Earth-2

I thought this was tremendously cool!

And it's only twenty light years away!  On the scale of space, that's practically next door.

In Which I Lament the State of New Brunswick Politics

The results of the NB election were not too surprising for most, but I'll admit they weren't what I expected.  I really thought the People's Alliance would act as a bigger spoiler for the PCs than they turned out to be - really, they were pretty much a non-factor in almost every riding.  In the end, the Tories took 76% of the seats with only 48% of the vote...

Hooray for the FPTP system! [/sarcasm.]

Really, we badly need voting reform in this province, and this country.  That the NDP should get ten percent of the vote and end up with no seats - a clear indication that a good portion of the populace want them as representatives in the Legislature - is shameful.  Unfortunately, it's only the third parties who ever talk about any sort of voting reform...  With good reason, since voting reform (i.e., greater democracy) only ever harms the power base of entrenched political interests.

If we had a more proportional representation system, "coalition" wouldn't be a naughty, scary word - it would simply be the way things are done.  Indeed, parliamentary systems evolved specifically to accommodate them.  Government should be a matter of finding compromise and common ground, instead of a contest between two parties winner-takes-all.  Governance shouldn't be a game that people are trying to win, it should be a matter of finding the best way to represent a the will and best interests of the populace.

Instead, our FPTP system encourages a game of musical chairs.  The Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives have very, very similar policies in many regards.  The Libs got spanked this election in large part because of their attempted sale of NB Power...  Putting the Tories in charge.  But the Tories tried to sell off NB Power themselves back in the 90's, so it's not like they make a sterling alternative on that issue.

It's very easy to get discouraged.  Speaking out in favour of reform for a system that's been designed to make it tremendously difficult to reform sometimes feels like tilting at windmills...  It requires people to vote against the two traditional parties in favour of an alternative - and since the bar of entry for third parties is so high, it requires them to do so in great numbers.

Still, one cannot give up.  Mere voting is not the end-all, be-all of democratic participation.  The responsible citizen must educate, agitate, and participate whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Change is a messy, unwieldy thing, which makes it that much more important.

Collateral Murder revisited

You might remember the whole Wikileaks release of the Apache killings of several reporters and unarmed Iraqi civilians back in April.

Well, Evan McCord was one of the soldiers on the ground who was on the scene, and a while ago he gave a speech about the events of that day.  You can watch it here.  It's...  uncomfortable to watch and listen to, almost as much as watching the original footage...  But he has important things to say, so I recommend giving it a watch when you have the time.

At the very least, his courage in speaking out should be commended.

New Roommates

I haven't said anything about this yet here, but I figure it's time. I've got a couple of new roommates.

They were born on August 13th (that was a Friday), so they're still pretty wee. I bought them on September 14th.

The white one is named Iago, the dark one Othello.

We're not quite friends yet - these two guys are extremely timid even by baby rat standards - but we're getting there. 

Even in the short time I've had them, they've grown quite a bit.  Here's Iago when I first got him...

And here's how big he is now.

I'm plenty nerdy when it comes to rats, so I figure this still qualifies for a Monday entry.

NB Election 2010 - The New Democratic Party

Website: http://nbndp.ca/
Platform: http://nbndp.ca/sites/default/files/2010-NDP-Platform-English.pdf

The provincial NDP is lead by Roger Duguay. They've billed themselves as the "middle class party," marketing that hasn't really meshed with the public - but then that's no surprise since all of the parties (save maybe the Greens) try to market themselves in exactly the same way.

The NDP has long had a reputation for being fiscally irresponsible, a reputation they earned largely due to the provincial party of B.C., where to this day the mere mention of "fast ferries" will likely cause locals to foam at the mouth with rage.  They generally haven't had much luck in the Maritimes, with the exception of very recently in Nova Scotia where they were given control of the provincial legislature - an event nobody was really expecting, particularly the Nova Scotia NDP.  Last time I checked their popularity was once again deteriorating, but from what I can tell they've been doing pretty well governance-wise.  (Take that with a grain of salt - I haven't been a Nova Scotian in a very long time, and I haven't exactly been paying anything more than very vague attention to N.S. politics in the past year.)

The main thrust of the New Brunswick NDP's efforts right now is to convince the electorate that they're fiscally responsible.  More specifically, that they're fiscally responsible in a way that will ensure the maintenance of provincial health care.  While this is something all the parties are trying to convince the electorate of, more or less, the NDP's particular angle is to point out that the two main parties are both promising tax cuts while stating that health care (and senior care) won't receive any cutbacks - and the math, the NDP state, doesn't really add up.

(As a matter of fact, Dr. Tony Myatt, an economist at UNB, is running for the NDP in Fredericton-Silverwood. He's co-written economic textbooks with Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. So, they're actually in a pretty good position this year to put forth the "fiscally savvy" narrative.)

So, without further ado, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.

The Economy:

First off, the NDP gets huge points in my book for including their full proposed (balanced) budget in their platform document.  They're the only party that bothered.  Not even the PC Party, who present themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and conservatism, did this.  Neither did the People's Alliance, who present themselves as even more PC party than the PC party.

This puts the NDP in a unique position:  When someone wonders "How are you going to pay for [promise X]?" they can respond by pointing to their budget, where it's all laid out in black and white.  The best that can be said is that the budget is optimistic at points, but even an optimistic budget is better than none at all.

At the heart of their economic development plan is their "New Job Tax Credit," which is intended to create jobs by reducing taxes for businesses that employ new workers.  It's designed to be available to all businesses, which neatly sidesteps the whole nepotism/patronage problem that comes hand-in-hand with job-creation grants.  Since, y'know, it's not a grant.

At one point, the document claims that this tax rebate (15%) will create 17,000 new jobs.  This statement directs the reader to a footnote which is, sadly, non-existent. I found myself highly irked at the fact this number was being thrown out and clearly referenced something, but that something was nowhere to be found.  Where were they coming up with this number?  I wasn't about to just take it on faith, any more than I was willing to do so with the other parties' platforms.

So, I wrote the NDP.  Apparently, the footnote wouldn't format correctly, so they removed it (bad idea, that), but since I asked they gave explained how they arrived at the number:

[1] New job tax credit programs have been extensively researched in the United States. The key parameter is the “responsiveness of labour demand to changes in labour cost”. The work of Daniel Hamermesh (1993) remains the foundation of this research. After extensive review of the literature, he concluded that this responsiveness was “probably bracketed by the interval [0.15, 0.75], with 0.3 being a best guess” (Hamermesh 1993, 135). This is obtained by multiplying the 15% subsidy by the responsiveness parameter, and then multiplying the result by total current employment.

So, colour me impressed once again; not only is the logic explained, but they actually cite an expert and give me a reference for further research if I were inclined. This is completely unique in all five of the platform documents I've read since Wednesday.

Another big pillar of their economic promises is to "hold the line on taxes." As the document puts it:

New Brunswick needs to have a
conversation about taxes. If we want world-class public services, from
roads to hospitals, we have to pay for them. We will hold the line on
income, corporate, and sales taxes for two years. During that time we
will hold province-wide consultations on what we want our government to
do and, in light of those consultations, develop our long-term economic
strategy.

