The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Friday Night - Cosmetics

No Need to Worry...

...the government is looking at the pot:

Canada’s housing market has two good years ahead of it yet, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Monday, with low interest rates and a “moderately” expanding economy keeping price corrections at bay.

The Crown corporation – which insures Canadian mortgages – has had a consistently rosier view of the market than many private sector forecasters.

Canadian banks have recently issued reports probing the consequences of cheap money, and trying to predict whether there is a bubble in prices that will eventually pop and cause prices to crash. They are particularly concerned about Vancouver and Toronto, where some have predicted price corrections of up to 10 per cent because of overbuilding in the condo market.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Spadina Crescent, University of Toronto

It's the End of the Dalt as We Know Him...

...and I feel fine...

After the seven fat years come the seven lean. The government of Dalton McGuinty had a fine old time of it running Ontario the past seven years, dispensing tax credits and subsidies this way and that on the way to three consecutive election victories. Spending increased by 62% overall, about 25% after accounting for increases in prices and population. Now he will have the privilege of rolling most of it back.

As I noted in this space last month, the Dalt's outsourcing of his job to Don Drummond is a low watermark in his government. The Premier could just as easily have tapped any number of public policy experts, including a few in the public service, to have prepared such a report. Looking for needless spending in Ontario's Leviathan government is like trying to find effluent in a water treatment plant.

The point of getting friend Don to draw up his hit sheet was to provide political cover. If the Dalt man's up and makes the cuts he can just say he was following expert advice. If he decides to chicken out and make far more shallow cuts, he can claim  he was being merciful compared to the alternative. Whichever way it gets cut, you can be sure the Dalt is ducking his job as leader.

The one undeniable fact, though it was strenuously denied during last Fall's election campaign, is that the provincial government has spent far too much, for far too long, on too weak an economic base. As Andrew Coyne points out, these are McGuinty's lean years. For any politician making cuts to public spending is very risky. Those sucking on the public teat will complain loudly and do so now. The benefits of fiscal prudence are often diffused across society and into the future.

For the Dalt the next four years will be especially difficult. Having spent eight years running away from making decisions, he is now being forced to make the toughest decision a pol can make: Balancing the books after years of easy spending. A tough and decisive leader might grow into such a challenge. In time he might become seen by the electorate as both practical and compassionate.

That's not our Dalton.

The modern welfare state has generated two types of politicians: Those who promise the sky with other people's money, and those clean up the mess afterwards. There are typically far more of the former than the latter. We can be fairly certain that Dalton McGuinty falls into the former category. Those hoping for a Paul Martin like conversion to fiscal restraint mistake the parallels.

Paulie had the advantage of Papa Jean taking the heat. A street wise politician, Jean Chretien could sell the need for cuts better than Martin. Dwight Duncan is no better a salesman than McGuinty. The fiscal situation was also bleaker in 1993. The Feds had run twenty years of deficits under two different parties. We've had one decade of fiscal mismanagement under one party. 

Forces beyond Queen's Park are not working in the Dalt's favour either. In the mid-1990s interest rates were on a long-term down trend. They're rock bottom at the moment and must go back up. If we're going broke now, imagine how broke we'll be when the Bank of Canada begins hiking rates in two years. Assuming Mark Carney doesn't change his mind sooner. Or the bond market vigilantes decides that Ontario's yields are simply too low.

The latter scenario is still unlikely. Not because of Ontario but because of the Western resource boom. Without the kind, albeit partially coerced, assistance of our friends in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and the relative fiscal sanity of the Feds, we'd be looking far more Greek today. One of the advantages of having an economically diverse federal union is that we can better handle global economic rough patches. The downside is that it allows certain politicians to dither away their terms, letting others carry the load.

During the early lean years of Chretien-Martin should either men, if only for a moment, have been tempted to stray from the straight and narrow, the high-pitched voice of Preston Manning was always there to provide a helpful reminder. Dalton McGuinty has no such fiscal conscience at Queen's Park. The NDP remain blissfully unconcerned with our money woes. The Hudak Tories are AWOL on the vital issues of the day, still running scared from the ghost of Mike Harris.

This leaves the fate of the province on the slender shirking shoulders of the Dalt.

Friends, let us pray.

Thursday Night - Spoons

Wi-Fi Warriors

From CTV:

An Ontario teachers' union is calling for an end to new Wi-Fi setups in the province's 1,400-plus Catholic schools.

The Ontario English Catholic Teacher's Association says computers in all new schools should be hardwired instead of setting up wireless networks.

Do you people still, you know, teach? 

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Knox College, King's College Circle, University of Toronto

The Deadliest Fries

Beware what lurks in your Happy Meal:

Dr. Campbell, a specialist in hypertension and the effects of sodium on it, denied that his idea amounts to nanny-state interference in the marketplace, arguing there is as much or more reason to regulate food as to control highway speed limits or air traffic, government interventions that Canadians tolerate. Some evidence suggests that salt in food alone contributes to 14,000 deaths and 40,000 hospitalizations yearly, he said.

