Canada needs way more Immigrants --- skilled immigrants

The average Canadian in 2004 was 39.7; that makes Canada one of the oldest nations on earth. However bad things are now things promise to get a lot worse. The percentage of Canadians over 65 is set to go from 14.7 now to 27.6 in 2050. If the situation was ever allowed to get this bad, the economy would at best be stagnate, the federal government would surely be in deficit, and virtually every public entitlement program would be under enormous pressure or would have already collapsed. Most notably our health care system would be in serious trouble. Indeed as it stands now "People age 65 and older accounted for 13.2% of the Canadian population but consumed an estimated 44% of provincial and territorial government health care spending in 2005."

The problem is this.

In 2005, per capita health care spending was found to be highest at the beginning and at the end of life but, in general, to increase exponentially with age. While 65- to 74-year- olds consumed $6000 per capita, 75- to 84-year-olds consumed $11 000 per capita, and 85-year-olds (and those older) consumed $21 000 per capita, on average. In comparison, per capita health care spending among those age 1 to 65 was approximately $1700.[While 65- to 74-year- olds consumed $6000 per capita, 75- to 84-year-olds consumed $11 000 per capita, and 85-year-olds (and those older) consumed $21 000 per capita, on average. In comparison, per capita health care spending among those age 1 to 65 was approximately $1700.

http://www.bcmj.org/canada-s-coming-age-how-demographic-imperatives-will-force-redesign-acute-care-service-delivery

This problem is not going to go away. Even if today's 60 is tomorrow's 70, we all die and most deaths are preceded by some kind of serious illness. As a critical mass of people reach whatever is the average life expectancy, they will cost the system more -- a lot more.


The notion that this problem can be addressed by encouraging Canadians to have more kids is unrealistic. Currently Canada has the 144 highest fertility rate and our birth rate is 190th in the world. http://www.photius.com/rankings/population/birth_rate_2010_0.html
What goes for Canada goes for the rest of the Western world. There is not one Western nation with a fertility rate above the replacement rate yet alone one with a fertility rate high enough to withstand the aforementioned increase in the number of seniors as percentage of the total population.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:CAN&q=fertility+rate+canada

To think that Canada has chance of nearly doubling its current fertility rate of 1.6 -- and that is what it would take -- is pie in the sky nonsense. Moreover, far from making things better a massive baby boom would only increase an already mushrooming dependency rate for a good number of years. There is something perverse about wanting Canada to become a country of the very old and very young supported by taxes on a rapidly shrinking working population.

Canada has no option but to continue with a high rate of immigration.

Immigration is allowing us to make some headway. 2001 study found that based on 1996 census if Canada did not allow any immigrants, then the number of seniors as percentage of the population in 2050 would be 29. 8. If on the other hand Canada let in 225,000 annually, then that number would drop to 25.4. Finally, if Canada let in 450,000 annually that number would drop further still to 22.9. http://sociology.uwo.ca/popstudies/dp/dp03-03.pdf Of course, if 450,000 annually is good, somewhere between 500,000 and million is even better. Finally, the latter number and more of an emphasis on youth would be best of all.

That is the good news. The bad news is that Canada's immigration system badly needs to be reformed and for reforms to mean anything Ottawa needs also needs to reestablish that immigration is a federal issue. Indeed, what is the point of reworking the points system, for example, if Gordon Campbell and his ilk are working with big business to set up a rival system in which restaurant hostess is a skilled position?

Family reunification is a great place to start. There is no reason why an immigrant should be able to bring in anyone other than his spouse and dependents. After all, if the main point of a high rate of immigration is to lessen the effects of an aging population, what sense does it make to allow immigrants to sponsor their parents and grandparents?

Family reunification is part of a larger problem, viz., the ratio of skilled principle applicants as percentage of the over number of immigrants to Canada is way too small. Currently less than one in 5 immigrants is a skilled principle applicant. And however much I am loath to admit it, the Mark Steyn's of the world are right about one thing. Allowing someone to immigrant to Canada has a huge potential cost associated with it. This especially so with regard to any other category of immigrant other the skilled principle applicants. After all, it is only skilled principle applicants that earning anywhere close to what their Canadian peers are earning and skilled principle applicants are the only category of immigrants that are working in numbers that even approach the Canadian average.

"At 26 weeks after their arrival, 50% of all immigrants aged 25 to 44 were employed. This was 30 percentage points below the employment rate of about 80% among all individuals aged 25 to 44 in the Canadian population. ... At 52 weeks after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 58%. This narrowed the gap to 23 percentage points. At 104 weeks, or two years after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 63%, 18 percentage points below the national rate of 81%. ... Immigrants admitted as principal applicants in the skilled worker category had an even better record for employment. At 26 weeks after arrival, the gap in the employment rate between them and the Canadian population was 20 percentage points. By 52 weeks, this had narrowed to 12 points, and by two years, it was down to 8 points."

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051013/d051013b.htm

If you tease out the numbers, 55% of non principal skilled applicants in the 25 to 44 age group are working after 2 years! Canada needs to do a better job of ensuring that immigrants are able to succeed and while some bleeding hearts will no doubt claim that a complete turn around is possible, an approach that is far more likely to bare fruit is eliminating or greatly limiting those categories of immigrants that are not likely to succeed economically. To say that Canada needs immigrants is only half right. We need young well educated immigrants who are proficient in English. Indeed, we need a lot more than what we are allowing in now. We do not, however, need their parents and grandparents. We also do not need refugees. Most of all what Canada does not need is cheap unskilled guest workers.

