Dion’s Carbon Tax: As Neutral As The CBC…

A lot of talk has been had about the politically suicidal aspect of Stephane Dion’s rumoured crusade to introduce a carbon tax into the federal tax structure. We’re told it’s good policy, but bad politics and even some conservatives are reluctant to disagree with that statement given that a carbon tax can be crafted out as a consumption tax that would allow people to save money instead of having the taxman gouge them before they even see the paycheque.

A fundamental component of the debate has been ignored so far though and that is whether a tax on the sixth element of the periodic table is really such a good idea after all. For example, I relayed a report late last year on how an obsessive academic from Australia proposed the sick ideal of putting a carbon tax on each baby born into the world and a yearly tax on children for the first years of their lives. As we have our national government apologizing for the Chinese head tax of almost 100 years ago, calling the practice a shameful blemish from our past, eco-liberals are gearing up to add a tax that doesn’t discriminate on race necessarily but on simply existing. The professor was never quite clear on what would happen if families either refused or could not afford to pay the tax, although he was certainly joyous in announcing how this would effectively womens’ (and mens’) right to chose to have their babies (something liberals often love to do except when they know the choice will result in one less life in the world).

On the other end of the age spectrum though, Stephane Dion’s carbon tax threatens the well-being of our society. While details haven’t been offered by many pundits so far, I’m sure more than a few of them have been sharing my imagination of a Conservative attack ad picturing an elderly old lady, huddled in the corner of a dark, snow-squalling room; as the picture pans out from the detailed sadness of this lonely old woman, a caption will read something to the effect that the retired lady wouldn’t afford heat because that nasty Scrooge of a Liberal, Stephane Dion, is taxing coal so high that she can’t afford to keep warm this Christmas/winter. Whether or not we end up seeing an ad like this run, the fact still remains that some fixed-income Canadians will be hit hard by a carbon tax, often in the case where they slaved away their whole lives under an income tax system that punished them when they were making more money. Now they wouldn’t make as much, which should reduce their burden under income tax, but would be sideswiped by the Dion carbon tax at a time in their lives where going out to make more money simply wouldn’t be an option.

Finally, we have to realize just what a ridiculous notion it is for the Liberals to propose that a carbon tax would be tax neutral. Take the mathematical equation ax + by + cz = 100, where a, b, and c are the percentages of total tax that three hypothetical taxpayers, x, y, and z, would pay into the system. If a tax shift were truly neutral (and Canadians have good reason to believe that no political party that proposes a new tax will EVER deliver on the neutrality promise), that 100 would have to stay the same since it represents 100% of the taxes the government collects now.

On the one hand, it may go down for x because he doesn’t buy as much carbon in a year, but z’s burden might go up because she lives on a rural farm where oil heating and a truck are the necessities of a farmer, not the luxury that we might think. Will *big oil* account for some of the z’s out there who will see their tax bill increase? Most definately, but who do you think will pay for it in the end? The fat cat execs who The Left is always telling us about, or the common Canadian who goes to fill up at the pump?

On the other hand, we have to ask just why the Liberal spin doctors are already playing up the tax neutral element of such a carbon tax? After all, either the government isn’t going to be collecting the same amount of money because carbon usage will go down (in which case, we have to ask how Dion plans to fund his national daycare and other new spending projects), or they will and we will be essentially using the same amount of carbon. Thinking further, what isn’t carbon out there? Bread? Wrong. Clothes? Try again. Wood? Look elsewhere. In fact, the only things I can think of off the top of my head are computer chips and software programmes that are downloaded off the internet. Not exactly the bare necessities but I’m sure the tech industry is already thrilled that our government already presumes that we’re pirates and thieves every time we buy a CD/DVD and is itching to get into the flash drive market as well (think of it as a silicon tax — maybe we should just harmonize it with Dion’s carbon tax and have a tax on all IV A elements!).