"Why regulate crime? 'Oh, it's a murder, they shouldn't be allowed a second chance.' Well, the food industry kills many thousands more than that murderer ever had a hope of doing."

Ahem. Crime isn't "regulated." There is no Murder Regulation Act of 1978 on the statute books. You regulate something which is legal to sell, but only under certain conditions. It is never legal to murder someone. You might kill in self defence, or during military operations. Murder is an unlawful taking of a life. As we'll see the definition of murder is only the beginning of Dr Campbell's problems with the English language.

About thirty years ago libertarians, the few wandering around back then, bemoaned the emergence of tobacco regulation. How dare government tell people what they can put in their bodies? This is health fascism! What's next? Regulating french fries and potato chips? The problem with pointing out that something can be taken to its logical extreme is that, well, some people might just be crazy enough do it.

Sure it sounds crazy to equate the chaps running Frito-Lay with mass murderers. It also sounded crazy to call Phillip-Morris executives mass murderers thirty years ago. Now it's just an understood part of political and social life. Tobacco companies are modern day merchants of death. Dissent from this orthodoxy and you'll be branded a shill.

I'm hardly arguing that a pack of Marlies-a-day is a healthy lifestyle. But hey as long as you're not smoking anywhere near me I could care less. What's interesting about Dr Campbell's bit of medical fascism is that he doesn't invoke the burden on Medicare argument. This is the tenuous argument that bad food choices burden the taxpayer through socialized health care. The problem for the taxpayer isn't the Doritos part, however, it's the socialized medicine part. Good diets or bad ones, government medicine is bad for your health and pocketbook. 

The good doctor points out that 14,000 deaths annually are related to excess salt consumption. I have no idea where he got those numbers and the weasel word "contributes" should cast a pretty big shadow over that statistic. It would be interesting to see how many deaths in Canada, to say nothing of the needless suffering, can be attributed to our world famous health care waiting lists. I'm guessing that the dead hand of Tommy Douglas is probably far more dangerous than our old friend sodium chloride.

More than nanny statism, or medical fascism, the War on French Fries is really a war on free will. In the above quote Dr Campbell defends regulating salt on the same grounds that governments impose speed limits. The term you are looking for is chutzpah. There is not the slightest equivalence, whatever the good doctor might say, between hurling two tons of metal and plastic down a road at high speed and quietly munching on poutine. The doctor is hoping you won't notice that non sequitur because he's wearing his magic white lab coat. Look at the stethoscope children! It's shinny!

We see here a glimpse into the mind of Dr Campbell, as well as certain sub-regions of the bureaucratic and medical establishment. No longer is government's role to protect you from what other people do to you, but what you do to yourself. Since spelling it out that way would smack of paternalism, the argument is instead twisted into the language of government protecting you from others. It is the job of state to defend its citizens from force, fraud and deep fried goodness.

Having attacked our right to keep government out of the kitchens and fast food joints of the nation, Dr Campbell proceeds to undermine the English language. Peace is war. Freedom is slavery. Me stuffing my face with chocolate is assault and battery on the part of the chocolate companies. Not content with these Orwellian distortions, Dr Campbell also demands that junk food be declared a pathogen.

The Wikipedia definition of pathogen reads:

A pathogen (Greek: πάθος pathos, "suffering, passion" and γενής genēs (-gen) "producer of") or infectious agent - in colloquial terms, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host.

Not seeing sugary goodness anywhere in that definition. Perhaps it's just those slipshod fellows over at Wikipedia. How about the definition in a medical dictionary?

Pathogen: An agent of disease. A disease producer. The term pathogen most commonly is used to refer to infectious organisms. These include bacteria (such as staph), viruses (such as HIV), and fungi (such as yeast). Less commonly, pathogen refers to a noninfectious agent of disease such as a chemical.

I did see yeast there. No caramel chocolate bars though.

Health care fascism cannot be sold to the public honestly. Whatever the failings of modern Canada the general public usually resists overt  infringements on its freedom. It's typically only when a freedom is exercised by a minority, like gun ownership, or its infringement is of long standing, like Medicare, do people acquiesce. 

Instead of telling the Canadian people that they are too stupid to know what to eat, they'll just pretend that salt is like a deadly germ and that Macdonald's is like the Mob. It's an assault on our freedoms, and our language, that is far more deadly than any fast food burger.

Wednesday Night - John Adams

Self Interest

This is controversial?

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson says firing warning shots above an attacker's head can be a reasonable act of self-defence, a remark opposition MPs fear will only encourage vigilante justice in Canada.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae called Nicholson's comments "ridiculous," saying that firing a gun above someone's head is clearly dangerous and shouldn't be encouraged.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

CNE Grounds

As The Dipper Panders

Some provinces are more equal than others:

But inside that province, as NDP leadership candidate and Toronto MP Peggy Nash made clear Sunday, matters are more complicated.

