Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Monday, December 30, 2019
It is not about honesty for the CPC it is about selfishness and the elite
A party seeking increased respect for donor funds and public money surely wouldn’t turn next to one of two former premiers who took extra income from party funds while actually holding power. Nor a former cabinet minister notorious for using a search-and-rescue helicopter for a fishing trip, then enlisting the military in a cover-up. Or even a former prime minister currently leveraging his political connections into a consulting contract from Saskatchewan’s public purse.
Yet those have been among the first possibilities put forward to succeed Scheer, with little apparent pushback. And it’s hard to dispute that in some sense, their resumes — particularly when linked to the exercise of power in the interest of the privileged — are entirely suited to the position.
The Conservative Party of Canada fits neatly within the definition of a modern conservative provided by John Kenneth Galbraith: it’s dedicated to the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. (Or alternatively, the search for a political message which will induce the public to accept selfishness as the basis for governance.)
It then follows that Scheer was ousted not for betraying his party’s values, but for fully embodying them. And we shouldn’t let a moment of performative outrage in the course of an internal power struggle distract us from the form Canadian conservatism has taken.
Fingas: Scheer resignation came with some explanation
During the Conservatives’ leadership campaign, Scheer was identified as spending the most money to run his MP office of any candidate.
After this fall’s federal election failed to produce any clear winners or losers, it came as a surprise when Andrew Scheer resigned from the Conservative leadership this month.
The "Hemp-mobile" built by Henry Ford
Henry Ford Built a Hemp Car That Ran on Hemp Fuel 80 Years Ago
Henry Ford built a car out of hemp plastic that ran on hemp fuel almost a century ago. Why aren’t we driving it today?
A year ago, Jay Leno featured a story about “the world’s first carbon-negative car” made of hemp plastic. The body of the car is lighter than fiberglass, ten times stronger than steel and can run on recycled agricultural waste:
Henry Ford built a car out of hemp plastic that ran on hemp fuel almost a century ago. Why aren’t we driving it today?
A year ago, Jay Leno featured a story about “the world’s first carbon-negative car” made of hemp plastic. The body of the car is lighter than fiberglass, ten times stronger than steel and can run on recycled agricultural waste:
“The ultimate goal Jay is to introduce the world’s first carbon-negative vehicle, and the key to that is going back to what Henry Ford advocated back in 1941, and that’s the idea to make everything you possibly can, including your fuels, out of plant material,” investor Bruce Dietzen says.
The carbon footprint of manufacturing a standard car is 10 tons. Because hemp sequesters carbon, the cars would be at least carbon-neutral, he reasons.
While Ford’s car wasn’t made entirely of hemp, it was one of the several plant ingredients in his 1941 bio-plastic Model T, and definitely the ingredient that made it tougher than steel:
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Friday, December 27, 2019
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Wayne Kobuke - go fund me
Hi Bob. This was on CTV news Monday night. A lot of people will remember him living on Springfield ave & going to Royal George. Hope you have a full recovery Wayne
If you can please help Wayne and his family in their trying time
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
On December 23rd Nicole B. of Greenfield Park Quebec turned 104
Belated Happy Birthday Nicole - Merry Christmas
CONGRATULATIONS
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
A big Thank You to Lance N. for this
Montreal / Greenfield Park from Space ! Spectacular and Lovely to Behold !
Happy Winter Solstice ; Greenfield Park / Montreal and Beyond !
The Aurora, Seasons and approaching or receding Terminators are all visible !
This morning I have added two of Yesterday Morning's Environment Canada : Goes-16 Satellite views, (see 2 last Post photo entries) where you can see the Terminator separating the Day and night pass over Montreal (Real Close) views in real color !
If you go to Environment Canada (see link ; url address below in this header description) and scroll down to their Goes-16 Satellite views, where you can see the Terminator separating Day and night pass over Montreal in incrementally, timed views in real color !
Monday, December 23, 2019
This applies equally to Canada as we saw it developing under Harper, Ford, Kenney and Pallister
What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?