In the meantime, they'll refrain from implementing the planned Liberal tax cuts to ensure that "front-line public services" can remain fully intact. Personally, I'd prefer that they come up with a "long-term economic strategy" for the province before they get elected, rather than after... But at least they're showing us their short-term plan. Like I said, it's a huge step more than the other parties were willing to go with their platform documents.

Next, they want to end Business New Brunswick, which has (fairly or not) earned a rather poor reputation over the years for some of its shadier dealings on behalf of sitting governments. They promise to make every effort to redeploy BNB employees elsewhere, though. As they put it: "Its failure is not due to [workers] and they should not be penalized." Still, it strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater - surely, even if you put an end to government loans to businesses, there's still functions BNB can perform? Well, anyway.

Lastly, they plan to save $210 million each year by ending "March Madness." This is a phenomenon wherein departments that are approaching the end of the fiscal year make a mad dash to spend whatever left-over money they have so as to avoid budget cuts the following year. I'm honestly uncomfortable with this idea - some years are more or less expensive than others for well-run departments, but legislatures tend to view them as static expenses, which is where the "tradition" came from in the first place. However, the NDP points out that Nova Scotia already introduced prohibitions against this sort of spending to good effect, so... Hey, worth a shot.

Tobacco:

Although a minor point, I give this its own section to draw attention to it, since for some people this will be a Pretty Big Deal (TM). The NDP wants to increase tobacco taxes by ten cents per cigarette over for years, at a rate of 2.5 cents per year. This will, they state, bring New Brunswick's tobacco taxes into line with Nova Scotia and PEI (and will incidentally lead a lot of smokers to quit, since the Canadian Cancer Society cites higher prices as a reliable means of reducing the smoking population.) So, yeah. You've been warned.

Energy:

With regards to promises, the NDP wants to "work to meet the New Brunswick Renewable Portfolio Standards, which state that within ten years the government must provide 25% of New Brunswick's energy needs through sustainable energy." Personally, while that's certainly not a bad thing, I'd be happier if the number were somewhat higher. Ten years, 25%? Eh. Doesn't exactly get me excited.

Also of not is the Energy and Utilities Board; apparently, ever since McKenna's Liberals, the EUB has only been allowed to review rate increases by NB Power that are over 3%. So, over the years when NB Power increased the rate by 2-3% on ten separate occasions, that fell outside the EUB's purview. (Then in 2006, Bernard Lord fired the head of the EUB when it was going to recommend against a 13% proposed increase... which kind of defeats the point of having the EUB in the first place.) The NDP promises to undo the break-up of NB Power, and restore autonomy to the EUB - as well as remove that 3% requirement.

Oh, and the sale of NB Power is off the table.

Governance:

First, and most importantly, the NDP wants to introduce a mixed-member proportional vote for the provincial legislature, getting rid of our current first-past-the-post system. I could go on for hours about how badly we need electoral reform in our country, so... I consider this an unqualified good thing. (If you're inclined to find out why I consider it so, feel free to poke around the Fair Vote Canada website. It should prove enlightening if you've never been there before.) This is an issue they share in common (actually one of several) with both the People's Alliance and the Greens.

They also promise to cut MLA pay by 20% and pensions by over 50% (their 20/50 bill), and give control over benefits to an independent commission.

They also want to make public every government document and meeting, except in cases where there's an explicit reason not to do so. Charges for filing Access of Information requests, likewise, would be removed.

Finally, they want to ban all contributions to political parties by businesses and unions. Strikes me as a good idea, but your mileage may vary.

Health Care:

Among the most important of the Front-Line services that the NDP wants to protect. Here, they want to introduce a "Helping Hands Tax Credit" to help those "looking after loved ones who are disabled or elderly."

A much bigger deal, in my mind, is their promise to introduce a provincial pharmacare program - they point out that currently, along with PEI, we're the only province not to have one. It's really rather shameful, and I'm glad that four out of the five provincial parties are looking to fix this (the PC plan I don't count because it's so limp-wristed.)

Mostly, though, their big promise here is to make sure nothing gets cut.

Miscellaneous:

The NDP promises to introduce a provincial public auto insurance program. This has been tried in many other provinces to resounding success. Really, it's only fair - if drivers are going to be forced to buy insurance, they should at least have the option of getting it through an organization that isn't designed to profit off of it.

They also promise to introduce pay equity legislation to eliminate wage descrimination between men and women, modelled after Quebec's pay equity laws.

The document talks about reducing poverty, and their main strategy here is to eliminate literacy, which they cite as a mere 56% according to StatsCan.

Finally, the Dippers promise to keep their promises. I shit you not, it's right there in the document. It's actually funny at first blush, then when you think about it it's kind of depressing since, y'know, they're including that to help distinguish themselves from the provincial Tories and Grits.

* * *

Overall, while there's plenty that's lacking herein (little to nothing about student debt, sigh), overall it's the most solid of the platforms presented by the parties. By "solid," I mean it has two main things going for it:

-The NDP isn't afraid to give you context, to cite programs in other provinces that have been proven to work, or to cite expert research to back up their points. In fact, they're the only party that does this, and it lends them a great deal of weight.
-Their promises are somewhat optimistic, but also realistic. Whenever I found myself wondering about how they'd pull something or other off, I'd have that budget at the end of the document to show me that they'd put a lot of thought into everything they included.

This isn't to say that it's completely devoid of empty platitudes - such can be found here, too. There's just a much, much higher content-to-platitude ration here than in the Lib or PC documents.

* * *

Originally, I was going to take this into tomorrow, giving the Greens and People's Alliance their own half-reviews. I'm exhausted, though, so I'll be leaving that undone. Maybe next election. Still, you can review their platforms yourself if you like (and in fact, you should; I found both the documents quite enlightening, as the parties hold certain views I did not expect them to hold):

People's Alliance: http://www.panb.org/PoliciesFinal/PANBPolicies.pdf
Greens: http://www.greenpartynb.ca/images/stories/green%20platform-english.pdf

At the very least, give the Greens' platform a look-see. It's truly a thing of beauty. If I thought they had even the slimmest chance of getting a single seat, I'd be voting for them. Seriously, the world that the Greens of New Brunswick want to bring about? I wanna live in that world. It sounds like it'd be awesome.

NB Election 2010 - The Progressive Conservatives

Once again, all of yesterday's posts warnings of the strategy I used to review the Liberals' platform apply here. So...

Their Website: http://www.pcnb.ca/
Their Platform: http://www.pcnb.ca/files/PCNB_ForAChangeBooklet_ENfin_UPDATE.pdf

The Progressive Conservatives are headed by Dave Alward. They have no official ties to Harper's Conservatives, but unofficial ties are strong - many members have publicly endorsed Harper's party in the 2004 and 2006 elections.

I'm pleased to say that, compared to the larger Liberals platform document, the Progressive Conservatives have more meat to their own... barely. This is really damning with faint praise, though - it's like saying you won't starve quite as quickly with .2 grams of beef rather than .15 grams of oats.

