The Food Safety Shell Game

The Conservatives are treating Canada's food safety budget like a game of three-card monte but here is the straight goods on what is budgeted.  So fasten your seatbelts and keep your eye on the the cards.

The Conservatives recite repeatedly that the federal government has increased the food safety budget by $100 million.  Here's what they don't say about the Food Safety Budget:

• The $100 million is a one-time cash infusion paid in installments over five years (18 million spent so far).  
• Also the government sunset (i.e. cut) the listeria program that was $26 million.  For those playing at home that equates to negative 6 million for this year so far but I'm not done yet.
• On May 18, 2012 the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food signed a report tabled to the House of Commons that states "Planned spending is declining by approximately $46.6 million and 314 [Full Time Equivalents]" A Full Time Equivalent is government speak for Full-Time Employees.
• The current budget indicates the intention of another 56.1 million be cut annually over the next three years.

Okay so lets review:

 20 million (one-fifth of the 100 million "added")
-26 million (sunset Listeria Project)
-46.6 million (as per May 18 report)
Totalling  -52.6 million in 2012

 20 million (one-fifth of the 100 million "added")
-56.1 (projected budget cut)
=-36.1 x 3 years
Totalling -108.3 million for 2013-15

Less money is being spent on food safety this year and the plan is to continue reducing the amount.


Canadian politics

What does Stephen Harper have against attending Premier's Conferences?

Stephen Harper has never attended a Premier's Conference.  He has been Prime Minister since 2006 and has turned down every invitation extended him to attend.

Yesterday during Opposition Day in the House of Commons the NDP put forward a motion that the Prime Minister accept the most recent invitation by the Premiers to attend the Conference in Halifax.

Prime Minister Harper was not present in the House during the debate but as expected the Conservative MPs rose, one by one, to speak against the Prime Minister attending.

The following sums up the debate quite nicely:

Mrs. Cathy McLeod (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue, CPC):  

    Mr. Speaker, as a fellow British Columbian, I certainly listened to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley with great interest. However, frankly, even the motion today was surprising to me. It seemed a very odd motion.

Mr. Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP):

 The Conservatives have somehow made the mistake that a ribbon-cutting event with a premier constitutes consultation and planning and working together and that a five-minute phone call, which we have seen on the PM's agenda, somehow counts as working together with the provinces and territories.
    We are simply asking the Prime Minister to accept the invitation. This was not our invitation. It would be rude for us to offer it. It is from the premier of our own province and the premiers of all the provinces and territories that are represented here in the House of Commons.
    She finds this confusing. I think we have a lot of work to do here. If the invitation so generously offered by our provincial and territorial leaders confuses Conservative members as to why that would be worthwhile, we have perhaps more work than I thought with this particular government.

Debate Official Transcript 



More Canadian politics

Parliamentary privilege should not be overused

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee recently began legal proceedings against the Auditor-General because he was refusing to deny an access to information request.  Access to information is a right of journalists and citizens as a way to know what their government is doing.

Parliamentary privilege is meant to give parliamentarians the ability to do their work without interference from outside of government.  It also protects free speech within the House of Commons.

The Auditor General does not report to parliament and therefore is required to comply with Access to Information Requests.  The Public Accounts committee's attempt to block the Auditor General from releasing his own correspondence with the committee only leads people to believe that the Committee has something to hide.

It is clear that the committee overstepped its authority because even Prime Minister Harper believes that privilege should not have been invoked.

Parliamentary privilege should not be overused - The Globe and Mail:

'via Blog this'

Largest Workplace Charitable Campaign in Canada - Video

  

Public Servants remain concerned about the future during these difficult economic times.  But we know equally that we consistently find a way to set our personal concerns aside and make helping others in need our priority during the annual campaign.

Tory Affidavit Attempts to Cast Doubt on Robocalls Survey

The Council of Canadians presented polling data to back up claims that misleading calls in seven ridings affected the outcome of  the 2011 federal election.  Conservatives recently released an affidavit challenging the validity of the Ekos survey that found the non-Conservative vote was suppressed by about 1.5% in these ridings.

The survey also found that “highly statistically significant” number of the call recipients were non-Conservatives.

Since the story first broke the Conservative Party has denied any involvement in the robocalls that misdirected voters to the wrong polling stations.  Yet at every turn it has been the Conservative Party that has fought against the suit brought forward by the voters in the seven affected ridings and denied even the possibility that voter suppression occurred.