Philip E. Agre
August 2004
Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to
conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again,
liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and
what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions
are also simple:
Q: What is conservatism?These ideas are not new. Indeed they were common sense until recently. Nowadays, though, most of the people who call themselves "conservatives" have little notion of what conservatism even is. They have been deceived by one of the great public relations campaigns of human history. Only by analyzing this deception will it become possible to revive democracy in the United States.
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy. Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.
More https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html?fbclid=IwAR133xIycq-d_qy2b4sAzW7ZtonJlUpmm_rn0lyGS9CFO5an_32qeHcYSaM
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Friday, December 20, 2019
Best read in months
What Working-class and Poor White People Need to Understand About Rich White People
Must read https://medium.com/@jonnaivin/what-working-class-and-poor-white-people-need-to-understand-about-rich-white-people-44157a370c8f?
Rich people do not care about you.
No, I’m not talking about your cousin who drives a Mercedes, has his own insurance business, and always picks up the tab when you go out for beers. I’m talking about super-rich people: the Walton family, the Koch brothers and, yes, the Trumps. I’m talking about people who continue to make money off the backs of the poor while convincing those same people to remain loyal no matter what. But the truth is they are never going to share or trickle down their money to you — regardless of how white you are, how loyal you are, or how much you support their companies or their politicians.
When a family like the Waltons, worth over $50 billion — that’s billion with a “b” — are fine knowing their employees are collecting food stamps to survive and they do nothing about it, that speaks volumes. It says loud and clear: I don’t fucking care about you!
When Donald Trump was willing to close down and bankrupt multiple small businesses because he couldn’t be bothered to pay his bills, all while living in a gilded penthouse and flying around New York City in a helicopter, that screamed: I don’t fucking care about you!
Must read https://medium.com/@jonnaivin/what-working-class-and-poor-white-people-need-to-understand-about-rich-white-people-44157a370c8f?
Why I have not posted lately
I appreciate all my followers and feel I have let you down over the past several months. While my health is generally good it is my eyesight that is failing my you se I have AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration) and it has progressed.
AMD is a degenerative disease that affects mainly Caucasians and while more common in females it does affect males as well. There are two types dry, which I have and wet which is more progressive and the vleading cause of legal blindness in those of us in a certain age bracket.
At the present time I am able to read black on white but have difficulty focusing on certain types of script or colour on colour like a Canadian Tire flyer gives me extreme difficulty also son font sizes are harder to read.
Light also is a hindrance especially sunlight. Riding my bike at certain times of the day is difficult and quite dangerous as looking in the direction of the sun blinds me even when wearing dark sunglasses over my tinted eyeglasses.
Life's a bitch but it is better than the alternative.
I hate searching for the cursor and get frustrated and angry at th f'cking thing but other than that all is good.
AMD is a degenerative disease that affects mainly Caucasians and while more common in females it does affect males as well. There are two types dry, which I have and wet which is more progressive and the vleading cause of legal blindness in those of us in a certain age bracket.
At the present time I am able to read black on white but have difficulty focusing on certain types of script or colour on colour like a Canadian Tire flyer gives me extreme difficulty also son font sizes are harder to read.
Light also is a hindrance especially sunlight. Riding my bike at certain times of the day is difficult and quite dangerous as looking in the direction of the sun blinds me even when wearing dark sunglasses over my tinted eyeglasses.
Life's a bitch but it is better than the alternative.
I hate searching for the cursor and get frustrated and angry at th f'cking thing but other than that all is good.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Monday, December 9, 2019
You can send a conservative to Ottawa but you can't civilize them
MONTREAL—It is not just Andrew Scheer or the federal Conservatives who took a hit when the party snatched defeat from the jaws of a plausible victory in October.
Their provincial allies in Alberta, New Brunswick and Ontario all need to rebuild bridges at home and across the country.
In light of the avalanche of criticism that has been piling up on Scheer, one might forget that he was not the sole architect of his campaign’s strategy.
