I'm honestly trying like hell to not blog about Twitter on Bad Company anymore. That's what High Noon is for. But the impetus to write this particular post came over approximately two days of battling it out with "Idle No More" fanatics on Twitter.
As it turns out, the three individuals I spent the last couple of days trouncing, all three were essentially lifelong professional students. So at least as it pertained to these three individuals, apparently "idle no more" means that they're really still idle and just pretending not to be.
Moving along.
Idle No More enthusiasts made a pretty big deal when the Chiefs of Ontario Political Confederacy announced that it would not recognize or enforce Bill C-45. "Good for them!" all the fanatics declared. "They're standing up for their rights!"
What rights were they standing up for? Well, when you examine their press release in further detail, you discover that the Chiefs are standing up for their rights to deny rights to their people. They specifically refer to Bill S-2. the Family Homes on Reserve and Matrimonial Rights act, which is part of Bill C-45.
Just what is the Family Homes on Reserve and Matrimonial Rights act? I'm so glad that you asked. It's essentially a bill that will establish the rights of aboriginal women in the case
This was something that was brought up, in all places, at Rabble.ca by, of all people, consummate aboriginal 1%er Pam Palmateer. So you just know hilarity is about to abound. I'll give you the Colesnotes version of it: she insists that Bill S-2 is bad. She also repeats the claim that First Nations were never consulted about the bill.
As it turns out, this is patently false.
Apparently Pam Palmateer never bothered to consult a primer written on the bill by the Canadian Bar Association. It was written two years ago when this bill was known as Bill S-4. But as it turns out, the recommendations embodied in the bill were actually made by a committee that included the Assembly of First Nations. To whit:
"The federal government, in collaboration with the Native Women’s Association Canada (NWAC) and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), commissioned a series of consultations, resulting in a 2007 report by Wendy Grant-John.
That report concluded that the simple application of provincial and territorial MRP law to reserves would be insufficient to deal with current deficiencies, and instead recommended a concurrent jurisdiction model like that proposed by Bill S-4."
The CBA lamely notes a lack of "consensus" among First Nations about specific remedies, but also notes the urgency for action:
"The issue of [Matrimonial Real Property] on reserve has been the subject of Parliamentary scrutiny in recent years, as noted in the Legislative Summary to the Bill.
The main concern is a 'jurisdictional gap' in the Constitution Act, 1867. Property and civil rights fall under provincial power by virtue of section 91(13), and under territorial jurisdiction as delegated by the federal government, giving provinces and territories jurisdiction over the division of matrimonial real and personal property. At the same time, real property on reserve is exempted from the application of provincial and territorial law under section 91(24), which provides for federal jurisdiction over 'Indians and Lands Reserved for Indians'.
The Indian Act does not address MRP issues on reserve. While the First Nations Land
Management Act provides a mechanism to address MRP issues, it is a statutory regime to which First Nations voluntarily chose to subscribe. Its provisions are not mandatory for First Nations in Canada."
So in other words, First Nations bands can essentially make up their MRP rules as they go along. And apparently Pam Palmateer is entirely comfortable with a situation in which a non-status individual living on reserve in a marriage or common-law relationship promptly becomes a "trespasser" on reserve should that marriage or relationship break up, leaving the non-status individual (not necessarily a non-aboriginal, BTW) with right to nothing.
It leaves non-status women in violently abusive relationships with remarkably few options. Domestic violence is a scourge anywhere it takes place, and it takes place on reserve with greater frequency than it takes place anywhere else in Canada. Yet non-status women accepted onto reserve as part of such a relationship are very much second-class citizens on reserve -- let alone within Canada -- and based on what she has to say it doesn't seem particularly uncharitable to conclude that Pam Palmateer intends for it to remain that way.
This is just one group of people Bill C-2 extends protections to. It also extends legal protections to individuals of status as well. So why, specifically, would the COPC refuse to acknowledge or enforce it? Because if you liberate their second-class citizens, if you take away their right to make up the rules as they go along, you're taking an awful lot of power away from them.