Given Jason Kenney's stated desire to avoid “the kind of ethnic enclaves or parallel communities that exist in some European countries” and Mark Steyn's rantings about second generation Islamic exterminism in Europe you would think that Kenney and Steyn would reel back before the subject of guest workers like vampires before garlic. Instead, Steyn's musings reduce to an infantile and bigoted ethnic essentialism and Kenney seems hell bent on allowing more guest works than Germany did in the 1960s and 1970s.

Indeed, whereas the typical guest worker was once an American transferred to a branch office in Canada, the fastest growing category of guest worker is now the unskilled type with poor language skills. Under the Conservatives, Canada has allowed in some two hundred thousand plus unskilled workers a year. In other words, the average Canadian tax payer now pays through the noise to have cheap labour sent in from other countries for the sole purpose of cutting his wages. Forget Conservative talk about such provincial programs bringing in much needed skilled workers, this was the kind of positions Alberta was hoping to fill through its guest worker programs this summer: Front desk clerk, short order cook, baker, maid, assembly line worker, server, buser, bellhop, valet, and cafeteria worker, laundry attendant, pet groomer, general labourer, and hair dresser. All that is required of such would be immigrants is that they score 4 or 24 on the language assessment. In other words, they can still be functionally illiterate and still get it in.

Pace Mark Steyn, Integrating immigrants is really quite simple. If you bring in young well educated immigrants that are fluent in English, they will integrate. It will not matter a lick what their background or skin colour is. On the other hand, if you bring in non English speaking uneducated immigrants to clean toilets and serve donuts at Tim Hortons, you have recipe for what happened in Europe, viz, poor race relations, xenophobia and illegal immigration. It is really that clear cut and Kenney should know this. Every expert on immigration does.

It takes a great deal of chutzpah to Kenney to talk about wanting to avoid “the kind of ethnic enclaves or parallel communities that exist in some European countries” and then go about encouraging the very thing that led to the creation of these communities in Europe, viz., importing gobs of unskilled guest labour.

In addition to letting in more skilled immigrants and less of everyone else, Canada needs to refine what it means to be skilled applicant.

The point system is a mess. It is weighted, accidentally I am sure, in such a way as to favour older applicants over younger ones. A premium is placed on experience, being married is advantageous and age is not penalized much at all. For example, a 49 year old is given the same number of points for age as a 21 year old! Not only is all this is completely at odds with the stated aim of using immigration to mediate some of the stresses of having a low birth rate, a shrinking supply of labour and a graying population, the very kind of skilled worker most likely to fail, viz., older workers is the one most likely to qualify.

Indeed, while everyone agrees that Canada needs to be a better job of recognizing foreign credentials, what has gotten less attention is just how hard it is establish oneself in a particular field without any contacts in that field and work contacts are what many new immigrants lack. As various studies have shown, for immigrants outside of the Western world, work experience counts for virtually nothing as at all. For this reason alone, Canada needs to redo its point system such that it looks to attract younger skilled workers who are not at such a disadvantage contact wise as their peers.

Above all else though Canada need put more of an emphasis on language proficiency. After all, although Jason Kenney may let in hundreds of thousands of unskilled guest workers with little or no English, he is right to say that language proficiency is best predictor of economic success.

It should be noted that by language proficiency I mean ones ability to converse in either French or English. Currently, moderate proficiency across the board in both English and French is amounts to the same thing high proficiency in one! This is akin to thinking an average switch hitter is the equal to all star who bats only right handed.

All that being said, in order to get at appreciation for some of the short comings of the current points system consider this. Under the current formula, a single 26 year old who has just completed a PHD in Canada, and who speaks perfect English, but who lacks relevant work experience and is not proficient in French would likely not qualify. Indeed, assuming no family ties and no relevant work experience, they would score 56 out of 100. In other words, if they were not able to quickly secure a job in one of the relevant fields, they would be heading back to their country of origin in short order. Even, if that same applicant spoke perfect French and English they would still not qualify. They would score 64 out of 100.

By contrast a 49 year old who has never set foot in the country and speaks no French but has a BA, 3 years experience, moderate English skills a spouse with a 1 year diploma, and a cousin in distant Canadian city would score 67! This is absurd.

The Stupid People's party and how to respond to the Stupid things they say

Andrew Coyne is aghast that the Conservatives would seek to be the stupid people's party. http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/08/17/a-know-nothing-strain-of-conservatism/ He is right to be. As he says, "A society that holds education and expertise in contempt, no less than one that disdains commerce or entrepreneurship, is dying. To whip up popular hostility to intellectuals is to invite the public to jump on its own funeral pyre."

That said, Coyne overstates Harper's Machiavellian inclinations. The Conservatives are not without convictions and neither is Harper. Not everything they do is a ploy to stay in power. Far from it. It is evident what Harper wants to do. It is just that Harper's world view -- particularly when it comes to foreign affairs-- is not terribly sophisticated. Needless to say, this is also true of most Conservative MPs. As for all those stupid talking points the Conservatives have trotted out over the years it is a mistake to assume that they are merely instrumental. That is to say these talking points not merely designed to get the base going. On any number of issues these talking points seem hardly different from what various Conservative MPs (e.g., Stockwelll Day) have said previously on the subject and in private life. In sum, many Conservative talking points should be seen on some level as a reflection of what Conservatives MPs truly believe.

