to clothing to, well, everything will rise, swallowing up what might otherwise appear to be gains. No one gets further ahead, and everyone would fall further behind. (At least it would reduce income inequality!)
That's how the NDP would have it. But a $15 minimum wage could work without such a disaster... if accompanied by offsetting corporate and small business taxes. And we all know how much the NDP loves cutting corporate taxes.
But deep corporate and small business tax cuts -- perhaps as much as 50% of the current rate -- may be the only way to stave off the inflation that would otherwise accompany a $15 minimum wage. That puts the NDP at something of an impasse.
If they can't find it in themselves to navigate this impasse in the only workable way, the NDP's $15 minimum wage proposal would be nothing more than a blueprint for another Great Depression.
Showing posts with label NDP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NDP. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Sniff... They Grow Up So Fast...
I think it's fair to say that in federal politics, a party hasn't really grown up until they've had a multi-million dollar scandal.
The federal NDP has spent 50 years trying to get themselves into a position where they can actually have a multi-million dollar scandal. For the first time in their history, they are. So in terms of multi-million dollar scandals, they're batting a thousand.
Plenty of people have had serious concerns about the NDP's "satellite offices" they've been operating in ridings in which they do not have an MP. In my opinion the legitimacy of these offices focuses strictly around whether these offices, and the staff employed by them, are performing work on parliamentary business for opposition MPs or partisan work for the NDP. In my personal opinion, so long as they're doing the former, the offices should be fine. I've said this before.
But the problem is that the NDP lied. In October 2011, Jess Turke-Browne, Deputy Chief of Staff for then-interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel (not for Thomas Mulcair as I mistakenly reported earlier) lied to House of Commons staff when she insisted that the staff for these satellite offices would be working in Ottawa.
In response to this revelation, current NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has adopted an interesting approach: he's using the Pamela Wallin/Mike Duffy/Patrick Brazeau defense.
You've heard it before: they followed all the rules. The expenses were approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
The consensus has become that this defense was laughable. I've never been so certain about that myself, as I don't consider the allegations against the Senators to have ever been adequately investigated. But what is certain is that Thomas Mulcair had a heyday with the affair. He was like a pitbull in question period. He'd found himself a fresh bone to chew and he gnawed it for all it was worth.
But now with his party under fire, let's look at how Mulcair is defending himself:
They followed all the rules. The spending was approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
Sound like anyone you've heard of? Sure it does.
Except, they weren't. The employment forms the NDP submitted to House of Commons staff insisted that the staffers would be working in Ottawa. They weren't. Apparently, seven NDP MPs signed those forms. They aided and abetted Turke-Browne in her apparent deception of HoC staff.
And hear Mulcair: parroting Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. Well done.
Whoever those seven MPs are -- they know who they are, and soon the rest of us will too (one of them is Guy Carron) -- owe the House their resignations. Nycole Turmel owes the House her resignation. And the buck stops with the leader: Thomas Mulcair owes the House his resignation.
With this scandal the NDP has finally grown up. Now they have to own up.
The federal NDP has spent 50 years trying to get themselves into a position where they can actually have a multi-million dollar scandal. For the first time in their history, they are. So in terms of multi-million dollar scandals, they're batting a thousand.
Plenty of people have had serious concerns about the NDP's "satellite offices" they've been operating in ridings in which they do not have an MP. In my opinion the legitimacy of these offices focuses strictly around whether these offices, and the staff employed by them, are performing work on parliamentary business for opposition MPs or partisan work for the NDP. In my personal opinion, so long as they're doing the former, the offices should be fine. I've said this before.
But the problem is that the NDP lied. In October 2011, Jess Turke-Browne, Deputy Chief of Staff for then-interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel (not for Thomas Mulcair as I mistakenly reported earlier) lied to House of Commons staff when she insisted that the staff for these satellite offices would be working in Ottawa.
In response to this revelation, current NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has adopted an interesting approach: he's using the Pamela Wallin/Mike Duffy/Patrick Brazeau defense.
You've heard it before: they followed all the rules. The expenses were approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
The consensus has become that this defense was laughable. I've never been so certain about that myself, as I don't consider the allegations against the Senators to have ever been adequately investigated. But what is certain is that Thomas Mulcair had a heyday with the affair. He was like a pitbull in question period. He'd found himself a fresh bone to chew and he gnawed it for all it was worth.
But now with his party under fire, let's look at how Mulcair is defending himself:
They followed all the rules. The spending was approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
Sound like anyone you've heard of? Sure it does.
Except, they weren't. The employment forms the NDP submitted to House of Commons staff insisted that the staffers would be working in Ottawa. They weren't. Apparently, seven NDP MPs signed those forms. They aided and abetted Turke-Browne in her apparent deception of HoC staff.
And hear Mulcair: parroting Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. Well done.
Whoever those seven MPs are -- they know who they are, and soon the rest of us will too (one of them is Guy Carron) -- owe the House their resignations. Nycole Turmel owes the House her resignation. And the buck stops with the leader: Thomas Mulcair owes the House his resignation.
With this scandal the NDP has finally grown up. Now they have to own up.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Contempt
It's been a talking point of the NDP and their partisans since forever: contempt of Parliament.
It dates back to 2011 when the Liberals and the NDP trumped up a contempt complaint against the then- and still-sitting Stephen Harper-led government, then rammed it through the commons because they could.
The government misled the commons, they argued: it wasn't actually true. Even a Constitutional expert as vaunted -- and hardly a staunch ally of the Conservative Party -- as Ned Franks declared that the case was razor-thin. But that didn't matter because between them, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois had the numbers. The facts didn't matter then.
And I'm sure the NDP is hoping they don't now. The story recently broke that the NDP has been operating what they insisted were constituency offices in constituencies they don't represent, in the case of Saskatchewan, in a province where they don't have a single MP.
They misled the House of Commons. They told HoC staff that the staff the NDP had hired to work in the so-called "satellite offices" would be working in Ottawa. They didn't simply submit information to the House that the opposition refused to accept. They lied. Which makes this case for contempt of Parliament a whole different beast.
According to documents obtained and reported on by iPolitics, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's then-Deputy Chief of Staff met with two House of Commons staffers -- one from Finance Services and one from Human Resources -- on October 3, 211. Ms Turk-Browne told the staffers that the hirees would be working in Ottawa.
It was a lie. There's no way, whatsoever, that it wasn't a lie.
And to cover up what? That I can't understand.
As outraged as a lot of people were about the so-called "satellite offices." Personally, I wasn't. While it's true the NDP located these satellite offices in ridings where the elected MP was not NDP, Canada's system of representation is actually quite complex. Canadians are represented locally by their MPs within their own ridings, and across provinces and regions within government, and within cabinet.
A lot of people in Saskatchewan, for example, didn't vote for the Conservative Party or the NDP. And while it's perfectly reasonable for Conservative MPs (and one lonely Liberal, Ralph Goodale) to become MP in each riding where they won a plurality of the vote, it's also perfectly reasonable for those voters who didn't to also have access to a voice in Parliament. In their case, it's the opposition.
There's plenty of room for argument regarding the democratic legitimacy of this. In my opinion, it's legitimate. I don't understand why the NDP opted to lie about this rather than argue for its legitimacy.
But it seems to me that now there's only one thing to do: Thomas Mulcair was and remains responsible for the actions of his Deputy Chief of Staff. He's the leader of the NDP, and the leader of the opposition.
The House of Commons should immediately vote to hold the NDP caucus in contempt of Parliament. The entire NDP caucus must then resign their seats in the House of Commons and run in by-elections. At the very least Thomas Mulcair must be held responsible for the deceit that took place within his staff and under his watch.
It dates back to 2011 when the Liberals and the NDP trumped up a contempt complaint against the then- and still-sitting Stephen Harper-led government, then rammed it through the commons because they could.
The government misled the commons, they argued: it wasn't actually true. Even a Constitutional expert as vaunted -- and hardly a staunch ally of the Conservative Party -- as Ned Franks declared that the case was razor-thin. But that didn't matter because between them, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois had the numbers. The facts didn't matter then.
And I'm sure the NDP is hoping they don't now. The story recently broke that the NDP has been operating what they insisted were constituency offices in constituencies they don't represent, in the case of Saskatchewan, in a province where they don't have a single MP.
They misled the House of Commons. They told HoC staff that the staff the NDP had hired to work in the so-called "satellite offices" would be working in Ottawa. They didn't simply submit information to the House that the opposition refused to accept. They lied. Which makes this case for contempt of Parliament a whole different beast.
According to documents obtained and reported on by iPolitics, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's then-Deputy Chief of Staff met with two House of Commons staffers -- one from Finance Services and one from Human Resources -- on October 3, 211. Ms Turk-Browne told the staffers that the hirees would be working in Ottawa.
It was a lie. There's no way, whatsoever, that it wasn't a lie.
And to cover up what? That I can't understand.
As outraged as a lot of people were about the so-called "satellite offices." Personally, I wasn't. While it's true the NDP located these satellite offices in ridings where the elected MP was not NDP, Canada's system of representation is actually quite complex. Canadians are represented locally by their MPs within their own ridings, and across provinces and regions within government, and within cabinet.
A lot of people in Saskatchewan, for example, didn't vote for the Conservative Party or the NDP. And while it's perfectly reasonable for Conservative MPs (and one lonely Liberal, Ralph Goodale) to become MP in each riding where they won a plurality of the vote, it's also perfectly reasonable for those voters who didn't to also have access to a voice in Parliament. In their case, it's the opposition.
There's plenty of room for argument regarding the democratic legitimacy of this. In my opinion, it's legitimate. I don't understand why the NDP opted to lie about this rather than argue for its legitimacy.
But it seems to me that now there's only one thing to do: Thomas Mulcair was and remains responsible for the actions of his Deputy Chief of Staff. He's the leader of the NDP, and the leader of the opposition.
The House of Commons should immediately vote to hold the NDP caucus in contempt of Parliament. The entire NDP caucus must then resign their seats in the House of Commons and run in by-elections. At the very least Thomas Mulcair must be held responsible for the deceit that took place within his staff and under his watch.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Press Progress Just Can't Play By Their Own Rules
The folks at Press Progress sure do like to play by their own rules. And like any good left-wing organization, they themselves don't play by the rules they demand other people play by.
Press Progress has been among the more obnoxious participants in the campaign to attempt to run Rex Murphy off the CBC. They insist that his failure to disclose what may or may not be paid speeches to various oilsands-friendly groups before speaking about the oilsands on CBC's The National is unethical.
So you would think that Press Progress would play by its own rules and disclose who funds their operation, or any organizational links they may have, on any stories where it could be of ethical concern, right? Right?
