Steven Harper and the recession

Steven Harper says that his stimulus package is working...I say, what stimulus package?


He claims that they have spent 90% of the earmarked stimulus money...that would represent 90% of 22.742 billion dollars planned to stimulate our economy (from the 2009 budget) or 20.4678 billion dollars spent so far...From the Telegraph Journal, "After question period, Baird said the 90 per cent figure was accurate, not just for the infrastructure funding, but for the entire economic stimulus." The entire economic stimulus package, for the record, is supposed to be 29.298 billion dollars including tax breaks and give backs...


Consider that of over 7500 infrastructure and housing projects are expected and only 4000 or roughly 53 percent have happened so far, with 11.589 billion dollars expected to be committed to these projects total and a further 5.257 billion in leverage...unless those remaining 3500 or so jobs have a combined value of less than 1.1589 billion, this number is a figment of Mr. Harper's imagination.


Also, Steven Harper has promised to create or maintain 220,000 jobs...now, I may not be an expert with numbers, but create or maintain means that if a job is created, removed, then recreated with a fancy new name, for example, it would count double, since Mr. Harper is not promising that 220, 000 more people will have jobs (due to his selective language)...


And throughout Steven Harper's claims about what a great job he is doing with the recession, the conservatives continue to posture for an election, keeping the fear in the people of Canada. From the Telegraph Journal, "In question period, Transport Minister John Baird was taking the point in Harper's absence. He said the Liberals were not focused on the economy but "on an unnecessary election.""

One thing should be noted is that the conservatives are making it next to impossible to follow the money trail...according to the Telegraph Journal, "Last Thursday, the Liberals released a research report they said was based on more than half the announced projects. They found only 12 per cent of the money has flowed to projects that have begun construction. That funding created only 4,800 jobs - a fraction of the 40,000 the government projected", suggesting that the Conservative Party is planning on announcing the full amount's worth of stimulus monies, but is actually canceling the promised funding as soon as the media turns their backs. In response, "The Conservatives counter not only that 4,000 projects have begun, but many more will be underway this fiscal year." and "Baird also argued that it can be misleading to focus on how much federal funding has flowed. He cited the example of the home renovation tax credit.
Canadians won't get the benefit of it until their tax returns are processed next spring, but the incentive has already stimulated consumer spending and the home renovation sector, he said." The first argument should be problematic to anyone that understands even a shred of the English language. The Conservatives say that they've spent almost all the money, but that they still have plenty of projects up their sleeves (arguing that they've done so much and that they have so much to do yet also trying to say that they've spent almost all their money by throwing out 90% and then suggesting that the number came from thin air). The second argument isn't as clearly egregious, but is nonetheless offensive...the argument is that the benefits will be delayed until next year, and therefore they can claim the money as spent without any idea of how much (basically allowing themselves to take credit for any amount they feel like)...the other problem with this argument is that they are only planning on giving out 1.475 billion between this year and next for this bonus, which is a measly 16% of the housing plan...

One question we should be asking is why are we trusting a man whose last budget said that we our deficit rate was at 29.8 percent last year (debt to our total gross domestic product)...the proposed ways of turning this into a surplus are changing the Equalization formula again (read: giving less money in transfer payments for the services the federal government is supposed to be paying for, and passing the buck onto lower levels of government), reviews of departmental spending and corporate assets (read: anything that contains social or development is gone), and last but not least, they are taking a "use it or lose it approach" (read: don't be surprised if some of the promised money magically doesn't find its way to its intended recipients)...

Quick note: I am a liberal and do not support Mr. Harper because he conceals everything he does, and impedes the democratic process by refusing access to essential financial details (namely, pretty much everything)...that being said, I do not support Michael Ignatieff or Jack Layton's NDP either...

Democracy vs America

Today, Marc Emery, aka the Prince of Pot, was taken into custody in British Columbia at the request of the US Department of Justice. He faces a minimum of 10 years in jail for his actions...but this is not a problem...the problem is that Marc Emery is a Canadian citizen who operated a Canadian business on Canadian soil, on which he paid taxes to the Canadian government...now the US wants to charge him for conspiracy to make marijuana (even though he freely sells seeds and nothing more), selling marijuana seeds over the internet to Americans, and he was also charged with money laundering, even though he has paid income taxes on the money, and even filed his source of income as "marijuana seed vendor".

But now, he is facing extradition to the United States, to face their tougher laws...from DEA leader Karen Tandy, "Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on." and "Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on." (taken from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer)...these two statements clearly indicate that Marc Emery is not being sought as a drug peddler, but rather as a political activist, that he is being persecuted for his political beliefs...and according to Article 4 of the Canada-US extradition treaty (posted below), it is illegal to extradite someone for political purposes...and in fact, it is a violation of his democratic rights to punish him as a political figure (though punishing him for the crime he has committed is fine)...