There's also lots of promises of consultation... So many, in fact, that one gets the idea that they really aren't entirely sure what to do about a lot of issues, and are looking for the electorate to do all the hard thinking for them.  As a good example, take this:

Create a “Taxpayers First” website for people to submit their ideas
on where to save money in government to reduce the deficit and
where to invest in better programs and services.

"We have no idea how we'll build a budget to do all the things we want to do... Um... You got any suggestions?"

That's honestly kind of pathetic. As much as the provincial Tories would love to bill themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility, they give almost as little an idea of how they'll manage to pay for all their promises as the Liberals... And just like the Liberals, they don't bother including any sort of proposed budget in their document. Particularly given that they're planned tax cuts will result in $235 million less for the province annually (they don't tell you this themselves, though.) Weaksauce, fellas.

Well, since I'm kinda-sorta on the topic already, might as well start with...

The Economy

Plenty of promises to work with private industry and the like. This always gets my hackles up when conservatives of any party talk about that sort of thing. One gets the distinct impression they would love to delegate managing our country's taxes to Irving or similar companies. The CBC would gleefully be given to Conrad Black. Environmental Protection laws would all be drafted by BP. CSIS would be, I dunno, given to Google or something. Actually, that last might make for a much more effective intelligence organization, given how adept Google's proven itself to be at invading the privacy of people all over the world. (Here's a hint: When a corporation's slogan is "Don't be evil," that's a really good indication that they've joined the dark side.)

Anyway.

The PC party makes a promise to "rewrite the Public Purchasing Act and other related legislation and regulations to ensure that New Brunswick-based businesses have a fair chance to bid on provincial government contracts," which is I suppose an improvement over the status quo. I wonder how much it will help, mind, since most provincial companies have a hard time winning bidding wars against larger, out-of-province companies... But maybe the PCs will also introduce runner-up prizes or something. I dunno.

They also mentioned introducing a $99 business incorporation package. I have no idea how awesome an idea this is, or even if it's awesome at all. But I guess it sounds good, if not exactly far-reaching.

They promise not to increase the HST, and to cancel tax cuts for those who have an income of over $450,000. This will, the Tories say, result in $120 million more over the next four years. Again, though, that doesn't cancel the above-mentioned loss of $235 million in tax income for the province due to keeping the corporate tax rate where it is (10%, the lowest rate in the country), and lowering the small business tax by half.

Lastly, they promise to "target a two percent reduction in wasteful and unnecessary spending while protecting spending on priority programs in health, education, and services to those in need," which will result, they claim, in savings of $150 million annually. They give no indication of where that "wasteful" and "unnecessary" spending will be found - and I suspect that what they would call wasteful and unnecessary would be given much more positive adjectives by much of the electorate.

Innovation

Four ideas worth mentioning here:

-They want to double the government's R&D budget. Once again I have no idea how they intend to pay for this because THEY DON'T WANT ME TO SEE THEIR PROPOSED BUDGET but okay.
-Create a Digital Media Tax Credit to help stimulate the development of digital media in-province. This is a decent idea - it costs little in lost income, which means it's a low-risk endeavour that might pay off pretty well, who knows? I certainly can't see it hurting much.
-They want to build on New Brunsick's "world-class postsecondary education institutions" by implementing a "Smart New Brunswick Plan" that positions New Brunswick as a knowledge hub. (We have world-class post-sec institutions? Since when?) I can't comment on the proposed plan since they offer me no details, but at least they didn't call it "New Brunswick Smart" or I'd have to imagine the title read off by Moose from Archie Comics.
-"Strengthen the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation with a new $2 million matching fund program for researchers." I have no idea if this is included in the above-mentioned "doubling" but okay.

Regional Development:

Much like the Liberals, a lot of thought has been put into developing Northern New Brunswick; here, the PCs want to establish a $200 million Job Creation Fund covering the Acadian Peninsula, Restigouche, Chateur, Madawaska, and Grand Falls. They'll also put $50 million into job creation in Miramichi.

Immigration, Energy, Tourism, Transportation, the Environment, the Forestry Industry:

I lump all these categories together because they all have so little worth mentioning about them.

Save for the wording of their empty platitudes, the PCs' platform is pretty much identical to the Liberals. Very little of substance is offered that the Liberals don't also offer, such as a promise to establish "a new skills accreditation process to ensure [immigrants] have their formal education and training recognized."

This is especially surprising in terms of energy, given how loudly the PCs have been blasting the Liberals over the attempted NB Power sale. Then again, they were planning to do much the same thing once upon a time, so maybe they're just opposed to the sale of NB Power to Quebec, rather than the sale in general? Who knows...

Oh, there is one area related to both the Environment and the Forestry Sector that I wanted to share:

Establish timber objectives for both hardwood and softwood
that will be supported by a multi-year silviculture plan for both
Crown Lands and private woodlots. Under the multi-year plan for
silviculture, we will increase funding every year in order to increase
planting levels as well as to improve wages for workers.

I point this out because the PCs explicitly mention hardwood here. Now while they don't explicitly state that the "increased planting levels" would include hardwood trees, this is sort of implied in this paragraph nevertheless through the simple acknowledgement that hardwood trees have value too - something very rare in this age of using hardwood-killing pesticides to ensure more room for the faster-growing softwood trees, damaging our ecosystem in the process. I'm going to be generous and assume that what I read as implied is, in fact, true - in which case, kudos to you Mr. Alwaryd.

(Then again, maybe I'm wrong in my uncharacteristic optimism. In which case, well, screw you too, PC party.)

Transportation gets two main promises: To increase brush-cutting along the sides of the province's rural roads by 50%, and to re-open 22 rural garages on a year-round basis. I'll admit I don't have enough context to understand how much these will help, but at least they contain solid numbers so I mention them here anyway.

For Tourism, guess what their only noteworthy idea is besides consulting others for noteworthy ideas? They want to develop ATV and Snowmobile trails. That's about it. Ain't exactly knocking them outta the park here, PCs.

Agriculture:

Two things worth mentioning, one for the purposes of mockery. Specfically this bit:

Simplify the fuel tax rebate system for farmers by using trust and common sense.

No. No, the words "trust" and "common sense" have no place when making government policy. That you would actually include this in your platform suggests that either you hold the electorate in contempt, or you have all the cognitive power of a lump of mold. And not particularly smart mold, either - this mold probably dropped out of mold high school or something.

Actually, I'm not being entirely fair, here, and I do want to be fair, so I should mention that they also want to "take advantage of renewable agri-fuel to generate heat and electricity," thereby creating secondary revenue sources for farmers. This is a solid idea that could help out our agriculture sector considerably if handled properly.

Healthcare

Some solid ideas here. I don't like all of them, but at least they give me details to talk about. Like their plan to eliminate Shawn Graham's ambulance fees - that tells me everything I need to know about the proposal right there. I don't like the $130 fee any more than any other New Brunswicker.

But then, even when they give details, a lot of their proposals are eminently milquetoast. Like their promise to set higher targets for recruiting physicians. Here's a news flash for you, Alward: Setting higher targets without any idea how you'll meet them will just result in you failing harder.

