Diane Francis, Global One Child Policy Fangirl, National Embarrassment

What is going on at the Financial Post? I was under the impression that in the context of Canadian media the Post was a relatively rational provider of economic news and opinion. (True, the day they hired Buzz Hargrove as a weekly columnist was the day I cancelled my subscription to the National Post, but I did qualify my last statement.)

Let’s assume (for the sake of argument) that a burgeoning global population is actually a problem. First of all, that’s got nothing to do with Western democracies. Our birth rates are already below replacement and continue to fall decade by decade. (For a more convincing explanation for why this is so than I can muster, please watch Lord Monckton’s presentation in Minneapolis. It’s long but it’s worth every minute of your time.) As it stands, we need higher levels of immigration just to maintain the assorted taxation pyramid schemes that pay for our current standard of living. Artificially reducing our already low birthrates only exacerbates this issue.

More importantly then, what Diane is proposing is encouraging Third World countries to adopt and enforce rigid population control policies. Countries like, let’s say, Sudan. We’ve seen how Sudan handles inconvenient populations. Throw forced abortions and sterilizations into the mix and what she’s proposing (intentionally or not) are dozens of little holocausts worldwide as dominant demographics seek to meet globally mandated targets by shifting the pressure to shrink onto their minority populations.

This is lunacy that would be unbecoming of some leftist hack in the back pages of the Star. Imagine my surprise seeing this spreading across the US blogs this morning only to discover that it’s the brainchild of a respected economics reporter at one of Canada’s more reasonable financial papers.

Early Avatar Reviews

For those of you that are as excited as I am about James Cameron’s upcoming epic blockbuster: Rotten Tomatoes has posted some early reviews.

Michael Ignatieff is Right About Pay Equity

Below, Richard notes a couple of new initiatives by the Liberal Party, including their intention to recognize pay equity as a human right.

Here’s the thing, they are, partially, correct.

A quick caveat, I am, generally, not a fan of the way pay equity is wielded.  A concept that was born to address discriminatory behaviour against vulnerable segments of the population has become a weapon used to engineer wealth redistribution surreptitiously.  It’s dishonest, and it’s an abuse of the legislative process.

A second caveat, I am on record as being against the expansion of ‘human rights’.  I hold a narrow definition, and I do not think pay equity (even the good kind) falls into it.  Further, I am offended by the Human Rights industry in Canada.

So, let’s assume, arguendo, that we’re talking about an acceptable form of pay equity, and by ‘human right’ we mean some good legislation that the government enforces through an appropriate process.  (I know this is open for debate, but these topics are being debated thoroughly on Richard’s post; I want to talk about something more narrow.)  With these assumptions, Michael Ignatieff is right.

From the article in The Toronto Star:

To that end, he [Michael Ignatieff] introduced Wednesday a private member’s bill aimed at reversing a controversial measure in the 2009 federal budget.

The budget essentially reclassified pay equity as a labour issue to be negotiated in collective agreements, stripping the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its authority to adjudicate pay equity complaints.

Anyone see the same problem with the Conservative’s re-classification that I do?  The Conservative’s measure has put pay equity in the hands of unions.  If we assume that pay equity (however defined) is worthwhile, it has no place as a bargaining chip in a contract negotiation; a union should not have the right ditch it on behalf of its membership and those who will eventually join the union.

You could almost argue that Stephen Harper’s government is acting as a shill for Big Labour.

(By the way, I’m not suggesting that any unions would do away with pay equity in order to secure a better dental plan; I’m just saying we shouldn’t even give them the option.)

Now, I can envision a convincing counter-argument that pay equity isn’t a good thing as it is currently enacted, and that its enforcement shouldn’t be delegated to Human Rights Commissions.  These may be solid points, but they do not justify the action taken by the Conservative government.  Just as it is wrong to use pay equity to enact wealth re-distribution, it is wrong to use procedural measures as a salvo against the nature of pay equity and the use of Human Rights Commissions.  It seems especially egregious to do it through the budget.  If the government wishes to take on pay equity or Human Rights Commissions, they should do so head on.  Crafting duplicitous legislation is unbecoming of a democratic government.

I still don’t trust Michael Ignatieff with the task of crafting appropriate pay equity legislation, but I don’t really trust Stephen Harper with it either.

