I’m Glad the U.S. Won Silver

Sidney Crosby’s magnificent overtime goal will be remembered for a long long time.  It’s a Pray for Me, Paul Henderson sort of moment.  As someone who had to work in 2002, and listened to the Gold Medal game on the radio, I am so glad I was able to witness this, especially with my daughter at my side (though she was more interested in her story book… she’s 21 months old, and apparently more into short track speed skating).  So, yes, congratulations to the men’s hockey team.

And congratulations to the women’s hockey team, who added far fewer grey hairs to my head.  It is wonderful that Canada is currently on top of the hockey world, completely.

That being said, I am so glad that America won the silver medals… and not just because I wanted Canada to win Gold.  There is, at times, an anti-American sentiment in Canada (and much of the world).  To a certain extent this is understandable.  They’re big; they’re rich; they’re powerful.  Regardless of the fact that hockey “is our sport”, the United States has the resources to compete in any sport they choose.  As such, they’re always a target.  They’re the big brother, the privileged rival, the favourite that we all tend to cheer against.

Nonetheless, Canada and the United States have a definite bond.  We have our border.  We have a shared history.  In hockey, we are obvious rivals, but we also share a professional league.  Our NHL teams possess many players of both nationalities (and many other… I’m lookin’ at you A-train).  Beyond that, we share our cultures with each other.  U.S. TV shows always have great ratings in Canada.  Hit Canadian shows inspire hit American shows and cult films.  We are connected.

I value this relationship.  As such, I wish America and Americans much success, and I would not want any other country a step down from us on the podium.  Sure, we may have a longer hockey rivalry with Russia(/the Soviet Union), but our current rivalry with America is richer than our current rivalry with Russia.

Anyway, the best rivalry is always against an opponent you can respect and love.

It’s my health, it’s my choice. Well that’s dandy…

So Danny Williams is not one of my favorite people. He ranks up there with Jack Layton and Al Gore in my books. Granted, a lot of that has to do with his ABC Campaign which violates the so-called 11th Commandment, even in light of his achievements as a “conservative” in Newfoundland & Labrador.

It’s obviously no secret, and isn’t really news anymore that Mr. Williams chose to leave the country to obtain surgical services he claims were not available in Canada. I honestly don’t know the truth of that, but I do question it.

His defense? “It’s my health and it’s my choice.”

You know what? I agree. Yes, I agree with Danny Williams. My problem though, is that there are few other Canadians (Newfoundlander’s notwithstanding) who have that choice. Why? Because they can’t afford it.

And that leads me to the point of this post. I don’t think we should be demonizing Mr. Williams for taking that choice. In fact, I think we should be unabashedly using him as a prime example of how a Public/Private Health Care System could work.

Mr. Williams is a perfect example of how someone who has the means can take advantage of a private health care provider’s services without taking up space in the public ‘queue’ as it were. He can certainly afford the higher costs associated with such care, and in his own words, he was only doing what was best for him. Fabulous!

Unfortunately, there are many others who can, and exponentially more who can’t. For those who can, why can’t they get that service in Canada? Why do they have to take their money and spend it outside the country? And even then, that’s assuming they do. For the rest of those who can’t, they have to wait behind those in front of them ‘in line’. Those who if they had the option in Canada, might not be there at all, thereby shortening the lines.

So, what’s the problem? Why can’t we perform more procedures in Canada in order to lower the wait times? It’s called Salary Caps ladies and gentlemen. Something that isn’t as harshly mandated in the United States where physicians are allowed to earn more.

As I understand it, once a Canadian physician earns up to their “cap” anything they do after that is pro bono, assuming they choose to work for free. I don’t know many people who would work for say, half a year at their job for pay, and then volunteer their time and skills for the second half of the year. Would you?

What I see as a solution, is to remove Salary Caps on a private service care/practices and allow them to earn as much as they care to work for here in Canada, but require them to provide a certain number of hours in the public system while continuing the current limits in Public Care earnings.

Basically, let them work in the public system and collect up to the maximum allowed under the Canadian Public Health Care System, and then allow them to continue to earn additional wages in the private sector.