Why does the Conservative Party of Canada fight so hard to deny the residents of the seven ridings another vote, if the party is so sure that voter suppression did not occur and that the results of the election were unaffected by the robocalls?

http://www.leaderpost.com/business/Tories+cast+doubt+robocall+survey+data/7109742/story.html

Technorati Tag: Canadian politics

Stephen Harper finds Science - Well Not Really

Could it be that Prime Minister Harper has discovered the existence of science?  The headlines across the country are declaring the PM says that "Science, not politics, will determine outcome".  It is enough to give fans of evidence based policy goose bumps.

Well don't get too excited. Lets look at what Mr Harper actually said:

"I've been very clear that decisions on these kinds of projects are made through an independent evaluation conducted by scientists into the economic costs and risks that are associated with the project."

 This statement sound more like status quo than radical change of position.  He's worried about the economics not the environment.  It seems like the press was so shocked to hear the word scientists come out of the Prime Minister's mouth that they didn't listen very closely to the words that followed it.  And to be fair a tagline saying Stephen Harper will listen to science was just too juicy to not use.

Stephen Harper tempers message on Northern Gateway pipeline - thestar.com:

Harper defends independence of pipeline approval process



Technorati Tag: Canadian politics Stephen Harper

Canadian Government to extend EI benefits to families of seriously ill children

The Canadian Government announced today that Employment Insurance (EI) benefits will be extended to families of seriously ill children.  It will allow parents or legal guardians of minor children with a life threatening illness or injury to receive income support for up to 35 weeks.  The change to EI is expected to be in place by June 2013 and can be combined with the existing compassionate care benefit.

It is a rare occasion that I completely agree with the current government's policies but this is definitely one of them.


EI benefits extended to families of seriously ill children - Politics - CBC News:

'via Blog this'

Did a Conservative Riding Association take Kick Back Money?

The Facts:

• The Prime Ministers fundraising rules for ministers and parliamentary secretaries (called Accountable Government) state:
  

  “There should be no singling out, or appearance of singling out, of individuals or organizations as targets of political fundraising because they have official dealings with Ministers, Ministers of State, Parliamentary Secretaries, or their staff or departments.”

• The parliamentary secretary to the Canadian Heritage Minister is Paul Calandra.  
• The CRTC is funded by Canadian Heritage Ministry.  
• The CRTC decides who gets broadcast licences.
• Stan Antony applies to the CRTC for a new radio station. 
• Mr. Antony is then invited to make a donation to Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage, Paul Calandra's Conservative Electoral District Association.
• Mr. Antony donates $500.00
• While the competition was taking place, Parliamentary Secretary Calandra's riding association raised in excess of $5000 from individuals connected to companies vying for the radio station.
• The donations become public through news reports.
• Parliamentary Secretary Calandra tells the newspaper, The Globe and Mail that the money will be returned to the donors.
• The office of the Federal Ethics Commissioner has not decided whether or not to launch an investigation to determine if the Conflict of Interest Act for public officeholders or the Conflict of Interest Code for MPs were contravened by the Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage.

Analysis:

• The Accountable Government rule looks to be  intentionally written to have the appearance of rather than actual accountability.  If the Prime Minister was truly serious about ethics and accountability he would have said "There will be no singling out,..." instead of  "There should be no singling out...".  The word should only indicates that the action is a bad idea and not that it is prohibited.  Being a lawyer Mr. Harper would have been aware of the legal difference between the words "should" and "will"or "shall".  
• Wishy washy wording aside it is clear that a significant amount of money was donated by individuals, with official dealings with the Parliamentary Secretary's department Canadian Heritage, that were singled out as targets for fundraising. 
• Failure of the Ethics Commissioner to investigate this incident would imply complacency on the part of the Federal Government.

Man vying for broadcast licence urged to donate to Tory fundraiser - The Globe and Mail:

'via Blog this'

Sleeping on the Job – Conservative MP Rob Anders

The Conservative party claims to be the party looking out for Canadian Military Personnel and veterans but unfortunately the guy they appointed to the Veterans Affairs Committee has his eyes closed – literally.  MP for Calgary West Rob Anders was caught sleeping during a presentation on Homeless Veterans.
Rob Anders of course denies falling asleep but his own words tell a different story.  He called Jim Lowther a “NDP hack”.
Jim Lowther is a retired veteran of the Canadian Forces where he proudly served his country for fifteen years before, retiring prematurely due to injury.  During Mr. Lowther’s career  he served two NATO tours in Bosnia in support of Canada’s peacekeeping efforts.  Mr Lowther was presenting to the Veteran Affairs Committee as the president of Veterans Emergency Transition Services (V.E.T.S.) non-profit organization active in helping homeless veterans.
V.E.T.S. is a non-partisan organization.  For Rob Anders’ benefit non-partisan means free from party affiliation, bias, or designation.
Since M.P. for Calgary West, Rob Anders had no idea Mr. Lowther  was the President of V.E.T.S, chances are Rob Anders should wake up because his pants are on fire.

