Trust, But Verify

The key lesson to take away from the CRU email scandal is: trust, but verify. It’s an old expression, but it’s the key to why the “deniers” are looking prescient while the true believers look like dupes. Expert opinions are valuable for assessing many aspects of the world we live in. However, when the methods and data sources used to bolster these opinions are shrouded in secrecy this should be taken as a warning sign that something is amiss.

Peer review cuts both ways: it is a valuable tool for weeding out inappropriately formed opinions, but in the wrong hands it can just as easily be used to keep a poorly constructed “concensus” insulated from the kind of rigorous intellectual debate that a subject of this importance deserves.

With any topic of public debate, we should never trust without question opinions formed in a black box, no matter how much we otherwise trust and admire the source.

(Thanks to Instapundit, Ace of Spades, Mark Steyn and The Volokh Conspiracy)

NDP House Leader Libby Davies, how do you respond?

In the not too distant past (March 13th of this year actually), Libby Davies spoke to Parliament regarding the decorum of the House:

When is this going to stop? Things are really bad around here. People who watch us from the gallery or on CPAC are appalled at the kind of behaviour that takes place. To somehow characterize this as we are shutting down criticism or legitimate debate, that is not what this is about. This place is about debate, analysis and criticism and we do that every day, but this is about the kind of personal attacks that are being made.

We should be calling on the Speaker to stand by his ruling and to say to the majority of members of the House, I would dare say from all parties and maybe some people do not feel comfortable saying it, to support the Speaker’s ruling. I believe that things have gone too far. We should be upholding our Speaker. How many times have we called on the Speaker to intervene and to bring back decorum? He is trying to do that, and we should support what he is trying to do. You did it today, Mr. Speaker.

In light of recent events, I wonder just how self-righteous the House Leader for the NDP is feeling about her party’s commitment to restoring order and decorum to the House of Commons when her Leader, Jack Layton, is being implicated in orchestrating a virtually unheard of disruption in the House of Commons himself?

“…somehow the NDP organized the protest in the House is ludicrous. There is no conspiracy except in the mind of the Government House leader. The fact is we knew nothing about the protest.”

And Jack Layton’s press secretary Karl Belanger?

“Ya, that’s right. We organized a protest to interrupt our Leader during his question. Clearly, it was a socialist plot from the NDP.”

‘ll admit, it’s a weak suspicion with no proof, but hey, since they opened the door to conspiracy, does having a protest take place during one of their own speeches give some grounds for plausible deniability? Hey, it’s a weak argument, but that’s what you get with a weak defense.

So ultimately, if the NDP are in fact to blame for this ruckus, can Ms. Davies truly stand up in the House of Commons any longer and preach about NDP desires for decorum with any credibility?

The Conservatives Deserve to Pay For This… a Little

Apparently, some MPs, when they’re handing out government cheques to fund projects in their riding, like to give all credit to the party and none to the country:

Caught red-handed, the Conservatives have hurriedly disavowed an MP who splashed the party’s logo on mock cheques dispensing government funds to a local riding.

But the MPs are free to doctor the cheques in other ways, the government insists.

The misadventure lends credence to opposition concerns that the Conservatives are using stimulus funds and other government spending for partisan purposes, having campaigned against exactly those shenanigans.

This isn’t a huge deal.  It’s mostly just politics as usual… except people like Gerald Keddy didn’t have enough shame or good sense to try to hide it.  I’m not trying to excuse the behaviour; it’s pretty awful and Canadians should be disgusted.  No government should use the public’s money for such blatant partisan purposes.  However, kept in perspective, this scandal, in and of itself, is not sufficient to rightfully doom the Harper government.

Still, if there is any justice, Gerald Keddy’s political career should be nearing an end.

(H/T: Richard.)

What about Parliamentary Supremacy?

The only reason any Westminster system requires the services of a “supreme court” is to satisfy the condition of Locke’s separation of powers doctrine that there be a “Federative” branch of government to adjudicate disputes between different levels of government. With news today that HM The Queen has formally opened The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, devolution, at least, as taken a significant next step toward a respectable form of federalism.

Unfortunately, The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, like The Supreme Court of Canada, is now a court with the insidious pretence that its justices are not political actors, be they now the wiser appointed and benign overlords of all the realm. As the website of the court now, boldly, proclaims:

Courts are the final arbiter between the citizen and the state, and are therefore a fundamental pillar of the constitution.

The Supreme Court has been established to achieve a complete separation between the United Kingdom’s senior Judges and the Upper House of Parliament, emphasising the independence of the Law Lords and increasing the transparency between Parliament and the courts.