Ultimately though, if the Liberals are willing to fight for this one in an election, I say go for it. After all, it wouldn’t take long for someone to point out the obvious: if all this environmental posturing we’re doing now is meant to save the Earth and, ultimately, our existence as a species, why would we impose a tax that would be so destructive both to our children and our elderly? Isn’t the point about making our quality of life better? And once the debate is framed that way, Dion’s already ill-advised plan will be toast and we won’t have to hear any more about eco-radicalism, or at least until the summer of 2024 when we have a couple more days over 30 than usual!

GTA IV, Morality Tale?

Once and a while, the mainstream media picks up and follows the release of a particular video game because of its impact on society. Such is the case with any entry of the Grand Theft Auto series. IV, which is actually the eighth title of the popular anti-hero series, was released at the end of April and went on to break all the records the previously existed for first week sales. Listening into Z103 on the way to work on launch day, the morning crew found some bright light who camped out all night and, when interviewed, said he didn’t care too much for many of the new features that the game introduces, “I just want to shot people!” And so begins the controversy again where the game will be blamed for every homiside, shooting and violent crime on this side of November while the supporters of the series will do themselves no favours like the young man Z103 talked to just by acting like the thugs that the game portrays.

As a Christian, I won’t ever own the game and highly doubt whether I’ll ever play a friend’s copy, although GTA IV did strike up some curiosity last week when speaking to one of my gaming friends who holds no allegiances to God but is pretty observant. He mentioned that the game, with fancy next-gen graphics and a deeper, longer story was different than its predecessors since, in this new, more detailed version, the wounds you inflicted were actually graphic and not fuzzy, pixilated renditions; the game code was more realistic so that people didn’t just keel over and die but actually begged for their lives, cried out in agony and added a sense of victimhood that never existed before; and the game was more open-box (a challenge given the freedom this game gave you before) where as the anti-hero, you are now charged with making moral decisions as you go about your life of crime and immorality.

Yesterday, while visiting another friend, I got a chance to see the game in action by watching a mission through which the hero, Neco, was sent to kill the biker-boyfriend of the mob boss’s daughter. The mob boss, my other friend observed while we were chatting, was messed up — there was a strong correlation between his drug habits and the deteriorating relationships he had with friends, family and *business colleagues*. Later on, during online mode, the game spit out “player 1 2nd amendmented player 2″ after the former shot and killed the latter in an airport. It seemed to me like the rumours of hidden messages in this game were true, even to the point where I now wouldn’t be surprised if I was told that Nico could get STDs from some of his dating activities that take place in the game (and which caused the infamous “Hot Coffee” affair in the last GTA game). Could it be that publisher Rockstar games is actually trying to explain to young and impressionable gamers that bad choices in life have consequences?

While it’s still a little premature to say, it might also be suggested that just by striving to give gamers that more realistic experience — right down to going to a bar to play pool — Rockstar is inadvertently making its games so life-like that the ugly side of crime, promiscuity and general ungodliness are all seeping out of the woodwork. If it is this intense, the publisher of GTA IV might have also found a way to reach out to a demographic law enforcement, governments and churches have struggled decades to make contact with. Ironically, Rockstar’s realism might just have the unintended consequences of making the acronym GTA a cultural fossil, given enough upgrades to gaming hardware.

The RCMP, the News Media and Maxime Bernier: Three Peas in a Pod

I’m not sure which looks more stupid, the RCMP questioning Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier about his relationship with a Montreal businessman because of a photo the saw of the two shaking hands, or the news media outlets who think this is actually worthy of reporting.

Perhaps the Star, The Chronicle Herald, CTV and the other rags reporting this garbage should team up with the RCMP and go inquire about the relationship between Michael Chamas and former Prime Minister Chretien.

After All, Accurate Analysis Has Never Been Bob Rae’s Strong Suit

Rae was angered by the generalization for which he says he sees no basis in fact.

-Toronto Star, Saturday May 10, 2008

That quote, and that link, refer to a story by Toronto Star reporter Tonda MacCharles today that suggests that Prime Minister Harper is wrongfully smearing the opposition with an anti-semitic brush. Rae’s charge is quite simply not true, which isn’t shocking to Ontarians who remember his expert opinions on the affairs of government nearly 20 years ago. However, Tonda MacCharles, a journalist, is not presenting a full picture of the situation in her write up and all it takes is a quick Google search to prove it. That’s right! Three MPs, including Bloc MP Giles Duceppe and Montreal Liberal Dennis Coderre marched alongside Hezbollah flags in downtown Montreal back in the summer of 2006 when the Israeli-Lebanon strike was going on those two years ago. The three MPs never publicly denounced their actions and as public representatives, ignored the due diligence that they are expected to practice as such office holders.