Which is what Idle No More is really about. It's not about standing up for the rights of First Nations -- unless the "right" they're standing up for is the right to actually have no rights. No. It's really about maintaining the power of aboriginal 1%ers over the aboriginal 99%ers. And don't be shocked if it's ever discovered that any number of chiefs have coerced some of the protesters into participating by leveraging whatever social assistance they receive against them. This is something that happens on-reserve quite frequently -- on some reserves with far greater frequency than on others.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Karma in Quebec
Let me start off by agreeing with Chris Selley: schadenfreude is an unworthy emotion.
But if there is anything to be said about the $124 million cut being imposed by Quebec's Parti Quebecois government on the province's colleges and universities, it's this: this is karma for the Quebec student movement that empowered the PQ. In virtually every way imaginable.
And in every way imaginable, they did it to themselves.
Should anyone be surprised that Premier Pauline Marois' first impulse after having achieved power through the Quebec students' movement was to turn around and screw them over? Absolutely not. They set themselves up for it. They did it to themselves. As Thom Yorke would add, and that's why it really hurts.
Simply put, these Quebec students are really the victims of the same intellectual and ideological morass that has afflicted the Parti Quebecois itself: a lack of new ideas. Quebec separatism has been devoid of new ideas for decades now, and it's very telling that as soon as Marois and her merry band of incompetents were elected, the first thing they did was revert to the PQ's old form. Pushing draconian and discriminatory language laws. Trying to pull the Canadian Flag off of the National Assembly. Playing economic chicken with the rest of the country.
Same old, same old.
In the same sense, what the Quebec students movement demanded -- free or nearly-free tuition -- is itself far from a new idea. It's been considered and rejected by nearly every government on the planet with any sense. Most of those governments that made the mistake of trying it found it to be prohibitively expensive and have thusly since abandoned it.
Free post-secondary tuition may be a novel idea, but it's also a failed idea.
That didn't stop Quebec students -- who already enjoy the cheapest university tuition in Canada -- from toppling the Jean Charest government over modest tuition increases that still would have left Quebec with the cheapest tuition in the entire country. And while Marois did temporarily make good on a promise to cancel the proposed tuition increases -- at a speculated cost of $20 million -- she has instead turned around and imposed a funding cut of six times that amount.
Perhaps it's a cynical way to treat the people who basically got her elected. But this is the natural destination of a political movement that has produced no new ideas in at least thirty years.
Of course, they frequently manage to convince themselves that they have produced new ideas. If you peruse the #CdnPoli Twitterverse, you hear them trumpeting them all the time. Yet when you actually pay attention to these "new ideas," you find that they aren't new ideas at all. Rather, they're simply new ways to get attention.
Which is nothing more than what the inane "Casseroles" movement was: simply a desperate bid for attention, in the loudest and most obnoxious way possible. Far from the visionaries of a utopian future, the #ggi movement had reduced themselves to a pre-school-aged Bart Simpson, tearing around banging pots and pans while the adults in the room plaintively begged for some peace and quiet. And Marois was not content to be one of the adults in the room -- she was right there along with the other children, banging pots and pans while seemingly fully aware of the sheer absurdity of it.
That was perhaps the most fatal error the Quebec students movement ever made. For as much as they coveted attention for attention's sake, so do the most cynical of politicians. And virtually everything Pauline Marois has done since becoming the Premier of Quebec blares of cynicism to the nth degree. After having waited to gain power since 2003, the PQ had -- and continues to have -- no idea of what to do with it.
They, like the Quebec students' movement, are utterly bereft of new ideas, and accordingly doomed. They, like the Quebec students' movement, are now finding that getting all the attention they ever wanted was the worst thing that will have ever happened to them. They now form a minority government that is stunningly immobilized by the lack of a coherent program,
So for the Parti Quebecois, just as for the Quebec students movement, there is plenty of karma to go around in Quebec.
They did it to themselves.
But if there is anything to be said about the $124 million cut being imposed by Quebec's Parti Quebecois government on the province's colleges and universities, it's this: this is karma for the Quebec student movement that empowered the PQ. In virtually every way imaginable.
And in every way imaginable, they did it to themselves.