Technorati Tags: politics,Canadian-Politics

The Conservative Party of Canada – A Study in Contradictions

I can’t help but notice that Conservatives have been all over the board with their policies and positions arguing on one side of an issue in one circumstance and the polar opposite in a different circumstance
Here are just a few examples:

• The Conservative party that last year said the long form census invaded the privacy of Canadians, is now sponsoring a bill that will allow warrantless searches into the personal computer use of Canadians.  Going so far as to accuse people that oppose the bill as “siding with the pedophiles”.
• The Conservative party considers itself the defenders of Canadian democracy but then used the UNELECTED senate to kill legislation.
• The CPC  conveniently  ignored ​the fact that opposition members of parliament were democratically elected and declares time allocation (limits debate) on legislation because the government believes and has stated that opposition members speaking during debate is waste of time.  Then the next day introduces a bill to eliminate the hate speech provisions in the Canadian Human Rights Act because it limits “Free Speech”

The CPC not being able to argue against the facts being thrown at them by the official opposition began calling  the NDP the "No development party" .  Name calling has been part of the Conservative Party playbook ever since their dear leader Stephen Harper took power.  But so far the NDP has taken the high road and not engaged the government on that level.
I applaud the opposition for remaining focused on the issues .  Not being a member of parliament myself, I will indulge in a bit name calling and say that maybe the conservatives should be referred to as the "Contradictory Policy Conservatives"

Technorati Tags: Canada,Canadian Politics

Harper Conservatives on Liberal's Plan for OAS - 2004

Back in 2004, the Harper Conservatives accused the Paul Martin Liberals of having a "hidden agenda" to raise the age to qualify for the Old Age Security to 67.  The Conservative Party of Canada had acquired the information on the Liberals through access to information.

As far as I can tell only the NDP have been consistent on the issue of OAS.

Click on Image to enlarge

The campaign news release is still posted on http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/election/News1/CRelease17.htm

Getting it Wrong and Limiting Debate on Pensions

The first day of Parliament 2012 and the Conservatives are already strangling debate.

As we have seen in previous years the Conservative MPs unable to speak for themselves got up and repeated the same old talking points... this time on Pooled Pensions.

Watching the debate I could picture political science students across Canada making a drinking game of the phrase "too important to get wrong".

The problem is Conservatives are getting it wrong with pooled pension plans and they know it.

For over a decade in Australia the exact same thing was tried and was such a colossal failure that Australian government is in the process of dismantling the program.  The Canadian version of the legislation bill C-25, is so similar to the Australian legislation that the Canadian authors could be accused of plagiarism.

Joy Smith , M.P. Kildonan - St Paul

NDP asked why, knowing the dismal results of the exact same plan in Australia why would the Conservatives want to implement the same thing here?

Conservative MP Joy Smith answered: "This is the first time something like this has been tried in Canada."  

Flawed logic aside here is what you need to know:

C-25 places no limits on the fees institutions can charge for administering pensions. In Australia this resulted in fees so high that any returns were being negated! In other words, stuffing your mattress would be an equally effective retirement strategy since after paying administrative fees you would basically break even.

C-25 places 100% of the risk and burden on the employees participating. The employer is not required to make any contributions and there is no guarantee of benefits at the time of retirement. (That mattress is looking more and more attractive.)

Businesses are on board because they bear no responsibility. (The Conservative talking point "low-cost plan" is referring to the employers.)

Conservative MP after MP got up yesterday and talked about how financial institutions and insurance companies called this scheme "an excellent opportunity" Given the Bill C-25 is giving them carte blanche on the fees they can charge for management and administration -- What else would they say? No one would argue, C-25 is an excellent opportunity for banks and insurance companies to make money at the expense of the plan members.

 If the Conservatives believe retirement security then following failed schemes and limiting debate are not the way to achieve this goal.  Because pension and retirement security are indeed too important to get wrong.

Government to hurry debate on pooled pension plan - Politics - CBC News:

The Harper government, Ethical Oil and Sun Media connection - rabble.ca

What do EthicalOil.org, OurDecision.ca, JasonKenney.ca, JoeOliver.ca, GoNewclear.com, the original SunTVNews.ca website, Amerians4OPEC.com, Wildrosecaucus.ca, RichardDur.ca, CalgaryWard14.ca, Cummins4BC.ca, CorrieAdolph.com, HeatherForsyth.com, PaulHinman.ca, PierreMP.ca, and DriveOutTheTax.com have in common?