Whatever the case, the Liberals should welcome the opportunity to debunk these talking points and ridicule the Conservatives for having championed them. But that is not what the Liberals have done. Take the census issue. Whereas, most pundits have focused in on the idiocy of Tony Clement has had to say, the Liberals have focused on showing just how many groups use the census and to what ends. In other words, they have treated it as an issue Canadians care deeply about, but that is simply not the case. What has caught the public's attention and what will always grab the public's attention is the ham fisted manner in which Conservatives have proceeded and above all else the ridiculousness of what Conservatives have had to say. The Liberals should not be trying to educate the populace about how useful the census is, but rather be doing their utmost to make Tony Clement into a punch line to various jokes. They should be laughing it up with the pundits. Keep it light. For example: "The Conservatives believe that most Canadians have a secret desire to fail stats 101. I do not believe that to be the case."

The following should be headline news

"It all started with something that is by now horrifyingly routine: a YouTube video of the gory execution of a Mexican policeman by a gang of narcotraficantes. Posted on July 22, it begins with the interrogation of the policeman, who was from the northern state of Durango, by masked gangsters employed, in this case, by one of Mexico’s most powerful trafficking groups, the Zetas. Such interrogations have been circulated on the Internet before, and, as here, they often end in death. However, in the course of this particular video the policeman stated that the director of a federal prison in Durango was in the habit of releasing and arming certain prisoners at night, so that they could commit murders aimed, broadly speaking, at the Zetas. The recent massacre of seventeen people attending a birthday party in the neighboring state of Coahuila was the work of these temporarily sprung assassins, the policeman said, as were two other mass killings earlier this year.

The policeman’s account gained instant notoriety, and came to the attention of federal authorities in Mexico City. At a press conference on July 25—three days after the YouTube posting—the Attorney General’s spokesman confirmed the story, adding that the R-15 rifles used in the Coahuila massacres were indeed standard issue for federal prison guards—a fact that had apparently gone unremarked before. Pending further investigation, the government placed a number of people under temporary arrest, including the director of the Durango prison, a chunky, tough-looking blonde by the name of Margarita Rojas Rodríguez.

What happened next was astonishing. The inmates of the prison rioted, killed a prison guard, and demanded that Señora Rojas be restored to her post immediately, surely the first time in history that prisoners have risen up on behalf of their jailer. .... "

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/aug/12/quiet-shift-mexicos-drug-war/

Bob Rae: I do not think he would make a great leader

A common lament is that if not for his record as premier of Ontario, Bob Rae would make a great leader. He is a good debator, charismatic, well spoken, and funny.

This is not an opinion I share. I do not like him for other reasons. Philosophically Bob Rae and I are worlds apart. I do not believe in collective rights. Rae does. I do not believe in affirmative action. Rae does. I do not believe in asymmetrical federalism. Rae does. I generally do not believe in means tested social policy. Rae does.

As the saying goes, policy aimed at the poor is poor policy. Tax rebates and the like if they are effective at all are vulnerable to changes in the political landscape, and more importantly are certainly not enough to hold back the tide of growing inequality in this country. The best -- check that -- the only way of achieving a "just society" is to introduce board based social policies that embody of the principle of universality. Not only do such policies stand a far better chance of effecting social change, in marked contrast to affirmative action for example, they are wildly popular.

Now in fairness to Rae, he is not alone. Under Martin and Chrétien the Liberals abandoned universality and favored instead means tested programs. The thing is means tested social programs do not win elections; the populace is not going to get excited about paying for a service that only a small percentage of the public can use. By turning every social program on offer into a form of welfare, the ability of the Liberals to offer anything other than tax cuts is very limited. The implosion of the Progressive Conservatives and NDP in 1993, obscured just how much this has hobbled the Liberals politically. The Liberals are now always having to play to a core Conservative strength. Indeed, as Tom Flanagan crowed after the 2006 election, there are certain issues that favour the Conservatives and the economy and taxation are two. The simple fact of the matter is that most of the public will not gain a working knowledge of each party's economic policies over the course of the campaign and when assessing each of the parties on the issue of taxation will rely on worn out stereotypes.

Now, the Liberals still benefit from being the party --- with help from the NDP -- that introduced the Canada Health Act and Canada Pension plan, but given that they have long ago abandoned the principle of universality it seems almost farcical for the Liberals to now point two these two shining examples of the that very principle as two of their greatest achievements.

Bob Rae comes to North Vancouver: some thoughts

Bob Rae came to North Vancouver yesterday. Unfortunately I came late and so missed his opening talk. I was there for some of the question period though.

First thing I took note of is just how patient Rae is. Not every question asked of him made sense. Others were not questions at all but short editorials. Finally, most questions were buried in lengthy preambles. Still, Rae was polite to a fault, responded to each in timely manner and at length and he was never short or cutting. In other words, Rae not only has the gift of the gab he also knows how to listen and how to make people feel listened too.

That said, even Rae can not turn lead into gold. When someone asked him just what the Liberal party stood for his response was less than satisfactory. He said that Liberals were committed to enshrining good parliamentary process into law and enacting legislation that would protect institutions such as Stats Canada and elections Canada from an overly aggressive PMO. I could not agree more and think level headed people of all political stripes would feel this same. However, this is a far cry from "just society".

The other pillars mentioned by Rae were sustainability and early childhood education. The problem with the former is that it is so nebulous that it is hard to see why anyone -- even the Conservatives -- could not claim to be committed to sustainability. As for the later, it is politically useless. For the vast majority of Canadians, the Liberal promise to work out a different deal with each province amounts to little more than a vague promise to provide more daycare sometime in the future. Canadians could not figure out what this would mean for their lives in 2006 and not surprisingly they preferred the Conservative baby bonus. Nothing has changed.

