While this New Brunswick town thinks about banning deer-feeding, can we please think about a goose/seagull/squirrel-feeding ban here in Toronto? Thanks.
Tag-Archive for » politics «
27
Jul 2010
Category: That all men may know His works
Tags: flora and fauna, natural sciences, politics Comments off
24
Jul 2010
I am a little torn about making the long-form census voluntary. From a statistical perspective, it is always better to have accurate data with varying levels of granularity; making the long form voluntary would seem to make that less likely.
But then Statistics Canada has admitted in the past that it does not enforce the mandatory census provisions equally. If you live on a First Nations reserve you can ignore the census with impunity and the authorities will not seek legal recourse. If you live off a reserve, you roll the dice and you take your chances:
Thousands of natives across Canada refused to complete the 2006 census – including the Six Nations in Ontario – and will not face any legal consequences, despite the fact that 64 people not living on reserves were charged under the Statistics Act.
…The maximum penalty for not completing the census is a $500 fine and three months in prison. Of the 64 charged, nearly all decided to complete it rather than go to court.
Some 35,000 people living on reserves refused to complete the census, [director general of the census program Anil] Arora said. As a courtesy, Statistics Canada seeks permission from the band office before entering the reserve, although it isn’t legally obligated to do so. The census isn’t mailed out to reserves, because many still use a P.O. box system, which means census takers can’t verify addresses, Arora said.
– Doolittle, Robyn. “No charges sought for 35,000 natives who ignore census.” Toronto Star, 15 January 2008.
Seems to me that if the supposedly mandatory census is not actually mandatory (the key variables being one’s ethnic background and place of residence), then Stats Can’s past practice has rendered it de facto voluntary. You might even say that the government is merely seeking to extend the same courtesy to all Canadians.
I would be interested in finding out why Stats Can chooses to ignore 35,000 holdouts, but goes after a specific set of 64. The reason given in the article is that native participation has always been poor, and they are worried about curbing the increasing First Nations compliance by charging offenders $500 bucks and throwing them in jail for 3 months. One wonders why the agency doesn’t think these same kid gloves should apply to non-native Canadians.
28
Jun 2010
Toronto’s own Financial Post does some digging and finds out that the Dutch offered considerable oil-containment expertise to US authorities in the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon accident, but were turned down because it wasn’t a perfect fit.
Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. “Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour,” Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.
…The U.S. government responded with “Thanks but no thanks,” remarked Visser, despite BP’s desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer –the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge.
Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.
– Solomon, Lawrence. “Avertible catastrophe.” Financial Post, 26 June 2010.
Desperate times require desperate measures; something that bureaucracies, in general, are not too adept at handling.
24
Jun 2010
The director of CSIS claims that cabinet ministers and municipal officials in two provinces are under the influence of foreign govenrments.
“We’re in fact a bit worried in a couple of provinces that we have an indication that there’s some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries,” Fadden said.
“The individual becomes in a position to make decisions that affect the country or the province or a municipality. All of a sudden, decisions aren’t taken on the basis of the public good but on the basis of another country’s preoccupations.”
“There are several municipal politicians in British Columbia and in at least two provinces there are ministers of the Crown who we think are under at least the general influence of a foreign government.”
– “Some politicians under foreign sway: CSIS.” CBC News, 23 June 2010. [Emphasis mine]
The director went on to say that he was in discussions with the Privy Council Office to determine what future action might be taken.
The wise will know that foreign influence of government officials is not a new phenomena; every country on the planet seeks to influence others—overtly or covertly—in order to advance its national interests. No nation—and especially not a relatively wealthy Western one—is immune to such treatment. Part of the role of any nation’s security intelligence apparatus is to monitor such activity and, if it seems like it may present a danger to the governance of the nation, to bring it to the attention of higher authorities (and eventually law enforcement) so that the damage may be contained and those responsible may be prosecuted.
It is odd, then, to see the director backpedal two days later and reveal that he did not think the matter serious enough to bring to the attention of the federal government.
The statement by Richard Fadden, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, followed an uproar over comments he made in a CBC interview broadcast on Tuesday night.
“I have not apprised the Privy Council Office of the cases I mentioned in the interview on CBC. At this point, CSIS has not deemed the cases to be of sufficient concern to bring them to the attention of provincial authorities,” the written statement says.
– Bell, Stewart. “CSIS head did not warn Ottawa of spy infiltration.” National Post, 24 June 2010. [Emphasis mine]
First, the director stated an untruth on national television—he had not, in fact, informed the PCO. And that omission was because his agency did not consider the degree of influence to be great enough to be brought to the attention of federal authorities. Which makes one wonder why it’s of sufficient interest to mention to a television audience.
23
Jun 2010
As doutbless everyone knows, General Stanley A. McChrystal, COMISAF, is in hot water over a Rolling Stone article in which he and his staff are breathlessly reported to have mocked Constitutional officer-holders, leading many commentators of greater and lesser stature to speculate that he had denigrated the majesty of the Presidential office, violated the UCMJ, kicked puppies and stolen candy from babies.