No bonus points for their promise to introduce a drug-subsidy plan for low-income New Brunswickers, because they give me no idea how they'll define those "in need," and really I think we need a much stronger system for pharmaceuticals than a wimpy little subsidy. (We should follow an approach similar to what they do in the UK, with a national drug plan. That would save consumers a whole bundle of money, and lead to less waste in the industry by a significant margin.)

Senior Care:

The PCs want to permanently freeze property taxes for all homeowners over the age of 65, provide tax breaks for home renovations that make houses senior-friendly, and reinstate the $5.5 million home heating subsidy program. Very little for me to make fun of here, really, so they get decent marks from me in this category - no big surprise there, as seniors are some of the party's most reliable supporters, so the Tories are eager to keep 'em happy.

Education:

Some good mixed with some bad here; the focus is largely on K-12, with lots of promised support of teachers (both noob and veteran) and a promise to re-examine the early immersion issue.

Post-secondary issues are rather swept under the rug, though. Notably absent is any mention of anything to address rising tuition costs. Why, oh why didn't the 70's generation win their fight for free tuition? Sigh.

Governance

The Tories want to reduce the number of Cabinet Ministers to 15, reduce the number of deputy minister level positions in the province (they don't say by how much), and introduce regulations on paid out-of-province travel for provincial representatives. They don't mention anything about the pay raise, though, and I'm a little leery of the deputy minister reduction - plenty of deputy ministers do very important jobs and removing them will result in a much weaker, slower government.

They do promise to remove fees associated with Right to Information requests, which is an unequivocal good thing in my mind, info-hippy that I am.

And that's about it. Like I said, I gloss over lots of stuff that strikes me as meaningless platitudes, or stuff that might have a bit of info but no context and no jumping-off point for further research so I pretty much ignore it. But the link to their platform is right at the top of this post, so you're welcome to review it yourself.

Tomorrow, I'll be going over the NDP platform.

NB Election 2010 - The Liberals

As promised, in yesterday's post, today I start my discussion of the New Brunswick election, which will continue to the end of the week. As the incumbent party, I'm going to start with the Liberals.  But first, a bit of a guideline in how I'll be doing this...

I'm willing to put in research, but I expect the party to meet me half-way. Give me a starting point, at least. If you don't give me any context for a campaign promise, if you don't explain how what you're talking about is a problem for New Brunswick and what you're proposing will be a solution, then I'm not going to bother giving you any credit for it. Likewise, I'm not going to bother with any empty platitudes, of which a party's platform during an election will be full. Saying something like how you're planning to "Develop and implement other initiatives aimed at improving the wellness of New Brunswickers and the prevention of chronic diseases" without saying what those initiatives are will result in me ignoring your platitude at best, or outright mockery in some cases.

Most of the parties` platforms are much too large to deal with in a single blog post, so when I talk about their promises and policies, I`ll try to focus on those issues the documents themselves spend most of their time focusing on. I`ll also try to provide the good along with the bad, in an effort to be as objective as possible.

So, with that in mind...

The Liberals:

Website: http://www.nbliberal.ca/en/home/
Platform: http://www.nbliberal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/FINAL-ENGLISH.pdf

The Liberal party of New Brunswick (or, more officially, the New Brunswick Liberal Association) is headed by Shawn Graham. The organization has official ties with the Federal Liberals.

They come into this election still reeling from the NB Power scandal, in which they attempted to sell the crown corporation to Quebec through a back-room deal. This resulted in a huge public backlash, but in the end the deal only failed because Quebec backed out of it - had they backed down in the face of the public outcry, I suspect they`d be doing better this election.

Their platform document is annoyingly vague at times. Lots of empty platitudes, very little substance for the most part. They`re quick to laud their accomplishments - such as claiming to have created 12,000 new jobs - without mentioning any context (those 12,000 new jobs don`t include the jobs that we`ve lost periodically since 2006, such as the 4,400 jobs the province lost in June.) Similarly, they claim the unemployment rate dropped below the national average... which is true. What they don`t mention is that this was a temporary drop, and now the rate is once again above the national average (9.6% compared to Canada`s 8.1%, a rise of 0.6% since last month.)

There are also platitudes of greater transparency which, so soon after the NB Power scandal, come across as almost farcical.

Still, there is some meat to be found here, so let`s get to it.

The Economy:


The Liberals are promising 20,000 new jobs for the province, 5,000 of which will be high-salaried (defined as 70K+).  They`re very vague on how they`ll do this, save for an ICT bursary program:

In the coming four years, our job creation priority will have a major focus on emerging economic sectors such as Informations and Communications Technology (ICT), aerospace, biosciences, and growing resource sectors like mining, natural gas, and modular construction. In addition, we will continue to advance New Brunswick`s role as a northeastern Energy Hub.

Again in light of the attempted sale of NB Power, that last bit is especially interesting. Had the sale gone through, they obviously would have been in a poor position to make good on this promise.

This section of their platform includes plenty of promises to "cooperate with private industry," which is basically politico-speak for corporate tax cuts. In fact, the tax cuts the Liberals are planning despite the massive deficit we face will cost us $293 million dollars by 2012. You won't find this in their PDF, though. In fact, they're completely silent on how they intend to pay for anything they promise, which is a point I'll be mentioning again before this post is completed.

Beyond that, it's a lot of vague stuff like "develop a strategic approach to maximizing the economic potential for the province in the mining industry," where they don't bother telling us what strategic approach that will be nor how they know it will work. One is left with the strong impression they really have no clue how to accomplish the things they want to accomplish.

An exception would be development of Northern New Brunswick, where they give some concrete numbers: $90 million for job creation and infrastructure development, which they project will create 2,700 new jobs. Another point where they provide details is a plan to twin Route 11 from Moncton to Miramichi, as well as upgrade Routes 8, 11, and 17, which they hope will stimulate business (they're right, it will.) Of course, their plan depends on aid from the Federal government, which in light of the Feds' reluctance to help out with the Harbour Bridge in Saint John (part of the Trans-Canada highway), is a little iffy to say the least.

They also want to put on offer a lighting retrofit program to help reduce energy costs to businesses, which seems minor (and it is) but I've read far worse ideas in the past 24 hours as I've read through the various parties' platforms.

The Forestry Sector:

Their big plan here is a vague promise to "grow the forest industry," despite experts warning that the good times may be over and the province's priorities regarding the industry may have to shift.  But then, this wouldn't be the first time the provincial government (whether this one or its predecessors) ignored both experts and public sentiment in favour of short-term gains.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), they're once again light on the details of how they'll make this growth happen.  There's a promise to use wood construction technology, and thereby New Brunswick lumber, in the construction of government buildings - a point they have in common with the PC party - and a $6 million allocation of funds to maintain the province's private woodlot silviculture budget, but it's anyone's guess by how much this will actually grow the industry...  I rather suspect the answer is "not at all."

But then, maybe I'm just saying that because I'm feeling cynical right now.  You can hardly blame me, though, I just spent several hours reading and analyzing the Liberals' platform.