In August 2009 the Justices moved out of the House of Lords (where they sat as the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords) into their own building on the opposite side of Parliament Square. They will sit for the first time as a Supreme Court in October 2009.

The impact of Supreme Court decisions will extend far beyond the parties involved in any given case, shaping our society, and directly affecting our everyday lives.

For instance, in their previous role as the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, the Justices gave landmark rulings on the legality of the Hunting Act 2004 under European law, and whether or not a schoolgirl could be prevented from wearing traditional cultural dress.

Since Magna Carta, the High Court of Parliament, as it were, has been—and let us hope it remains—the final arbiter between the “citizen” and the state. Consider that a “citizen” is a “citizen” explicitly because he is the “subject” of a State. And “subjects,” being subjects of limited means in comparison to the state, can readily be subjected to the injustices, intentional or not, of that state.

What The United Kingdom has lost is far greater than any advance for federalism would have warranted. It has lost the explicit recognition—at the very top, anyway—that adjudicating the law is always part and parcel of legislating the law.

It was for this reason that John Locke held the Legislative branch of government to be supreme over all others. What we call Parliament was a necessary public conversation between the Executive and those who write the law as well as interpret the law. Take one aspect out of the mix and you will get power run amuck; so much for the balancing act that a separation of powers doctrine is meant to provide.

But, anymore, few learned men consider reading Locke a worthy endeavour. For whatever reason—maybe the American revolution and the cultural dominance of The United States—Montesquieu’s formulation of Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government wins wider popular recognition; those who understand the consequences of putting his formulation into practice a much smaller constituency.

It was to temper “legislating from the bench” that, for centuries, by the Law Lords sitting in the Upper Chamber of Parliament, the justice system of The United Kingdom tipped its hat toward Parliament. Being part of Parliament, the fact that the decisions of the Law Lords carried political consequence, that the adjudication of justice can, indeed, be effected by the idiosyncratic disposition and perspective of the adjudicators was lost on no one. The final court of appeal avoided even the appearance of being oracular.

New Labour seems to prefer change for the sake of change, especially when trying to win respectability for its love of big government. This is certainly not the first time it has looked across the pond and adopted the worst, the intellectually laziest, that Canada has to offer; be it the incoherent cult of “multiculturalism,” or, now, the larger, the more significant evolutions of our own constitutional history.

Torture in Canadian prisons?

The parents of Ashley Smith are suing the federal government for the treatment of their daughter. She committed suicide while in custody.

Allegations in the lawsuit have not been tested in court.

On Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan told the Star that Smith did not belong in federal prison, along with what he estimated as 12 to 15 per cent of inmates with mental health issues. Van Loan said he could not discuss details of the lawsuit, but blamed the provinces where she was incarcerated for failing to provide psychiatric care.

“There’s a limit to what we can do,” the federal minister said.

A spokeswoman for the Correctional Service of Canada said the agency could not comment on the allegations because the matter is before the courts.

Smith’s mother has watched as federal and provincial ombudsmen have investigated her daughter’s case.

Despite recommendations to improve the care of inmates, little has been done. Smith’s mother hopes a court action will unearth the real story of her daughter’s death, incite accountability and help other inmates in the process.

“During the last year of her life Ashley was shipped across four provinces and between eight institutions … all the while in segregation,” Coralee Smith said.

“Her location changed, but the callous treatment of her most basic needs did not. When she asked for help, she was ignored. I owe it to Ashley to ensure that the truth comes out about how she was treated.”

Raised in Moncton, N.B., by hard-working parents prominent in the local business community, Smith was first jailed at age 15 for a relatively minor incident.

She was caught throwing a crabapple at a letter carrier, whom neighbours believed was withholding welfare cheques, and jailed four months. In custody, a pattern began where she was accused of destructive behaviour and received escalating sentences, which ultimately landed her in federal prison at age 18.

Once in the federal system, Smith was transferred 17 times in less than a year, including moves from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan to Quebec – ending up in Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener.

The lawsuit alleges Smith was continuously held in segregation and that prison officials sidestepped the rule that triggers a regional review after 60 days.

“The claim lays out conspiracy because a simple examination of the facts in this case makes it very difficult to believe this all happened by happenstance,” the family’s lawyer Julian Falconer said.

If the allegations are established to be true, the individuals responsible should be held criminally responsible. This could well be a case where conscience should have been expected to take precedence over just doing one’s job.