Should anyone be surprised that Premier Pauline Marois' first impulse after having achieved power through the Quebec students' movement was to turn around and screw them over? Absolutely not. They set themselves up for it. They did it to themselves. As Thom Yorke would add, and that's why it really hurts.
Simply put, these Quebec students are really the victims of the same intellectual and ideological morass that has afflicted the Parti Quebecois itself: a lack of new ideas. Quebec separatism has been devoid of new ideas for decades now, and it's very telling that as soon as Marois and her merry band of incompetents were elected, the first thing they did was revert to the PQ's old form. Pushing draconian and discriminatory language laws. Trying to pull the Canadian Flag off of the National Assembly. Playing economic chicken with the rest of the country.
Same old, same old.
In the same sense, what the Quebec students movement demanded -- free or nearly-free tuition -- is itself far from a new idea. It's been considered and rejected by nearly every government on the planet with any sense. Most of those governments that made the mistake of trying it found it to be prohibitively expensive and have thusly since abandoned it.
Free post-secondary tuition may be a novel idea, but it's also a failed idea.
That didn't stop Quebec students -- who already enjoy the cheapest university tuition in Canada -- from toppling the Jean Charest government over modest tuition increases that still would have left Quebec with the cheapest tuition in the entire country. And while Marois did temporarily make good on a promise to cancel the proposed tuition increases -- at a speculated cost of $20 million -- she has instead turned around and imposed a funding cut of six times that amount.
Perhaps it's a cynical way to treat the people who basically got her elected. But this is the natural destination of a political movement that has produced no new ideas in at least thirty years.
Of course, they frequently manage to convince themselves that they have produced new ideas. If you peruse the #CdnPoli Twitterverse, you hear them trumpeting them all the time. Yet when you actually pay attention to these "new ideas," you find that they aren't new ideas at all. Rather, they're simply new ways to get attention.
Which is nothing more than what the inane "Casseroles" movement was: simply a desperate bid for attention, in the loudest and most obnoxious way possible. Far from the visionaries of a utopian future, the #ggi movement had reduced themselves to a pre-school-aged Bart Simpson, tearing around banging pots and pans while the adults in the room plaintively begged for some peace and quiet. And Marois was not content to be one of the adults in the room -- she was right there along with the other children, banging pots and pans while seemingly fully aware of the sheer absurdity of it.
That was perhaps the most fatal error the Quebec students movement ever made. For as much as they coveted attention for attention's sake, so do the most cynical of politicians. And virtually everything Pauline Marois has done since becoming the Premier of Quebec blares of cynicism to the nth degree. After having waited to gain power since 2003, the PQ had -- and continues to have -- no idea of what to do with it.
They, like the Quebec students' movement, are utterly bereft of new ideas, and accordingly doomed. They, like the Quebec students' movement, are now finding that getting all the attention they ever wanted was the worst thing that will have ever happened to them. They now form a minority government that is stunningly immobilized by the lack of a coherent program,
So for the Parti Quebecois, just as for the Quebec students movement, there is plenty of karma to go around in Quebec.
They did it to themselves.
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.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
The Ground Continues to Shrink Under the "Robocon"-mongers
This is a news story that has seemingly escaped the notice of many of those obsessed with the so-called "Robocon" robo-call scandal. And considering that it pertains directly to something routinely treated as a smoking gun strongly supporting the notion that someone in the Conservative Party organized a campaign of misleading robo-calls with the party's knowledge.
That would-be "smoking gun" was a claim, in an Elections Canada affidavit, that Michael Sona had talked about organizing misleading robo-calls. It turns out this isn't true.
Elections Canada investigator Al Matthews submitted an affidavit in March 2012 that made this precise claim. But Matthews has since backed away from that allegation, insisting that it was a mistake.
“In an earlier [sworn affidavit] I wrote that Sona called [Matthew] McBain ‘about a campaign of disinformation such as making a misleading poll-moving call,’” Matthews wrote in a subsequent affidavit later in May 2012. “On checking I realize that in both interviews Mr. McBain … did not recall Sona as relating the call to ‘disinformation’ or about a ‘misleading poll moving call,’ only that he wanted to set up an autodial call that would not track back to the Burke campaign.”