During a debate with fellow contenders in Quebec City, Nash was asked how she would react if the Quebec government decided to charge patients user fees every time they went to a doctor or hospital.

“It’s a provincial decision so it’s the decision of Quebecers,” was her answer.

Had that same question been asked in Toronto about, say, a decision by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to let provinces charge such user fees, I expect the moral outrage from all seven NDP leadership candidates would have been palpable.

Yes but Stephen Harper is evil. You can see it in his eyes. That's why when he says something vaguely conservative, like tinkering with the Old Age Security cut off, we are one step away from federally imposed elder abuse. A Dipper leadership candidate says it's OK if Quebec decides to junk Medicare's essential attribute? Hey, it's about choice. 

This sudden conversion to decentralization and administrative sanity does not herald a new era of common sense among the NDP leadership. Nope. It's just an old fashioned pander to la belle province. The Quebecois are different from you and me. They'll actually consider voting NDP. Thus the kow-tow to the political eccentricities of our least loyal province.

In the ROC Medicare is not a social program, it's a totem of national identity. What it means to be Canadian in modern Canada is the divine right to die on a publicly funded waiting list. Unless you die in a hospital bed, at which point the hospital will nickel and dime your family and estate. Health care is free in Canada until it isn't. Being more myth than reality, however, Medicare is largely immune from direct political attack in English speaking Canada.

The Quebecois are not so emotionally attached to Tommy Douglas' brain child. It's a nice freebie and all, one of many financed through the largess of the less kleptocratic jurisdictions in the country, but it ain't anything special. Quebec is Quebec and the Quebecois are pretty sure of who and what they are. That whole neurotic obsession with national identity is very much a WASP thing. No self respecting Francophone nationalist is going to stay awake at nights wondering how he is different from the Americans.

Freed from the Cult of Medicare the Quebecois can somewhat debate its merits. This is why the Chaoulli case originated from the province. It is also why Jean Charest, among other public figures, have mulled imposing user fees. Eventually Charest backed down, not because his electorate feared this would be the end of Canada as we know it, but because they don't like paying for stuff out of pocket.

The rationale behind user fees is very simple. If you charge people a small upfront fee, they are less likely to overuse the service. To the Left only sick people go to hospitals. This simplistic view suggests that few Leftists go to Emergency Rooms. The places are filled with hypochondriacs, people with mild flu symptoms and sometimes whole families. It's kind of an outing for them. Why not? It's free and you get to hang out with grandma.

Since I've offended about 95% of the progressive community with that last paragraph, let me offend the other 5% with this statement: A disproportionate percentage of the malingerers are recent immigrants. Here's an idea of how not to spend a Saturday night: navigating a genuinely ill seventy something father through an Emergency Room filled with basically healthy, and largely bored, recent immigrants. The nurse isn't all that sympathetic to the violent pain and nausea. The last thing she needs at the end of her shift is to be called a racist, just because she pushed a sick old white man ahead of a less sick old brown man.

The Left, many of whom live in the WASPier neighbourhoods of the country, don't get to see this spectacle of politically correct entitlement on a regular basis. Don't get me wrong. Native born Canadians know how to mooch with the best of them. Thing is that if you've lived long enough, and paid enough taxes, you eventually realized that mooching from the state means mooching from yourself. In time the newcomers will begin to understand that. If they don't, eventually everyone else will.

Medicare is the epicenter of modern Canadian hypocrisy. It defines us as a nation, despite the fact that universal health care (two-tier) is fairly common among developed nations. It holds the nation together, though the one part of the country eyeing the exits is less than enamoured with the concept. It shows the commitment of Canada toward it's most vulnerable, though the quality varies widely by region and the patient's personal network. 

The theory of Medicare is what the architects of Trudeaupian wanted us to become, not just in medical care but in all aspects of our daily life. A benevolent and all seeing democratic state smoothing out the uncertainties of life. The reality of Medicare is a grubby mess whose operations are dominated by political and financial considerations. A system that pretends to be universal while rationing care to the well connected and the politically astute.

Now there is something the NDP is far more afraid to debate that user fees in Quebec. 

Tuesday Night - The Great Escape

With Conservatives Like These...

The Tories giveth and the Tories...

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has placed the Conservatives' so-called "lawful access" legislation - which they've been trying to pass since 2009 - on the House of Commons Order Paper. If it becomes law, the bill will give the government unprecedented access to Canadians' online activities, by allowing police to collect the personal information of Internet users - including names, addresses and phone numbers - without having to go through the cumbersome process of obtaining a warrant beforehand.

Scrap the gun registry, which impacts a minority of Canadians, while undermining the privacy of the vast majority. Ah, so that's incrementalism with a majority government.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Princes' Blvd, CNE Grounds