That is because Hezbollah is a radical and dangerous group that wants nothing more than they physical obliteration of Israel and all Jews in the world. That’s the sort of allies that the three MPs above-mentioned had on that summer day two years ago and that is why the Prime Minister is accurate in asserting

Canada, under this government, is never going to cater to that kind of opinion. You know, I am disturbed that there are some elements in our political system; there are even some members of Parliament – we saw during a confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah a couple of years back – some that were willing to cater to that kind of opinion.*

So in other words, the Montreal rally was exactly what the Prime Minister was referring to, lest the opposition now suggest that his “blanket statement” could imply other anti-semitic occasions that opposition members indulged in (a Freudian slip, if it comes?). It will come too though as the Montreal event was pretty cut and dry, something that even the most hardened partisan should see if they simply put the shoe on the other foot and tried to imagine Conservatives marching alongside someone holding a “God hates fags” sign…hey, even having an MP holding hands with somebody down the street would even be fair game I guess!

So are the Liberal and Bloc caucuses full of raving “drive ‘em into the sea” anti-semites? Hardly. Are their numbers, however, including those who give legitimacy to an organization that deserves to be destroyed and at the same time associating themselves with a toxic philosophy that the civilized world should not entertain? Absolutely!

*-emphasis added

Recession? Who Said Anything About a Recession?

You know, it’s bad enough that in their desperation to get the Republicans out of the White House, the American media is trumpeting the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression… while the actual numbers indicate higher employment than the Clinton Years and a surprisingly robust economy considering that is happening in the real estate sector as a result of the ARM crisis and the global devaluation of the American Dollar.

But now Canadian media, because we have a Conservative minority and the Liberals desperately want an election, rather than framing themselves as hypocrites, disagreeing with every government motion then abstaining to vote, the media are digging up every conceivable scrap of dirt to slander the Conservatives.

Look at the Bernier fiasco.  We have Gilles Duceppe looking like a pawn, and what are the real charges?  That a cabinet minister had the bad taste to date someone who had formerly gone out with a rough character.  Note he isn’t married to her, he dated her.   And she didn’t marry the rough character, she just went out with him for a while.  It seems to me that if I found out that my girlfriend used to go out with a Hell’s Angel, I would probably question her taste.  It might even lead to my ending the relationship.  Does this mean that I have necessarily done business, or have any sort of allegiance to said ex of my ex?  This is why the media refused to air the story for so long - it is a non-story.

But I digress.  What really set me off this morning is a bit of ludicrousness from Saskatoon.  Yes, that Saskatoon, that is growing faster than any other city in the country right now.  That Saskatoon that since unseating the NDP has seen the province’s first net growth from other provinces in decades.  That Saskatoon that is reaping record profits from mining, ethanol farming, and now a massive oil discovery in the southern part of the province.

But let’s look at the story itself.  A POLL of… who?  Oh right, citizens of Canada.  On what they KNOW or what they THINK?  What they think, right.  They THINK that we’re heading for a recession.  Why?  Probably because the media is telling them over and over again we MIGHT be heading for a recession, since the USA MAY be going into a recession, despite the fact that they haven’t come within a country mile of of the classic definition of a recession from professional economists.  What proof do they have?  Well, Ontario has faced a lot of closures and slowsdowns in the auto sector… but strangely, their unemployment rate is not growing significantly.  Alberta isn’t as white-hot as they were a year ago, so now they are only red-hot.  Out here in BC, there have been massive problems for the lumber industry, yet the heart of lumbering in Prince George has seen housing prices double in the last 2 or 3 years.  The Okanagan continues to boom because that’s where Albertans are buying vacation property.  And the Lower Mainland?  Well, people haven’t stopped moving in and jobs are still plentiful if a little underpaid given the cost of living.