*ba-dum-chish*

The Agriculture Sector:

Their primary initiative here is to launch a "New Brunswick version of The 100 Mile Challenge."  Basically, an "eat local" PR campaign.  I'm unsure how successful this would be, nor how one targeted specifically to NB would be more effective than the 100 Mile Challenge has been in general already, but I'm willing to admit this is a decent enough idea that certainly can't hurt.

They also include a concrete idea related to aiding Agriculture, in which they promise to enhance the New Entrant Program to "ensure that young and new farmers have an opportunity to succeed" by "increasing the loan cap for new farmers and providing assistance to, and decreasing the interest on loans for, new farms for their first five years."  See, this is the sort of policy I can sink my teeth into.  I can immediately see how it could improve things, and it doesn't just stay in the vague platitude territory of "Do something to make things better."

Their section on agriculture also included a promise to "[strengthen] the consultation process between industry and government."  Translation:  Elect us, and then we'll actually consult you about something, for reals!  Given that they don't explain how they'll do this strengthening, I feel safe in dismissing this particular promise with a mocking wave of my hand.

Tourism:

Here, they promise to complete the Fundy Trail, and work to complete the Trans-Canada Trail network by 2017.  They also want to designate Mount Carleton as a National Park.  So far, so good - concrete promises that people can understand mean something.

Unfortunately, they finish off the section with the meaningless promise to "[promote] aggressive use of new technology (such as social media) in tourism marketing."  Other than possibly "we'll have a Facebook group for tourism," I have no idea what this actually means.  I suspect neither does the Liberal party.

Child Care:

This is probably the best part of their platform, by which I mean it's the section that offers the most details and is clearly the most well-thought-out.  The Liberal plan for improving child care in the province is as follows:

-Increase the subsidy rates for infants and preschool children by $3/day in 2012-13.
-Ensure that by 2014, 50 percent of workers in child care centres have at least a one-year Early Childhood Education Certificate or equivalent and that directors have an Early Childhood Education Diploma or equivalent.
-Expand the eligibility criteria for assistance from $41,000 net family income to $55,000 by 2014 so more families can benefit from assistance.
-Raise the rates for CHild Care Subsidy for social assistance recipients in upgrading or training programs from $2 per hour for one child and $2.50 per hour for two or more children, to $3 and 5$ respectively.

Given that child care was one of the big issues the province was discussing before the NB Power thing exploded, I actually find myself quite impressed.  I don't think they go far enough, mind, but it's still impressive to see so much detail when most of their platform is so vague...

Immigration:

Currently, New Brunswick's immigrant retention rate stands at 60 percent.  The Liberals promise to increase this to 80 percent, and grow NB's population by 12,000 by 2014.  How do they intend to do this?  I don't know.  They might, but if so they're not really telling.

They do explain that they wish to improve credential recognition and assessment for professional immigrants, though.  This is a wonderful idea, and something that should have been done a long time ago.  We have immigrants in this province who have been trained as doctors in their home countries, but are not allowed to start a practice here because our province (and country) doesn't recognize their credentials.  That this goes on during a provincial doctor shortage so severe that we're looking at getting more nurse practitioners up and running is...  well, stupid is the only word for it.

They also promise to press the Federal government for a faster immigration process.  Doing this is important, and a good idea, because our immigration system is fairly punitive.  Of course, Harper will never budge on this given how much his office hates immigrants of nearly all stripes, but the sentiment is nice to see even if it won't go anywhere.

The Energy Sector:

The Liberals actually straight-facedly claim the following among their accomplishments in the Energy Sector:

Over the past four years, the Liberal Government has worked with communities and companies to help establish New Brunswick as an Energy Hub for Northeastern North America.

...yeah.

Still, credit where it's due. They did help make Canada's only Liquefied Natural Gas terminal, a new natural gas pipeline, and 300 MW of new wind power. So their record here isn't entirely negative, though the shadow of the attempted NB Power sale is long in this category.

Still, it's worth mentioning that they want to return NB Power to a single corporation, undoing the PC's breaking it up into four different companies (in preparation for privatization). This, they estimate, will save $80 million annually. This is an eminently good idea, so I hope no matter who forms our next Provincial government, this is implemented.

The Environment:

To listen to the Liberals, New Brunswick is some kind of trend-setter in this area. The truth is that New Brunswick is currently last place in Canada in terms of effective recycling programs.

Still, they want to restore the Petitcodiac Riber, and build a bridge to replace causeway. They also plan to "work with the forest industry to develop wood construction techniques and products to satisfy a new and growing demand," which strikes me as the opposite of an environmental protection plan. Why they listed it in the environment section is beyond me, but they did.

Healthcare:

Always a big issue for Canadians, and it grows more important with New Brunswickers with each passing year. Health and Senior Care combined has doubled in cost to the province over the past decade, and accounts for close to 40% of our province's budget. This number is likely to continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

They promise no cuts to Healthcare. Given that they're stupidly continuing with tax cuts at the same time, I fail to see how they'll accomplish this - even balooning our deficit isn't much of a solution, since the province's loan eligibility status was downgraded recently, meaning we can't borrow as much to prop ourselves up as we once could. Still, that's what the Liberals have promised.

They also promise universal access to a prescription drug program for all New Brunswickers - a wonderful idea that's been implemented successfully in many other provinces and nations to great effect. There are many such models to use, but I have no idea which one the Liberals want to follow because they don't say. Shame, they could have earned a lot of points from me on this point if they'd just come across as having a concrete idea of what they wanted to do.

They also want to "implement an Electronic Medical Record for use by primary care providers." Translation: We'll fix healthcare with these here new-fangled computers! Why, did you know they even have internets on computers now? Why this is a campaign promise rather than just something that was done ten years ago is beyond me.

Anyway, their section on health care isn't completely without detail, they do give some concrete numbers: Hire an additional 55 doctors over two years, 30 of which will be family physicians, double the number of nurse practitioners to 110 province-wide, double the number of clinics, and establish an air ambulance for northern NB. Again, no idea how they'll pay for any of this, since they're going forward with their corporate tax cuts.

Other Stuff:

They promise to freeze cabinet minister and MLA salaries, which is pretty farcical in light of the recent pay hike they gave themselves.

The Liberals also promise to limit expenditure growth to less than one percent annually. This is an arbitrary limit, and I really don't see how it will help things. What if we need more than one percent in order to capitalize on an opportunity some year? To keep up with inflation? Why is "one percent" some magic number ratio? I dunno, they don't really explain... I guess I'm supposed to be impressed by this promise of contextless "fiscal responsibility."

For education, they want to double the school supplement to families with school-age children who receive social assistance from $50 to $100 per child, and provide a literacy mentor to every student in grades one and two who is struggling to read. The rest are empty platitudes, and overall they give me the feeling the Liberals are proud of their track record on education, despite (or maybe because of) killing early French immersion. There's talk about "21st century school models" and "Entrepreneurial school models" but little information on what these actually are.

They also promise to complete pay equity adjustments for home care and child care workers by 2015. There's no mention why they're not working toward pay equity for workers in other fields, though...