That kind of opportunity would draw more doctors to Canada instead of the reverse, and allow them to provide more care on a continuing basis to more people over longer periods of time as well as reducing the backlogs.

Anyway, just my thoughts.

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Further this post from this story:

Updated 4:30pm – Feb 23/10

“This was my heart, my choice and my health,”

“I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics.”

“I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time,”

“If I’m entitled to any reimbursement from any Canadian health care system or any provincial health care system, then obviously I will apply for that as anybody else would,”

“But I wrote out the cheque myself and paid for it myself and to this point, I haven’t even looked into the possibility of any reimbursement. I don’t know what I’m entitled to, if anything, and if it’s nothing, then so be it.”

That’s just dandy Mr. Williams. While you may have the means to simply write a cheque without worrying if you’re entitled to any reimbursement, very few other average Canadians share that same laissez-faire approach. And I’m definitely certain that you’re not alone in wanting to get in and out and back to work as soon as possible, you’re exploiting an option that most Canadians don’t have.

Perhaps you aught to advocate bringing these choices to Canada. Put your mouthiness to good use and you might actually earn some conservative forgiveness from the rest of the country. Not, I’m likely to believe, that you’re looking for it…

Rhetoric and Reality in the 2008 Presidential Election

Last week, as I thought about the remarkable rhetorical abilities of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, I was struck by the similarities in their respective paths to the White House.

As candidates, both Reagan and Obama were challengers to the incumbent party candidate. In Reagan’s case, he squared off against President Jimmy Carter of the then-governing Democratic Party. For his part, Obama faced John McCain, a member of the incumbent Republican Party. Both were at first deemed unprepared for a presidential run, but the tide quickly turned in their favour.

Curious, I then expanded the sample size to include all presidential elections since 1980.

What I’ve found is that presidential challengers have defeated the incumbent party candidate on four occasions–and on each of those occasions the challenger won by invoking the rhetoric of redemption.

This may or may not come as a surprise.

But what is interesting, I think, is that there may be a disconnect between rhetoric and reality in the case of the 2008 presidential election. I’ve developed this argument in a bit more detail in my latest piece at the Huffington Post.

Comments welcome, both online and offline.

Branding in Canadian and American Politics

It’s fascinating to try to make sense of the cultural, social and political differences that set Canadians apart from Americans.

Take politics for instance. A recent poll from Rasmussen Reports shows that Americans regard the label “conservative” more positively than the either of the two labels “liberal” or “progressive.” The conservative brand is in fact three times more appealing to the electorate than the liberal brand, and twice as appealing as the progressive brand.

I would be shocked if the same were true of Canadians.

Although the Conservative Party has been in power since 2006, I suspect that Canadians nonetheless still identify most closely with the label “liberal.”

Let me be clear on this: I am not suggesting that Canadians define themselves as members of the Liberal Party. What I am instead suggesting is that the brand of liberal resonates most intensely with Canadians, both as an ideological descriptor and as a general cultural orientation.

Two points in particular strike me as worthy of some discussion. First, why do Canadians situate themselves more comfortably in the liberal camp while Americans are more at ease in the conservative camp? And, second, how and how often do these preferences evolve?

Any thoughts from readers here at The Politic?

The H Stands for ‘Hubris’

But we probably already knew that’s what President Obama’s middle initial really stood for.

It’s been a year since the over hyped and under performing ‘stimulus’ package was passed in the U.S., and even with the employment rate still hovering around 10% (it dropped 0.3% to 9.7% in January), Mr. Obama has the gall to trumpet the success of the stimulus package in saving or creating 2 million jobs.

The stimulus package was a mistake.  The very premise of the stimulus package has been proven faulty; the notion that this money needed to be pumped into the economy right away is refuted by the fact that the United States government expects most of the stimulus money to be spent in 2010.

Even their job claims are ridiculous.  Sure, it’s conceivable that 2 million more people would be out of work had it not been for the stimulus, but considering the length and depth of the increased unemployment in the United States over the last 12 months, it’s pretty hard to believe (especially if you accept the idea that the real unemployment rate in the United States is 17%).  Further, the notion of jobs being created was always absurd, and often interpreted creatively.  The administration appears to understand this, and have continued to walk back from their original claims of the job-creating power of the stimulus.  However, on the anniversary of this grand mistake, they are throwing reason to the wind, standing tall on the shoulders of this fiscal albatross.