Developers have their bag of reusable tricks to make coding efficient. In this case, all of these sites use precisely the same CSS reset -- same elements, same formatting, down to the character. Many sites will use something similar to this one, but this is exact. It's even used on Newclear's own custom home page. It is highly likely the same developer did all these sites.

The One-For-One Rule an Over-Simplified Approach to Regulations

President of the Treasury Board Minister Tony Clement

Minister Tony Clement's released their new One-For-One rule on Jan 18th.  Put simply the press release is announcing that the federal government plans to treat regulations like trading cards.

This means that regulators will be required to remove at least one regulation each time they introduce a new one that imposes administrative burden on business. 

I understand that Minister Clement is trying to "reduce red tape" but this over simplified approach is not the way to go.  Minister Clement is assuring that with this rule Canadian standards will never increase and may even potentially decrease.  Regulations are imposed on finance, environment and health to ensure the safety of the public whether it be safeguarding their retirement savings or inspecting the quality of their food.

Minister Clement from his letter, views regulations as simply burdens on business and nothing else.  In fact he makes no mention of the importance of regulations at all.  Regulations are put in place after much thought and consideration by regulators and forcing regulators to remove one of these important regulations in order to add a new one that has now become necessary due to more information available or a change in a situation is well to put it bluntly - stupid.

Treasury Board  Press Release Jan 18, 2012
Playing with Fire - When Political Ideology Costs Lives

Backlogged by Design?

It is an old tried and tested political trick.  If you want to look like a hero, break something while no one is looking... fix it and then take all the credit.  If that statement has you scratching your head consider the case of Service Canada.

The offices are already dismally understaffed and unable to keep up with the demand of Employment Insurance (EI) claims.  There is a perpetual back-log and many unemployed people are forced to wait over a month to claim the insurance benefits they paid the Federal Government to provide.  Add to that many Canadians are only one or two pay cheques from poverty and there are definite problems that need to be addressed.

Many would say that the system is already broken, but unfortunately for the unemployed in particular it's not broken enough.  In order to pack a political punch things must be at crisis levels.  Enter the Federal Governments decision to reduce the number of offices processing EI claims from 120 to 20 nationally.  Yup 20 and I did say nationally.

The Government is claiming that new found efficiencies will compensate for slashing the Employment Insurance unit by over 80%.  That is quite a claim!

A closer look at how the cuts are being implemented brings a few more questions to mind.  Of the claim processing centres that will be spared more than half of them will be in Conservative Ridings. (always dance with the one that brought you)

In Quebec at least three processing centres in NDP ridings (Sept-Îles, Rimouski and New Richmond) are seeing their jobs transferred to the riding of Megantic L'Erable — which belongs to Industry Minister Christian Paradis. CBC

 Now all that is left to do is sit back and wait for the crisis to hit so in three years time you can fix it and everybody will love you... just in time for the polls to open.

The Myth of the Greedy Union Thug

I can't help but notice how Stephen Harper and his Members of Parliament have been running rough shot over unionized  workers lately.  There have been several instances of the Federal Government abusing its powers to interfere with collective bargaining.  In the case of Canada Post, Harper and friends went so far as to legislate workers back to work with LESS money than the employer's final offer would have given them.  Was this a punishment for asserting their right to strike?  That can't be said for sure but the optics are bad.

On more than one occasion, during the parliamentary debate on the back to work legislation, the Members of Parliament from the Conservative Party of Canada referred to the striking members of Canada Post as "Union Thugs".  That's right, it is part of the public record that the governing party of Canada believes that anyone belonging to or supporting a union is a "Thug".

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary a thug is defined as "a brutal ruffian or assassin".  Who would have thought that your local mailman was so dangerous?  That got me thinking, who else would the Conservatives consider Thugs due to their association with unions. And the answer would be surprize you. School teachers, flight attendants, pilots, public transit drivers, nurses and some daycare workers are just a few that make the list of union "Thugs".  If you were to listen to the Federal Conservative Party we should fear sending our children to school or seeking medical attention at our local hospital.  Of course this is just ludicrous, ruffians and assassins would not be hired to these positions and if they did manage to make it past the interview they would not last long in the job.

The Conservatives ares liabling large groups of everyday people for nothing more then having an organization negotiate their employment contract and withdrawing their services in the event that an agreement is not reached.