Well, if you read their recent sad attempt at a "gotcha" article about Jason Kenney attending Conservative Party fundraisers while also traveling on government business, you may or may not notice something missing: Press Progress' disclosure that they, as a project of the Broadbent Institute, are essentially an NDP proxy.
They do pretend to be non-partisan. The Broadbent Institute pretends to be non-partisan. And in fact they're so non-partisan that the NDP broke the law in order to fund them. Which is really not very non-partisan at all.
This probably explains precisely why the story simply fails to mention the number of NDP MPs who also attend party fundraisers while traveling for public business, on the public dime. Liberals do it too. It's quite common.
Of course, Press Progress can hardly taddle on NDP MPs while maintaining direct links to the NDP. Ethics or not, that just cannot work for them. Interesting how quickly Press Progress dispenses with its own purported ethical standards.
And besides: playing by the same rules they presume to make for others? Where's the fun in that?
Press Progress has been among the more obnoxious participants in the campaign to attempt to run Rex Murphy off the CBC. They insist that his failure to disclose what may or may not be paid speeches to various oilsands-friendly groups before speaking about the oilsands on CBC's The National is unethical.
So you would think that Press Progress would play by its own rules and disclose who funds their operation, or any organizational links they may have, on any stories where it could be of ethical concern, right? Right?
Well, if you read their recent sad attempt at a "gotcha" article about Jason Kenney attending Conservative Party fundraisers while also traveling on government business, you may or may not notice something missing: Press Progress' disclosure that they, as a project of the Broadbent Institute, are essentially an NDP proxy.
They do pretend to be non-partisan. The Broadbent Institute pretends to be non-partisan. And in fact they're so non-partisan that the NDP broke the law in order to fund them. Which is really not very non-partisan at all.
This probably explains precisely why the story simply fails to mention the number of NDP MPs who also attend party fundraisers while traveling for public business, on the public dime. Liberals do it too. It's quite common.
Of course, Press Progress can hardly taddle on NDP MPs while maintaining direct links to the NDP. Ethics or not, that just cannot work for them. Interesting how quickly Press Progress dispenses with its own purported ethical standards.
And besides: playing by the same rules they presume to make for others? Where's the fun in that?
Monday, January 6, 2014
Charlie Angus Broke the Rules... Now What's He Gonna Do About It?
Stop me if you've heard this one before: NDP MP found to have broken the rules in the 2011 election. Does nothing about it. Shrugs. Moves on.
Of course we've heard this one before. Immediately after the 2011 election, when it was revealed that individuals whose signatures allegedly appeared on Ruth-Ellen Brosseau's nomination papers had never actually signed her nomination papers. As such, her nomination papers were actually a false document.
Brosseau did nothing. Appeared in the House of Commons. Was applauded by the fellow members of her caucus. The rules, you see, are not for them.
Now we find out that it wasn't merely the NDP's MP for Vegas who has broken the rules and apparently intends to stroll free. Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus apparently expects to do the same. The punchline? Angus is the NDP's ethics critic.
This is what happened: the bank account established by Angus' election campaign in 2008 was, by law, supposed to be closed after settling its accounts. Instead, the account remained open -- and presumably carrying a balance -- until the 2011 election, when it was used again.
Angus insists that his official agent simply made an error. So everything's OK, right?
Well, maybe not so much. Then-Labrador MP Peter Penashue said the same thing about the acceptance of the donations ruled illegal by Elections Canada: that a volunteer didn't understand the rules, and had made a mistake in accepting them. That wasn't good enough for Angus. He demanded: "Would the member for Labrador stand up and take accountability for his actions?"
Then the strangest thing happened: Penashue did. He resigned his seat, and ran in a by-election. He lost.
Now one of Angus' volunteers has made a mistake in the handling of his campaign's bank account and, by extension, the funds it contains. Remember the ultimate lesson of the Penashue affair: that the candidate is responsible for the conduct of his campaign staff. Their missteps are also his. So with this in mind, will the member for Timmins-James Bay -- who, once again, is the NDP's ethics critic -- stand up and take accountability for his actions?
Personally, I'm not holding my breath.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Stephen's Chosen, But the Hope of the Party Remains
As I recently noted on this blog, I've lost confidence in Stephen Harper as Prime Minister and as Conservative Party leader. His refusal to rein in the secretive backroom behaviour in the Prime Minister's Office, and his determination to double down on that by circumventing due process have become an utterly untenable position for anyone who values democracy.
That being said, I'm not pulling a sonakent. What I mean by this is that, unlike some, I never supported or joined the Conservative Party merely as a means to gain political prominence. Rather, I supported and joined the party because I cherish the values for which it stands, and principles upon which it was built.
To allow the political destiny of Canada to be dictated by unelected officials in a backroom of the PMO flies in the very face of that. It's the reason why then-Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay turned his back on the demands David Orchard made in such a backroom and put the destiny of that party before its membership.
Stephen Harper should know this very well. In the end, he was a beneficiary of that decision. It allowed him to negotiate the merger of the PC and Canadian Alliance parties. The events that followed culminated with him becoming Prime Minister of Canada. He seems to have forgotten this. But I haven't.
Today, rank-and-file delegates at the party convention voted to tighten party rules regarding financial reporting. It's an imperfect means to discourage -- if not outright prevent -- unilateral decisions to use party funds for questionable purposes, but it does serve to one very specific, and important, end: it reminds party brass that they are not to simply use party funds for any purpose they deem fit, up to and including making potentially-embarrassing episodes go away.
Interestingly enough, a number of labour unions in Canada -- those who donated funds to help Pat Martin fight a defamation lawsuit that he eventually settled -- have a very similar issue of their own to plumb. I'm not aware of any of these unions holding a convention since these donations became public knowledge, but whether or not rank-and-file union members try to head off such actions in the future will be interesting to see. As it will be interesting to see how hard their leaders may resist such rule-tightening.
The Stephen Harpers and Nigel Wrights of the party brass need to take note of the message rank-and-file members have sent today: we expect that party officials will take their direction from party members, and that unelected bureaucrats will take their directions from elected officials, not vise versa. Any of you who cannot abide this had best vacate your positions.
As for myself, I will not turn my back on the party and on my fellow party members; not so long as they continue to stand for the values and principles for which this party -- and this country -- stand.
That being said, I'm not pulling a sonakent. What I mean by this is that, unlike some, I never supported or joined the Conservative Party merely as a means to gain political prominence. Rather, I supported and joined the party because I cherish the values for which it stands, and principles upon which it was built.
To allow the political destiny of Canada to be dictated by unelected officials in a backroom of the PMO flies in the very face of that. It's the reason why then-Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay turned his back on the demands David Orchard made in such a backroom and put the destiny of that party before its membership.
Stephen Harper should know this very well. In the end, he was a beneficiary of that decision. It allowed him to negotiate the merger of the PC and Canadian Alliance parties. The events that followed culminated with him becoming Prime Minister of Canada. He seems to have forgotten this. But I haven't.
Today, rank-and-file delegates at the party convention voted to tighten party rules regarding financial reporting. It's an imperfect means to discourage -- if not outright prevent -- unilateral decisions to use party funds for questionable purposes, but it does serve to one very specific, and important, end: it reminds party brass that they are not to simply use party funds for any purpose they deem fit, up to and including making potentially-embarrassing episodes go away.
Interestingly enough, a number of labour unions in Canada -- those who donated funds to help Pat Martin fight a defamation lawsuit that he eventually settled -- have a very similar issue of their own to plumb. I'm not aware of any of these unions holding a convention since these donations became public knowledge, but whether or not rank-and-file union members try to head off such actions in the future will be interesting to see. As it will be interesting to see how hard their leaders may resist such rule-tightening.
The Stephen Harpers and Nigel Wrights of the party brass need to take note of the message rank-and-file members have sent today: we expect that party officials will take their direction from party members, and that unelected bureaucrats will take their directions from elected officials, not vise versa. Any of you who cannot abide this had best vacate your positions.
As for myself, I will not turn my back on the party and on my fellow party members; not so long as they continue to stand for the values and principles for which this party -- and this country -- stand.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Linda McQuaig Must Be Defeated
Apparently, the by-election in Toronto Centre is effectively set. Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland will contest the riding against NDP nominee Linda McQuaig.
The two-horse-race is apparently so much so that whoever the Conservative nominee in the riding might end up being, they haven't warranted so much as a mention in coverage so far.
Freeland is far from a perfect candidate. But as seldom as I endorse a Liberal candidate, I can certainly say that she's the far better of the two candidates: the "lesser of two evils," as it were.
The reason for this actually boils entirely down to McQuaig. She is what NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has insisted that his party doesn't represent: she's very much a "class war" candidate, bent on winning support from the poor by not only demonizing the wealthy, but promising re-distribution of wealth on a stunning scale. And while this may play well to voters in Regent Park, it's actually the reason why, for the good of the country, Linda McQuaig absolutely must be defeated.
It all comes down to her economic theories:
1. They're vindictive - McQuaig doesn't like millionaires. She really doesn't like billionaires. And so she has consistently advocated for policies that would wipe out every fortune in Canada. This is, of course, the dark side of McQuaig's equality crusade: her quest to force equality of result -- as opposed to equality of opportunity -- on Canadian society requires that she take the things people have earned for them, mostly just for the sake of taking it.
That's not the kind of attitude that ends itself to strong government.
2. They're tyrannical -There's something about a person who thinks that she should be able to decide what you should be able to earn, and what you should be able to leave to your children. Think about that: not only does she want to confiscate any excess if she thinks you've managed to earn too much, but if even if someone were to find their way around that and earn a fortune, she wants to confiscate it upon your passing.
She apparently thinks herself fit to decide what your children can have when you're gone. That's a staggering amount of power she thinks herself fit to wield.
3. They're reckless - McQuaig eyes up the wealthy as a source of revenue from which the government can fund the laundry list of social programs she envisions -- and those that she hasn't even thought up yet.
So imagine that McQuaig gets what she wants. Presumably everything's fine so long as their are fortunes to snatch.
What happens when there aren't?
McQuaig's policies would saddle Canada with extravagant social programming under on the basis that pilfered fortunes could be used to pay for them. And then her policies actively and deliberately set out to destroy the source of that revenue. It would be enough to transform Canada into Greece within a single generation. A competent economist would know better.
4. They're irrational - A competent economist would know better. Yet somehow Linda McQuaig doesn't.
How could this be? She may not necessarily be an economist, but she considers herself well-versed in economics. Yet her theories reject not only any remote semblance of economic orthodoxy -- in itself not necessarily a bad thing -- but also reject decades worth of economic history. She's the kind of theorist who not only clings to her model for years after the observed results contradicts them, but actually doubles down.