Even if Barack Obama says it, it does not make it true.

21 Hours, New Economics Foundation = forced charity

Suppose the ‘normal’ working week in Britain lasted for 21 hours.
Not 35 hours, not even four days, but 21 hours. It’s flexible and
variable, but it’s normal and generally expected, by government,
employers, trade unions and most public opinion.

OK. Here is my guess of what would happen: In less than a month, everybody will go bankrupt and the working poor will riot in the street in retaliation against this stupid socialist policy. If they are lucky, they will be able to identify the socialists who enforce this nonsense.
Nay! say the socialist engineers at the New Economics Foundation because the reduction in the work week will be gradual and therefore, everybody will adapt! Hip! Hip! Hooray!

There is more, though. It will all work out because work hours will be reduced while carbon emissions will be reduced. The two together are part of the whole plan. That is their reasoning that everything will work out. If you do not believe me, read their paper and find out.

I am just like the next guy. I want money and I do not want to work for it. However, the absurdity of the socialists never ceases to amaze: “After all, hands up who wouldn’t like a four day weekend?” says Andrew Simms, the foundation’s policy director.

The funny thing is that what they want to impose can evolve through market forces if only taxes and the inflation of the money supply were ended. Of course, you will never hear the do-gooders ask for an abolition of taxes because they want your pocket book.

They do not want you to be free to chose your work week — although they pretend they do. They expect to legislate the changes in behavior and to beat you with a stick if you step out of line:

The weight of public opinion can shift quite suddenly from antipathy to approval as a result of new evidence, strong campaigning, and changing circumstances, including a sense of crisis. There are some signs of favourable conditions beginning to emerge for shifting expectations about a ‘normal’ working week. Further changes that may help include the development of a more egalitarian culture, raising awareness about the value of unpaid labour, strong government support for uncommodified activities, and a national debate about how we use, value, and distribute work and time.

Pretty rich, is it not? This is their segue into their underlying dishonesty and agenda:

The growing consensus that a level of 350 parts per million (ppm), not 450 ppm, will be required to avoid dangerous climate change only worsens the arithmetic.

Uh….. what consensus? what dangerous climate change?

The garbage produced by the New Economics Foundation is conveniently highlighted by their own words:

Measures to ensure that the move towards 21 hours has positive rather than negative impacts on gender relations and family life include flexible employment conditions that encourage more equal distribution of unpaid work between women and men; universal, high-quality childcare that dovetails with paid working time; more job-sharing and limits on overtime; flexible retirement; stronger measures enforcing equal pay and opportunity; more jobs for men in caring and primary school teaching; more childcare, play schemes and adult care using co-produced models of design and delivery; and enhanced opportunities for local action to build neighbourhoods that everyone feels safe in and enjoys.

Gee, I can not wait until they recommend a policy to transform water into wine and lead into gold.

The madness of socialism is very well exposed by this: “ there is no end to what employers can demand, and no end to what is demanded of our unpaid time as we play our pivotal role in the consumer economy.” This is an internal contradiction. The mad men at the New Economics Foundation who wrote this nonsense define unpaid time to comprise the wide range of leisure and domestic arrangements — all of which are choices made by the working people. Thus, it is intellectually dishonest for these socialists to misrepresent it as being a demand placed upon the working class.

The agenda of social engineering is smoked out:

A much shorter working week would leave time for mothers and fathers to do more than supervise homework, share meals, imbue discipline, and otherwise impress ‘positive parenting’ upon their children. It certainly shouldn’t become a means of confining children to individualised home-based care, deprived 21 hours of the proven benefits of learning in groups and mixing with a wider range of children and adults. High-quality, socialised care for children is essential for breaking down inter-generational cycles of disadvantage, and reducing social and economic inequalities. A 21-hour week would help create the conditions for universally accessible and affordable childcare.

