Assorted Links: March 19, 2007

From the Mind of Sheila Copps

Brace yourselves now:

Canada ranks number one among G8 countries when it comes to immigration. That is not likely to change any time soon. Canada's birth rate is so low we need newcomers simply to maintain our population.

Our key to growth is also tied to immigration. However, a changing population clustered in a few major areas presents unique challenges for future public policy. Canada's social cohesion is dependent on our capacity to spread the benefits of immigration around.

Many moan that governments can do little to affect population patterns. Balderdash. The federal government is the country's largest landlord. A decision on where to locate can have a huge impact on a community.

Do you hear that?  Sheila wants you immigrants to move!  Now!  Because the Government of Canada believes that the nation's "social cohesion is dependent on our capacity to spread the benefits of immigration around."  Just like equalization really.  There's too much money in Calgary so we'll ship it to Montreal, which used to have too much money, in days before equalization. 

Now there's a surplus of immigrants in Toronto, so let's ship them to Regina, where there's a shortage of pretty much eveything except for wheat, potash and socialism.  Here's the rub, baby:  Why?  The flawed assumption behind equalization is that wealth is generated somewhat at random and that complex transfer payment formulas merely correct for this "maldistribution" of wealth.  A transfer program for immigrants along the lines proposed by Sheila would be based on the same flawed assumption.  Immigrants gravitate toward large urban centers for the same reason native born Canadians gravitate toward large urban centers, it's where the money is. 

The city is remarkable efficient generator of wealth, its high densities and large populations allow for specializations - and consequent productivity gains - impossible or difficult to achieve in rural areas.  While Copps is perceptive enough to grasp that immigration is a long-term net gain to communities, she doesn't seem to understand how.  The cliche, and ever present tragedy in a city like Toronto, of trained engineers driving cabs, would only be made much worse by sending such talent to areas barely capable of supporting their own native born populations.  Copps is not the only one oblivious to such basic economics:

Atlantic Canada mayors have already started their own shared immigration strategy. Once landed, no immigrant can be forced to stay. But the mayors are convinced that their healthy, safe quality of life will sell itself. All they want is equal access to the pool of successful, hardworking people who have helped fuel the big city boom.

Right.  As Deep Throat advised, follow the money.  If Atlantic Canada is such a good deal, why are those born and raised there, whose families have roots stretching back generations, choosing to move to Toronto, Calgary-Edmonton and the BC Lower Mainland?  It's perhaps instinctive in large organizations, private or public, to blame the marketing of a product, rather than the product itself, for its failure in the marketplace.

Work Less, Make Less

The only thing remarkable about this Slate piece is that it seems remarkable to modern eyes.

As you've probably heard, there's been an explosion of inequality in the United States over the past four decades. The gap between high-skilled and low-skilled workers is bigger than ever before, and it continues to grow.

How can we close the gap? Well, I suppose we could round up a bunch of assembly-line workers and force them to mow the lawns of corporate vice presidents. Because the gap I'm talking about is the gap in leisure time, and it's the least educated who are pulling ahead.

In 1965, leisure was pretty much equally distributed across classes. People of the same age, sex, and family size tended to have about the same amount of leisure, regardless of their socioeconomic status. But since then, two things have happened. First, leisure (like income) has increased dramatically across the board. Second, though everyone's a winner, the biggest winners are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

In previous eras simple physical survival required tremendous physical and mental energy.  This is no longer the case.  Imagine a single person making $10.00/hr working in a factory, above the current provincial minimum wage but below national average hourly wage which is hovering around $17.00 dollars at the moment.  Working forty hours a week that adds up to about $20,000 a year, or about $17,623 after income taxes, or $1468.00 a month.  Leaving aside large expensive cities like Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver, monthly rents for a single bedroom apartment rate around $700 (taking a liberal average).  That leaves you with about $770 dollars for everything else.  A monthly bus pass costs about $100.00.  A food budget depends on both the cooking skills and taste preferences of the individual involved.  You can, as a certain Harris cabinet minister unfortunately suggested in the mid-1990s, buy dented cans of tuna at fire sale prices, or you could dine at Chez Macdonald's for a bit more.  Ain't much left over for clothing or entertainment, and it's unlikey the Blacks or Thompsons will be over for dinner, but you're getting by.  The point is that you're still alive.  A peasant in sub-Saharan Africa works longer, and far harder hours to maintain his own very paltry standard of living.  Modern capitalism grants an option to its participants never before offered on a large scale:  the option to slack.

British Conservativism's Time of Death: 2:20 GMT March 12th, 2007

In the 1951 General Election Winston Churchill campaigned on the slogan of "Set the people free."  It seems Davie Cameron will be taking a somewhat different tack in his upcoming match with the much awaited Gordon Brown.

Harsh new taxes on air travel, including a strict personal flight "allowance", will be unveiled by the Conservatives tomorrow as part of a plan that would penalise business travellers, holidaymakers and the tourist industry.

The proposals, to be disclosed by George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, include levying VAT or fuel duty on domestic flights for the first time as part of a radical plan to tackle global warming.

The Conservatives will also suggest - most controversially of all - rationing individuals to as little as a single short-haul flight each year; any further journeys would attract progressively higher taxes, a leaked document entitled Greener Skies suggests.

The Tories' radical green taxes form one of the most ambitious programmes ever put forward by a mainstream political party. But they sparked an immediate war with Labour last night, while the travel industry branded them a "tax on fun".

In a further departure from Tory tradition, the party will underline its green credentials by welcoming Al Gore, the Democrat former US vice-president, to a meeting of the shadow cabinet on Thursday.

Rumours that the Conservative leader will be paying homage at Lenin's Tomb during an upcoming visit to Russia are entirely unfounded.

My What A Long Rap Sheet You Have Monsieur President?