In order for the Liberals to capitalize on the issue they need make a clear offer to Canadian voters. They could, for example, offer all day preschool and kindergarten for every kid in Canada. That would garner them votes and provide them with the option of juxtaposing such a policy with the Conservative plan to build more prisons.

Speaking of prisons, someone asked Rae what the Liberals planed to do about the biggest mass murder in the world --- "drugs". As I mentioned before, some questions could have been worded better. Anyway, Rae said that diseases associated with poverty were a bigger killer and then went on to question the wisdom of Harper's war on drugs. He said that addiction is better thought of as a medical issue and not criminal one. This is fine as far as it goes, but other than Insite, he did not mention anything specific and he did not deal with Ignatieff's worries about "marijuana cigarettes" or how Liberals have supported every Conservative crime bill since Ignatieff came on as leader. Later that night, I remembered his hollow answer as I watched a CBC story about California's November referendum on whether to legalize marijuana and read that former Mexican President Vincent Fox said that all drugs should be legalized.

Debt Myths

Myth 1: Government spending under Trudeau and Pearson accounts for most of Canada's debt

The notion that the Trudeau and Pearson spent Canada into debt is laughable. Leaving aside the fact that Most of Canada's debt accumulated under Brian Mulroney, when Trudeau left office Canada's debt to GDP ratio was slightly less than it was under Diefenbaker and for most of 60s and 70s debt to GDP ratios were well below what they were in 1960. Moreover, it was only Trudeau's last term in office that deficits to GDP reached troubling levels and that had nothing to do with new government spending.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the US Fed and other Western countries declared a war on inflation. The war was won, but it came at a terrible cost. Sky rocketing interest rates meant sky rocketing deficits in both Canada and the US. An example should put things into perspective. In September 1980 interest rates stood at already ridiculously high 13%; three months later the US Fed had raised them to 20%.

Monetary policy and not government largeness explains Canada's debt crisis in the 1990s.

It was also helps to explain why Martin was able to tackle the deficit. The last of those ridicously high yeild bonds had run out by 1993 and by 1992 new bonds were issued at a much lower rate. Lower interest rates also drove demand here at the same time as they helped lower the Canadian dollar against US dollar.

Myth 2: Canadian government spending is out of control

Using the mid 1990s as a reference pundits such as Andrew Coyne like to point out that government spending has grown by leaps and bounds. Indeed, it has. The problem is government spending in the mid 1990s was lower than it was at any point since the 1950s and given the demands of a modern economy, such low levels of spending were unsustainable. In other words, what we have witnessed in the last 10 years is not a spike in government spending but an inevitable and needed rebound. The amount of government spending in Canada as percentage of GDP is lower than most Western countries and is even lower then what it is in the States.

Furthermore, what is true for other countries in recent years is also true for Canada. What accounts for most of the deficit is a massive decline in revenues and not "Canada's Action plan".

Myth 3: The debt crisis in Europe is a result of government largeness

The acronym PIGS make it seem that Europe's debt crisis is a result of government spending. This is simply not true. Prior to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy Portugal, Ireland, and Spain, had debt levels that were either comparable to Canada's or lower. Moreover, none of these countries were running huge deficits prior to the crash. Indeed, Spain was running surpluses. The huge deficits these countries are running now are a consequence of a massive decline in government revenues and the massive increase in debt levels is a consequence of large amount of private debt being transferred to the government books in the face of crisis brought on by a US private debt crisis and huge spike in oil prices in the summer of 2008. The UK is perhaps the best example of the later

Italy and Greece, of course, had higher debt levels. However, even here this has arguably more to do with with the revenue side than the spending side. This is especially true in Italy's case. Tax evasion is widespread in both countries. The situation is Italy is so bad that the former government proposed that every Italian's income be made public so that people could rat out tax evaders.

The origins of the debt crisis matter. If the cause of crisis is massive reduction in revenues, fiscal stimulus may be the only way out. Getting on with the business of reducing the debt in the face of 20% unemployment in Spain's case, is likely to make things worse. First there is the question of there being a liquidity trap. Then there is this. However big the real estate bubble was in the States it was far bigger in many European countries and where there real estate bubbles there are high consummer debt levels and most cases highly leveraged banks. Slashing services, rising interest rates, raising taxes that will in turn lead to increased financial burden for households will only serve to bring various European economy closer to the edge. It will lead to defaults which will in turn lead to bank failures. The consumer debt problem and public debt problem are actually one problem.

There is no easy answers and things only stand to get more complicated. For one, the true European debt crisis lies in wait. While there is nothing to suggest that the timing of the current crisis was consequence of government largeness, a rapidly aging population endangers every major European economy. Europe's "implicit debt", most notably generous but uncosted public pensions, will become more of a problem as Europe ages. This is especially true for the PIGS. Italy is Europe's oldest country and, if memory serves, Greece has its lowest birth rate. Many Europeans have been loath to embrace immigration for fears that it would erode national identity. Europe must now embrace higher immigration if it wants to maintain its current way of life.

To further complicate matters, there is the Euro. Greece has been in and out of default for a good portion of the last hundred years. What makes this most recent crisis different is that should it default the future of the Euro would be in called into question. As Paul Krugman et al, have suggested default may be impossible to head off default. The problem is that countries in Greece's position have tradionally devalued their currency in order to get back on their feet again. (To very real extent that is exactly what Canada did in the 1990s.) So long as Greece uses the Euro, that option is not open to them though. In order for Greece business to complete with their German counterparts, for example, there most be real reduction in Greek wages. If Greece was not a Euro member, it could accomplish the same by devaluing its currency.