The fact of the matter here is that Marc Emery is a criminal...he sells marijuana seeds which is illegal, and has mailed his catalog to MPs (he stopped upon his arrest in 2005, which also shut his business down)...he deserves to be punished for these crimes, by OUR government...but he also deserves to be free from persecution for his political ideals, including his championing for the decriminalization of marijuana...

Like him or hate him, if Marc Emery is convicted by an American court, it will set a dangerous precedent, one where you could face large penalties for what we consider small crimes, penalties against your political beliefs and not against your actions...

Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland today on a 30 year old charge for having sex with a 13 year-old...The US government is working on the papers to get him extradited to America, so he can serve jail-time for this 30 year-old crime. The French government is working to try to get Polanski back to France to protect him from this sentence, saying that he has had a hard life and that he should be allowed to live in peace.

No one can question that Roman Polanski has had a hard life...he survived Krakow and he had his wife murdered at the hands of Charlie Manson's followers...but to protect a convicted felon, to say that he has suffered enough when he ran from the country after the judge decided that 42 days wasn't a tough enough sentence for someone who gave alcohol and Quaalude to a 13 year-old in order to have sex with her, is downright wrong...

There are people who are put in jail for reasons that are cruel and irrational every day, but Roman Polanski was not one of them...he should be put behind bars for this heinous act...and he should face additional jail time for fleeing the country to avoid having to serve the sentence...

When protesting goes too far

Hotel Courtenay Bay has received some press recently over a terrible incident that should serve notice to the "pack mentality" that union workers seem to have in this city...a group of out-of-province workers booked reservations at this hotel (on Irving's dime) and were awakened each morning at 4 am to fog horns, blockades and a large ruckus...while Hotel Courtenay Bay estimates their costs at 1 million dollars (there is no way that figure is accurate given that they charge $144 a night (that would be the equivalent to 6944 reserved nights...sure, there would be food debts as well, but you still wouldn't get near this figure)), there is an even greater damage that this could serve to the city of Saint John...

Ask anyone what the overwhelming theme in this city is, and they will tell you that Irving controls the city...but here were Irving employees, brought in special for the project being deterred by the union, with little to no help offered to the Irvings to protect their interests...

And this is why the city's real reputation should be broadcast high and low...while the Irvings control a lot of the businesses, the unions control the city, if only because the police intentionally look the other way whenever they want to do something...

The protesters gained a sense of righteousness because some of them were stupid enough to stand in front of a Hotel Courtenay Bay bus and almost got hit, while they were trespassing...this city has laws against trespassing, against disturbing the peace, and against unlawful gathering, but apparently, this wasn't a cause the police were willing to uphold the law for...

From the Telegraph Journal, "Mike Duncan, a protester, said the group is sorry for the inconveniences the demonstrators caused the homes located in a residential neighbourhood next to the hotel. He said the group planned to visit each home Friday night and offer an apology and a grocery store gift certificate."...he goes on to say that isn't sorry for disturbing Hotel Courtenay Bay's right to conduct business...

The fact that someone can claim responsibility for actions which are illegal in this land and have it published in the paper without the police even considering laying charges has to leave even the calmest of individuals a little unnerved...what if when they demonstrate next (whenever that happens to be), they attack and hurt some innocent person who was curious what the fuss was about? Sure, they'll claim that they didn't mean to, but they were allowed to form a mob, without any legal ramifications for their actions...


Once again we see a situation where people have buddies in the right places, so justice is blindfolded...and once again, the guilty parties are dumb enough to credit for it...only to not face any sort of punishment...

The city of destruction

Imagine if you would for a moment that there is a city which was once the crown jewel of Canada...the oldest city, and the most vibrant port...now, in a perfect world, this city would harvest this great advantage and continue to prosper by adapting...

Unfortunately, in reality, this city has made bad decision after bad decision...they enacted a law saying that no new buildings could be over 25 stories (preventing skyscrapers and the accompanying big business)...they added parishes on each side, but allowed them to continue to be separate, a division that still exists today with major roads in each part, and arguably the most confusing street layout in the country...and then every summer, the worst of all possible decisions happened, with the city starting construction (if you can call it constructive) on every major route into the city, making it easier to not support the city.

The reason I question whether the construction is constructive are the terrible practices which the city employs...for one, the city allows construction companies to take on jobs, cut the pavement and leave it for months at a time. The causes significant risks to anyone who happens to use these routes (and at times, there can be construction on three of the four paths from east to the centre of the city, and both paths from the west side)...another problem is that the city's standard for pavement quality is terrible, making so that certain roads are paved once a year or once every two years, which is both incredibly inconvenient and a terrible waste of money...and the city does a terrible job of planning, with one road built on a swamp, and several built below sea level, with poor traffic control on nearly all of them...