And that's about it. Overall, I'd have to rate the Liberals' platform very poorly. So much meaningless fluff, plus they have their not-so-great track record casting a pall over the promises they're making (plenty of their previous campaign promises they didn't even try to make a reality.) Still, there's some good stuff here, so if they're elected again I won't exactly be lamenting the end of the province.

Tomorrow, I tackle the Progressive Conservatives.

New Brunswick Election

Today, I'm scheduled to share some amusing thing I found on the interwebs.  So, um...  Here's my favourite Tim Minchin song.

With that out of the way, I'd like to talk about the New Brunswick election.

New Brunswick's provincial elections are less than a week away, so for today's political post I've decided to get things extremely local and talk about the parties, their platforms, and my thoughts on the whole thing.

Theoretically, we've got four political parties. But this is kind of not true, really, when you get down to it, because the Greens are really a pretty sorry excuse for a party. In fact, it's even stretching the truth to claim that we have three parties, given that the NDP won a sum total of zero seats and a mere 5% of the popular vote in the last provincial election. In fact, in the entire history of the New Brunswick NDP, never has more than a single NDP member been elected to Legislative Assembly at a time. So, really, we've got the Liberals, the Conservatives, and... I dunno, maybe one-tenth of an actual leftist party. Plus the People's Alliance, which is completely untested and nobody really knows what to make of them

New Brunswick is not a healthy province, and in truth hasn't been for some time. We don't even have a boom-bust cycle, like some resource-rich provinces (e.g., Alberta). We're lucky to get almostboom-bust cycles, and often it feels more like bust-bust-almostboom-doublebust. We've had several opportunities to slowly crawl out of our economic pit, but have squandered each and every one with a dedication and reliability that's almost courageous in its masochism.

New Brunswick's unemployment rate stands at 9.6%. This, too, is pretty much a lie; honest unemployment statistics haven't actually been tabulated since at least the 80's, possibly much longer than that, but then the dishonest definition of "employment" and "unemployment" used throughout North America is well-trodden ground and beyond the scope of my post. Regardless, even the underestimated figure of 9.6% puts us among the worst rates in Canada - though we're doing ever-so-slightly better than Nova Scotia, P.E.I., and Newfoundland (in order of best to worst). However, we're also losing more jobs than those other provinces - Newfoundland and PEI are actually improving their employment rates. So it's doubtful that we'll maintain our lead in the Maritimes for long. And it's still pretty shameful compared to the rest of Canada, no matter how you measure it.

Seven out of the ten poorest postal codes in Canada, with a median income of under $14,000, are in New Brunswick.  Per capita, our deficit is second only to Ontario’s. For every dollar the province takes in from income tax, 48 cents are paid out to the interest on our debt.  42 cents of every dollar the Province gets comes from Ottawa in the form of transfer payments.
So, it should come as no surprise that the economy is at the forefront of everyone's minds; voters, politicians, journalists.  I'm not going to make the claim that this is a super-important election - none of the parties would be able to fix all our economic woes no matter what happened, but they all certainly stand in a position to make things significantly better or worse...  So I do rank this election as "more important than most" for New Brunswickers.  Sadly, the plans the parties have on offer to tackle the problems the province faces have little to distinguish themselves from one another, but I'm going to examine them each anyway.

Because of this, starting tomorrow and going through until Friday, I'm going to be going over each of the provincial parties and their platforms (as well as any historical information I find relevant), and posting summaries here, in order to educate myself before election day.  Hopefully it will be informative to any of my meagre-but-not-quite-as-meagre-as-one-would-expect readership, so that the effort will enable even more people to cast informed votes on the 27th.

Webcomics Reviews V

Shi Long Pang: (Pronounced Sher Loong Pong, apparently.) A kung-fu epic starring a young wandering Shaolin Monk, Pang, in 17th Century China. The art style is well-suited to the subject - simple enough to allow all kinds of crazy action sequences when the need calls for it, but stylized enough that some of the backgrounds that creator Ben Costa put into his panels are evocative of Chinese watercolour paintings. Equally impressive is the effort Costa puts into the historical and cultural depictions of 17th Century China - which lends his narrative a certain air of authority that it would otherwise lack.

If I can criticize it for anything, it's the plotting - I find that for an action/adventure/comedy, the whole thing moves a bit slowly at times; this isn't helped by often-infrequent updates. Your mileage may vary, of course.

It's worth noting that Costa won the Xeric Award for his work on the comic. The Xeric Foundation was founded by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle co-creator Peter Laird, and awards grants to winning comic creators designed to help them self-publish their creations (as well as feed and house themselves while they do so.) It was founded in 1992, and has given almost two million dollars in grants since then. I thought that was pretty cool, and Shi Long Pang a very worthy recipient of the award.

Bobwhite: This webcomic by Magnolia Porter follows the exploits of three friends as they struggle their way through life, love, and art school at Bobwhite University. The thing I love about this comic is how honest it is; while the characters are obviously exaggerated for comic effect, there's nevertheless a lot of truth in everything they do. Each of them is imperfect in a myriad of their own ways, but even for all their flaws it's hard not to love them.

If there's a flaw I can criticize with Bobwhite, it's the art. Don't get me wrong - the art's quite good, and the style is very appropriate to the theme and humour of the comic. However, at times it gets a little inconsistent, as if Porter is just kind of phoning it in - getting it to where it's good enough, rather than getting it to where it's good. I also get the feeling it's often limited by the newspaper-strip format, which is a shame - I often get the feeling that if she'd break out of the format constraints and take the time she needs, she could make some truly mind-blowing visuals.

Starslip Crisis: This is a Sci-Fi parody comic from probably the most prolific creator in webcomics, Kris Straub. It's a webcomic parody of Star Trek, science fiction in general, and pop culture and art, not necessarily in that order, and it's very, very good. The art is not to everyone's tastes - though I think it's vastly improved these days over the style he used when he started the comic - but it's sufficient to drive the story and the humour.

In addition to Starslip, Kris Straub also does/did F Chords, which is to music what Starslip Crisis is to Science Fiction, Checkerboard Nightmare, which is a webcomic about a cartoon character developing his own webcomic, and Chainsawsuit, which is a webcomic parody of webcomics billed as "disposable internet humour." Like I said, the guy's prolific. Starslip Crisis is my favourite of his creations, but if that's not to your taste then there's probably something Straub's done that suits you - maybe even Chainsawsuits you get it it's a joke okay I'll stop.

Razorback

Here's Razorback, leader of the Silver Park Hunters.

I really enjoy doing those Tron-esque glowy effects. I overuse them, I know, but they're just so much fun. A guilty pleasure, I guess.

Muzzling Federal Scientists

By my own rules, I'm allowed to use Thursdays for pretty much anything I want, so I'm going to share the other thing I wanted to talk about yesterday. As reported in the Calgary Herald, the Harper government doesn't want any federal scientists talking to the media about pesky science-related things:

Natural Resources Canada scientists were told this spring they need “pre-approval” from Minister Christian Paradis’ office to speak with national and international journalists. Their “media lines” also need ministerial approval, say documents obtained by Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation.