God forbid parents should take care of their own kids. Think of all the poor unwanted day-care workers who would be unemployed!
If the consumer does not want to employ the professional baby-sitters, well, by golly, the socialists will institute socialized day-care to put everybody to work!

As it currently stands, the ‘core’ economy depends heavily on unpaid female labour because women have more time for it, for reasons already discussed.

Great! Next on their list will be to get more men buying sanitary napkins and more women buying top hats.
Socialists really can not get their heads around the fact that some people (regardless of whether they are male or female) actually freely choose what they buy and how they spend their time. The socialist feels entitled to mold human behavior.

The next time that a socialist tells you that he has economic research and development to support his freeloading policy demands, do not trust him. This New Economics Foundation is not producing an economic study. Rather, the 21 Hours is a political manifesto on irresponsible socialist statecraft. As far as intellectual value is concerned, this “study” amounts to nothing more worthy than a pretty nursery rhyme that says “Give us more! Give us more! Shut up and pay! We want a free lunch and we deserve it because we say so!” in no uncertain terms — the intended audience of which is the hoards of gullible socialists who seek a new religion and a way out of competing in a labor market.

EditedToAdd:
I am not the only one who posits a mental problem: Latest think tank insanity! This time the New Economics Foundation

Forcing perceived entitlements on others

The Quebec HRC has abhorrently ruled to force a condo-owning 60+ year-old woman, who herself suffers from a shoulder injury, to relinquish her paid parking spot near the door of a condominium building to her mobidly obese neighbour, who, incidentally, “weighs nearly 400 pounds… has diabetes and heart and respiratory conditions… [and] needs oxygen to breathe and rides a handicap scooter [AND yet is allowed to drive a motor vehicle -ed]. Additionally, the QHRC is forcing the neighbours of the obese lady to collectively pay $10,000 in damages for “…[violating] the inclusive values promoted by our society.”

It got me thinking about a recent episode with an obese person who likewise felt entitled to force others to accommodate her needs wants.

A couple weeks ago my family and I entered a Burger King to grab a quick bite as part of our hectic Saturday routine. At this particular BK there is only one blue-painted handicapped parking spot though there are at least six parking slots within 10 paces of the entrance. With our burgeoning family, I certainly appreciated being able to park the van and unload the tribe near the entrance.

Seated and munching, I notice a rotund woman park her minivan in a spot about 100 feet from the BK, literally kick the driver’s side door open, gingerly roll herself out of the van, and slowly lumber across the parking lot to the BK.  Used to determining the weight and size of moose and caribou at 100 and 200 yards, I estimated her weight at 350 lbs.

My brother’s fat humour echoed in my brain, “Warm up the fryers! Everyone out of the pool!” My wife, noticing that I had picked up on the “big-boned” woman making her way to the BK, and perhaps observing a rye grin on my face, jabbed me in the ribs. “Stop it,” she said with her eyes, seemingly knowing what was going on behind my eyeballs. Then audibly, “Don’t be so cruel. You don’t know why she’s like that.” You get the picture. Shame on me, but don’t act so innocent, dear reader!

Anyway, said rotund individual entered the BK, walked into the middle of the room and roared, “WHO IS PARKED IN THE HANDICAPPED SPOT?”  Startled at the rude interruption of the consumption of their flame-broiled whoppers and trans-fat sticks (fries), everyone turned.  Most muttered, “Not me,” except for one, an older woman in her 70s, sitting by herself enjoying a sandwich.

“I am,” she said.

Rotund woman, growing more agitated and pointing her finger: “I don’t see a handicapped sign hanging on your mirror. Do you have the right to be in that spot?”

Older lady: “Yes. My tag is in the glove box and I forgot to hang it on the mirror before coming in.”

Rotunda: “Really? Well, I WANT that spot.”

Older lady, with poise and dignity, “I’ll move as soon as I’m done, dear, but there are a couple spots right next that are open.”

Rotunda: “Doesn’t matter. I want that spot and I need you to move.”

The old lady looked away and started eating again. The men in the joint were observing closely, waiting for Roti to do something even more stupid.