Maybe they are hoping that by stating the myth in the House of Commons as if it were fact will keep non-unionized workers afraid of unions.  The reality is that unionized workers are not over-paid.  Non-unionized workers are actually under-paid because a group has a better negotiating position than an individual. Case closed.  If the fear of unions was eliminated there would be nothing preventing workers from making the very practical decision to form more unions and negotiate better working conditions and wages for themselves.

Top Canadian CEOs making Average Canadian's yearly salary by Noon, says study

By noon today, Canada's top CEO's will have made what most Canadians take an entire year to earn.
The current Canadian Government is paying that same rate $90,000 per day to look at ways to eliminate public sector jobs.  Jobs that the 99% depend on to provide services like food inspection, environmental research, Canadian Pension Plan, Old Age Security and EI Claims processing etc...
Quietly and while people are not paying attention instead of improving Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits the government is raising the age at which an individual can claim full benefits. People waiting to the age of 70 to receive their CPP will receive 42% more than those that start receiving at 65.

Top Canadian CEOs making year's salary in half-day, says study

Don't Confuse me with the Facts I'm Trying to Run a Country

What does the Conservative Party of Canada have against facts?  What is so wrong with empirical data? Are questions I would love to ask our Prime Minister.

It started last year by downgrading our national census, the government's most reliable way to know the make up of Canada's demographics and major planning tool.  Nope lets scrap that for a survey that is less reliable because it is optional and will only be answered by people who like to take surveys.  All of the experts on data gathering spoke out publicly saying that this was ludicrous but the Conservatives said too bad we're the government and we can do what we want.

Then there was the crime bill.  It is harder to find an expert that agrees with this bill than disagrees.  Every major organization that deals with crime from law enforcement on down told this government that this bill was on the wrong track... but the Conservatives said we're in power too bad.

Most recently, the government has started laying off scientists at the National Research Council of Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.  I can only guess that this is because science disagrees with the Conservative position on climate change and the environment.  Mr. Harper has already pulled us out of the Kyoto Accord.  The government has publicly stated that science that has commercial implications is more important to them and are the projects that will get funded.  Science that protects our environment does not align well with the development of the tar sands.


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Courage in the face of Despair - I'm Voting for the Social Economy

While the Liberals and Conservatives spout on about how well each has handled Canada's financial economy they are both equally guilty of ignoring Canada's social economy.

What is the social economy?  Well it is wide range of community, voluntary and not-for-profit activities. The social economy has a distinct and valuable role to play in helping create a strong, sustainable, prosperous and inclusive society.

Successful social economy organisations can play an important role in helping deliver many key governmental policy objectives by:

• helping to drive up productivity and competitiveness;
• contributing to socially inclusive wealth creation;
• enabling individuals and communities to work towards regenerating their local neighbourhoods;
• showing new ways to deliver public services; and
• helping to develop an inclusive society and active citizenship.

The governments of the last couple of decades have bee systematically choking this economy by cutting funding.  And the Conservative government under Stephen Harper has increased the rate and depth of these cuts at an alarming rate.

The Conservative party sees no value in the social economy as demonstrated by their actions.  The Liberal party talks about social programs while campaigning but treat them as luxuries rather then essential to maintaining the Canadian standard of living.  And then there are the NDP, they have often been described as the conscience of the House of Commons.  Fighting continually to preserve the and enhance the government services and programs that benefit the 98.5% of Canadian society that is not independently wealthy.  Unfortunately due to their lack of numbers the House of Commons' conscience is often ignored.

For too long the NDP have been treated like children by the Conservatives and Liberals.  The reds and the blues pat the NDP on the head and tell them and the Canadian people "That just the way things are."  "That's the way things have to be"  The people that believe this myth feel powerless and some of  them stop voting.  Result: More of the same.

Liberals and Conservatives say the NDP will never win an election.  Repeating that phrase over and over until even the people who vote NDP believe it to be true.  Some more progressive people either change their vote or stop voting.
Result: More of the same.

Let's hope that this time something different happens.  That people will have the courage to try for change even if they think it will never happen.  Apathy it the status quo's best friend.

CBC News - Politics - WikiLeaks founder calls for Flanagan charge

Tom Flanagan says he regrets saying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be assassinated for his organization's publication of secret U.S. diplomatic cables. (CBC)

Mr. Flanagan committed a crime by going on television and encouraging the assassination of Mr. Assange. Canada is a just society that is governed by laws and if he is not charged with a crime it will be saying to the world that Canadian officials agree with his remarks. Especially considering his close relationship with the Prime Minister.

CBC News - Politics - WikiLeaks founder calls for Flanagan charge