It doesn't seem unfair to suggest that running to be an MP is McQuaig's way of doubling down on her own disproven economic fantasies. McQuaig's theories wouldn't bring an embrace of evidence-based governance to Parliament, but rather a rejection of it.
Farbeit to say that electing McQuaig is guaranteed to bring economic ruin to Canada. After all, she would be but one MP, and her party has absolutely no chance of ever governing the country. But should McQuaig be elected, it would show that Canadians very much could be wooed by petty divisiveness and pure ideological fervour.
That should never be allowed to happen. Linda McQuaig must be defeated in Toronto-Centre.
The two-horse-race is apparently so much so that whoever the Conservative nominee in the riding might end up being, they haven't warranted so much as a mention in coverage so far.
Freeland is far from a perfect candidate. But as seldom as I endorse a Liberal candidate, I can certainly say that she's the far better of the two candidates: the "lesser of two evils," as it were.
The reason for this actually boils entirely down to McQuaig. She is what NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has insisted that his party doesn't represent: she's very much a "class war" candidate, bent on winning support from the poor by not only demonizing the wealthy, but promising re-distribution of wealth on a stunning scale. And while this may play well to voters in Regent Park, it's actually the reason why, for the good of the country, Linda McQuaig absolutely must be defeated.
It all comes down to her economic theories:
1. They're vindictive - McQuaig doesn't like millionaires. She really doesn't like billionaires. And so she has consistently advocated for policies that would wipe out every fortune in Canada. This is, of course, the dark side of McQuaig's equality crusade: her quest to force equality of result -- as opposed to equality of opportunity -- on Canadian society requires that she take the things people have earned for them, mostly just for the sake of taking it.
That's not the kind of attitude that ends itself to strong government.
2. They're tyrannical -There's something about a person who thinks that she should be able to decide what you should be able to earn, and what you should be able to leave to your children. Think about that: not only does she want to confiscate any excess if she thinks you've managed to earn too much, but if even if someone were to find their way around that and earn a fortune, she wants to confiscate it upon your passing.
She apparently thinks herself fit to decide what your children can have when you're gone. That's a staggering amount of power she thinks herself fit to wield.
3. They're reckless - McQuaig eyes up the wealthy as a source of revenue from which the government can fund the laundry list of social programs she envisions -- and those that she hasn't even thought up yet.
So imagine that McQuaig gets what she wants. Presumably everything's fine so long as their are fortunes to snatch.
What happens when there aren't?
McQuaig's policies would saddle Canada with extravagant social programming under on the basis that pilfered fortunes could be used to pay for them. And then her policies actively and deliberately set out to destroy the source of that revenue. It would be enough to transform Canada into Greece within a single generation. A competent economist would know better.
4. They're irrational - A competent economist would know better. Yet somehow Linda McQuaig doesn't.
How could this be? She may not necessarily be an economist, but she considers herself well-versed in economics. Yet her theories reject not only any remote semblance of economic orthodoxy -- in itself not necessarily a bad thing -- but also reject decades worth of economic history. She's the kind of theorist who not only clings to her model for years after the observed results contradicts them, but actually doubles down.
It doesn't seem unfair to suggest that running to be an MP is McQuaig's way of doubling down on her own disproven economic fantasies. McQuaig's theories wouldn't bring an embrace of evidence-based governance to Parliament, but rather a rejection of it.
Farbeit to say that electing McQuaig is guaranteed to bring economic ruin to Canada. After all, she would be but one MP, and her party has absolutely no chance of ever governing the country. But should McQuaig be elected, it would show that Canadians very much could be wooed by petty divisiveness and pure ideological fervour.
That should never be allowed to happen. Linda McQuaig must be defeated in Toronto-Centre.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
NDP Support, Low-Effort Thinking Linked in New Study
So, stop me if you've heard this one: left-wingers are smarter than conservatives. There are even studies that prove it.
Right? Right?
Well, not so much, really. Pretty much none of those studies show what their authors say they do. Each of these studies is crippled by incredibly flawed methodology.In some cases, the authors have even had to refer to political conservatism as a "latent" variable -- which means that it is actually unobserved.
But in particular, perhaps the most flawed study was one that linked conservative political beliefs to "low-effort thinking." It's a favourite among left-wingers. To start with, the study conflated casual, distracted, or even disinterested thinking as "low-effort thinking," and seemed to preclude the idea that whatever beliefs expressed by study participants -- whether in the bar or in the laboratory -- had been decided, through careful deliberation, before the study was ever conducted. After all, Arkansas -- where the study was conducted -- is a so-called red state.
For just a moment, let's set aside the flaws in the study and consider merely its conclusion: low-effort thinking leads to conservative political beliefs. If this were true, shouldn't it be said that left-wing political beliefs don't result from low-effort thinking?
Well, a readership poll conducted by Poletical might give cause to think about that.
The poll zeroed in on the ultimate form of low-effort thinking: prejudice. The poll examined reader beliefs about conservatism and homosexuality, and they found some remarkable things:
Only 7 percent of NDP-supporting Poletical readers thought being gay and conservative is not a contradiction. 88 percent of Conservative-supporting Poletical readers thought that being gay and conservative is not a contradiction.
So the prejudicial thinking in the study essentially shaped up like this: if you're gay, NDP supporters think you shouldn't be conservative. Apparently to be so is to be a hypocrite. Conversely, Conservative supporters think that if you're gay you can be conservative if that's what you believe in. Or to put it another way, if you're conservative you can still be gay. It's OK, you were born that way.
I would say that it takes a good deal more thought to be a member of a party and movement perceived by some (NDP supporters mostly) to be oppressive to homosexuals and instead open your party and your movement up to homosexuals and welcome them into it than to tell someone they should hold your political beliefs based on that particular detail. I'd say we can extrapolate from this poll that NDP supporters are low-effort thinkers.
For bonus giggles, 73 percent of NDP supporters told Poletical that conservatives "lack intelligence."
There's some irony in this as well. If conservatives really lacked intelligence, and left-wingers were really more intelligent, they certainly wouldn't feel so much pressure to trump up junk science in order to "prove" it. They would have better ideas and arguments, and would be content to allow their intelligence to be self-evident according to the hypothetical superiority of those ideas and arguments.
That instead they rely on the aforementioned trumped-up junk science is very much a sign of the hollowing out of the left-wing intellect. But really, what else can be expected from such low-effort thinkers?
Right? Right?
Well, not so much, really. Pretty much none of those studies show what their authors say they do. Each of these studies is crippled by incredibly flawed methodology.In some cases, the authors have even had to refer to political conservatism as a "latent" variable -- which means that it is actually unobserved.
But in particular, perhaps the most flawed study was one that linked conservative political beliefs to "low-effort thinking." It's a favourite among left-wingers. To start with, the study conflated casual, distracted, or even disinterested thinking as "low-effort thinking," and seemed to preclude the idea that whatever beliefs expressed by study participants -- whether in the bar or in the laboratory -- had been decided, through careful deliberation, before the study was ever conducted. After all, Arkansas -- where the study was conducted -- is a so-called red state.
For just a moment, let's set aside the flaws in the study and consider merely its conclusion: low-effort thinking leads to conservative political beliefs. If this were true, shouldn't it be said that left-wing political beliefs don't result from low-effort thinking?
Well, a readership poll conducted by Poletical might give cause to think about that.
The poll zeroed in on the ultimate form of low-effort thinking: prejudice. The poll examined reader beliefs about conservatism and homosexuality, and they found some remarkable things:
Only 7 percent of NDP-supporting Poletical readers thought being gay and conservative is not a contradiction. 88 percent of Conservative-supporting Poletical readers thought that being gay and conservative is not a contradiction.
So the prejudicial thinking in the study essentially shaped up like this: if you're gay, NDP supporters think you shouldn't be conservative. Apparently to be so is to be a hypocrite. Conversely, Conservative supporters think that if you're gay you can be conservative if that's what you believe in. Or to put it another way, if you're conservative you can still be gay. It's OK, you were born that way.
I would say that it takes a good deal more thought to be a member of a party and movement perceived by some (NDP supporters mostly) to be oppressive to homosexuals and instead open your party and your movement up to homosexuals and welcome them into it than to tell someone they should hold your political beliefs based on that particular detail. I'd say we can extrapolate from this poll that NDP supporters are low-effort thinkers.
For bonus giggles, 73 percent of NDP supporters told Poletical that conservatives "lack intelligence."
There's some irony in this as well. If conservatives really lacked intelligence, and left-wingers were really more intelligent, they certainly wouldn't feel so much pressure to trump up junk science in order to "prove" it. They would have better ideas and arguments, and would be content to allow their intelligence to be self-evident according to the hypothetical superiority of those ideas and arguments.
That instead they rely on the aforementioned trumped-up junk science is very much a sign of the hollowing out of the left-wing intellect. But really, what else can be expected from such low-effort thinkers?
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Peter Penashue -- Doing What Ruth-Ellen Brosseau Wouldn't
If you've taken note of what the left-wing is saying about the resignation of Intergovernmental Affairs Minister and Labrador MP Peter Penashue today, my advice is: don't.
But if you must, keep this in mind. amidst all of the howls of "scandal" is a little detail that the left -- particularly the NDP -- don't want you to realize. That detail being that Penashue's resignation in light of the apparent improper donation actually puts him on an ethical plateau lightyears above and beyond anything that the left -- particularly the NDP have themselves attained.
Indeed, Penashue has resigned as Labrador MP. The donation accepted by a campaign volunteer apparently should not have been accepted, and he's doing the right thing. He's also standing in a by-election for reelection. (This also has the left infuriated.) And in doing this he's only doing what the left -- especially the NDP -- themselves would not do.
Let\s rewind the clock a little bit to the days immediately following the 2011 federal election, when Berthier--Maskinongé MP Ruth-Ellen Brosseau made headlines for two reasons: first, she somehow managed to get elected despite spending most of the election in Las Vegas. Secondly -- and far more importantly -- the nomination papers her campaign submitted to Elections Canada featured falsified signatures.
It's illegal to submit any kind of false document to Elections Canada. But not only did Brosseau see fit to take her seat in Parliament rather than do what Penashue did and resign to stand in a by-election, but the NDP caucus gave her a standing ovation for doing so. That is just how untroubled the NDP was abut the chicanery surrounding her campaign.