It’s not a good season to be an Ontario Liberal apparently…

As an update to yesterday’s post, it seems now that the rumours of three Liberals defecting was nothing but some Tory mischief-making. While it’s true that some in Jason Kenney’s office need to learn to grow up, it’s important to note how seriously media in this country, including the Toronto Star which broke the story, took the idea that Michael Ignatieff (Lib, Etobicoke Lakeshore) was about to lose nearly 5% of his caucus. We clearly haven’t seen such a potential implosion of an opposition leader since Stockwell Day (Con, Okanagan—Coquihalla) had some of his caucus go on to form the Democratic Representative Caucus, and that’s taking in some rocky tenures that both Prime Minister Harper and former Liberal Leader Stephane Dion (Lib, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville) had. It’s not nearly as bad for Michael Ignatieff as it was for Day back in 2001, but yesterday did show us that we’re all expecting it to happen sooner or later.

While the federal member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore isn’t having a very good fall, his counterpart in Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty (Lib, Ottawa South) might be seeing the beginning of the end of his career in politics. In a display that echos of Jean Chretien’s adscam downfall, McGuinty has been linked on a personal level to the eHealth CEO that his government fired earlier this summer. It’s important to note that this does not mean that McGuinty has been found privy to any wrongdoing yet, but like yesterday’s rumours will have implications for Michael Ignatieff simply for painting an image of the federal Liberal leader as week, so too will this serve to paint the picture that Dalton McGuinty was a little too close for comfort to a government organization that is in the midst of a massive spending scandal.

Previous musings that I’ve made to colleagues that Energy Minister George Smitherman (Lib, Toronto Centre) “isn’t going anywhere” might be more ironic than McGuinty meant it to be when he said those words as Smitherman might opt out of the race for Toronto mayor, seeing instead the potential to be Ontario’s next Premier being more lucrative. As the information about eHealth, the OLG and any other landmines out there starts to close in on McGuinty, the Premier might decide an early retirement is in order about a year before the 2011 provincial election. There’s still some time between now and then, but clearly McGuinty’s teflon days of his first term are starting to give way to a stickier situation than even generously patient Ontarians are willing to deal with!

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Matthew Campbell is webmaster of Election Target, a community where users can predict the results of elections on the riding and national levels.

Roman Polanski, child rapist

Harvey Weinstein should write an open letter to all child rapists of the world too instead of just to the film-makers:

Weinstein, meanwhile, issued an open letter urging “every U.S. filmmaker to lobby against any move to bring Polanski back to the U.S.,” arguing that “whatever you think of the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time.”

“We Can Do Better”: The Latest Liberal/Toronto Star Attempt At Scandal

Okay, so it’s quite obvious to everyone about now that the Conservative candidate for Markham should be nixed — not because he’s stating any inconvenient accusations against the party he plans to run for in the next federal election, but because his statements betray a sever lack of ability to do basic research. Such a candidate isn’t just a liability to the party he (or she) runs for, but simply to the very voters of Canada who would have to live with such an individual’s decisions in the House. That said, I think that Gordon Landon is perfectly qualified to work as a “reporter” for the Toronto Star, having clearly demonstrated the level of quality that the Star has made its trademark.

That brings us to the next element of this “scandal” — is it, as Susan Delacourt suggests, another sponsorship scandal? I’d be embarrassed if I was Susan tonight because both cases are very different — the beneficiaries in the Chretien government’s scheme was Liberal Party insiders who gave Canadians nothing, but took loads of our tax dollars. In the case of the action plan, the beneficiaries are the citizens who chose to use the fruits of the Harper government’s announced plans: upgraded highways won’t have a toll both to check to see if you voted Conservative in the last election; Toronto Island’s Centerville washrooms won’t include a rugged outhouse for Warren Kinsella’s kids because they’re related to the infamous Asian-food connoisseur; and the Montréal Fashion and Design Festival won’t have special reserved seating for Conservative internship alumni. Oh, and by the way, how many Tories currently hail from either of Canada’s two largest cities again? Or is Kinsella, the Star et al. now counting Senators too?

Stephen Harper’s government is open game for criticism; Harper himself makes no claim to perfection and I respect Liberal attacks on the record of the current government, even if I don’t agree. But folks, let’s be honest for a moment — this is downright silly! Unless the critics who are at pains to try to make this a huge election-defining scandal wish to call the government website a lie, this link…

http://www.plandaction.gc.ca/eng/map.asp

has an entire map’s worth of projects that got stimulus funding. True, not all cities will get exactly the same number of dollars per population but it also shows that Toronto Island (split by Olivia Chow and Jack Layton themselves), neighbourhoods like Westmount and Kahnawake (which is across the way from Paul Martin’s old Montreal riding), and the ENTIRE PROVINCE OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR (which has no representation in the elected government) all have projects that got funding from the plan that we’re now hearing is a scandal. There’s more too…just look at the map. Of course, the Star-Liberals are once again showing that they never let facts in the way of an argument; unfortunately, now they have a little cheerleader from Markham to help too.