Myth 4: This is 1995 all over again

Canada is also vulnerable. Sure are banks are better shape, but this is no small measure do to the fact that Canadian housing corporation and not the banks and AIGs of the world are on hook should the real estate bubble burst in Canada's biggest cities.

You see, one of the first things the Conservatives did upon taking office was to extend the mortgage amortization period from 25 years to 30 years in February 2006, extend it to 35 years in July of 2006 and extend it yet again to 40 years in November 2006 During this period they also reduced the needed down payment on second properties from 20% to 5% and allowed for 0 down on one's primary residence.

Such actions allowed Canadians to take on mountains more debt, house prices went through the roof and so has the Canadian housing corporation liabilities. It was 100 billion in 2006. It is expected to reach $500 billion by the end of the year. A sharp increase in defaults will add billions and billions and billions to Canada's net debt.

The slash and burn policies of the 1990s will only make a bad situation worse. Indeed, with Canadian consumer debt growing at amazing 7% a year, slashing services that will in turn lead to increased financial burden will, here too, only serve to bring the Canadian economy closer to the edge. Canada needs to take action least a private debt problem become a public debt one. That means above all insuring that real estate does not continue to rise and to lessen the financial burden of young families in particular. A national day care program is great place to start. The type of services that Canada should be cutting -- if not gutting -- are the ones that offer no direct financial benefit to Canadians. Military spending and the Conservatives daft get tough on crime policies are great place to start.

Germany and Podolski blow it

In the first 36 minutes German Serbia game no time did anything of note and the only entertainment was provided by guessing who a absurdly whistle happy ref would card next. During that time, the ref handed out an absurd 6 yellow cards, two of them to Germany's Miroslav Klose. Shortly after Klose was sent off Germany forgot how to mark and Serbia took a 1- nill lead on a Milan Jovanovic's goal.

For the next 32 minutes, a 10 man German team dominated possession and had the better of the chances. If not for the inability of Lukas Podolski to hit the net and convert a penalty, Germany would have tied the game. For the second game a Serb defender reached out and touched the ball in the crease. One can only guess why Joachim Loew let Podolski, whose name is Polish for can not hit the board side of a barn, take the penatly or why he gutted the creative potential of his midfield by subbing Ozil and Muller off in the 70th minute. Germany did nothing in the last 20 minutes and the Serb's failed to capitalize on two good chances.

Canadians GM on Crack: Halak to the Blues

Montreal Canadians' GM Pierre Gauthier is on crack. He must not have watched Halak almost single handedly beat the Caps and Penguins. Gauthier traded Montreal's playoff hero to the Blues for pucket of pucks and a beer.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Montreal-trades-rights-to-goalie-Jaroslav-Halak?urn=nhl,249277

Ignatieff's Foreign Policy Idiocy creeping into Liberal policy

Peace keeping means what it says. It involves keeping the peace between two identifiable warring factions who want peace and have invited third party in to keep it. It really only has a hope of succeeding when those groups are separated from one another by geography. In this sense Ignatieff was always right about the Afghanistan mission and the others dead wrong. Afghanistan is and never was suited to peace keeping. Furthermore, as guerilla war supplants state on state violence as the dominant form of conflict, peace keeping missions have become less and less useful. In this sense too Ignatieff is right, albeit for the wrong reasons, and his opponents are wrong. Peace keeping has had it day; it represents a proud chapter in Canada history, but that chapter has been written; let us move on.

Where Ignatieff errs is the prescriptions he makes. He seems to not to realize that just as age of Peace keeping has come and gone so thankfully has the age of nation building. First of all, the public has no stomach for it. For Ignatieff to suggest that Canada and other Western countries should greatly reduce spending on social programs just so they do not have rely on a "Pentagon General" to police the world is such bleeding heart gibberish it hardly merits comment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C43ewgn9CFk&feature=player_embedded

Most Canadians are interested in building up Canada, Ignatieff is alone in thinking Afghanistan and Dalfur should be higher priorities. Most Canadians would be aghast if billions of dollars were to be diverted from health budgets to pay for military hardware, but that is exactly what Ignatieff would like to do. The money quote: "we used to be peace keepers. We used to have capabilities. We gave them up. Because people wanted hospitals, schools and roads and god bless them." The man is a menace.

Second, nation building is a foul's errand. Western countries have had very little success in developing their own hinterlands let alone transforming the most backward economies in the world.

Finally, these missions only make it more likely that Canada will be attacked by terrorists home grown as in the Toronto 18 or otherwise.

Liberals doomed to die a Slow Death

So long as the Liberal party -- or a strong portion of it anyway -- remain committed to collective rights, asymmetrical federalism and means tested social policy the party is doomed to die a slow death.

One thing that made the Liberal brand dominant for so long was the party's commitment to universality, most notably the Canada Health Act and Canada Pension plan. However, under Martin and Chrétien the Liberals abandoned universality and favored instead means tested programs. The thing is means tested social programs do not win elections; the populace is not going to get excited about paying for a service that only a small percentage of the public can use. By turning every social program on offer into a form of welfare, the ability of the Liberals to offer anything other than tax cuts is very limited. This has hobbled the Liberals politically. As Tom Flanagan crowed after the 2006 election, there are certain issues that favour the Conservatives and the economy and taxation are two. The simple fact of the matter is that most of the public will not gain a working knowledge of each party's economic policies over the course of the campaign and when assessing each of the parties on the issue of taxation will rely on worn out stereotypes.