It seems worth noting that such an autodial call would be illegal according to CRTC regulations -- something that Sona may not have known at the time, but very likely knows now.
This allegation against Sona has been seized on by "Robocon"-mongers time and time again as a smoking gun suggesting decision-makers in the party knew about it and condoned it. Sona was the communications director for the Marty Burke campaign, so had the allegations against Sona been true it might not have been that unreasonable.
Unfortunately for them, it apparently isn't true.
It's enough to make you wonder just how much more of the allegations aren't true.
That would-be "smoking gun" was a claim, in an Elections Canada affidavit, that Michael Sona had talked about organizing misleading robo-calls. It turns out this isn't true.
Elections Canada investigator Al Matthews submitted an affidavit in March 2012 that made this precise claim. But Matthews has since backed away from that allegation, insisting that it was a mistake.
“In an earlier [sworn affidavit] I wrote that Sona called [Matthew] McBain ‘about a campaign of disinformation such as making a misleading poll-moving call,’” Matthews wrote in a subsequent affidavit later in May 2012. “On checking I realize that in both interviews Mr. McBain … did not recall Sona as relating the call to ‘disinformation’ or about a ‘misleading poll moving call,’ only that he wanted to set up an autodial call that would not track back to the Burke campaign.”
It seems worth noting that such an autodial call would be illegal according to CRTC regulations -- something that Sona may not have known at the time, but very likely knows now.
This allegation against Sona has been seized on by "Robocon"-mongers time and time again as a smoking gun suggesting decision-makers in the party knew about it and condoned it. Sona was the communications director for the Marty Burke campaign, so had the allegations against Sona been true it might not have been that unreasonable.
Unfortunately for them, it apparently isn't true.
It's enough to make you wonder just how much more of the allegations aren't true.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Quebec Women's Groups Call For Rona Ambrose to Resign... For Acting Responsibly
Minister for Status of Women acts more responsibly than any previous Minister ever
In voting in support of Stephen Woodoworth's motion to establish a Parliamentary committee to discuss abortion, Rona Ambrose has acted more responsibly than any previous Minister responsible for the Status of Women. Ever. Bar none.
A number of women's groups in Quebec -- where nearly one in three women will have an abortion during their lifetime -- couldn't have that. They're demanding that Ambrose resign as Minister for the Status of Women.
Of course she should do no such thing. And hopefully she won't.
"The role of the office of the Minister for the Status of Women is to look after the interests of women," declared Quebec Federation of Women President Alexa Conradi. "By voting for this committee, which has no other goal but to reopen the debate on abortion, she is shirking her responsibility."
Quite the contrary. It isn't Ambrose's responsibility as the Minister for the Status of Women to slap down discussion of abortion, nor is that even in the best interests of women. In fact, it's distinctly in the best interests of women -- in fact, in the best interests of all Canadians -- that abortion be discussed openly and frequently.
Simply put, whether people like Conradi care to admit it or not, abortion deals with the termination of human life. For any country to have no law governing it -- and to refuse to even discuss it -- is the very definition of madness. But that's only the first reason abortion should be discussed by Parliamentarians.
Perhaps the best reason to establish this committee is for the simple fact that Canadians are woefully under-informed of what the facts regarding abortion in Canada are. Conversely, the best reason for groups like QFW to oppose that debate is because if Canadians did know the facts regarding abortion in Canada were, there is no way the status quo would be allowed to stand.
To start with, Canadians do prefer that abortion remain legal. So that portion of the status quo would remain unchanged. However, 60% of Canadians were found to support some restrictions on when a woman can receive an abortion (57% of men supported this, and 60% of women did as well.)
That's a very severe blow to two common arguments used by the pro-abortion movement. The first, their argument that the current abortion-related status quo is in the best interests of women -- clearly a sizable majority of women do not agree. Secondly that only women have the right to an opinion on abortion -- clearly discounting men does them no good, as even more women than men believe that the law should restrict abortion in some way.