Like Penashue, Brosseau herself was not responsible. This was the fault of a campaign volunteer. And while the acceptance of this apparently-improper donation can still be chalked up to a volunteer who didn't know the rules -- although the question must be raised about just why such a volunteer would be allowed anywhere near the fundraising arm of the campaign -- there is absolutely no question that the falsification of the fabricated signatures on Brosseau's nomination papers was deliberate. None whatsoever.
So the left may crow about the resignation of Peter Penashue as much as they want. It doesn't change the fact that all he's done is what the left themselves will never do: actually take responsibility for a mistake, be it his or someone else's.
But if you must, keep this in mind. amidst all of the howls of "scandal" is a little detail that the left -- particularly the NDP -- don't want you to realize. That detail being that Penashue's resignation in light of the apparent improper donation actually puts him on an ethical plateau lightyears above and beyond anything that the left -- particularly the NDP have themselves attained.
Indeed, Penashue has resigned as Labrador MP. The donation accepted by a campaign volunteer apparently should not have been accepted, and he's doing the right thing. He's also standing in a by-election for reelection. (This also has the left infuriated.) And in doing this he's only doing what the left -- especially the NDP -- themselves would not do.
Let\s rewind the clock a little bit to the days immediately following the 2011 federal election, when Berthier--Maskinongé MP Ruth-Ellen Brosseau made headlines for two reasons: first, she somehow managed to get elected despite spending most of the election in Las Vegas. Secondly -- and far more importantly -- the nomination papers her campaign submitted to Elections Canada featured falsified signatures.
It's illegal to submit any kind of false document to Elections Canada. But not only did Brosseau see fit to take her seat in Parliament rather than do what Penashue did and resign to stand in a by-election, but the NDP caucus gave her a standing ovation for doing so. That is just how untroubled the NDP was abut the chicanery surrounding her campaign.
Like Penashue, Brosseau herself was not responsible. This was the fault of a campaign volunteer. And while the acceptance of this apparently-improper donation can still be chalked up to a volunteer who didn't know the rules -- although the question must be raised about just why such a volunteer would be allowed anywhere near the fundraising arm of the campaign -- there is absolutely no question that the falsification of the fabricated signatures on Brosseau's nomination papers was deliberate. None whatsoever.
So the left may crow about the resignation of Peter Penashue as much as they want. It doesn't change the fact that all he's done is what the left themselves will never do: actually take responsibility for a mistake, be it his or someone else's.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Oh, Thomas Mulcair. What Would Tommy Douglas Think?
Consider this a tale of two Tommys.
One Tommy was a government Minister in Quebec. The other Tommy was the Premier of Saskatchewan. One Tommy is the current leader of the federal NDP. The other Tommy is a former leader of the federal NDP. In fact, he was the first NDP leader. One Tommy seems to have a mad-on for evangelical Christians. The other was an evangelical Christian. In fact, he was a baptist minister.
Of course we're talking about Thomas Mulcair and Tommy Douglas.
Tommy Douglas passed away in 1986. Thomas Mulcair stepped in it in 2013.
See, Mulcair is upset that Christian Crossroads Communications -- the same company that produces 100 Huntley Street -- recently received a CIDA grant of approximately $500,000 to drill and repair water wells in Uganda. He's very angry about it because CCC considers homosexuality to be sinful -- an opinion that, for the record, I disagree with -- and on those grounds he thinks that CCC should not receive the grant.
Mulcair declared that evangelical Christians "go against" Canadian values.
So what does that say about Douglas, the man who NDP campaigning propelled to the summit of the CBC's "greatest Canadian" poll?
Mulcair might not like the answer. First off, Douglas was not only a Baptist -- which is an evangelical denomination of Christianity -- but he was in fact a Baptist minister. And Baptists are hardly known for their tolerance of homosexuality.
Then, of course, there's Douglas himself. Now, he didn't believe that homosexuality is sinful, as the folks at CCC do. Rather, he believed homosexuality is a mental illness.
So now, nearly two years after Mark Bonokoski first asked the question, we must ask it again: is Tommy Douglas still the Greatest Canadian? Or, perhaps we must ask this question differently: does Thomas Mulcair, of all people, still think that Tommy Douglas is still the Greatest Canadian?
Keep in mind that Douglas' position -- that homosexuals should be treated with sympathy -- isn't all that different from CCC's. They condemn anyone who uses violence against homosexuals.
Which, sadly, isn't as Mulcair has it. "We don't understand how the Conservatives can ... subsidize a group in Uganda whose views are identical to those of the Ugandan government," he declared. But considering that the government of Uganda is -- and should remain -- under fire for their infamous "kill the gays" bill, and CCC opposes the use of violence against homosexuals, we can already see that isn't the case.
Unfortunately for Thomas Mulcair, this is more egg on the face of an opposition leader whose face is already looking very eggy indeed.
One Tommy was a government Minister in Quebec. The other Tommy was the Premier of Saskatchewan. One Tommy is the current leader of the federal NDP. The other Tommy is a former leader of the federal NDP. In fact, he was the first NDP leader. One Tommy seems to have a mad-on for evangelical Christians. The other was an evangelical Christian. In fact, he was a baptist minister.
Of course we're talking about Thomas Mulcair and Tommy Douglas.
Tommy Douglas passed away in 1986. Thomas Mulcair stepped in it in 2013.
See, Mulcair is upset that Christian Crossroads Communications -- the same company that produces 100 Huntley Street -- recently received a CIDA grant of approximately $500,000 to drill and repair water wells in Uganda. He's very angry about it because CCC considers homosexuality to be sinful -- an opinion that, for the record, I disagree with -- and on those grounds he thinks that CCC should not receive the grant.
Mulcair declared that evangelical Christians "go against" Canadian values.
So what does that say about Douglas, the man who NDP campaigning propelled to the summit of the CBC's "greatest Canadian" poll?
Mulcair might not like the answer. First off, Douglas was not only a Baptist -- which is an evangelical denomination of Christianity -- but he was in fact a Baptist minister. And Baptists are hardly known for their tolerance of homosexuality.
Then, of course, there's Douglas himself. Now, he didn't believe that homosexuality is sinful, as the folks at CCC do. Rather, he believed homosexuality is a mental illness.
So now, nearly two years after Mark Bonokoski first asked the question, we must ask it again: is Tommy Douglas still the Greatest Canadian? Or, perhaps we must ask this question differently: does Thomas Mulcair, of all people, still think that Tommy Douglas is still the Greatest Canadian?
Keep in mind that Douglas' position -- that homosexuals should be treated with sympathy -- isn't all that different from CCC's. They condemn anyone who uses violence against homosexuals.
Which, sadly, isn't as Mulcair has it. "We don't understand how the Conservatives can ... subsidize a group in Uganda whose views are identical to those of the Ugandan government," he declared. But considering that the government of Uganda is -- and should remain -- under fire for their infamous "kill the gays" bill, and CCC opposes the use of violence against homosexuals, we can already see that isn't the case.
Unfortunately for Thomas Mulcair, this is more egg on the face of an opposition leader whose face is already looking very eggy indeed.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Pop Quiz!
Pop quiz! Let's see who's been paying attention in Parliament this week.
This week, a vote was held on a private member's bill that would have advantaged a particular group perceived as being friendly to that member's party. Who was the bill going to benefit? Was it:
A.) A Conservative Party bill designed to dole out handouts to the oil and gas industry?
Or,
B.) An NDP bill designed to dole out handouts to artists?
If you guessed "B", award yourself a priceless no-prize.
Indeed, this week a vote was held on NDP MP Tyrone Beskin's Bill C-427, designed to institute "income averaging" for Canadian artists. See, in many years artists -- who basically pursue their hobbies as if it were a profession -- don't get to work an awful lot. Yet they -- *gasp!* -- still have to pay taxes when they do. I know. Shocking, right?
The bill was defeated.
Well, it turns out that Beskin has a plan to correct this grave injustice. It would allow them to average their income over a certain period of time -- spanning productive years in which they worked and years in which they weren't producing anything anyone had any interest in, and for whatever reason they didn't work in some other capacity.
Now, Canadian artists describe this as "fair." Fair in the sense that it gives them the freedom to pursue their hobby as if it were a career, and as a consequence actually pay a lower tax rate when their work might actually have some value. Compare this to working-class Canadians, who do not enjoy the same benefits.
Now apparently this has been tried before. And abandoned before. Mostly because Canada's tax codes were reformed to make income volatility less damaging.
But apparently Canadian artists want this back because... well, they want it. And apparently because while they love to harp about how the wealthy should pay more and more taxes, regardless of how much they already pay, apparently they don't like paying taxes either.
I know, right? Go figure.
This week, a vote was held on a private member's bill that would have advantaged a particular group perceived as being friendly to that member's party. Who was the bill going to benefit? Was it:
A.) A Conservative Party bill designed to dole out handouts to the oil and gas industry?
Or,
B.) An NDP bill designed to dole out handouts to artists?
If you guessed "B", award yourself a priceless no-prize.
Indeed, this week a vote was held on NDP MP Tyrone Beskin's Bill C-427, designed to institute "income averaging" for Canadian artists. See, in many years artists -- who basically pursue their hobbies as if it were a profession -- don't get to work an awful lot. Yet they -- *gasp!* -- still have to pay taxes when they do. I know. Shocking, right?
The bill was defeated.
Well, it turns out that Beskin has a plan to correct this grave injustice. It would allow them to average their income over a certain period of time -- spanning productive years in which they worked and years in which they weren't producing anything anyone had any interest in, and for whatever reason they didn't work in some other capacity.
Now, Canadian artists describe this as "fair." Fair in the sense that it gives them the freedom to pursue their hobby as if it were a career, and as a consequence actually pay a lower tax rate when their work might actually have some value. Compare this to working-class Canadians, who do not enjoy the same benefits.
Now apparently this has been tried before. And abandoned before. Mostly because Canada's tax codes were reformed to make income volatility less damaging.
But apparently Canadian artists want this back because... well, they want it. And apparently because while they love to harp about how the wealthy should pay more and more taxes, regardless of how much they already pay, apparently they don't like paying taxes either.
I know, right? Go figure.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Thomas Mulcair vs Evidence -- a Very One-sided & Nasty Fight
Mulcair decries the damaged Canadian reputation that wasn't
Thomas Mulcair wants you to think Canada has a bad reputation. And he wants you to think Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to blame.
This is actually nothing new. It's a familiar tactic adopted by the opposition throughout the entirety of the Harper government era. And never once have any of its proponents been able to produce even a shred of evidence to support the claim. Not one.
"The Canada that [the Conservatives] are projecting onto the world stage is no longer recognizable to our many partners around the world who have always admired and worked with Canada, and it’s no longer recognizable to us," Mulcair declared. He attributes these comments to a European Union diplomat whom he recently met with.