So, they're not allowed doing interviews or journal articles that would have national or international coverage without clearing it with their superiors first. Particularly nothing about 13,000 year old floods, oilsands, or climate change.

This is all pretty unprecedented; these are rules no government has ever made for its federal scientists before. Of course, the Harper government claims that this has been policy for years:

“Departmental officials speaking on behalf of the department are to consult the minister’s office in preparing responses,” [acting media relations manager at NRCan] Micheline Joanisse says. “While this may have been misinterpreted as being a new policy, it has been in place for years.”

This is a lie. It's a bald-faced, unequivocal lie. We know it's a lie because not only does it come as a complete shock to the scientists themselves, when asked to be pointed to where this policy was written down or officially announced, they were met with the sound of chirping crickets.

All in all, this is just another example of how the Harper government hates dealing with those pesky "experts" and their "expert opinions." It goes hand-in-hand with the destruction of the census. Stevie's not about good government, he's about maintaining power - like the worst of Cretien's and Mulroney's years put together without any of the good stuff or redeeming features. I know I keep saying stuff to that effect, but that's because it hasn't ceased being true.

Killing Civilians for Sport

I had a hard time deciding the topic for today's post... Part of me really wanted to talk about the Conservatives' muzzling of federal scientists, since that's a Canadian thing and fairly recent. But I'm still pretty damn angry about the news out of Afghanistan, even if it's almost a week since the story broke, and I think it's important enough to override more local stuff. Not the least of which is because a certain perspective becomes apparent as you read the various reports on the events and the order in which they happened, one that I haven't seen much comment on.

From the Guardian article on the event:

Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.

Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.

So, more war crimes in Afghanistan, this time of as blatant a nature as you can get. I mean, this is the sort of thing you'd expect to find in a bad movie - one that would get a public outcry in the U.S. for unfairly depicting U.S. Soldiers. But here it is, and it happened in the really real world.

Of course, if you've even glanced at the story, you probably know all this. What you might not realize is something that reveals itself only by really thinking about the implications of some of the reported events:

The killings came to light in May after the army began investigating a brutal assault on a soldier who told superiors that members of his unit were smoking hashish. The Army Times reported that members of the unit regularly smoked the drug on duty and sometimes stole it from civilians.

The soldier, who was straight out of basic training and has not been named, said he witnessed the smoking of hashish and drinking of smuggled alcohol but initially did not report it out of loyalty to his comrades. But when he returned from an assignment at an army headquarters and discovered soldiers using the shipping container in which he was billeted to smoke hashish he reported it.

Basically, what happened was the self-described "kill squad" decided to smoke hashish in the wrong place - a recruit who was otherwise willing to look the other way if they smoked anywhere else wasn't willing to put his own ass on the line because they were using the container he was responsible for as their smoke house. So, he told on them, they found out, and then they beat him up.

Then, as revenge, he told his superiors about their war crimes.

This suggests two things: 1. He knew about the war crimes already, much like he knew about the drug use before they got him involved in it. 2. He considered their drug use in his container worse than murdering civilians, since otherwise he would have reported them in a different order, and much sooner than he did.

Think about that for a second. Of course, this should come as no surprise; according to a survey of U.S. troops in Iraq, almost half of all army soldiers (and more than half of Marines) have said they would cover up war crimes for their fellow soldiers. Moreover, if the statistics in that survey hold up for Afghanistan (and I see no reason they wouldn't), then going by the numbers there are almost ten thousand war criminals stationed there, as one in ten have admitted to committing abuses against civilians.

I'd be very interested to see how coalition forces rate against these statistics. I suspect it would be very revealing, but I've yet to see a proper survey performed.

Ultimately, all this adds up to the mission in Afghanistan being a failure - and it's likely the door for success has long passed. No "surge" strategy will work here (for that matter, the surge strategy didn't really work in Iraq, but that's a whole 'nother topic). If the coalition is even still trying to win hearts and minds, they're failing miserably - and it's because of events like this. There's even a good chance that the Army was warned after the first murder and chose to ignore the warning, though I don't know if we'll ever know for sure whether that's true.

Can anyone state the official goal of the war in Afghanistan, quoted from an official in a position of responsibility, stated for public consumption? The last thing I remember hearing is about how it's for the well-being of Afghans - particularly Afghan women - because if the coalition in general departs, and the U.S. in specific, then blood will run in the streets.

That these claims can be made when the Afghans don't want us there, when actual Afghan women's organizations want us all out because we're making things worse, not better... That these claims can be made while our side sends out murder squads both official (Task Force 373) and unofficial (this Stryker brigade)... Well. Hypocrisy ain't just for the Greeks, you know. Sooner or later, we're going to have to face the possibility that, as much as any conflict can have good guys and bad guys, we may just be on the side of the bad.

Ironically, once upon a time, I was a supporter of the war in Afghanistan. I'm not sure exactly when I changed my mind on the subject, but I'm sure it was related to something like this.

The Take

In 2004, the National Film Board of Canada released a 90-minute documentary about workers reclaiming factories in Argentina. It's a very uplifting film that shows a socialist movement at its purest, and it's available in its entirety on Google Video. Worth a watch, not the least of which is for its cautionary aspects; it's not such a stretch of the imagination that the West - or at least the bulk of the non-rich population of the West - could find itself in a similar situation as Argentinians found themselves in, if we continue to let corporate interests rule in the public sphere.

Webcomic Reviews Pt. 4

Books, Beers, and Ballpoint Pens: The best word I can think of to describe this darkly humorous gag-a-day webcomic is "rough." It's got rough art, rough writing, rough punchline delivery... There's craft underneath it all, but not much polish. Infrequently updated, and sometimes it just falls flat. So, why do I read it? Because every once in a while it comes out with something absolutely golden. The birthday skeleton won my readership for at least a year.

Pictures for Sad Children: Deceptively simple art is perfectly blended with the subject matter for this webcomic, which presents an overwhelmingly cynical view of the world at large. Very witty and humorous, but the laughter it elicits is often accompanied by a certain dawning horror at just what you're laughing at. A very sophisticated gag-a-day comic, but its sophistication only emerges in retrospect.

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: A once-a-week gag webcomic done with Adobe Illustrator, following the absurdist exploits of slacker superhero Wonderella. Extremely funny, though I imagine readers familiar with supers comics and genre conventions found therein - particularly conventions related to legacy heroes - get more out of the comic than others. Other frequent themes include celebrity, pop culture, dating, and modern life. At first I found the art style somewhat annoying and cheap, but it's grown on me and now I find it adds to the webcomic's charm.

The Meek: A fantasy comic that follows the adventures of a dryad in her quest to save the world... I think. Art-wise, this comic is incredible, right up there among the best - just a few notches below Lackadaisy Cats, which I consider to be the pinnacle of webcomic visuals. Writing-wise it's harder to assess this webcomic, because while the scripting is good and it's drawn me in quite well, I find the pace to be rather maddeningly slow... We're on the third chapter and the creator Alexds1 is still introducing the cast, so it's hard to make any statements about the broader strokes of storycraft that might be at work. Still, like I said, it hooked me pretty quickly so I highly recommend giving it a try.