Of course, the one exception to such a dispiriting turn is the Liberals early childhood proposal. That said, the Liberals unwillingness to step on provincial toes and lay out a coherent plan ahead of time have rendered such a policy politically useless. Indeed, during the 2006 election the Liberals promise to work out a different deal with each province amounted to little more than a vague promise to provide more daycare -- which the Liberals said early childhood education was not --- at sometime in the future. Canadians could not figure out what this would mean for their lives and not surprisingly they preferred the Conservative baby bonus.

If the Liberals reintroduce such a program in the future, they need to present it in a form in which voters can understand. They could, for example, promise to provide all day preschool and kindergarten for every 4 and 5 year old in Canada. Now, it will be said that the Liberals can not do this; education is under provincial control, but such thinking is the heart of the problem. Education is under provincial control, but so is health care and that never stopped Pearson from introducing Medical Care Act. It is high time this group of Liberals grow some. No one is ever going to vote for a party that is scared of the Conservatives, scared of the provinces and just plain scared period.

The other thing that people admired the Liberals for was their commitment to individual rights. The problem is that the more emphasis Trudeau placed on individual rights and a commitment to linguistic equality the more the rest of the country, particularly the West, resented the Liberals inability to put a stop to bill 178 and and 101 and its willingness to make special accommodations for Quebec. Quebec's Official Language Act spelled doom for the Liberals in Western Canada from the mid 70s until collapse of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993. The Liberals won but 3 seats over the next 4 elections in the three most Western provinces, one in 1979, one in 1984 and one in 1988. The later two were won by John Turner. Ironically, it was the Mulroney's willingness to go even further in pandering to Quebec that gave the Liberals some life again. However, given that these same sentiments also gave rise to the Reform party, the news was not all good for the Liberal party. Today, the country is no longer neatly divided among regional lines, but least the Liberals forget the source of their troubles in Western Canada, the unpopularity of the a coalition that included the Bloc made it abundantly clear that special treatment for Quebec is still political poison in Western Canada.

The Cost of Housing and Jim Flaherty

As mortgages rates rise, Canadians should think of Jim Flaherty and the Conservatives.

After all, it was the Conservatives who extended the mortgage amortization period from 25 years to 40 years, reduced the needed down payment on second properties from 20% to 5% and allowed for 0 down on one's primary residence.

The Conservatives said their actions would promote home ownership. Theoretically this is true. Given growing consumer debt levels and the ever growing number of Canadians without pensions allowing Canadians to forgo a down payment and to take on a longer term mortgage was not exactly sound public policy, but on paper doing so should have freed up more people to buy. As the Toronto Star pointed out, longer amortization periods held out the promise of lower payments.

"Let's look at some numbers to prove the point, using a mortgage of $350,000 at an interest rate of 6.45 per cent, which was recently the posted rate at Scotiabank for a five-year term.

Paid back over 40 years, the weekly payment would be $465 and the total interest cost $597,000 – much higher than the value of the mortgage itself. That pushes the total cost of buying your house close to $1 million.

Shrink the payback to 25 years and the weekly payment rises to $538, but the total interest falls to $343,000, slightly less than the value of the mortgage."

http://www.thestar.com/athome/firsthome/article/204118

The problem was that the prospect of lower payments was wiped out by the fact that the effect of such mortgage "innovation" was to heat up an already red hot housing market. Oh well, at least those who might have taken on a 25 year mortgage had prices not gone completely berserk since 2006, can console themselves with this; they pay less each month on their 35 year mortgage then they would on 25 year mortgage. With interest rates about to rise that really means something in the short term. All it cost in the long term was hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Since the crash, Flaherty has reduced the amortization period to 35 years, mandated 5% down payment on primary residences and again manadated that 20% be put down on second priorties. Flaherty had the chutzpah to claim these actions prudent, but what he did was akin to peeing on the rug and then to try to make amends by leaving it out in the hot sun to dry. The rug will dry, but the stink remains.

Democracy is Hurt by Senate Reform

Constitutionally senators have all kinds of power and every once in a blue moon the Senate has stalled major pieces of legislation (e.g., free trade and the GST). However the aformetioned instances of stalling are so rare they are the exceptions that prove just how "ineffective" the senate truely is. Moreover, no senate I can think of has pursued a legislative agenda of its own accord; opposing legislation is one thing; purposing legislation is quite another. The reason the senate is not an "effective" body is that senators are not elected and as such lack legitacmacy. Furthermore, senators are members of legmitate federal political parties and the parties that they belong to are loath to have their unelected members excersise real authority least their actions undermine the party. Finally, the fact that it is the ruling federal party and not, say, provincial governments that appoint senators defines a clear pecking order, with the Senate answerable to the House.

Harper, of course, wants to reform the Senate. Being unable to reform the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing Senators piece meal. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would be elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The elephant in the living room is that if the senate's lack of effective powers flows from the senate's lack of legitamcy, then electing senators might provide the senate with a degree of legitmacy it currently does not hold. One problem with proceeding thusly is that current senators are free to serve until the age of 75. As a result, Harper's actions could either transform an unelected political body with no real power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power. Always content to play the Tin Man and Lion to Conservatives scarecrow, the Liberals remain largely mum on the subject.

Setting aside problems associated with implemenation, is the cause of democracy even served by reforming the Senate? Well, the Reformers always held that the regions needed more say and an “equal” “effective” and “elected” senate is the best way of achieving a balance between population centers in Eastern Canada and the rest of us. However, such a conception, and for that matter an "effective" version of the current senate, does not stand up to scrutiny. The problem is fivefold.