While we mourn the death of that giant of English speaking liberty, the British Conservative Party, let us remember the old adage about having loved and lost.  The French, as exemplied in the career of Jacques Chirac, have never had a genuine anglo-saxon style conservative movement, to say nothing of an actual conservative party.  Without ideas, then, what else drives men toward power?  Again, refer to the career of Jacques Chirac or our own home grown corrupt pragmatist, Jean Chretien.

Jacques Chirac will be questioned over allegations of corruption after mid-June, a month after he steps down as president on May 16, French justice officials confirmed for the first time yesterday.

Mr Chirac, 74, who announced on Sunday his decision not to run for a third term after 12 years in office, will lose his presidential immunity when he leaves the Elysée palace. There had been speculation, however, that he would somehow avoid being brought to book over his alleged involvement in a string of corruption cases, mostly linked to illegal party funding, when he was mayor of Paris over a decade ago.

Judicial sources said that Mr Chirac will be questioned over his involvement in a complex kickback scheme where members of his Gaullist RPR party had salaries funded by Paris city hall or companies that won contracts there. The party financing dossier lays dormant in a safe at a court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. It focuses on the time when Mr Chirac was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.

Mr Chirac has denounced as "lies, calumny and manipulation" all allegations of wrongdoing.

Natural Unemployment

Only economists could put the words natural and unemployment together in the same sentence.

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most of us in Canada used to talk about the natural unemployment rate as being around 7 - 7.5% when the actual unemployment rates were 8% or higher. Economic conditions have changed since then. The social safety net is lower, reducing optimal search times for job-seekers. But how much has the natural unemployment rate fallen? Could it possibly have fallen to under 6.5%? Canada has been experiencing unemployment rates well under 6.5% for quite some time now.

Translating this into English:  Natural Unemployment = Frictional Unemployment (people who are temporarily between jobs) + Structural (longer term unemployment caused by employees with unmarketable skills or an overly generous welfare state) + Cyclical Unemployment (caused by the boom / bust cycle of the economy).  Why on earth should anyone care?  Because knowing why people are unemployed is just as important as knowing that they are.  Canadian economists, even some of the pinkos who taught me at U of T, generally believe that Canada's higher rates of unemployment are due to our more generous unemployment insurance system and welfare programs, especially in the Atlantic provinces. 

My own hunch about the drop in Canadian Natural Employment rests less on our now less generous social safety net, and more on the booming economies of Ontario and Alberta over the last decade.  Choosing to be unemploymed has its own opportunity costs, the difference between whatever income you are able to draw from the state / relatives / friends and what you could be making working.  If the difference is low, or for practical purposes indistinguisable, the incentive to look for work is virtually nil.  But if your cousin in Fort McMurray is now bringing home several times what you are by working as a roughneck, the opportunity costs of being on pogie just became a lot steeper.  It's the push and pull factors that need to be looked at. 

The Courage of His Convictions

Paid for with the pain and suffering of others.

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman said the government will not consider contracting out knee-replacement operations to a private Toronto hospital.

The Globe and Mail revealed yesterday that the province was reviewing a proposal from Don Mills Surgical Unit Ltd., a private Toronto hospital, to perform 1,500 knee-replacement operations.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Health Ministry spokesman A. G. Klei said in an interview that the proposal was under review. But by early yesterday, Mr. Smitherman said at a press conference that he would not support it.

"This Ministry of Health gives you and all Ontarians the complete assurance, I will never support the outsourcing of those knee surgeries to any private, for-profit-motivated organization," Mr. Smitherman said. "Our government fundamentally believes that the public health-care system, the not-for-profit public health-care system is the best expression of Canadian values."

Remember boys and girls, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit Happiness are American values.  Whatever George Brown might have said or implied back in the 1860s.

Everything is Okay Now, the West Is In

So says Preston Manning.

Canada's population is engaged in a tilt westward, especially toward booming Alberta, that political analysts say has buried deeper the upstart Reform party's once potent rallying call: "The West wants in."

They say census figures released yesterday show beyond doubt Alberta, which boasts the country's highest growth rate of 10.6 per cent since 2001, and British Columbia are an attractive destination for immigrants and Canadians alike.

"The census figures, the demographics, reinforce the reality that is already apparent -- that economic power is shifting westward," said Preston Manning, the founder of the old Reform party.

Really?  What the recent census figures show is that the population of the Greater Toronto Area is almost equal to that of the population of all three prairie provinces.  The City of Toronto itself has a population of about 2.5 million, compared to Alberta's 3 million.  The West may be in, but it's still the Windsor to Quebec City corridor that calls the shots.  Witness Stephen Harper's recent travel itinerary.

Some Thoughts on Garth

From our friends on Planet X.

Work with me for just a minute.

Pretend you are an MP-wannabe running for election in a riding that is not "safe" for your party. Fundraising has dried up two weeks before the vote and you are desperate. Now imagine that someone from your party shows up at the door and hands you serious cash, more than enough to meet your needs. The cash was raised from other, "safe" ridings and specifically earmarked for ridings like yours. You win the riding.

Fastforward a year or so. You've been punted from the party for indiscretions, sulked as an independent for a few months and now joined the arch-rival party.

Obviously, the only thing to do is call your savior (the one with the cash) and the leader of your old party a whore, right?

And, of course, your new party is okay with that, because you didn't refer to the woman, even indirectly, as a dog. Because your NEW party has a plan to have 1/3 of all candidates be female, whether they are the best candidate for the riding or not.

Oh, wait a minute. Maybe you SHOULDN'T (scroll to the bottom of the post for the half-assed apology) call that person a whore, after all, having defended others for lesser insults.

For grins & chuckles, let's see how long this comment remains up & unedited.

Yes, but that's one hell of a sexy beard.