I have no particular love nor hatred for the general, but I do hate to see military figures lynched on specious grounds.
You can read the article for yourself; I’ll excerpt the most damning things directly attributed to General McChrystal here. First, he is unhappy about being recommended into a job for which the policymaking principals do not appear to support his methods:
Last fall, with his top general calling for more troops, Obama launched a three-month review to re-evaluate the strategy in Afghanistan. “I found that time painful,” McChrystal tells me in one of several lengthy interviews. “I was selling an unsellable position.” For the general, it was a crash course in Beltway politics – a battle that pitted him against experienced Washington insiders like Vice President Biden, who argued that a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan would plunge America into a military quagmire without weakening international terrorist networks.
– Hastings, Michael. “The Runaway General.” Rolling Stone, 22 June 2010.
Not exactly damning stuff. The worst thing McChrystal does in the entire article is imagine waving off a question from the vice president at a Paris dinner party, regarding a prior disagreement with the VP about strategy.
Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. “I never know what’s going to pop out until I’m up there, that’s the problem,” he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.
“Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” McChrystal says with a laugh. “Who’s that?”
“Biden?” suggests a top adviser. “Did you say: Bite Me?”
So all of the hand-waving we see in the press and electronic media is really predicated on those two instances. Yes, there are plenty of worse things said in that article, but none of them can be attributed directly to General McChrystal. They are instead attributed to his staff. Broadly speaking a commander is responsible for the conduct of his subordinates, yes, but if a lesser rank commits treason or murder, the commander is not automatically guilty of same. His offence is most likely a failure of command—whether that is failure to provide sufficient discipline and leadership, or a failure to recognise a dangerously corrosive situation and take steps to remedy it.
Now, allowing one’s staff to mock the great officers of state and speak impertinently about State Department officials in the AOR is not fine and dandy, either. At the very least General McChrystal should have rebuked or reprimanded them, and reminded said officers that they were in the presence of the press. Some things you can say over drinks in the officers’ club, but those are not—generally—things you want to appear on the front page of the New York Times. The sin lies not in saying them, but in saying them indiscreetly and to the wrong audience.
If the general is guilty of a crime, it is dereliction of duty by permitting his staff to verbally run roughshod over the civilian administration. That is miles away from the hysterical media coverage that has been provided thus far. This is not Truman versus MacArthur, where a general specifically went and made public statements at odds with the policy prescriptions of the President. MacArthur was insubordinate (announcing a strategy that was in fact opposed by the White House) and in his arrogance, challenged a key principle of civil governance; McChrystal was negligent; nowhere in that article does he utter a policy at odds with that of his masters in Washington.
They are both firing offences, but there is a world of difference between them. Enough of the hyperventilating comparisons.
RELATED: A poll at milblog Neptunus Lex, with unsurprising results.
ALSO RELATED: Jay Currie, Ben and Skippy Stalin want to see McChrystal get the boot.
BUT THAT’S DIFFERENT: Of course nobody remembers General Eric Shinseki’s public falling out with SecDef Rumsfeld during the 2003 run-up to the Iraq War. Funny how Shinseki wasn’t compelled to make obeisance to his political masters then.
12
Apr 2010
Sometimes they turn out to be a boon, even if they came there to heckle you.
31
Mar 2010
Minister of State (Status of Women) Helena Guergis arrives to appear as a witness at a at commons status of women committee meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday March 15, 2010. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
So, the Hon. Helena Guergis, PC, MP is rude and has clownish would-be puppeteers on her staff.
Dump her, please.
You could always dual-hat someone else with a small portfolio. Oda, Ablonczy or Yelich, for example.
31
Mar 2010
Len, 767 captain and author of Views From The Left Seat, has crafted a pair of posts that amply illustrate some of the problems with Haiti’s aviation infrastructure. Haiti’s weak national government and longstanding social malaise are well-known and well-documented, but it is informative to see that the lack of rigour extends even into the highly disciplined arenas of air traffic control and airside management.
The first, written on December 4th, 2009 (before the earthquake) paints a picture of what we in North America might generously call “relaxed” operational and security discipline.
The climb up to FL 370 was uneventful. 600 miles later and approaching Haitian airspace, we said “goodbye” to Miami Center and gave Port Au Prince Control a call.
No response.
Five more calls and they finally answered. Had they not answered we would have been forced to hold at the boundary of their airspace. Glad they answered since we had a small thunderstorm to contend with right along our route.
While descending, we passed an opposite direction outbound airliner 1000 ft below us and wondered why we weren’t advised? A call to Approach Control about that went unanswered.
…We parked, set the brakes and once the ground crew had positioned the boarding stairs, the cabin crew opened two cabin doors. Out flooded the passengers onto the ramp with wild abandon! They all knew where to go but it was almost comical to see so many unattended people on an airline ramp with absolutely no security concerns whatsoever!
– Len. “Third World Operations.” Views From The Left Seat, 4 December 2009. [Emphases are mine]
The second post, written on March 20th, 2010, illustrates what air traffic control services were like after the quake—and after Haiti’s own controllers took over from the combat controller services provided by the US Air Force.
