Economic Recession Looms while the Civil Service Booms

No big surpise here, when government’s go on uncontrolled spending sprees, the only one who benefits are those who work for and in government:

The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.

What are the odds the same result isn’t occurring in Canada?

Bannissons les syndicats de la fonction publique

In today’s Le Journal de Montreal, Gilles Proulx writes an amazingly refreshing editorial. Unfortunately, I can not seem to find any online version which is sad because it is probably the best thing that I have read all day in print. Anyway, I will quote just a brief passage that gets the main point across:

C’est une GROSSE erreur que Jean Lesage a commise de laisser entrer les syndicats dans l’État. C’est ainsi que les privilégiés naturels du système on hérité d’une arme pour faire chanter les élus et suer le peuple!

In a nutshell, he is insisting that public servants should not be permitted to form unions. He makes the observation that they abuse their privileges, they take sick-days when they are not sick, they blackmail the politicians and the screw the public. His conclusion is that if they want to be part of a union, then they should do so in the private sector.

I could not agree with M. Proulx any more. It is a delight to hear such a clear-headed evaluation and judgement of the parasitic public servant class.

Mark Carney: double-speak economist

More nonsense from Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada:

“For some Canadian businesses, the recovery may prove as challenging as the downturn,” he said.

Is recession a dirty word?

Complete the sentence:

“While the bank does not entirely understand why productivity growth has been as slow as it has been, we do understand the consequences,” Mr. Carney said, repeating a warning last month that economic growth could be limited to no more than 2% for much of this decade. This will be due to slower productivity growth and an ageing population.

… and ultimately due to the printing of money.

Printing money creates a false economic indicator. As a result, it aggravates business cycles. That is what we are witnessing right now. Thank you, all you money printers and credit expansionists!

Bloggers Wanted! Join the Group Blog, ThePolitic.com

In an effort to expand ThePolitic’s scope and coverage of Canadian and world politics, we are looking for more writers to contribute. We’re interested in finding writers who can provide insight into the following topics/areas:

• Canadian Politics (National and Provincial)
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If you’re interested, please contact us. Prior experience writing for the Internet (or weblogs) isn’t required, but strongly encouraged. Please include your name, contact information and any relevant writing examples.

Also note, we will not be accepting any candidates who intend to cross-post between multiple weblogs – contributed material must be original. However, writers will retain copyright and ownership of contributed materials.

Writers must also agree the Posting Rules and Guidelines.

If you have any questions and or you want to apply, please contact Greg Farries.

The State’s Insatiable Demand for Money: Quebec to Start Online Gambling Website

The Quebec government proves that if you can’t beat them, join them:

Loto-Quebec has received cabinet approval to get into the online gambling business.

The provincial gambling monopoly, in conjunction the BC and Atlantic Lottery Corporations, will set up a site this fall aimed at stemming the lucrative yet unregulated internet gambling market.

And here comes the really laughable part:

Loto-Quebec president and CEO Alain Cousineau says his agency has been trying to fight online gambling sites without success.

Instead the agency’s gambling site will offer a safer alternative, with methods of discouraging problem gamblers.

National Daycare = Financial Sinkhole

So evidently Michael Ignatieff has jumped onto the tired old Liberal horse called Nationalized Daycare. He’s riding it for all it’s worth, and all we are worth too. They continuously cry out about how the Conservatives have “left the cupboard bare”, and in fact I just received an 10%er from Rodger Cuzner claiming exactly that.

Now, I live in a rural riding, and I’ve seen the challenges people have in finding day care for their children. Now I’m sure it’s ridings exactly like mine that Mr. Ignatieff et al have their eyes on when they talk about this glorious idea of a Nationalized Daycare program. Here’s the problem though, as seen through the eyes of someone in a rural riding.

We are not Toronto. Not a big surprise and certainly no stretch of the imagination. We have a population of approximately 109,000 people according to Elections Canada. If you’ve followed that link and looked into this riding, the map shows that we’re a fairly long strip of rural land. About half the population lives in Chatham itself and the remainder is spread out into smaller communities.

Now where the population is widely spaced, it’s likely that the only National Daycare Centres that would be put in place here are in the communities of Chatham and Leamington, possibly Tilbury and possibly Ridgetown. That leaves everyone else within the riding having to drive their children 20-30 minutes away from home and then having to travel back in order to go to work. This will very likely cause a lot of grief on any parent who would have to drive an hour (round trip) to another city/town at the beginning and the end of their day just to put their child into this Nationalized Daycare program.

As I’m sure everyone knows, there will be an complaint about Undue Hardship. The typical Liberal response to that will be to offer a subsidy for local day care because of the “unreasonable” distance a parent needs to travel. Likely, the local day care will be charging more given the potential loss of children to the ND program and the fact that it’s government subsidized. This will of course drive up the costs of the program. And I think we also know that the bleeding heart Liberals will succumb to nearly every complaint and woe presented to them.