But the worst thing about this city and their destruction ways is stupid decision after stupid decision...the city's pension plan is 151 million dollars short, so what do they do? They commit roughly 130 million dollars to build a new police station when the old one is perfectly fine...also, they built a new transit headquarters for 23.5 million, when they had a working facility and worked on a proposal to "gift" the old land to a big box store which would kill all the businesses in the area...and the kicker is that it doesn't seem to matter who gets elected, because there are always enough people on council who have no vision towards the future at all...

Making the environment a little better one steak at a time

Let me preface this blog by saying that I am not a vegetarian, and don't think I could/would give up meat entirely by choice...

Now, today I decided to write about the role agriculture is having on society and our future...I'll start with a couple of quotes from Wikipedia:

According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contributes on a "massive scale" to deforestation^[2], air and water pollution, land degradation, loss of topsoil, climate change^[3], the overuse of resources including oil and water, and loss of biodiversity. The initiative concluded that "the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."

and:

Some argue that the adoption of a lacto-ovo vegetarian or entirely plant-based vegan diet is best, but may not be totally necessary, because even modest reductions in meat consumption in industrialised societies would substantially reduce the burden on our natural resources. "One personal act that can have a profound impact on these issues is reducing meat consumption. To produce 1 pound of feedlot beef requires about 2,400 gallons of water and 7 pounds of grain (42). Considering that the average American consumes 97 pounds of beef (and 273 pounds of meat in all) each year, even modest reductions in meat consumption in such a culture would substantially reduce the burden on our natural resources."

Basically, the gist of these quotes is that we as a society consume WAY too much meat and that the US alone could feed 800 million people with the grain eaten by the livestock they produce...we have become overly dependent on meat, and as a result have put ourselves in a bit of a quandary...according to Dennis Avery, Director of the Centre for Global Food Issues, "The world must create five billion vegans in the next several decades, or triple its total farm output without using more land." Simply put, we as a society are using 2-3 times the resources we need to just to quench our thirst for tasty meat...

According to goveg.com, eating one pound of meat is the equivalent of driving an SUV 40 miles...also, "A 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined." and "Raising animals for their flesh, eggs, and milk is one of the world’s leading emitters of carbon dioxide (CO₂). But global warming is caused by more than just CO₂. Animal agriculture is the leading source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which—combined with carbon dioxide—causes the vast majority of global warming" which is increasingly alarming given that CO2 is less dangerous for the environment than nitrous oxide and methane...

Now, what is it that I'm suggesting? Am I saying that 5 billion of us need to go vegan or we'll all die? No, the fact of the matter is that if you want to have a steak, you should have a steak...but at the same time, you should know the impact that that one steak has on the environment and consider changing a meal that would otherwise be meat-included away from meat... We can argue and bicker as a society about how much action has to happen, but until people start doing something, they are putting my future and yours in jeopardy...we can make the environment better by simply knowing the implications of our actions and adjusting accordingly (it is like a diet...if you cheat on your diet, normally cutting back a slight bit the next meal will help offset the cheating...only in this case, you aren't cheating, simply enjoying the foods you love)

The sea dogs

In honour of tonight's home opener for the Saint John Sea Dogs, I thought I would dedicate tonight's blog to sea dogs...Sea dog is a nickname given to seals, such as the ones that live in Saint John harbour.

The greatest threat to seals is a barbaric ritual known as the great seal hunt...this is an annual event where "sealers" kill seals usually aged between 25 days and 3 months old...the government's rationalization for this is that the areas don't have any work for the workers to sustain a living, and that they therefore need to kill seals.

The other arguments for this senseless slaughter are that it is tradition and that it is profitable to tax payers...the problems with this are that tradition has no bearing on whether something is right or wrong (for example, British law used to allow for men to have their way with their wives whenever they wanted and with whatever force they chose) and that the profitability of the hunt is questionable at best...

The seal hunt is condemned by Greenpeace, because "the quotas are "scientifically indefensible" because they don't take into account the actual number of seals killed in the hunt — including those that are "struck and lost," or discarded because of pelt damage" and by the International Fund for Animal Welfare who argue that the hunt in general is inhumane, and that some sealers make it worse by engaging in such activities as skinning seals alive, hunting seals that are 14 days or less old, and that seals are clubbed or shot and left to suffer only to be killed later...

200 people have been charged since 1996 so it is nearly impossible to argue that these behaviors do not happen, though the government argues that this is only an indication that they are enforcing regulations...

In 2006, the seal hunt was supposedly one of the most profitable in history, but since then the quota (number of seals the government decides the sealers can kill) and the value of the pelts (from $105 in 2006 to an estimated $15 in 2009) have deteriorated significantly...

Another argument against the hunt is that the arbitrary manner in which it is run makes it unsustainable (the quotas aren't based on anything concrete, so unless the value of the pelts is high, there is a good chance that any economic goal could be missed)...

All in all, there is no logical reason that we as a society should support such an event, but the kicker in this is that the government subsidizes parts of the hunt, meaning that we as taxpayers are actually paying to support this travesty...