It was business as usual until we had to switch over to Port-au-Prince tower.
Descending in, we were cleared for an ILS to runway 10 with a circle to land on runway 28. But we were only given a clearance to descend to 5000 ft and to report inbound on the ILS. OK fine…So we continued on in and reported inbound but the controller was apparently too busy or distracted to hear us. We kept calling until he finally answered us and asked where we were? “We’re overhead the field at 5000 ft” was our answer! He seemed surprised and promptly cleared us back to the initial approach fix and gave us instructions to hold and await further clearance.
20 minutes later he cleared us for the same approach and for us to call the field in sight and to enter a downwind for runway 28. So we did all that and set up for the landing. Meanwhile he cleared a Canadian Air Force C-17 to back-taxi for takeoff on runway 28. As we turned final, the tower amended the C-17′s enroute clearance which resulted in them not being ready for takeoff. With us now on short final and the C-17 still on the runway, we had to execute a go-around and get back in the pattern.
So now we’re back on final and the tower has cleared the C-17 for takeoff. It all was looking good until the C-17 aborted their takeoff with some sort of mechanical issue. We had no choice….another go-around!! We broke off to the right and started a climb. Just then we received a traffic alert on our TCAS with instructions to “CLIMB, CLIMB”. I looked out and saw a Cessna Caravan doing a steep turn to avoid us as we were climbing and turning in the other direction. That was close!
We asked the tower for instructions and all he could tell us was “go hold east of the airport somewhere”. He was completely flustered and not in control of his airspace. Now a clearance like that in the real world is just unheard of! We were clearly on our own this day.
After several minutes of us circling low over the city, he told us to come on in and land. By then we had lost sight of the airport so we had to rely on some basic VFR skills and dead reckoning to re-acquire the airport.
– Len. “Port-au-Prince (After The Quake).” Views From The Left Seat, 20 March 2010. [Emphases are mine]
Now to be fair, aircraft convergence conflicts are not entirely uncommon. Close calls with little (or not forceful enough) warning from air traffic controllers can happen anywhere—in fact a similar incident involving a United Boeing 777 and an Aeronca 11AC occurred near KSFO on Saturday. Planes travel at hundreds of miles an hour, so you may have only seconds to identify that little dot at your 11 o clock before it ends up in your lap. This is why large aircraft have onboard radar and TCAS systems, and smaller “pocket” versions (using transponder signals) are available for GA pilots.
The more worrisome aspect is that the controllers (before the quake) were lackadaisical about answering calls from aircraft; this says something unkind about their professionalism even under ideal circumstances. In the “after the quake” situation, the controller got overwhelmed, lost the picture, and did not give proper radar vectors (i.e. “turn left heading 060, maintain 8,000, follow published missed approach procedure and hold”). That could have had disastrous and fatal results, especially if the converging aircraft lacked TCAS equipment. Fortunately, Len survived to blog about it; not every pilot is so lucky.
The problem isn’t just that Haiti has lax standards, or even lax enforcement of rigorous standards (whether in aviation, building codes, or otherwise). As Publius at Gods of the Copybook Headings pointed out some months ago, Haiti had no economy to speak of, even before the quake. It is the poorest country in the Americas; with GDP per capita running at a paltry USD $1,300—or three and a half bucks per person, per day. Government corruption is rampant, which lead the United States (among others) to end aid in 2000. The BBC reported in 2004 that “that some 70% of assistance [to Haiti] found its way into the pockets of corrupt officials”. It’s important to note that without foreign aid, the government of Haiti would literally cease to function.
Haitians themselves need to understand how institutionalised corruption (and social tolerance of it) retards their country’s economic and social prospects; if they cannot bring about significant political reform, all the money in the world cannot drag their country out of entropy and into modernity.
RELATED: Robert Kiltgaard of AEI offers a prescription for tackling corruption in Haiti’s government.
29
Mar 2010
…received Royal Assent one hundred and forty-three years ago today.
Although the Act was passed and signed well in advance, Confederation itself was—of course—scheduled to come into force on July 1st, 1867.
24
Mar 2010
‘SOME CHICKEN – SOME NECK!’ MR CHURCHILL AT OTTAWA
(click on image to see British Pathé newsreel)
“The contribution of Canada to the Imperial war effort in troops, in ships, in aircraft, in food, and in finance has been magnificent…
Hitler and his Nazi gang have sown the wind: let them reap the whirlwind…
When I warned them (the French) that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, ‘In three weeks England would have her neck wrung like a chicken.’ Some chicken! Some neck.”
– Churchill, Winston S. Address to the Parliament of Canada, 30 December 1941.
CBC Digital Archives has a larger excerpt of the speech.
Chris is most often found flying a desk, but he delights in studying the Golden Age of Aviation (1919-1939). He admires all the pioneering men and women who navigated the skies with nothing more sophisticated than a map, compass and sextant—and the conviction that there was no place they could not reach.