First such an argument rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on basis of population, but in actuality that is not the case. Consider the 905. There are currently 4 plus million living in the 905 and there are currently 32 seats for an average of just over 127,000 people per riding. There are 6 ridings with over a 140,000 people in the 905, Bramalea - Gore - Malton (152,698) Brampton West (170,422) Halton (151,943), Mississauga - Erindale (143,361) Oak Ridges - Markham (169,642) and Vaughan (154,206). By contrast there are 4.5 million people in Sask, Man, NWT, Nuv, Yuk, PEI, NS, NFLD, and NB and there are 62 seats for an average of 72,000 people per riding. Moreover, there is but one riding in the 9, Selkirk Interlake (90,807), with over 90,000 people. Given current growth trends, there will be more people in the 905 than the aforementioned provinces and territories by 2011. Given population growth, Harper would have to give Ontario alone another 70 seats to make things half way equal.

Second, the people living in Canada’s less populated provinces have a mechanism to assure that regional concerns are addressed; it is called provincial jurisdiction and provincial representation. By the very nature of living in a province with a small population, the 135,851 people in PEI have plenty of ways of addressing regional concerns that are not available to, for example, the 136 470 people living in Mississauga - Brampton South.

The third reason is that while one person one vote is bedrock principle of any democracy, one province one senate vote is something else entirely. People, not provinces, deserve equal reprsenation. A province is no more or less than the people that make up that province. Giving the 135,851 in PEI the power to determine everything under provincial jurisdiction, provincial representation and 4 MPs well all the while giving the 170, 422 residents of Brampton West one MP is bad enough as it is. Piling on and giving the 135,851 people in PEI the same number of “effective” senators, as per the American Triple E Senate model, as 12,160,282 Ontarians is beyond stupid and grossly undemocratic. Equally silly is having one "effective" Senator for every 72,997 New Brunswick residents (10 senators in total) versus one Senator for every 685, 581 BC residents (6 senators in total). And that is what the current configuration gives us.

Four, as Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. Having two houses is not only a lobbyists dream, it is a recipe for political gridlock and pork barrel politics. The only thing that would be worse is if one needed 60% of the votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster.

Five, leaving aside the fact that no province has a second chamber, most having abolished them long ago, and that there are numerous examples of unicameral nation states (e.g., New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, South Korea and Portugal), we already have a de facto unicameral state as it is -- just ask the supporters of a Triple E senate. After all, one can not argue on the one hand that the current senate is undemocratic and so contributes to the "democratic deficit" and on the other hand argue that the senate is “ineffective”. A body that adds nothing to the genuinly "effective" process can not take away anything either.

Drug warrior marijuana Talking Points: Quick Rebuttals

The Black Market will live on

It is one thing to illegally sell a legally produced product and make a profit, e.g., black market cigarettes. It is quite another thing to illegally produce and sell a product (e.g., moonshine) in market where there is legal competitors. The reason is simple. People want to know that what they buying and consuming. So when given the choice of buying an illegally produced product versus a legally produced product they are going to go with the later. (There is one notable exception and that is when an illegally produced product is successfully passed off as a legal one, e.g., fake brand name goods). That is why no matter how much Canadians drank during the time of American prohibition, I am sure that it never crossed the RCMP’s mind that American moonshine might become a competitor of Molson’s.

The gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time.

One of the arguments that I have repeatedly come across recently is that should marijuana be legalized then the gangs will move onto other things. I prefer to call this the gangs can not walk and chew gum at the same time argument.

The problem with this argument is that the gangs are already into other things and it is profits from marijuana that are helping them do that. In the context of Canada, marijuana profits and sometimes even marijuana itself are providing the seed capital the gangs need to expand operations into the States, for example, and to diversify operations (e.g., cocaine, heroin, human trafficking and guns). This is one of the main reasons why we need to nip this in the bud.


Gateway Drug

Researchers have rightly noted that people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal.However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast relationship being more than mere correlation.That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana's pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana's illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged blackmarket relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug. The Canadian Senate employed the new and improved version of the gateway argument as a reason for legalizing the drug.

In this context it should be noted that when the Dutch partially legalized the sale of marijuana, heroin and cocaine use went down despite an initial increase in marijuana use. Dutch use of hard drugs remains well below the European average.

Potent Pot

Potent pot is more is more myth than reality.

However, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 "chemically supercharged" joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of "dad's joints" would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School concurs, so does Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California and so does UCLA's Mark Kleiman.

That said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. After all, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.

Finally, the attempt to scare parents that have grown up on marijuana by distinguishing between potent pot and “your dad's marijuana” is too clever by half. After all, it begs the following question. If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?

Schizophrenia Marijuana

Epidemiological studies have consistently failed to show a positive correlation between marijuana use and schizophrenia and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population and Oxford's Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University,

"If anything, the studies seem to show a possible decline in schizophrenia from the '40s and the ‘ 50,"

Much of the evidence linking marijuana to schizophrenia suggests not that it causes schizophrenia but rather that it may cause the earlier onset of symptoms in people who would sooner or later develop schizophrenia. Much to Gordan Brown's dismay, this is opinion of Dr Iddon.