Two Thumbs Up for Two Ideas from the Liberal Party

Today, the Liberal Party proposed two bills, both of which, in my initial assessment, merit two enthusiastic thumbs up.

First, the Liberal Party proposed to return rural mail delivery to its 2005 levels, when there were 55,000 more rural mailboxes in service than there are today.

Second, the Liberal Party pledged to treat pay equity as a human right.

Both ideas are quintessentially Canadian, and reflect our core values of equal access and equal opportunity–two values that have made Canada the light of the world.

The tax-man is evil

Unbelievable. Rachel Porcaro is a victim of evil parasitic tax collectors.

But the agency insisted Rachel couldn’t prove she was supporting her children — she didn’t have enough receipts — so she had to stop claiming them as dependents. A few weeks ago she paid back $1,438 (plus penalties and interest!) on that issue.

Way to go, IRS. You did an investigation likely costing tens of thousands of dollars (counting both sides). To squeeze a grand out of a single mom who did nothing wrong.

CRU leaks… meh

Just when you thought reasonable people might sit up and take notice of climategate… “hockey stick” graphs… at Copenhagen.

Confused? Unimpressed? Gobsmacked?  Well, follow the money.  Lorne Gunter:

The proof that the current climate summit in Copenhagen is not about environment and science, but rather about politics and ideology, can be seen in that fact that two weeks ago, some young computer programmer’s conscience got the better of him and he released computer code and emails exposing the skeleton of climate change. Yet almost no one in Copenhagen is talking about it.

It doesn’t matter that almost no one outside the climate change industry had heard of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia before the release. The CRU’s centrality to the mystery of Eco faith is undeniable. The CRU and GISS — NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies— are two of the four major repositories of temperature records in the world, the only two that show continuing warming and the two that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change relies on for its forecasts of disaster.

Scientists from GISS are also implicated in the torquing of climate data revealed in the recent CRU leaks. This is not surprising given that the head of GISS, James Hansen, is Al Gore’s science guru. He testified on behalf of environmental terrorists who attacked a U.K. electrical station, saying they should not be convicted because their vandalism was in the public interest. He has called coal trains “death trains.”

Nevertheless, delegates in the Danish capital have practically glossed over the CRU “Climategate” leaks. That’s partly because they refuse to let the facts get in the way of their cause, but it’s mostly because Copenhagen isn’t about climate change as a physical phenomenon, but rather climate change as an opportunity to regulate people’s lives and incomes on a global scale (emphasis added).

Regulation == more government == more taxation == more socialism == less freedom.

Update 1 PM EST: A tidy point overlooked by some in George Monbiot’s anti-Canada screed, “A concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth.” This, based directly upon the pseudo-science behind said manufactured “hockey stick” and the foregone conclusions that a) carbon dioxide is absolutely to blame for the highly arguable increase in global temperatures and b) the contestable warming is unprecedented in history c) because of the industrial revolution.

I am inclined to laugh at the absurdity of the effort except for its serious angle, which is an indication of the horribly misguided zeal and incredible moral inversion amongst the AGW faithful, such as Mr. Monbiot. Consider for a moment that Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe was merely suspended from the Commonwealth in 2002 despite its well-documented sham elections, rampant corruption, organized coercion, political assassinations, oppression of political dissent and overall economic oppression of its own people.  Canada is a model country to the world in politics and economics with an excellent justice system and a Charter and Constitution that is the envy of many, yet we have a relatively immense oil field in Northern Alberta, the development of which is causing some pollution. This makes us greater sinners than the Mugabe regime.

Ye gods.

I’m Sorry; I Forgot.

Sunday was the 20th anniversary of the massacre at L’Ecole Polytechnique.

It was on December 6, 1989, that fourteen women were murdered for no other reason than being women.  Ten more women and four men were injured.

Considering all that is going on in our lives and our world – the holiday season, the Afghan detainee scandal, Copenhagen, the economy – it is easy to forget.  Thankfully, Scott H. Payne remembered.  So did Angus Johnston.  And CaitieCat.

Sadly, I forgot.  And for that I am sorry.