This, of course, is a conversation that took place in private. No European Union diplomat has come out and gone on the record saying that Prime Minister Harper has hurt Canada's reputation. And apparently we're supposed to take Mulcair at his word. Because he's a politician, and no politician would ever lie or embellish anything.
Right? Right.
But, just as with Mulcair's "Dutch Disease" thesis, Mulcair is sorely at odds with the evidence on this one. Just what should Canadians believe? Mulcair's claims that Canada's reputation is suffering? Or scientific polling that demonstrates Canada's reputation is quite strong, and getting stronger?
The last time that such a poll was conducted, 57% of respondents around the world gave Canada a favourable rating. Even more tellingly for Mulcair's claims about Canada's reputation, only 12% gave Canada an unfavourable rating.
Once again, the evidence is stacking up against Mulcair. Which is far from shocking. But even if a few disgruntled EU diplomats were griping to Mulcair in private, it likely had far more to do with getting him on-side with the sovereign debt bailouts that the EU wants copious amounts of Canadian dollars for. Which is a colossally bad idea, as the risk attached to European sovereign debt skyrockets.
"We had these weird statements from Conservatives saying that [the crisis] was because of the sumptuous lifestyle in Europe. They turned it into a local, parochial, partisan, political fight, whereas this is literally something where we're all attached," Mulcair complained.
First off, there's nothing "weird" about those comments. Many of the European countries that are on the verge of collapse accumulated that debt somehow. And whether Mulcair wants to admit to it or not, everyone already knows how.
But it's true that Canada is attached. But some of us are more attached than others. Mulcair, for example, has to be keenly aware that the collapse of Europe is a stinging historical rebuke for his party's ideology. Europe has long been the NDP's model for Canada, and as goes that model, so will go the NDP. They aren't very good at going back to the drawing board when their ideas fail -- ergo the need to obfuscate the failures of their ideas.
Bailouts are something that every government should avoid. But sovereign debt bailouts are the absolute worst bailouts, and have always brought nothing but economic disaster. It happened in the 1930s with Germany, happened in the 1980s with various Latin American countries, and it's happening again now. There have been more than 250 defaults on sovereign debt since 1800. Many of them -- in particular Germany's -- were made far, far worse by the bailouts they had received in order to avoid such a default.
So certainly, yes. Canada is attached to the European economic crisis. Due to the nature of the global economy, pretty much everyone is. But Mulcair needs to ask himself a very serious question: if Europe is sucked down a whirlpool of debt, should Canada follow just to spare the NDP a little wounded pride?
Unfortunately, it's easy to forecast Mulcair's answer. He's proven exceedingly poor at coping with the bruises to his pride since he became Leader of the Opposition. Whether it was dealing with all the informed observers who demonstrated that his "Dutch Disease" theories were complete and utter bunkum, whether it's his claims about Canada's international reputation -- again, flying in the face of the available evidence -- or whether its the future of his party's model for Canada, he's shown he's just not very good at dealing with these things.
Thomas Mulcair and evidence don't get along very well. It's been a nasty and one-sided fight, with the evidence doing all the hitting. It's enough to make the prospect of Prime Minister Thomas Mulcair a deeply disturbing one.
Thomas Mulcair wants you to think Canada has a bad reputation. And he wants you to think Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to blame.
This is actually nothing new. It's a familiar tactic adopted by the opposition throughout the entirety of the Harper government era. And never once have any of its proponents been able to produce even a shred of evidence to support the claim. Not one.
"The Canada that [the Conservatives] are projecting onto the world stage is no longer recognizable to our many partners around the world who have always admired and worked with Canada, and it’s no longer recognizable to us," Mulcair declared. He attributes these comments to a European Union diplomat whom he recently met with.
This, of course, is a conversation that took place in private. No European Union diplomat has come out and gone on the record saying that Prime Minister Harper has hurt Canada's reputation. And apparently we're supposed to take Mulcair at his word. Because he's a politician, and no politician would ever lie or embellish anything.
Right? Right.
But, just as with Mulcair's "Dutch Disease" thesis, Mulcair is sorely at odds with the evidence on this one. Just what should Canadians believe? Mulcair's claims that Canada's reputation is suffering? Or scientific polling that demonstrates Canada's reputation is quite strong, and getting stronger?
The last time that such a poll was conducted, 57% of respondents around the world gave Canada a favourable rating. Even more tellingly for Mulcair's claims about Canada's reputation, only 12% gave Canada an unfavourable rating.
Once again, the evidence is stacking up against Mulcair. Which is far from shocking. But even if a few disgruntled EU diplomats were griping to Mulcair in private, it likely had far more to do with getting him on-side with the sovereign debt bailouts that the EU wants copious amounts of Canadian dollars for. Which is a colossally bad idea, as the risk attached to European sovereign debt skyrockets.
"We had these weird statements from Conservatives saying that [the crisis] was because of the sumptuous lifestyle in Europe. They turned it into a local, parochial, partisan, political fight, whereas this is literally something where we're all attached," Mulcair complained.
First off, there's nothing "weird" about those comments. Many of the European countries that are on the verge of collapse accumulated that debt somehow. And whether Mulcair wants to admit to it or not, everyone already knows how.
But it's true that Canada is attached. But some of us are more attached than others. Mulcair, for example, has to be keenly aware that the collapse of Europe is a stinging historical rebuke for his party's ideology. Europe has long been the NDP's model for Canada, and as goes that model, so will go the NDP. They aren't very good at going back to the drawing board when their ideas fail -- ergo the need to obfuscate the failures of their ideas.
Bailouts are something that every government should avoid. But sovereign debt bailouts are the absolute worst bailouts, and have always brought nothing but economic disaster. It happened in the 1930s with Germany, happened in the 1980s with various Latin American countries, and it's happening again now. There have been more than 250 defaults on sovereign debt since 1800. Many of them -- in particular Germany's -- were made far, far worse by the bailouts they had received in order to avoid such a default.
So certainly, yes. Canada is attached to the European economic crisis. Due to the nature of the global economy, pretty much everyone is. But Mulcair needs to ask himself a very serious question: if Europe is sucked down a whirlpool of debt, should Canada follow just to spare the NDP a little wounded pride?
Unfortunately, it's easy to forecast Mulcair's answer. He's proven exceedingly poor at coping with the bruises to his pride since he became Leader of the Opposition. Whether it was dealing with all the informed observers who demonstrated that his "Dutch Disease" theories were complete and utter bunkum, whether it's his claims about Canada's international reputation -- again, flying in the face of the available evidence -- or whether its the future of his party's model for Canada, he's shown he's just not very good at dealing with these things.
Thomas Mulcair and evidence don't get along very well. It's been a nasty and one-sided fight, with the evidence doing all the hitting. It's enough to make the prospect of Prime Minister Thomas Mulcair a deeply disturbing one.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
The Phantom Menace: The OECD "Dutch Disease" Report That Never Actually Was
If you were to believe Canada's left, there's a malaise ravaging Canada's economy. And conveniently for them, they can blame it all on Alberta, where practically no one votes for them.
They call it Dutch Disease. And they're grasping at any straw they can find in order to make Canadians think that Canada has it. Including a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development which, they say, identifies symptoms of Dutch Disease in Canada.
But the report isn't the blanket confirmation of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's wacky economic thesis that they think it is. In fact, there's far more in the report that disputes Mulcair, and reveals his economic ideas to be shortsighted and dangerous than there is anything that actually backs him up.
Mulcair claimed that Canada suffers from so-called Dutch Disease on account of what he considered an over-valued Canadian dollar, which he attributed to resource revenues, singling out the oilsands in particular. The Dutch Disease argument holds that resource exports, which help drive up the value of the dollar, "hollow out" a country's manufacturing sector. A country's exports become more expensive by comparison to their international competitors, driving down sales, and labour demand from the booming resource industries leave the manufacturing sector unable to compete for labour.
And so the symptoms of the so-called "Dutch Disease" are pretty clear: struggling manufacturing, suffering sales, and lost jobs.
But to identify the symptom is hardly to diagnose the disease. And as a diagnostic tool, the OECD report actually tells a very different story. The report actually found what the IIRP did -- that the problem with manufacturing in Canada is below-nominal innovation. "While Canada has made great strides in macroeconomic and structural policy settings, and its academic research is world class, the pay-off in terms of business innovation and productivity growth has not been large. Business R&D is particularly low, despite significant policy support, suggesting substantial scope for improvement."
So the government of Canada has been doing its part. Particular sectors of the economy -- particularly the high-labour, low-wage subsectors of Canadian manufacturing that have been struggling -- have not been doing their part. Which, you may recall, was precisely what the IIRP concluded.
The report also found that opening sheltered sectors of the economy -- such as network communications -- up to greater competition would be beneficial. (Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has been doing just this, and it's been driving the opposition batty.)
On the whole, the OECD report concluded that the problem with the Canadian economy is not the competitive pressures imposed by a higher exchange rate, but rather failures by specific sectors of the Canadian economy to respond to them. Which confronts Thomas Mulcair, the NDP, and his standard bearers with some very stark realities, and some equally stark challenges.
For example, Mulcair cites Canada's strong dollar as a problem, implying that something needs to be done about it. Yet the OECD gave Canada a sold thumbs-up on its monetary policy, although noting that the Bank of Canada should stand prepared to respond to inflationary pressures. So policy measures to erode the Canadian dollar don't seem to be in order.
So even if the OECD agreed with Mulcair that some symptoms of Dutch Disease are present, that's just one thing. And the presence of symptoms alone are not enough to diagnose the Dutch Disease. They also need to be able to identify the cause.
This is where some control comparisons come in handy. If the oilsands, and the energy industry in general, were really spurring Dutch Disease in Canada, then the struggles of Canada's manufacturing sector should be unique. But unfortunately for Mulcair and his fans, those struggles are not unique. Not even within OECD countries.
In fact, comparing declines across OECD countries is rather telling. While Statistics Canada identified a general downturn in Canadian manufacturing since 2004 -- something that Mulcair's followers point to as symptoms of Dutch Disease -- that downturn wasn't limited to Canada. The downturn in Canada's manufacturing industry was approximately 14%. But during the same period of time, Great Britain experienced a manufacturing downturn of 29%. Japan experienced a downturn of 24%. It was 20% in Belgium and Sweden. And an identical 14% in France.
This is all particularly telling, because it begs an important question: can the UK, Japan, Belgium, Sweden and France -- or most of the OECD. for that matter -- blame the decline of their manufacturing sectors on the oilsands? Do they even have an oilsands resource export equivalent that they can blame the decline on? Or is that general decline symptomatic of something else?