The Hunters

Owing to the family tragedy and the exhaustion from driving to Ontario and back, I only have one arts to show... But it includes three characters, and is more elaborate than what I normally do.

Adder, Shrike, and Bulldog - the three top Lieutenants of the Silver Park Hunters. Their leader, Razorback, is not depicted... I'll be doing one of him (and his sweet ride) later.

Razorback, incidentally, is the last character design I have to do before I move on to setting designs.

Facebook Users Suck

You can read about some interesting research about the sort of people who use Facebook the most over at the Telegraph. I found the opening paragraph rang especially true for me:

The social networking site is a haven for narcissistic people because they can establish a large number of hollow 'friendships' without having to establish a real relationship, a study found.

Reflects my own thoughts on the subject of all things Facebook quite well. Of course, there's an irony here in that I'm considering starting up a Facebook page again - I want a convenient way to stay in touch with my uncle's widow and their daughters. So, I guess the joke's on me?

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs

Stevie's Tories have strewn Canada (or at least certain parts of it) with "Economic Action Plan 2010" signs, and are sparing no expense to ensure that each and every one of the 8,500 signs are carefully tracked... On a weekly basis, no less.

You may have seen one of these signs. They look exactly like the image to the right.

Every single week, eighteen government departments have to submit paperwork (by noon each Monday) on the sign status throughout Canada:

The signage database, at the request of the PCO, includes the total number of projects that require an “Economic Action Plan” sign, the number of signs already installed, the number of signs remaining to be installed and the number of signs ordered.

They're not tracking how many jobs their plan has created - but the signs? Oh, those they track. Why, if I weren't so sure Stevie were such an upstanding guy, I'd suspect that he probably were more interested in looking like he were doing something than actually doing it.

Wait, sorry. Did I say upstanding guy? I meant asshat. Stevie's a tremendous asshat.

Now, here's the thing. In a recession, makework programs are not an inherently bad thing - there's better things to spend the money on than a PR campaign (infrastructure is a no-brainer, and these days investing in green technology would be a pretty good idea), but figuring out ways to get money into the citizens' wallets in order to boost confidence and help people ride out the economic downturn is the general idea. However, you still want to make sure the money's being well-spent... And one would imagine, given how much Stevie's PMO crows about "fiscal responsibility," this would go double for the Tories.

We have no idea how much the 3000 pages of documentation the tracking program has cost taxpayers, because the Tories are staying quiet on that note. We do have an idea how much the signs themselves cost:

For the smallest one-foot by three-foot sign, the cost was $86. Larger 2x6 signs cost $204, while 4x12 signs cost $663.

Wanna know the absolute kicker? The part that makes this all so incredibly shameful? The signs aren't even made in Canada. The $86 (plus delivery and installation) goes to a company based out of Tacoma, Washington. Stevie's spending all this money to line an American company's pockets. Which, I shouldn't have to tell you, completely defeats the purpose of a recession-based makework program.

I think I've finally realized something that I kind of always knew, but never really fully digested: Stevie hates Canada. I mean, really, what other explanation is there?

Did You Know Jack Layton Loves Star Trek?

Well, he does.

This is him at a Star Trek convention circa 1991. That's right, fellow nerds - he's one of us.

Hiatus

I'll not be making any more blog posts until Monday, owing to an unexpected death in the family.

Narrative Control

It's looking more and more likely that an election is on the horizon for us residents of Soviet Canuckistan. Iggy's trying to use the long-gun registry to create an election issue to campaign on (hoping to eradicate NDP support in doing so), while Layton's desperately trying to avoid stepping on any of the landmines being laid before him - and irritating his base in doing so. Meanwhile, Harper's been starting to create a coalition boogieman to campaign against. "You losers better gimme a majority this time or else you'll be sorry!" is his basic refrain.

And of course, the census scandal continues to broil in the background, as more and more groups keep adding their voices to the chorus of protest over the Convervatives' move against a long-standing Canadian institution.

I'm really not sure how things are going to go. I don't think anyone has much of an idea; an election this fall (not likely) or spring (much more likely) is a real gamble for everyone involved.

What I do know is that the Harper government has been pretty impressive at destroying a number of illusions about Canada. We Canadians used to like to think of ourselves as progressive, compassionate and practical. Even good, though we'd make the claim in quiet tones, blushing from embarrassment. This is clearly not the case; Harper's managed to frame the public narrative to the point that "immigrant" has become a dirty word in much of our public discourse. Where once we lauded our institutions of higher learning, an anti-intellectual sentiment has been growing louder. The CBC has always been tragically underfunded, but there was a time when the idea of getting rid of it would have provoked angry snarling even from Tories.

Go to the CBC website and look at any politics-related news article, and look at the user comments. You'll find some of the vilest stuff this side of Stormfront. Those are fellow Canadians' voices.

I'm not going to pretend that Harper created any of this. These ugly sentiments have always been there, but he's been able to frame enough of the debate that suddenly they've become that much more acceptable to espouse. Sure, rural Quebec (to use an example) has always had some pretty ignorant, offensive attitudes toward minorities, but it wasn't until recently that a group like the ADQ could actively campaign on "screw the minorities (especially the browns)." Me, I remember how loudly the NB Greens were decried when their leadership was revealed as being a bunch of bigots - it's something it took them years to live down.

Meanwhile, we've got a government that's doing its level best to prevent us from learning about the way prisoners have been treated by our "allies" in Afganistan, and the public largely doesn't care - notice how there haven't really been any developments there in over a month. The new head of Amnesty International is strongly criticizing our government for eroding our human rights (e.g., Omar Khadr, the de-funding of rights groups, the mass arrests at the G20 protests, etc.), and the story basically went by without a blip. You know, I'm no fan of Mulroney, but I really can't see him silencing a Veterans' advocate for saying politically inconvenient things. Certainly, I couldn't imagine Mulroney getting away with it... But Harper's managed.

It's depressing. Harper said at the outset that he was going to change the nature of Canadian politics forever; I don't know about how enduring it will prove to be, but it's certainly true that by legitimizing certain often-repugnant perspectives and controlling the public narrative to such a degree, Harper's definitely changed Canadian politics for the time being. (This actually is part of the reason I find the Census thing so baffling - given how tightly Stevie tries to control his message, how careful he tends to be, how could he make such an obvious blunder?)

Yet, for all he's "accomplished," Harper must be terribly frustrated. Twice now Canadians have refused him a majority, and it doesn't seem likely that they'll change their minds on that issue anytime soon - no matter what kind of coalition boogieman he invokes. He's basically already made all the gains he feasibly can; there aren't really any more voters he can court without promising things that will lose him some of his current base. Not that he needs a whole lot of help in that regard, as the Wild Rose party in Alberta can attest to.

So, what am I saying in my own rambling way? To be entirely frank, I'm not sure, but I think I can sum it up as follows: I'm aghast at the state of things in my country, and in a bit of horrified awe at the damage that a single government has accomplished in two short terms. I'm also hopeful that we've seen it at its worst, and in a way I'm looking forward to the next election since, at the very least, it will mean we'll be able to see a light at the end of the tunnel.