RIP

Genevieve Bergeron

Helene Colgan

Nathalie Croteau

Barbara Daigneault

Anne-Marie Edward

Maud Haviernick

Maryse Laganiere

Maryse Leclair

Anne-Marie Lemay

Sonia Pelletier

Michele Richard

Annie St-Arneault

Annie Turcotte

Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz

Obligatory Copenhagen Post

Having not authored a post in a while, I figured I would rise today and wax polemic about Copenhagen, the massive  conference at which our government and all enviro-sinner nations, i.e. the West — of which Canada with its oilsands is the worst, we are told — will be compelled to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by set proportions regardless of the detrimental, yea disastrous, effects it might have on our economies, while also promising to transfer even more wealth from the ingenious companies and hard-working citizens of this nation via taxation to the governments and companies of poorer nations so they can combat “climate change” without hurting their economies.

Vox Day rightly argues that this is historically, scientifically, economically and politically insane.

It is historically insane because we know the planet was more than two degrees warmer as recently as 500 years ago. It is scientifically insane because we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the world is not warming according to any of the predictions based on models which are based on the idea that higher carbon dioxide levels produce higher temperatures. It is economically insane because it strengthens the contractionary forces that are already in the process of plunging the world into the greatest depression of the modern era. It is politically insane because it reverses more than 300 years of advancing human liberty and democracy.

Adding to the insanity is the specter of “approved” middlemen, a global governance structure, managing the transfer of wealth and enforcing environmental targets.  The rank hypocrisy on display at Copenhagen leads one to believe the scams resulting from global emissions management, some of which have already started to unfold in Europe, would make the UN Oil-for-Food scandal look like petty theft.

The first impression one receives of the summit is the sheer hypocrisy of it. Here are green campaigners who damn the rest of us for the size of our “carbon footprints” and challenge us each to reduce our carbon output by one tonne per year. Yet they themselves are flying in using a squadron of private jets, hiring a fleet of limousines and gorging themselves on expensive food flown in from around the world.

In all of Denmark, there are only a few of dozen limousines for hire. So more than 1,000 of the gas-guzzling, carbon-belching behemoths have been driven to Copenhagen from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Since, at most, 140 heads of state and heads of government will attend the week-long conference, the bulk of these land yachts are being delivered for use by United Nations officials, the heads of environmental organizations and celebrities. All these people preach environmental sustainability for others, yet do not practice it themselves.

Digressing a bit, I suspect the governing “Conservatives” are thinking long and hard about their play at Copenhagen given their stronghold in Western Canada, oil country.  I’ve no doubt they’ve been inundated with queries and demands from the grassroots in light of the CRU leak, and I suspect they will take a beating on the hustings and in the pocketbook should they capitulate to the anti-freedom forces in Copenhagen and/or align Canada in any way with a carbon trading scheme.  If the CPC has any hope of forming a majority government, they’d best steer clear of these local landmines.

Back to Copenhagen, which, of course, is merely step one in the twisted world of enviro-fascism.  Oh, you didn’t hear?  Yes, the AGW prophet, Al Gore, served notice that the bar has already been raised.

Even if a deal is reached at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen next week it will only be the first step towards the far more radical cuts that are needed in global carbon emissions, Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, told The Times last night….

He insisted that the present goal set for Copenhagen of stabilising world emissions of carbon dioxide at or below 450 parts per million — enough to prevent a rise in average global temperatures of no more than 2C — was insufficient and a safer target would be 350 parts per million.

“Insufficient.”  A fitting conclusion to an obligatory post about Copenhagen, for it reminds us that no matter what we do it will never be enough for the enviro-fascist leftards seeking to destroy Capitalism and Western freedom.  It reminds us that environmental policy has a fascist chassis and a socialist economic engine.  It reminds us that Copenhagen and all such global management endeavours are fundamentally about the transfer of power from the individual to the State.  It reminds us that freedom is being bartered under the guise of “being green.”  It reminds us to punish the CPC if they buckle.

Update 8 PM EST: Ice core context.  An absolute must see.  (Hat tip SDA.)  As has been mentioned previously, the issue is not whether we are currently in a warming period. It’s whether it is unprecedented and whether the cause is assuredly carbon dioxide and man-made emissions.

Are The Argos About To End Their Strained SkyDome Relationship?