This is almost certainly why the OECD declined to cite Dutch Disease in their economic survey of Canada, and why a reporter for the Canadian Press had to do it for them: because the malaise of manufacturing is not uniquely Canadian, not attributable to Dutch Disease, and instead attributable to standard global economic forces.
Simply put, Canadian firms that placed their bet on high-labour, low-wage manufacturing in Canada made a poor bet. They're losing their sales to firms located in companies that have a competitive advantage in unskilled labour. In essence, they're paying the price for their own bad business decisions.
Thomas Mulcair and his followers point to this as evidence that Canada's economy is becoming "unbalanced," and that something needs to be done about it -- even though they're all lacking in ideas as to what exactly they want to do about it. They all seem to lack ideas about just what an "unbalanced economy" even means, and how to achieve a "balanced economy," and for good reason:
That isn't even remotely what the problem is. The OECD knows that, even if Mulcair and his followers so desperately want to pretend otherwise.
They call it Dutch Disease. And they're grasping at any straw they can find in order to make Canadians think that Canada has it. Including a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development which, they say, identifies symptoms of Dutch Disease in Canada.
But the report isn't the blanket confirmation of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's wacky economic thesis that they think it is. In fact, there's far more in the report that disputes Mulcair, and reveals his economic ideas to be shortsighted and dangerous than there is anything that actually backs him up.
Mulcair claimed that Canada suffers from so-called Dutch Disease on account of what he considered an over-valued Canadian dollar, which he attributed to resource revenues, singling out the oilsands in particular. The Dutch Disease argument holds that resource exports, which help drive up the value of the dollar, "hollow out" a country's manufacturing sector. A country's exports become more expensive by comparison to their international competitors, driving down sales, and labour demand from the booming resource industries leave the manufacturing sector unable to compete for labour.
And so the symptoms of the so-called "Dutch Disease" are pretty clear: struggling manufacturing, suffering sales, and lost jobs.
But to identify the symptom is hardly to diagnose the disease. And as a diagnostic tool, the OECD report actually tells a very different story. The report actually found what the IIRP did -- that the problem with manufacturing in Canada is below-nominal innovation. "While Canada has made great strides in macroeconomic and structural policy settings, and its academic research is world class, the pay-off in terms of business innovation and productivity growth has not been large. Business R&D is particularly low, despite significant policy support, suggesting substantial scope for improvement."
So the government of Canada has been doing its part. Particular sectors of the economy -- particularly the high-labour, low-wage subsectors of Canadian manufacturing that have been struggling -- have not been doing their part. Which, you may recall, was precisely what the IIRP concluded.
The report also found that opening sheltered sectors of the economy -- such as network communications -- up to greater competition would be beneficial. (Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has been doing just this, and it's been driving the opposition batty.)
On the whole, the OECD report concluded that the problem with the Canadian economy is not the competitive pressures imposed by a higher exchange rate, but rather failures by specific sectors of the Canadian economy to respond to them. Which confronts Thomas Mulcair, the NDP, and his standard bearers with some very stark realities, and some equally stark challenges.
For example, Mulcair cites Canada's strong dollar as a problem, implying that something needs to be done about it. Yet the OECD gave Canada a sold thumbs-up on its monetary policy, although noting that the Bank of Canada should stand prepared to respond to inflationary pressures. So policy measures to erode the Canadian dollar don't seem to be in order.
So even if the OECD agreed with Mulcair that some symptoms of Dutch Disease are present, that's just one thing. And the presence of symptoms alone are not enough to diagnose the Dutch Disease. They also need to be able to identify the cause.
This is where some control comparisons come in handy. If the oilsands, and the energy industry in general, were really spurring Dutch Disease in Canada, then the struggles of Canada's manufacturing sector should be unique. But unfortunately for Mulcair and his fans, those struggles are not unique. Not even within OECD countries.
In fact, comparing declines across OECD countries is rather telling. While Statistics Canada identified a general downturn in Canadian manufacturing since 2004 -- something that Mulcair's followers point to as symptoms of Dutch Disease -- that downturn wasn't limited to Canada. The downturn in Canada's manufacturing industry was approximately 14%. But during the same period of time, Great Britain experienced a manufacturing downturn of 29%. Japan experienced a downturn of 24%. It was 20% in Belgium and Sweden. And an identical 14% in France.
This is all particularly telling, because it begs an important question: can the UK, Japan, Belgium, Sweden and France -- or most of the OECD. for that matter -- blame the decline of their manufacturing sectors on the oilsands? Do they even have an oilsands resource export equivalent that they can blame the decline on? Or is that general decline symptomatic of something else?
This is almost certainly why the OECD declined to cite Dutch Disease in their economic survey of Canada, and why a reporter for the Canadian Press had to do it for them: because the malaise of manufacturing is not uniquely Canadian, not attributable to Dutch Disease, and instead attributable to standard global economic forces.
Simply put, Canadian firms that placed their bet on high-labour, low-wage manufacturing in Canada made a poor bet. They're losing their sales to firms located in companies that have a competitive advantage in unskilled labour. In essence, they're paying the price for their own bad business decisions.
Thomas Mulcair and his followers point to this as evidence that Canada's economy is becoming "unbalanced," and that something needs to be done about it -- even though they're all lacking in ideas as to what exactly they want to do about it. They all seem to lack ideas about just what an "unbalanced economy" even means, and how to achieve a "balanced economy," and for good reason:
That isn't even remotely what the problem is. The OECD knows that, even if Mulcair and his followers so desperately want to pretend otherwise.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
The Junk Economics Behind the "Dutch Disease" Theory
Far-left response to Dutch Disease theorem short on facts, long on... pretty much nothing
With the far-left doubling down on NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's "Dutch Disease" thesis -- arguing that an artificially high Canadian dollar, allegedly inflated by Canadian energy exports, has hollowed out the manufacturing sector -- it should be far from surprising that the so-called "Progressive Economics Forum" is following the same lead.
Responding to a Glibe and Mail editorial which agrees with Mulcair that the oilsands industry should do more to protect the environment -- they should always be striving to do better -- which attributes their struggle to competition from Chinese manufacturers as much as to a comparatively high Canadian dollar,.Andrew Jackson overlooks a very basic detail.
The PEF's response, written by Jackson, is only four paragraphs long, so it can't help but be short on the facts. While it does offer one fact for consideration, that the Chinese Yuan, like the Canadian dollar, is managed against the US dollar, he actually declines to mention just what the Chinese Yuan-to-US dollar exchange rate actually is.
In fact, as of the time of this writing it happens to be approximately 6.4 Chinese Yuan to one Canadian dollar. This means that it takes approximately 6.4 Chinese Yuan to purchase one American dollar, making US manufactured products very unattractive to Chinese buyers.
Economic analysts cited by the Pembina Institute claim that the "natural value" of the Canadian dollar ranges from 80 cents to 90 cents. If the Canadian and US dollars are at parity, this would put the Chinese Yuan-to-Canadian dollar exchange rate ranging from 5.12 Canadian dollars-to-Chinese Yuan to 5.76. This means that it would take anywhere from 5.12 to 5.76 Chinese Yuan to purchase a single Canadian dollar on the international currency market.
As of May 12, the exchange rate was 6.1 Chinese Yuan to Canadian dollars.
This confronts people like Andrew Jackson with a very stark question: just how far should Canada's dollar be de-valued, and by what means, in order to allow Canadian manufactured goods to gain a competitive foothold against Chinese products, let alone in Asian markets? And what kind of other economic disaster would befall Canada if the dollar were artificially devalued to that extent?
Imagine what would happen to the royalties collected from resource exports, among other things. One thing becomes perfectly clear: whatever the future of Canada's economy, it had best noted by planned by the braintrusts of the Progressive Economic Forum. They're pretty clueless.
With the far-left doubling down on NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's "Dutch Disease" thesis -- arguing that an artificially high Canadian dollar, allegedly inflated by Canadian energy exports, has hollowed out the manufacturing sector -- it should be far from surprising that the so-called "Progressive Economics Forum" is following the same lead.
Responding to a Glibe and Mail editorial which agrees with Mulcair that the oilsands industry should do more to protect the environment -- they should always be striving to do better -- which attributes their struggle to competition from Chinese manufacturers as much as to a comparatively high Canadian dollar,.Andrew Jackson overlooks a very basic detail.
The PEF's response, written by Jackson, is only four paragraphs long, so it can't help but be short on the facts. While it does offer one fact for consideration, that the Chinese Yuan, like the Canadian dollar, is managed against the US dollar, he actually declines to mention just what the Chinese Yuan-to-US dollar exchange rate actually is.
In fact, as of the time of this writing it happens to be approximately 6.4 Chinese Yuan to one Canadian dollar. This means that it takes approximately 6.4 Chinese Yuan to purchase one American dollar, making US manufactured products very unattractive to Chinese buyers.
Economic analysts cited by the Pembina Institute claim that the "natural value" of the Canadian dollar ranges from 80 cents to 90 cents. If the Canadian and US dollars are at parity, this would put the Chinese Yuan-to-Canadian dollar exchange rate ranging from 5.12 Canadian dollars-to-Chinese Yuan to 5.76. This means that it would take anywhere from 5.12 to 5.76 Chinese Yuan to purchase a single Canadian dollar on the international currency market.
As of May 12, the exchange rate was 6.1 Chinese Yuan to Canadian dollars.
This confronts people like Andrew Jackson with a very stark question: just how far should Canada's dollar be de-valued, and by what means, in order to allow Canadian manufactured goods to gain a competitive foothold against Chinese products, let alone in Asian markets? And what kind of other economic disaster would befall Canada if the dollar were artificially devalued to that extent?
Imagine what would happen to the royalties collected from resource exports, among other things. One thing becomes perfectly clear: whatever the future of Canada's economy, it had best noted by planned by the braintrusts of the Progressive Economic Forum. They're pretty clueless.
Oh Good Lord, Thomas Mulcair, You Have GOT to be Kidding
Mulcair pretending his caucus isn't anti-Israel
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is a man with a problem. Many problems, actually. But far too many of them are entirely self-created, and they're piling up.
His most recent problem? His caucus is virulently anti-Israel. But he wants to pretend that it isn't.
"I firmly reject any such affirmation with regards to our caucus," Mulcair recently insisted.
But once again -- as so many times before -- Mulcair is banking on the idea that Canadians just haven't been paying any attention.
The most obvious problem with Mulcair's denial of the anti-Israel bias bubbling in the very soul of his party's caucus is that of his deputy leader, Vancouver East MP Libby Davies. Davies has become infamous for a series of bizarre statements about Israel, including referring to it as the longest military occupation in history.