So which provinces are exactly suffering and dragging us into recession?  Beats me.

But the authority the paper cites is the people.  The people who don’t have economics degrees, the people who don’t have their finger on the pulse of other provinces, or even their own cities generally.  No, all they know is the media keeps digging out “people” who speculate we MAY be going into a recession.

But like the gossip wheel, when one person whispers into your ear, when you pass it on, it gets worse each time.

The media whispers, “we may be going into a recession.”

Then the polling company calls and asks, “Do you fear a recession?”

The citizens say “Yes” because they have heard we may be going into a recession.

The media reports, “Economy recession-bound, latest poll indicates”

So now we are going into a recession.

I can’t wait for these clowns to go out of business, if this is what passes for journalism nowadays.

How Caring About Clinton Is Like Asking Jack Layton Where The Country Will Be In Six Months

Oh…bama, not quite able to pull off a decisive win in yesterday’s votes, but still the winner simply because he showed up. And that’s really just it, isn’t it? Obama can’t lose now because he has secured enough delegates by the end of April to cruise through the rest of the primaries to victory barring losing every single vote from here until the convention in August.

So why is everybody focusing on what Hilary will do right now? Well, the cultural side of me likes to think that she’s America’s version of “nobody’s baby”, Shelia Copps; the woman who was able to turn some of the cogs behind the scenes for a while but got shafted when she went for the brass ring herself. In other words, it’s just melodrama right now. Don’t expect Barack Obama to draw too much attention to himself though; doing so will only expediate those tough questions that will eventually come to the eventual Democratic nominee and the man who built his entire campaign around “Yes, we can!” doesn’t come across as much of a policy wonk.

Clinton, for her part, is now just like the NDP; incapable of winning the top prize, guaranteed third place, but still naive enough to think there’s still a shot that she’ll drag down her closest neighbour. How the media doesn’t know or, if they do know, act on this is no longer in the realm of good journalism. It’s Barrack, not Hillary, whose opinions will be debated in the fall; she’s just a sad sideshow now.

Of course, the respectful thing for Clinton to do right now would be to drop out of the race, sparing the world from more of her sob story. She won’t do that though, since she was in it for blood from the get-go, trying to finally establish her decades-long goal of becoming the first three-term president since FDR. If she can’t have the cake, no one in the Democratic Party can, and from here until August, she will be a loadstone around Obama’s neck, dragging him down long enough and far enough to secure a McCain victory in November. If she pulls it off gracefully, something as doubtful as her becoming the 44th President, she gets another chance in 2012; if she fails to make a difference and Obama wins, she won’t have her next shot till 2016. The choice is pretty obvious when you consider the ego of the Senator from New York.

It’s Obama’s story that is really the more important issue right now though. Surely his advisors must be drafting up who his running mate will be already. They can’t and won’t go with Clinton; she’s not a very good second fiddle as I just mentioned. The race has been very divisive though and this is a major problem for Obama. He’ll have to secure a major Clinton supporter whose personality and record would naturally add to the ticket but also symbolize an olive branch to the Clinton faction. The real story also is that while Obama will win the nod, and has performed well over the past year, he is still only running a demographic campaign that is tailored to the Democratic Party — and even at that, he’s only winning within 10% in most of his victories. Break down the numbers further and you begin to see that he’ll definately lock down the black vote come the fall, but then, when hasn’t the Democrat?

Furthermore, his message of hope is only a one-trick pony, good enough to get like-minded people to give him an initial consideration. What happens when he tries to appeal to independents and soft Republicans? What happens as well when his message isn’t reinforced by a primary adversary who practically parrots every left-wing note he sings, but is challenged and attacked by an ideological opposite like McCain? While the Obama campaign has won the battle against Clinton, it really hasn’t demonstrated that it is capable of delivering the war, and that’s why there is such uneasiness in the many quarters of the Democratic Party about his candidacy.