It is and isn’t shocking to learn of an open letter to Argos fans from team President Bob Nicholson remarking on what so many CFL fans have been talking about ever since the SkyDome first opened its doors 20 years ago: the love-hate relationship between the team and it’s current facility. In an ironic twist on the original drive the former Premier Bill Davis had to see a more suitable team for the Argos, the SkyDome quickly became a Blue Jays-centric facility in both design and marketing. when you drive by the facility on the Gardiner today, massive banners highlighting Toronto’s baseball heavyweights are all that you see; you’d be pressed to know that the Argos still exist from walking around the facilities and surrounding courtyard. With current facility owner Rogers Communications also owning the Blue Jays franchise and actively courting the Buffalo Bills, the love-starved Argos are even worse off today than they were when they first moved from the old Exhibition Stadium at the end of the 80s.

A thoughtful study will first begin to consider if things can get worse though, which in the case of Toronto’s boatmen can’t be a distant possibility. Within 35 years, the Argos have gone from being one of only two pro sports teams in Toronto (and exclusive owners of the summer sports season) to being the poor cousin at a table that includes baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer and, most recently, another team, albeit inferior, which plays football encroaching on the Argo’s turf.

Geography isn’t helping the franchise as the downtown SkyDome is largely inaccessible to out-of-towners who can’t rely on the GO system (which is now literally designed for the ACC teams) and more an artifact of the past than a central landmark. Moving to the new BMO Field would bring the Argos back to their old stomping grounds (literally, given the site once housed Exhibition Stadium), but with Toronto FC already occupying the residence and the same accessibility issues for the demographics that the Argos need to attract, it’s important for the team to recognize that the site isn’t the same place it was 20 years ago.

The deeper one analyzes the team’s problems, which are shared with the fellow poor-attendance-last-in-the-division Blue Jays, the more one concludes that Toronto is still a remarkable city with different pockets of different interests, and the old city may not be the best place to set up shop for such a sport. The Bills generated excitement at first, but the new kid on the block always gets some extra attention that quickly fades with time (as it is with the plagued NFL team).

Demographically and geographically speaking, with Old Toronto being a burden, the old North York area might just solve the Argo ills perfectly. First, it’s more central than the downtown is, giving easier access to the CFL-less 519 and 705 regions, as well as York Region; parking is cheaper and more readily available, and in York University, the team would have a reliable partner with a young football base to grow the attendance rate with (the Calgary Stampeders, Saskatchewan Roughriders, Montreal Alouettes have similar deals with their local schools); sharing a football field with another football team is always easier than mixing with a baseball or soccer club. Demographically, the Argos have the same problem the NDP has: their fanbase is predominantly white and growing grey. This doesn’t need to be as York is proving: northern Toronto has a large group of football fans who, unfortunately, are more interested in the NFL right now and frankly too poor to pay the extravagant prices that playing in the SkyDome forces the CFL team to charge. Moving to a closer, cheaper location makes the game more accessable to what are very persuadable football fans.

On a final note, the Argonauts aren’t going to solve all their ills with a change in postal code; the team was still the only franchise this year that everyone knew wasn’t going to make the playoffs by August. It’s a building season for the boatmen unlike one they’ve experienced since ending their long, three-decade drought back in 1983. Such seasons are necessary for all franchises from time to time, but they’re also the most dangerous for the team’s long-term interests. Strong teams in Ottawa and Montreal have folded under more optimistic scenarios, and die-hard football fans in Hamilton almost lost their team back in the mid-90s. Toronto isn’t as fortunate as the team isn’t seen as pivotal to Toronto’s makeup any longer, except to the CFL itself. That’s why, as much as the Argos need a move to start recruiting fans again, they also need some good management to properly steer the team (be a Jason, if you will!) to at least a playoff appearance or two within the next few years. Lowering costs and distance help to get fans into the stands, but giving them something worth seeing is the only way to keep them there!

New Brunswick Tory’s Comment was Sexist

I missed the story when it first came out, but New Brunswick MLA Carl Urquhart got in trouble for a mildly offensive comment he wrote on Facebook.  Responding to the governing Liberals’ new budget, Mr. Urquhart wrote, “[a]nother Liberal budget … Another $1 billion on the debt by March … Girls we need more babies or we will never be able to support our future.”

At National Post‘s Full Comment, Adrian McNair (who also blogs at Unambiguously Ambidextrous) comes to Mr. Urquhart’s defense.

I take the opposite stance – as does Mr. Urquahrt; he’s since apologized – and explain all the ways Mr. Urquhart’s comment was unbecoming and offensive over at my blog, Canned Goods and Ammunition.

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