(The people of Kurdistan, for just one example, may beg to differ with that.)
It shouldn't be believed that Mulcair hasn't tried. He hasn't tried very hard, but he has tried. He has enough problems within his own caucus and the greater far-left community over support from "the Israel lobby" in his leadership campaign.
The anti-Israel lobby wasn't a problem for the NDP when they were in opposition and had no chance of governing. In fact, it was a reliable source of cheap and easy political support. But now that the NDP are contending for government, they no longer enjoy the convenience of appealing for cheap and easy political support by appealing to the far-left fringe.
Mulcair isn't fooling anybody. His caucus is virulently anti-Israel. If he wants his party to be considered fit to govern, he's going to need to do something about it.
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is a man with a problem. Many problems, actually. But far too many of them are entirely self-created, and they're piling up.
His most recent problem? His caucus is virulently anti-Israel. But he wants to pretend that it isn't.
"I firmly reject any such affirmation with regards to our caucus," Mulcair recently insisted.
But once again -- as so many times before -- Mulcair is banking on the idea that Canadians just haven't been paying any attention.
The most obvious problem with Mulcair's denial of the anti-Israel bias bubbling in the very soul of his party's caucus is that of his deputy leader, Vancouver East MP Libby Davies. Davies has become infamous for a series of bizarre statements about Israel, including referring to it as the longest military occupation in history.
(The people of Kurdistan, for just one example, may beg to differ with that.)
It shouldn't be believed that Mulcair hasn't tried. He hasn't tried very hard, but he has tried. He has enough problems within his own caucus and the greater far-left community over support from "the Israel lobby" in his leadership campaign.
The anti-Israel lobby wasn't a problem for the NDP when they were in opposition and had no chance of governing. In fact, it was a reliable source of cheap and easy political support. But now that the NDP are contending for government, they no longer enjoy the convenience of appealing for cheap and easy political support by appealing to the far-left fringe.
Mulcair isn't fooling anybody. His caucus is virulently anti-Israel. If he wants his party to be considered fit to govern, he's going to need to do something about it.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Delivering the Death Blow to Thomas Mulcair's "Dutch Disease" Theory
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is a man with a theory. And like many previous men with many previous theories, he isn't willing to get go of it.
His theory is that the strength of Canada's resource sector -- particularly the energy sector, especially the oil sands -- hurts Canada's manufacturing sector. In greater detail, he argues that exports of energy resources have "artificially" inflated the Canadian dollar, making manufacturing exports more expensive to international buyers.
When Mulcair first floated this thesis, response to it was fairly tepid. But it has slowly picked up steam, and revealed to Canadians precisely how ill-suited Mulcair is to become Prime Minister. Even as all the evidence disputing Mulcair's thesis has trickled out, Mulcair refuses to back down. No matter how many economists dispute his thesis, Mulcair simply insists that "everybody knows" that Canada is suffering from Dutch Disease. Despite the fact that this can immediately be seen to be untrue.
There was Jack Mintz in the Financial Post pointing out that the so-called decline of the manufacturing sector in Ontario and Quebec closely mirrors that of US rustbelt states like Michigan and Ohio -- two states that don't have booming resource sectors to blame for their plight. Then there was the Institute for Research on Public Policy pointing out that Canada has a mild case of Dutch Disease at best, and that the symptoms suffered by the sectors of manufacturing that have struggled can actually be attributed to their products, and to their failure to reinvest in capital. Mulcair simply pretended that the IRPP report supported his thesis -- it doesn't -- and pro-NDP hacks on Twitter attacked Mintz on an ad hominem basis. Neither is what anyone would expect from people who are confident in their own theories.
Now, Philip Cross has delivered the death blow to Mulcair's thesis, pointing out that a stronger dollar is good for Canada, and that the benefits far outstrip any harm that a stronger currency would do. Cross points to the addition of low-wage, manufacturing jobs in Canada during the 1990s -- manufacturing products such as textiles, clothing and furniture -- at a time when other countries were shedding those jobs in favour of adding high-wage jobs. It's certainly no coincidence that those are the very manufacturing sectors that are suffering under a stronger Canadian dollar.
It's in the wake of this particular point that it becomes clear that Thomas Mulcair never heard of a man that you may have heard of... a man by the name of Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was a person who never bothered making products of low differentiation and low complexity, even in compared to his immediate competitors. Nor was he a person who focused on making a product that was less expensive compared to his competitors. What the success of Steve Jobs, Apple, and their various products -- particularly the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone -- is that if someone wants or needs a particular product badly enough, they will buy it at a more expensive price. Certainly, nobody ever bought any of these products because they were less expensive. They weren't. Therein lies the shortest logical route in demonstrating Mulcair's thesis to be both shortsighted and foolish. And it applies to Canadian manufacturing just as much as it applies to resource exports.
In fact, the success of the oilsands, even with a stronger Canadian dollar, proves that people will buy what they need at a comparatively higher price if they want or need it badly enough. The United States badly needs Canadian oil. China badly needs Canadian oil. India badly needs Canadian oil. And they're all buying it, despite the strength of the Canadian dollar, and despite the detail that this makes Canadian oil more expensive for them to buy. As it turns out, the same has turned out to be true for Canadian manufacturing. Sales in most of Canada's manufacturing sectors have actually climbed, despite the strength of the Canadian dollar.
There's a reason for this: it's because in these particular cases Canada is making what consumers -- whether they're individual household consumers, companies, or entire countries -- want and need. And when that is the case, consumers are buying it despite any additional expense. This is what Thomas Mulcair clearly doesn't get: is that a lower Canadian dollar isn't a substitute for innovation in Canadian manufacturing, creating a quality product, or even simple competitiveness. It's been made clear that these are the things that are wrong with the sectors of Canadian manufacturing that struggle under a stronger dollar.
But Thomas Mulcair has clearly never heard of Steve Jobs. So Thomas Mulcair doesn't know that.
His theory is that the strength of Canada's resource sector -- particularly the energy sector, especially the oil sands -- hurts Canada's manufacturing sector. In greater detail, he argues that exports of energy resources have "artificially" inflated the Canadian dollar, making manufacturing exports more expensive to international buyers.
When Mulcair first floated this thesis, response to it was fairly tepid. But it has slowly picked up steam, and revealed to Canadians precisely how ill-suited Mulcair is to become Prime Minister. Even as all the evidence disputing Mulcair's thesis has trickled out, Mulcair refuses to back down. No matter how many economists dispute his thesis, Mulcair simply insists that "everybody knows" that Canada is suffering from Dutch Disease. Despite the fact that this can immediately be seen to be untrue.
There was Jack Mintz in the Financial Post pointing out that the so-called decline of the manufacturing sector in Ontario and Quebec closely mirrors that of US rustbelt states like Michigan and Ohio -- two states that don't have booming resource sectors to blame for their plight. Then there was the Institute for Research on Public Policy pointing out that Canada has a mild case of Dutch Disease at best, and that the symptoms suffered by the sectors of manufacturing that have struggled can actually be attributed to their products, and to their failure to reinvest in capital. Mulcair simply pretended that the IRPP report supported his thesis -- it doesn't -- and pro-NDP hacks on Twitter attacked Mintz on an ad hominem basis. Neither is what anyone would expect from people who are confident in their own theories.
Now, Philip Cross has delivered the death blow to Mulcair's thesis, pointing out that a stronger dollar is good for Canada, and that the benefits far outstrip any harm that a stronger currency would do. Cross points to the addition of low-wage, manufacturing jobs in Canada during the 1990s -- manufacturing products such as textiles, clothing and furniture -- at a time when other countries were shedding those jobs in favour of adding high-wage jobs. It's certainly no coincidence that those are the very manufacturing sectors that are suffering under a stronger Canadian dollar.
It's in the wake of this particular point that it becomes clear that Thomas Mulcair never heard of a man that you may have heard of... a man by the name of Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was a person who never bothered making products of low differentiation and low complexity, even in compared to his immediate competitors. Nor was he a person who focused on making a product that was less expensive compared to his competitors. What the success of Steve Jobs, Apple, and their various products -- particularly the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone -- is that if someone wants or needs a particular product badly enough, they will buy it at a more expensive price. Certainly, nobody ever bought any of these products because they were less expensive. They weren't. Therein lies the shortest logical route in demonstrating Mulcair's thesis to be both shortsighted and foolish. And it applies to Canadian manufacturing just as much as it applies to resource exports.
In fact, the success of the oilsands, even with a stronger Canadian dollar, proves that people will buy what they need at a comparatively higher price if they want or need it badly enough. The United States badly needs Canadian oil. China badly needs Canadian oil. India badly needs Canadian oil. And they're all buying it, despite the strength of the Canadian dollar, and despite the detail that this makes Canadian oil more expensive for them to buy. As it turns out, the same has turned out to be true for Canadian manufacturing. Sales in most of Canada's manufacturing sectors have actually climbed, despite the strength of the Canadian dollar.
There's a reason for this: it's because in these particular cases Canada is making what consumers -- whether they're individual household consumers, companies, or entire countries -- want and need. And when that is the case, consumers are buying it despite any additional expense. This is what Thomas Mulcair clearly doesn't get: is that a lower Canadian dollar isn't a substitute for innovation in Canadian manufacturing, creating a quality product, or even simple competitiveness. It's been made clear that these are the things that are wrong with the sectors of Canadian manufacturing that struggle under a stronger dollar.
But Thomas Mulcair has clearly never heard of Steve Jobs. So Thomas Mulcair doesn't know that.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
A Mean Town Getting As Mean as the Hateful Left Wants it to Be
In a column in the Toronto Star, Tim Harper attempts to put Vikileaks -- the Twitter account that broadcasted portions of the affidavits from Public Safety Minister Vic Toews' divorce proceedings -- in perspective.
His conclusion is a simple one: a mean town -- Ottawa -- just getting meaner. And it could be as simple as that.
Or not. There could be more.
What was Vikileaks about, really?
In reality, it wasn't about privacy. It certainly wasn't about giving Toews any kind of just desert. The latter of these two propositions is not only patently absurd, but patently insane. The purpose of the "lawful access" bill was never to make the information sought public.
Rather, it was about political tribalism. Full stop.
The parading of Toews' divorce in public wasn't by any means spontaneous. There have been those on the far left who have been both longing and eager to refer to Toews' divorce as a means on doing with politics as they have always wanted: making it personal. Deeply personal.
German philosopher George Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel considered pre-historical human society to be inherently tribal -- a time when competing tribes sought to conquer or destroy one another. At that time societies didn't triumph over each other by advancing beyond each other in scientific or social pursuits, but with what Hegel described as "superior strength, superior ruthlessness, and superior cruelty."