Michael Ignatieff is playing games with Parliament

Yeah, so I read a very short time ago that Michael Ignatieff, the man who can not “Prop Up” the Government anymore, is more than happy to facilitate the speedy passage of the EI Bill that is the focus of so much attention lately.

As stated in the CTV Article:

“We don’t want to give Mr. Layton any alibis,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said.

Seriously? So Michael Ignatieff’s sole reason for supporting the passage of this bill is to stick it to Jack Layton? What kind of responsible “Government in Waiting” is THAT!?!

Although Liberals believe the EI bill “falls radically short of serious employment insurance reform,” Ignatieff said they want to expedite its passage.

“We’re not going to hold it up. Let’s get it through and get to the motion of non-confidence which we will bring forward in due time.”

It seems Michael Ignatieff is so desperate to take us to an election, that he has decided to play games with the Parliamentary System and stick it to the other leaders of the opposition just to have his way.

If I could describe this in a word?

Despicable.

Contemptible, Irresponsible, Ignorant, Careless, and Immature also come to mind, but I think Despicable sums it up.

Still, if Michael wants to work with the Government (???) and get this legislation passed, that’s great. It will only serve to highlight his hypocrisy when he goes to his desired Non-Confidence motion.

I Have A Right To My Rights, Right?

So, lately I’ve been hearing a lot of people complaining about what they have a right to, or not as the case may be. And amazingly enough, I’m hearing it less from teenagers and more from adults. Rational and logical minds tell us that there are certain fundamental and universal Human Rights (Human Rights Commissions aside as we’ve seen that the words “Rational” and “Logical” have little to no association with those entities). However, what I’m hearing are frankly, bastardizations of Rights and pathetic rationalizations of convenience masquerading as rights. I think we’re getting pretty darned close to those HRCs here.

Today, society is in a rapid freefall into an atmosphere of entitlement. Just because someone wants something, or is inconvenienced by something, there is a sudden formation of some kind of pseudo-right out of this nebulous feeling of dissatisfaction. This person then becomes very self-righteous in their own defense and waxes poetic about the injustices they face or are forced to carry. The suddenly inspired Right provides them with an anchor to which they tie themselves and their complaint for security.

Never mind for the moment that it’s purely an outright fabrication, or that it’s a wholesale lie. Instead look into the mindset of such people and be afraid. They truly, and honestly believe that they are entitled to this mythical Right. By themselves, this isn’t really a concern. But when others who hold the same insecurity or the same complaint hear about it, they are almost immediately indoctrinated into this early forming cult, and as more and more people come to believe the lie, the more convincing it seems. Soon enough, someone will drag this into the HRCs in some kind of whining complaint about the atrocities committed against them. The HRCs in their neverending mission to justify their existance will seek some way to justify this person’s complaint through which they can then hold others to account. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we set out to decieve.

Let’s step away from that for a moment and consider another mythical right. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as set out by the UN (when the UN actually meant something that is), in Article 13 it states:

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

Many people have bastardized this into giving them rights to specific modes of transportation (or movement). Take airlines for example. How does someone have a right to fly to their destination. Denying someone access to an airplane or to travel by one hardly violates their right to freedom of movement. No one is preventing them from reaching their destination by other means, yet airlines are continuously afflicted by Human Rights complaints. Likewise, no one has a right to a Drivers Licence either, but that doesn’t prevent them from taking a bus or a train or a boat right? And when it comes right down to it, even if they were denied use of any or all of those modes of transportation, they can always put one foot in front of the other. Afterall, mankind has enjoyed the ability to walk since even before Homo Erectus became the dominant species on the planet. But, since the hard-done-by individual is inconvenienced (or worse yet, embarrassed), suddenly their rights are being trampled.

And so, the dangerous path continues: Want becomes expectation. Expectation becomes entitlement. Entitlement becomes a Right. Right?

Wrong. But in this environment where the HRCs are creating a type of chill when it comes to offending someone who could then (with their help) turn it into a Human Rights Violation, people are becomming more and more afriad to call a spade a spade and rightfully give the complainer a verbal slap up the side of the head about their so-called “Right” to whatever. The politically correct B.S. needs to be put into its grave once and for all so that the grown-ups can get down to business without fear of being persecuted simply for having a different opinion or saying something offensive.

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