Even though some previous polls have suggested that Canadians are comfortable with Canada's abortion status quo, those polls also found that the majority of Canadians didn't know what that status quo was! Canadians tended to believe that Canada has abortion limits similar to those in the United States.
The pro-abortion lobby, unfortunately, is perfectly comfortable with Canadians not really knowing just what the status quo related to abortion in Canada is. No sooner was Woodworth talking about this abortion than the pro-abortion lobby hit their panic button, fear-mongering as fiercely as they possibly could.
Because they, of all people, know the facts. They know that they cannot afford for Canadians to become aware of the facts. Because if Canadians did, there would be big changes related to abortion -- changes that the pro-abortion zealots won't like.
In voting in support of Stephen Woodoworth's motion to establish a Parliamentary committee to discuss abortion, Rona Ambrose has acted more responsibly than any previous Minister responsible for the Status of Women. Ever. Bar none.
A number of women's groups in Quebec -- where nearly one in three women will have an abortion during their lifetime -- couldn't have that. They're demanding that Ambrose resign as Minister for the Status of Women.
Of course she should do no such thing. And hopefully she won't.
"The role of the office of the Minister for the Status of Women is to look after the interests of women," declared Quebec Federation of Women President Alexa Conradi. "By voting for this committee, which has no other goal but to reopen the debate on abortion, she is shirking her responsibility."
Quite the contrary. It isn't Ambrose's responsibility as the Minister for the Status of Women to slap down discussion of abortion, nor is that even in the best interests of women. In fact, it's distinctly in the best interests of women -- in fact, in the best interests of all Canadians -- that abortion be discussed openly and frequently.
Simply put, whether people like Conradi care to admit it or not, abortion deals with the termination of human life. For any country to have no law governing it -- and to refuse to even discuss it -- is the very definition of madness. But that's only the first reason abortion should be discussed by Parliamentarians.
Perhaps the best reason to establish this committee is for the simple fact that Canadians are woefully under-informed of what the facts regarding abortion in Canada are. Conversely, the best reason for groups like QFW to oppose that debate is because if Canadians did know the facts regarding abortion in Canada were, there is no way the status quo would be allowed to stand.
To start with, Canadians do prefer that abortion remain legal. So that portion of the status quo would remain unchanged. However, 60% of Canadians were found to support some restrictions on when a woman can receive an abortion (57% of men supported this, and 60% of women did as well.)
That's a very severe blow to two common arguments used by the pro-abortion movement. The first, their argument that the current abortion-related status quo is in the best interests of women -- clearly a sizable majority of women do not agree. Secondly that only women have the right to an opinion on abortion -- clearly discounting men does them no good, as even more women than men believe that the law should restrict abortion in some way.
Even though some previous polls have suggested that Canadians are comfortable with Canada's abortion status quo, those polls also found that the majority of Canadians didn't know what that status quo was! Canadians tended to believe that Canada has abortion limits similar to those in the United States.
The pro-abortion lobby, unfortunately, is perfectly comfortable with Canadians not really knowing just what the status quo related to abortion in Canada is. No sooner was Woodworth talking about this abortion than the pro-abortion lobby hit their panic button, fear-mongering as fiercely as they possibly could.
Because they, of all people, know the facts. They know that they cannot afford for Canadians to become aware of the facts. Because if Canadians did, there would be big changes related to abortion -- changes that the pro-abortion zealots won't like.
Friday, September 14, 2012
So, This Happened...
Today, the Conservative government, under fire from lefties for something these same people never criticized when the Liberals were in power, did something the Liberals would never do.
Yet somehow they will continue to find a way to demonize Stephen Harper. It's just what they do.
Yet somehow they will continue to find a way to demonize Stephen Harper. It's just what they do.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Going Rogue... Badly
I have no idea what "Deep Rogue Dam" is and probably you don't either. Apparently it has something to do with Kai Nagata and The Tyee. So you can safely presume that the epic fail is absolutely imminent.
Just how imminent? This imminent:
At times like this, it seems in order to just let Batman take it from here:
Just how imminent? This imminent:
At times like this, it seems in order to just let Batman take it from here:
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