Then there’s the loss of jobs in the private sector. For a party screaming about the loss of jobs in Canada, to put in a program that will essential wipe out an entire private industry is appalling! The government will of course require certain specialized certification in order to justify the elimination of the private industry which will require current providers to either upgrade their knowledge, which means going back to school which means loss of income and an increase in student debt ($$$), which may further be subsidized by the government ($$$), or else the former daycare provider will just have to suck it up and find a new job (more likely) or go on Employment Insurance ($$$), provided they’re eligible…

All of these costs will end up spiraling out of control (see National Gun Registry) due to poor planning and unrealistic expectations in productivity. The usual answer of the Liberals is to simply throw money at it and hope that solves the problem while crowing about investing in childcare (see Health Care).

How will they pay for all of this? Easy. They’ll simply raise taxes, or pull a Dalton on us and create a Childcare Premium.

The Liberals have been talking about this for nearly 2 decades and still can’t provide anything close to some kind of detail as to how this program might function within budget. This tells me that they have no plan, and that they’re just going to ‘figure it out as we go’.

If this ever happens, I’ll weep for the nation.

Australian Election Gag Law – No Anonymous Comments!

Nothing makes me gag more than freedom sapping gag laws.

Well over 1000 people had posted comments on the AdelaideNow website up to midnight last night – most vehemently against the Rann Government’s legislation which will force internet bloggers and anyone publishing a comment on next month’s state election to supply their real name and postcode.

A poll reveals more than 90 percent of readers are against the laws, which carry a maximum fine of $5,000 for media organisations who do not hand over such information to the Electoral Commissioner.

In an extraordinary response to the story, readers have compared the law to those used in Nazi Germany, China, George Orwell’s 1984 and North Korea, including Mark Burns Springer from the United States.

I personally feel anonymous comments should be placed into context – if the commentator doesn’t include their real name, then their overall argument is diminished compared to those who do include their name. Basically, it’s about trust between those who are having the discussion. Those authors that use their real names tend to moderate their comments and are therefor less likely to tarnish their “good name.”

However, that doesn’t mean I don’t value those who contribute anonymously, and I think it’s a fundamental right to be able to speak your mind without having the government jackboot those who want to remain anonymous.

The 911 trial held flying in the sky!

The discussions of where the trial should take place are absurd. Demanding a military trial is equally absurd. What a circus. As much as the black-robbed professional arguerers may pretend otherwise, these issues are nothing more profound than arguing over what flavor of ice cream is the best in the world.

I have an idea. The 911 terrorist trial should be held in the Space Shuttle while orbiting the planet. That would be the most fair waste of tax-payers’ money!

Why are the Inuit complaining?

The National Inuit Leader should be more clear by stating exactly what the Inuit — as portrayed by herself and her organization — want from the rest of Canadians. Instead, Mary Simon offers this clueless plea:

La leader nationale des Inuits, Mary Simon, a souligné vendredi la contradiction dans un texte mis en ligne sur un blogue. “Nous nous demandons pourquoi, si ces solutions sont abordables et “à la portée de n’importe quel pays du G8″, la situation en terre inuite demeure la même encore aujourd’hui”, a-t-elle fait savoir.

Sorry, Mary, but if you do not know what your own people need, how the hell do you expect politicians in Ottawa to know??

Let me get this straight. The Inuit live in the coldest part of the country, places that have winter and subzero temperatures eleven months of the year and we are supposed to be surprized that their children have high mortality rates and greater incidences of respiratory illnesses. Duh.

Selon une étude rendue publique la veille du discours de M. Harper à Davos, la mortalité infantile chez les Inuits est quatre fois supérieure à la moyenne nationale. Les enfants inuits présentent aussi des taux de maladies respiratoires parmi les plus élevés de la planète.

Next lesson: people who live at the equator have dark skin!

As far as I am concerned, the Inuit are damn lucky. [That is not to say they have always been lucky. I know they have been abused and treated like animals in the past. ] Today, they can move to Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver if they wanted. Expecting to live in the Arctic while enjoying the comforts of modern civilization is just not reasonable and my money should not pay for it.

My guess is that Mary Simon is like every other good Canadian — she is afraid of being honest. She is afraid to bluntly say they want more money.

Doctors Abusing Patients

This story is horrific.  This is rape.

Imagine that you are undergoing a fairly routine surgery – say, removal of uterine fibroids or hysterectomy. During or right after the procedure, while you are still under anesthesia, a group of medical students parades into the operating room and they perform gynecological exams (unrelated to the surgery) without your knowledge.

Do you consider this okay, or an outrageous violation of your rights?

Regardless of your feelings, you should be aware that this is standard procedure in many Canadian teaching hospitals.

Medical students routinely practice doing internal pelvic examinations while surgery patients are unconscious, and without getting specific consent, at least in Canada.

Guidelines in the United States and Britain say specific consent is required but, by contrast, Canadian guidelines state that pelvic examination by trainees is “implicit.”

…
She [Dr. Sara Wainberg] polled her fellow students and found 72 per cent had also done exams on unconscious patients, without consent, confirming that it is routine.

Read the whole thing.  There’s a lot to unpack regarding this practice.  The mentality behind this is insulting, illiberal and dehumanizing.  There is no justification for penetrating women (or men) without their consent.  It does not matter what letters follow your name; it does not matter that the word, “Dr.”, precedes your name; it does not matter that she is unconscious; it does not matter what other things she has consented to; you are not allowed to violate her.  The same rules that apply to the alley way apply to the operating room.

Further thoughts can be found here.

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