A gaggle of Conservative premiers cheered their federal leader every inch of the way as he declared war on the Liberal climate change policy and promised to lead a decisively pro-pipeline federal government.
And while Scheer’s performance on the campaign trail was undeniably underwhelming, there is plenty of evidence that the message — as approved and amplified at every opportunity by his provincial allies — was rejected along with the federal messenger.
In Ontario and New Brunswick, two thirds voted for parties committed to more aggressive climate change policies — including carbon pricing.
In Alberta, there are signs that Jason Kenney has milked just about every drop of political capital he could get out of bashing Justin Trudeau.
The province’s voters are increasingly turning their eye to other aspects of his government’s policies.
As the current provincial class is discovering, picking fights with Ottawa tends to bring in diminishing returns — especially when one’s federal counterpart has just secured re-election.
Based on a Léger poll done for Canadian Press in the lead-up to Monday’s gathering of the premiers in Toronto, a majority of their own electorate disapprove of the performances of three of the prime minister’s most vocal provincial critics.
These days, Ontario’s Doug Ford, Alberta’s Jason Kenney and New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs all have in common an approval rating that falls short of 50 per cent.
By comparison, majorities in Quebec and British Columbia approve of François Legault and John Horgan’s performances. It is not a coincidence that both happen to support carbon pricing and oppose new pipeline developments.
For the sake of comparison, Legault currently enjoys the highest provincial approval rating at 65 per cent, while Ford sits at the other end of the scale. The gap between the domestic popularity of the Quebec and Ontario premiers has rarely been so wide.
By all indications, the federal election turned the provincial table on the pro-pipeline, anti-carbon pricing premiers.
The battle lost at the federal level will not be refought successfully on the interprovincial battlefield, or at least not on the same terms.
At the same time, though, voters administered Trudeau a lesson in humility, reducing his party to a minority government with a smaller share of the popular vote than the runner-up.
In the aftermath of the federal vote, Higgs abandoned plans to lead a provincial challenge to Trudeau’s carbon tax and set out to implement a carbon-pricing scheme of his own.
Ford has been recasting himself in the more traditional Ontario role of power broker.
That amounts to a belated admission that a permanent state of war between Ottawa and Queen’s Park will not offer the premier the best path to reelection in 2022.
At this juncture, Ford is significantly less popular than Trudeau in Ontario. The difference is not exclusively grounded in personalities. Policy — including on climate change — is part of the mix.
From Kenney’s perspective, the appointment of Chrystia Freeland as Trudeau’s unity minister offered an opportunity to tone down his rhetoric.
Her first meetings with the Prairie premiers resulted in a notable change of tone in the dialogue between Ottawa and the political elites of the region.
That was followed on the occasion of Monday’s Council of the Federation gathering by a deliberate collective shift to a more consensual agenda.
By common agreement, the premiers focused on potential common ground rather than on the issues that will continue to divide them.
As is par for the course in the federation, that ground tends to be found on the field of grievances against Ottawa.
Still, the premiers did manage to set aside their competing interests long enough to give pride of place in their communiqué to the demand from Saskatchewan and Alberta for a better fiscal deal to see those provinces through challenging economic times. That allowed Kenney and Premier Scott Moe to claim the win they needed.
The communiqué also committed the provinces to “continuing to develop resources in a responsible manner and ensure access to markets for Canada’s product,” wording that involved a fair amount of papering over of differences.
It is always easier for one level of government to call on another to spend. Notwithstanding Monday’s rare unanimous outcome, harmony will not break out tomorrow on the federal-provincial front. It never really does.
But it is possible that the humbling results of the Oct. 21 election will lead to a more constructive conversation than the federal-provincial screaming match that preceded the vote.
Chantal Hébert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert
Sunday, December 8, 2019
CANADA’S CHOICE
Canada is the 10th largest economy in the world, with a fraction of the other economies’ populations. We can build whatever kind of world we want. Pharmacare? Child care/early childhood education? Dental care? Post-secondary education? Housing? Public transit? Legal aid? Access to high speed internet? Basic income? We can improve any dimension of our lives we choose.