Alas, with a “hmph” Large Lady exited the BK, trudged the 100 feet back to her van, damn near ripped the driver’s side door off her van whilst opening it, squeezed inside, somehow managed to reach out and close her abused door, and waited. And waited. Then waited some more. All the while no less than three parking spaces remained open next to the sacred blue slot, presumably the result of people being very accommodating indeed.

We were in the restaurant for 15 minutes beyond this and Double-L didn’t avail of the non-blue parking spaces during the entire time. Our tribe left the BK, jaunted across the parking lot to a market where we spent another 10 minutes or so before returning to our van by the BK.  Lady Large was still in her van.

She had walked at least 200 feet, attempted to run roughshod over an elderly woman, ignored her desire for food, and waited for at least 25 minutes for the privileged blue paint nirvana to open up, even though she could have easily DRIVEN THE FRIGGIN’ VAN into the spot next to the handicapped zone and proceeded to walk the 10 paces into the restaurant.

My wife and I looked at each other, “Unreal.”

In light of these coincidental travesties, I am caused to ask, Why do people, obese or not, feel entitled to certain things that they clearly are not entitled to?  And why, I wonder, do they feel the need to leverage the State to nourish and enforce their believed entitlement and so force their will upon others?  What drives that behaviour?  Finally, why does the State feel the need to involve itself in a disagreement between two renters of condominiums whom have each paid for parking?  And “violating the inclusive values of society”???

Have we lost of freaking minds?

MLS.ca, CREA and anti-competition

The current witch-hunt against the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) concerning its MLS.ca service is the height of irresponsibility and Melanie Aitken, the commissioner at the Competition Bureau, is at the fore-front of this absurd attack:

“The Canadian Real Estate Association, through its members, has substantial control or complete control over the supply of residential real estate brokerage services throughout Canada,” the Bureau said in its filing to the Competition Tribunal. “CREA and its members have used CREA’s control of MLS and related trademarks to impose exclusionary restrictions on their use.”

Well, duh. The Canadian Real Estate Association should be free to operate their website listings however they choose. It makes sense to restrict the listings to their own members. You have to pay to play.

What is next? Will the Competition Bureau go after the Water Buffalo Club for excluding non-members from participating in their weekly karaoke night?

The MLS.ca listing service is a fraction of what the Canadian Real Estate Association offers to its members and to the public. Membership also incorporates a recognition of certain standards of business practice. Up until this point, a real estate customer who finds a listing on the MLS.ca has certain expectations and possibly recourse if those expectations are not met. Any clarity of such standardization will soon be crushed by the Competition Bureau.

This is a fine example of the innate challenge with civil service and socialism. Since the job of a civil servant is rarely — if ever at all — threatened by market forces, the civil servant can be forever fixated on optimizing the most pleasant color of the website without ever realizing that the performance of the back-end matters substantially more.

Membership in CREA is somewhere in between the aesthetics of the MLS.ca site and the performance of its search engine.
Should a day’s labor or a week’s labor or maybe a month be spent choosing the best color of the website?
Should a month’s labor or a week’s labor or only one day be spent optimizing the search engine?
Without the risk of loss, the civil servant can not make such responsible decisions. Balancing all of the features of the business model should be decided by the business owner. If the balance is a failure, it is the business owner who pays not the civil servant.

To the civil servant, devoting exorbitant resources to study and develop esoteric details is fun — sometimes the very goal — but can ultimately be a waste to the customer. In this way, the damage created by the civil servant can continue unchecked at the expense of the intended beneficiaries.

The competition bureau fabricates their own “work” and when they run out of things to do, they have the state-blessed power to invent more. In so doing, they trample the freedoms of innovators and economic progressives. After the competition bureau crushes the MLS.ca listings, there will be less of an incentive for real estate agents to aspire to the high standards of the Canadian Real Estate Association and the customer will ultimately have a more difficult time separating the wheat from the chaff.

Regardless, let us not get bogged down in economic incentives and intelligent market analysis. As far as I am concerned, the Canadian Real Estate is a business and I presume they need to make money to survive. The restrictive policy of the MLS.ca is an honest way to make their money.

Failed Nortel Pensions = free lunches

Can somebody explain to me why the poor people of Ontario should foot the bill of the failed pension gambling that was undertook by past Nortel employees?

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?

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