Make no mistake about it, there are those among the left -- in Canada and around teh world -- who intend to triumph over their adversaries using these precise means.
They're easy to identify if you look hard enough. They are the ones who, faced with a complex public debate, rush not to attack their adversaries' ideas, but to attack them personally. They're the ones who hunger to destroy their opponents, not merely as political actors, but as people.
They aren't that hard to find. I could even name names.
That the IP address used to operate the Vikileaks Twitter account was traced not only to a House of Commons IP address, but to one routinely used to make pro-NDP wikipedia edits, is of little surprise. (It also raises some serious questions about how the NDP have been making use of HoC resources, but that's a question many in the media prefer not to ask; the NDP would prefer not to answer.)
As individuals like John Gormley have made it crystal clear, the NDP has spent decades peddling the idea that they're morally superior to their opponents. Over the years, this has fed a culture of hate- and contempt-based politics that has dwelled just under the surface of many NDPers.
Embracing that toxic political culture has emboldened some of them to think that it's morally permissible to do virtually anything to an opponent. In their eyes, cruelty and ruthelessness are no longer vices -- rather, they believe these are virtues, and even some of those who pretend to be benign political actors are often inexorably drawn to those who employ the most ruthless, cruel, and hateful tactics against their opponents.
It's hard to accept many of them as benign politicos considering the amount of admiration they show for some of these people.
This kind of tribalism pre-dated modern history, and was supposed to have been abolished by the advent of civil society. Make no mistake about it, it's civil society that's at stake in these sorts of matters.
A civil society that accepts or tolerates this kind of politicized cruelty is one that has turned its back on what its historical legacy was purported to be. It's not just a step backward for political discourse, but potentially a step backward for civil society as a whole.
The NDP's complicity in this latest episode is undeniable. Don't think the NDP doesn't know which of their staffers is responsible for Vikileaks. At the very least, some of them know. The kind of politico who commits acts of cruelty like Vikileaks is hungry for the recognition of their peers, particularly those of their peers who they know to share their own simmering hatred.
Moreover, these individuals have embraced these kinds of acts with a fervour that is simply Pavlovian in nature. They have become adept at ignoring, justifying, defending, or simply rationalizing these kinds of acts.
Unless those of their peers who truly do value a benign and constructive politics finds the will to stand up to them and ensure they pay the penalty for their actions, it will continue unabated. But don't hold your breath waiting for the Canadian left to do what is right.
They've shown time and time again that they either lack the will or lack the courage to stand up to the villains in their midst. Either that, or a third alternative: they simply enjoy it.
Vic Towes himself is no angel. Because there are serious issues at stake in the lawful access bill -- which I support in principle, but I've also been looking to the amendment process to temper some of its overeaches -- his declaration that opponents either stand with the government, or stand with child pornographers was not only uncalled for, but a disservice to the business of governing.
More than that, it, too, was cruel.
But two wrongs don't make a right. And it doesn't help that this is a wrong the left has just been itching to commit. Nor was it the only one. When John Baird made an "it gets better" video, the left leaped at the opportunity to use his sexuality as a battering ram with which to attack him personally.
And while fellow conservatives can stop Toews' acts of cruelty, only fellow left-wingers can put a stop to the cruelty of Vikileaks. Whether or not they will is up to them to decide: are their demagogic ambitions more important than the health of civil society?
That's the real question.
His conclusion is a simple one: a mean town -- Ottawa -- just getting meaner. And it could be as simple as that.
Or not. There could be more.
What was Vikileaks about, really?
In reality, it wasn't about privacy. It certainly wasn't about giving Toews any kind of just desert. The latter of these two propositions is not only patently absurd, but patently insane. The purpose of the "lawful access" bill was never to make the information sought public.
Rather, it was about political tribalism. Full stop.
The parading of Toews' divorce in public wasn't by any means spontaneous. There have been those on the far left who have been both longing and eager to refer to Toews' divorce as a means on doing with politics as they have always wanted: making it personal. Deeply personal.
German philosopher George Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel considered pre-historical human society to be inherently tribal -- a time when competing tribes sought to conquer or destroy one another. At that time societies didn't triumph over each other by advancing beyond each other in scientific or social pursuits, but with what Hegel described as "superior strength, superior ruthlessness, and superior cruelty."
Make no mistake about it, there are those among the left -- in Canada and around teh world -- who intend to triumph over their adversaries using these precise means.
They're easy to identify if you look hard enough. They are the ones who, faced with a complex public debate, rush not to attack their adversaries' ideas, but to attack them personally. They're the ones who hunger to destroy their opponents, not merely as political actors, but as people.
They aren't that hard to find. I could even name names.
That the IP address used to operate the Vikileaks Twitter account was traced not only to a House of Commons IP address, but to one routinely used to make pro-NDP wikipedia edits, is of little surprise. (It also raises some serious questions about how the NDP have been making use of HoC resources, but that's a question many in the media prefer not to ask; the NDP would prefer not to answer.)
As individuals like John Gormley have made it crystal clear, the NDP has spent decades peddling the idea that they're morally superior to their opponents. Over the years, this has fed a culture of hate- and contempt-based politics that has dwelled just under the surface of many NDPers.
Embracing that toxic political culture has emboldened some of them to think that it's morally permissible to do virtually anything to an opponent. In their eyes, cruelty and ruthelessness are no longer vices -- rather, they believe these are virtues, and even some of those who pretend to be benign political actors are often inexorably drawn to those who employ the most ruthless, cruel, and hateful tactics against their opponents.
It's hard to accept many of them as benign politicos considering the amount of admiration they show for some of these people.
This kind of tribalism pre-dated modern history, and was supposed to have been abolished by the advent of civil society. Make no mistake about it, it's civil society that's at stake in these sorts of matters.
A civil society that accepts or tolerates this kind of politicized cruelty is one that has turned its back on what its historical legacy was purported to be. It's not just a step backward for political discourse, but potentially a step backward for civil society as a whole.
The NDP's complicity in this latest episode is undeniable. Don't think the NDP doesn't know which of their staffers is responsible for Vikileaks. At the very least, some of them know. The kind of politico who commits acts of cruelty like Vikileaks is hungry for the recognition of their peers, particularly those of their peers who they know to share their own simmering hatred.
Moreover, these individuals have embraced these kinds of acts with a fervour that is simply Pavlovian in nature. They have become adept at ignoring, justifying, defending, or simply rationalizing these kinds of acts.
Unless those of their peers who truly do value a benign and constructive politics finds the will to stand up to them and ensure they pay the penalty for their actions, it will continue unabated. But don't hold your breath waiting for the Canadian left to do what is right.
They've shown time and time again that they either lack the will or lack the courage to stand up to the villains in their midst. Either that, or a third alternative: they simply enjoy it.
Vic Towes himself is no angel. Because there are serious issues at stake in the lawful access bill -- which I support in principle, but I've also been looking to the amendment process to temper some of its overeaches -- his declaration that opponents either stand with the government, or stand with child pornographers was not only uncalled for, but a disservice to the business of governing.
More than that, it, too, was cruel.
But two wrongs don't make a right. And it doesn't help that this is a wrong the left has just been itching to commit. Nor was it the only one. When John Baird made an "it gets better" video, the left leaped at the opportunity to use his sexuality as a battering ram with which to attack him personally.
And while fellow conservatives can stop Toews' acts of cruelty, only fellow left-wingers can put a stop to the cruelty of Vikileaks. Whether or not they will is up to them to decide: are their demagogic ambitions more important than the health of civil society?
That's the real question.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
So, Why Aren't We Talking About the Death Penalty?
With Shafia trial finally coming to close with the appropriate verdict, it's sad to see that one key thing is missing from this case in order for justice to truly be done:
Simply put, Mohammed Shafia hanging from a rope, with his wife and son hanging alongside him.
Most of you probably know full well what the Shafia trial was about, but for those who don't, I'll provide a very quick synopsis: Mohammed Shafia's three daughters were becoming too liberal and westernized for his medieval tastes. So he, his wife and his son conspired to murder them. They locked them in a car and pushed it into the water, drowning them. During the trial, each of them lied, then lied over and over again. In the end, the verdict could only be one thing: guilty.
But unfortunately, Canada doesn't have the death penalty. So while the Canadian justice system has sent the requisite message to the millions of moderate Muslims that have immigrated to the western world -- we will not abandon you to the savagery of those who cling to medieval values -- we haven't sent the requisite message to those who would commit murders such as these:
That message being very, very simple: move to Canada and do these things, and you have committed suicide. Get ready to burn.
So it's in the wake of this trial that NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel has chosen to demonstrate the naivete of the NDP when she condemned Conservative Senator Pierre-Hughe Boisvenu, who recently stated that the worst criminals -- those who cannot or will not be rehabilitated -- be allowed to take their own lives.
Boisvenu wasn't really being serious. But when he suggested Canadians should be discussing having the death penalty as an option for dealing with the most dangerous criminals, he was dead serious. And he was right.
Boisvenu has more reason than most to have realized this. When his daughter was raped and murdered in 2002, it was by a repeat sexual offender. By the kind of offender who, at the very least, should have been locked up for the rest of his life, if not -- preferably -- shuffled off this mortal plane by way of a lethal injection.
No, I'm not joking. About any of this.
"What Senator Boisvenu did is against the law. You can't call on people to kill themselves," decried Turmel. "The death penalty debate has been closed in Canada for decades. Why are the Conservatives reopening the whole debate?"
The problem is that they aren't. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already declared that his government will not revisit the death penalty. And as much as those who favour its return may wish otherwise, one Conservative Senator bringing it up does not entail reopening the debate.
Which is a shame. After the Shafia trial, of all things, we as a country need to be asking ourselves why Mohammed Shafia, a man who murdered his three daughters and their mother, will continue to draw breath, instead of being dumped into the Rideau Canal with his Lexus SUV chained to his testicles to ensure he makes it to the bottom.
So why aren't we talking about the death penalty in Canada? Why are even those who, like Pierre-Hugh Boisveru, have been victimized by these sorts of crimes, targeted for doing so?
Because hug-a-thug, peacenik, naive twits like Nycole Turmel or Justin Trudeau are always waiting in the wings, just waiting on baited breath to denounce any mention of the death penalty as barbarous, although they'll always take pains to never denounce acts such as the Shafia honour murders as barbarous.
That's how backward these people are. And that's why it's so sad that so few real leaders have the cojones to tell them to shut the fuck up while adults discuss how these matters will be properly dealt with.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
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