What we can’t do, if we want to see continued improvement in the quality of life for most people, is continue to focus on tax cuts. That includes failing to enforce existing tax rules, and turning a blind eye to tax avoidance.
Tax cuts are often sold as the best thing that politicians can do to put “more money in your pocket”. Two things are misleading about that framing:
1) The people who most need more money in their pockets are the least likely to be helped by tax cuts. A third of Canadian tax-filers didn’t have enough income to pay income taxes in 2016 (37% of women, and 27% of men). Tax cuts can be designed to go to the poorest, but in Canada they’ve tended to most benefit the most affluent over the past 25 years, because the most affluent pay the most taxes.
2) “More money in your pocket” may mean you have more purchasing power, but you still can’t buy something that doesn’t exist. Tax cuts don’t create one single new child care space in a high-quality early learning centre. They don’t add new streetcars, buses or subway cars to congested systems. They don’t build or renovate a single new unit of affordable housing.
2) “More money in your pocket” may mean you have more purchasing power, but you still can’t buy something that doesn’t exist. Tax cuts don’t create one single new child care space in a high-quality early learning centre. They don’t add new streetcars, buses or subway cars to congested systems. They don’t build or renovate a single new unit of affordable housing.
Not cutting taxes, and collecting taxes that are owed, makes it easier to expand public programs like pharmacare, dental care, child care, housing, public transit, all of which improve affordable access to high quality services that are basic to the quality of life. That puts more money in your pocket too, because if you are paying less for child care, more money is freed up to spend on other things. More importantly, improved access to key services that improve the quality of life means more people can optimize their contributions to the economy. Healthier, more educated, more connected societies deliver better economic performance. More growth. Better lives, individually and collectively.
It drives me crazy when politicians promise to keep your taxes low, freeze them, or cut them, as if that’s a good thing. What the tax cut agenda is really saying is “you can’t have more, you can’t have better”. It’s framed as being about choice: you are bound to make better choices about how to spend your money than the government. But you can’t choose to buy things that markets don’t create: affordable housing, childcare, good transit etc.
Politicians who offer tax cuts as the centrepiece of their platform don’t want you to think too far ahead on the logical consequence of their promises, because they are going to give you less than what is currently possible. What happens if revenues don’t grow, or even fall because of bad economic times and lower rates? Inflation and maintenance costs will mean you get less quality and less quantity of public service. These days, tax cuts are a recipe for collective decline, dressed up in individual liberty. It’s an empty promise that should be challenged at every election, at the city, provincial or federal level.
Personally, I’d prefer to pay more and improve things while the going is relatively easy, because things are going to get a lot harder and more expensive to improve in a few years. Still, I’m totally OK if the democratic decision is that people don’t want to raise taxes and make things better. But we absolutely need to escape this fiscal fantasy that we can improve things, or even maintain them, while paying less in taxes. And if we don’t pay more, nothing improves. Even hanging on to what we’ve got is not going to come cheap. For most of the past 70 years, economic growth delivered more revenues without the need for raising rates of taxation. In fact, we’ve seen dramatic cuts in tax rates over the past three decades but growth offset the hit that public revenues could have faced. Now, a slowing global economy due to population aging, escalating trade disputes, and more extreme climate events means growth isn’t the reliable secret sauce it used to be. The audience for tax hikes may be small, but the majority will soon realize tax cuts are not a 21st century solution to any of the problems we’re wrestling with.
Repeat after me: Canada is the 10th largest economy in the world, with a fraction of the population. We can create any type of society we want. Whatever we choose to do, we’ll pay for it: through paying more taxes or through demands for more “money in our pockets” that lead to accomplishing less, individually or as a society. That’s the choice in front of us. What’s your choice?
This entry was adapted from a Twitter thread by Armine Yalnizyan from April 21, 2018
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Friday, November 29, 2019
Thursday, November 28, 2019
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