This week’s results aren’t important because of what the Democrats are doing, but what the Republicans aren’t. If the Dems want to follow through on that desire to retake the White House after eight years of GOP control — something history gives them the advantage for — then they’re going to have to smarten up and soon. Personally, as a political observer, I know that Clinton would be a more formidable foe than Obama. Yes, she’s polarizing, screechy, and egocentric, but she can also stand her ground in a debate. Obama? He’s just riding the outsider’s wave right now and when he moves onto the next round, the fact that nothing’s really happened now will come back to haunt him. That’s because the silence you hear is really the GOP, watching, waiting, and taking notes; they’re effective under pressure and the Democrats have been kind enough to spare them three extra months they didn’t need but will aptly use. As soon as the convention ends, if not sooner, the tanks’ll roll out. And that’s why Obama might be better off shifting attention from Clinton after all!

Christian Horizons: Coren’s Thoughts

Michael Coren has a piece in the Saturday Sun today. He also touches upon the point that I made earlier this week, that state Atheism is going to beat the charity out of our society as long as the government attempts to squeeze every vestige of Christian presence and no other group in our new, fancy multicult society steps up to the plate to do the jobs that aren’t as profitable or glamorous. He even offers an example of what those who relied on Christian Horizon’s services can expect in the coming years:

In California the Salvation Army was forced to close down several inner city missions because officials refused to sign a document approving of homosexuality. The destitute suffered terribly as a consequence. In Britain the Roman Catholic church similarly was obliged to shut the doors of its adoption agency.

Aside from also speaking about our government-imposed unhealthy relationship between employees and employers, Coren got me thinking by phrasing the incident that sparked this whole thing in the way he did:

One employee announced to colleagues that she was a lesbian and began discussing her sexuality. Eventually she was let go. She complained to the Human Rights Commission, which fined Christian Horizons and demanded the change. Demanded, in fact, that they not be Christian.

I hadn’t considered it until reading Coren’s column, but what if we flipped this around and an employee started sharing their Christian faith with colleagues? I doubt it would end up before a HRC. And even if we buy into the secularist axiom that homosexuals are born wired to be homophilic (one that, like all such axioms on fetal tissue, the origins of life and the universe, and climate change conveniently lacks that indisputable proof that axioms usually come with), can the state successfully argue that a believing Christian isn’t just as equally inseparable from their faith and what it makes him or her? Think of the parallels: some people in churches leave to join other religions, and some homosexuals realize they just aren’t homosexuals any longer; both groups claim that their respective affiliations colour everything they do; and both groups have their affiliations protected under the current legal community’s consensus.

It’s an interesting situation: one where a group tasked with going out into all the world to spread their Good News has their constitutionally recognized right to do so repressed, while another had beneficial rights literally penciled into the highest document of the land is allowed to ignore the acronym every employee should know: NSFW (Not Safe For Work). It wasn’t the lesbian woman’s decision to become a lesbian that got her fired, it was her insistence on preaching the news to the rest of her co-workers that did. Curious that, when any Christian who pulled a similar stunt would be out by 3pm, box of belongings in hand. To use Coren’s wording, a sane nation would actually follow it’s own laws and both groups would be able to share away but that would also presume that groups like HRCs would be under the law too, now wouldn’t it?

Abortion Insight From An Unlikely Source

As longtime readers know, I’m no fan of Marc Emery, the self-styled “prince of pot”. Emery has built an entire career around avoiding personal responsibility and so I was quite surprised when I found his article on the Western Standard website to be so well-written and at the same time so personal. Unlike every other “why I had an abortion” article that I’ve read in the past two decades, Emery’s was detailed and honest; I still don’t agree with him but I’m also admiring his intellectual honesty in admitting what he got himself involved in thirty years ago.

If you scroll through the article (and just a warning, there is vulgarity used), you’ll find that he doesn’t mince words when talking about how the actual abortion procedure “killed” the unborn child or how he doesn’t skim over the details of his then-girlfriend’s painful day in a London hospital executing her control over her own bodily functions. In fact, I figure that if Emery’s piece were published in something like, say, the Toronto Star or the Globe, there’d be letters of protest screaming about not needing to know the ugly science behind abortion so long as it works — ignorance is bliss to the nth degree.

Of course, I think Emery is closer to the heart of the abortion issue than he knows when he questions whether sending literally hundreds of thousands of men and women to prison for murder (a scenario that would have to occur if we pursued every woman who had an abortion and every husband/boyfriend/fling who was an accessory); it’s true that if we did that we would have an amazingly guilty society. However, while I respect and understand where Emery is coming from on this one (he is, after all, the man who wants to overcome narcotics laws by viral marketing), I doubt our society would be nearly as nice if we didn’t pursue a society just as infiltrated with thieves; there is a reason we have justice systems in civilized societies.

Furthermore Emery’s admission that something died in the womb of his girlfriend 20 weeks after it came to be there is revealing in itself and a mature observation that many today are simply not capable of making. It is, for me, the thing Emery writes that is only trumped in significance by the bit Emery writes on having to name his dead child Ben.

When I read that part, I honestly got thinking and I wonder just how many abortions would go through in Canada if we made the mother give her “collection of cells” a name before the little bundle is escorted out of her. I don’t think that it will stop more abortions because people feel it is wrong, but rather because those who would find the simple act too much to bear wouldn’t be convinced that it was undoubtedly right. And that, my friends, makes the notion all the more significant when we realize that choices are the domain of adults, and not children who want to play grown-up.

Did the TTC Just Kill It’s Sweet Public-Private Partnership Deal?

Amazing, just sheerly amazing! That’s the only thing that can be said about the TTC union’s decision to reject a deal so sweet that the last week was littered with dozens of columns expressing the devastating effects of allowing TTC employees a golden goose as big as being guaranteed highest bidder for not just any contract in Toronto, but in the GTA. First Toronto, tomorrow the world?…

While the reasons for the union, essentially a private organization unaccountable to voters, to reject such a honey of deal remains unclear at this time, it might be time to eulogize this sort of hostage-victim relationship that the transit workers have enjoyed with the city over the last few decades since it’ll never be sweeter than this again. Combined with an illegal strike in 2006, today’s sudden cancellation of service will likely mark a turn in already sour public temperament after the aforementioned week of learning from the media just how much they had to empty the cupboard this time to appease the already well-compensated workers. As a general rule, you don’t come back to the kid you just stole lunch money again for another sucker punch indulgence. That’s exactly what the TTC has done here, prompting both Comrade Miller and a formerly reluctant Dalton McGuinty to reach a deal legislating back-to-work orders, on top of considering a further provision making the TTC essential service. If that last part is successful (and it should be since paying our taxes to public unions is also an essential service), the TTC will have lost most of the ridiculous bargaining powers it used to hold the 2 million-plus city at bay. The threats of literally shutting down the city will evaporate over night and Toronto might actually be able to keep new contract raises under the rate of inflation.

If, on the other hand, the TTC fights back and takes a page from the teachers unions’ during the Bill Davis years in the 1970s, we’ll enter into an ugly, painful, but necessary stage where the public’s outrage with an out of control union will flare up so quickly that we might actually begin to see private transportation grow to a significant level of business. Fleets of shuttle cars, taxis and other creative means of moving people would remove any necessity for the TTC, which would be relegated to a poor cousin dependent on government honey for survival, and much akin to the CBC today. We might see a Mike Harris-type Premier come along and ask why the TTC’s subway service just couldn’t be privatized like the 407 was nine years ago, since commuters already pay for the TTC as it is.

In short, the TTC is about to be de-clawed, and if it shows any teeth because of the procedure, it might find itself further surgically altered. The TTC’s literally putting all it’s stakes on the line today though. Enjoy the nice Saturday weather and smugness today though, for tomorrow you find out that you’ll get more than you bargained for!

UPDATE: Views from Joanne and Tony, with more to follow I’m sure!

Expelled Opening Weekend Income

Second-highest gross earnings for a documentary in its opening weekend! (the #1 spot goes to Michael Moore’s movie that glorifies the Canadian health care system as being efficient…). Well at least that aliens seeding our genetic guts on the backs of crystals theory is getting a nice bit of exposure; thanks Richard Dawkins!

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