Dr Iddon, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse [Britain], said the study did not convince him it was time to return cannabis to class B. "I don't think the causal link has been proved. I think cannabis might - possibly for genetic reasons - trigger psychosis at an earlier age." The MP, who is also a member of the science and technology select committee, said there was a danger of criminalising "hundreds of thousands of young people" if the status of the drug was changed. "If Gordon Brown changes the class of the drug, it won't be evidence-based but for political reasons," he said.

Treatment Numbers

Most people in drug treatment in Ontario are there because they abuse hard drugs. Only a small percentage, 13% in 2005, are there because of marijuana. Furthermore, those that are there for marijuana differ from other people in treatment, in so far as they are much more likely to be there because of outside pressure. Not surprisingly the typical person in "treatment" for marijuana use in Ontario is a single teenage male who is still in high school.

Ontario is not unique. Despite the fact that number of marijuana users in Western world positively dwarfs of the number of people using hard drugs, in most Western countries the vast majority of people in drug treatment are there because they abuse hard drugs. The notable exception is the US. The vast majority of people in drug treatment in the US are there because they purportedly abuse marijuana. Why the difference? Well, the majority (70%) of those in treatment for marijuana, including many casual users and even some first to users, are there because they have been given a choice, "treatment" or jail. In fact, the rise in the number of admissions for treatment correlates perfectly with a rise in the number of arrests for possession. In true Orwellian fashion, the former Drug Czar cited these figures as evidence that other countries need to get tough on drugs.

Obama's Troubles: A lesson for Liberals

Let Obama troubles be a lesson to the Liberals and indeed the country. The American political system is an unmediated disaster. The Democrats control both houses, the sitting president is a Democrat and until recently they had filibuster proof lead in the Senate. Still they could not pass a watered down Health care bill. US presidents should stop ending their speeches with "God Bless America" and instead sign off by saying "God help America".

The next time someone says that Canada too needs a triple E senate and free votes, smack them up side the head.

Of course a bad political system only goes so far. Obama deserves a lot of the blame. The most straightforward way of bailing out the banks was to nationalize them. Instead, Obama decided to go with a plan to buy and then resell toxic assets. That always meant that if the value of these toxic assets went up, the investors would profit, but if they went down, the investors could always walk away from their debt. Tails the investors win, heads the tax payers lose. What Obama did not foresee was that not nationalizing the banks also meant that the very people responsible for accumulating those toxic assets in the first place were then free were free to hand out politically toxic bonuses. He should have listened to Krugman Stiglitz and others. He then would have been able to say to those troublesome bankers. "You screwed up. We own you. No bonus for you. Your fired."

Obama's health care strategy was equally misguided. In many parts of the world haggling over a price is a art form. One starts high and the person on the other side counters such a high price with an equally low one. Despite having been born in a far away land -- Hawaii -- Obama seems unaware of such a game. His idea is to start low and let an overmatched oppenent bid him even lower. That is what happened with the Health care bill. Instead of trying to sell the merits of single payer option, the thing that works for the rest of the developed world, he tried to sell the public on complicated government option and when that did not work the status quo plus a subsidy to the uninsured.

It is a lot easier to sell a straightward good idea, then it is to dress up a less contentious, but fatally compromised bad idea. Compromised policy is not a starting point and certainly not something one should aspire to. It is a failure of nerve.

Childcare

I am glad to hear childcare by another name is the Liberals "No. 1 social priority". It should be. However, Ignatieff is in dreamland if he can sell the same confused mess that the Liberals have tired to sell before.

It always unclear as to what the Liberals are offering. The goal of the program was ostensibly to work with the provinces to set up an early childhood education program for children under 6. However, to the average voter this amounted to little more than a vague promise to provide more daycare -- which the Liberals said early childhood education was not --- at sometime in the future; they could not figure out what this would mean for their lives. To add insult to injury, Liberals willingness to consider different deals for different provinces has muddied things all the more.

If the Liberals reintroduce such a program in the future, they need to present it in a form in which voters can understand. This is what they should do. They should promise to provide all day preschool and kindergarten for every 4 and 5 year old in Canada.

Of course, it will be said that the Liberals can not do this; education is under provincial control. It is and so is health care, but never stopped Pearson from introducing Medical Care Act. It is high time this group of Liberals grow some. No one is ever going to vote for a party that is scared of the Conservatives, scared of the provinces and just plain scared period.

Household Debt, Jim Flaherty and Early Childhood Education

The biggest threat to the Canadian economy is private debt. It is now over 150% of income and growing at an astounding pace.

Many would contribute much of private debt problem is the availability of cheap credit. Interest rates are at all time low and many of the regulative barriers to getting credit have been lowered or eliminated. The problem though is not chiefly one of supply. Even if the fed could raise interest rates, and a rate hike right now would kill a recovery and make the aforementioned debt situation much worse, would not eliminate the problem. This is not a moral hazard problem.

No the root cause of the problem is that household debt is going through the roof. Indeed, even though it is much more common for both couples to work than it was 30 or 40 years ago, a much larger portion of what a family makes now goes towards housing, child care, transportation and yes taxes than before. The financial gain of having both parents work has been whipped out by a decline in real wages, paying taxes on two incomes and not one and increased costs associated with having both parents working, particularly transportation and child care costs. Factor in sky rocking housing costs and you have a recipe for annual debt to income rise of 7%.

The Conservatives, Jim Flaherty, have made things much worse. One of the first things the Conservatives did upon coming to power was to extend the mortgage amortization period from 25 to 30 years then 4 months later to extend it to 40 years. To top it off the Conservatives reduced the needed down payment on second properties from 20% to 5% and for a time allowed for 0 down home loans. Conservatives actions resulted in the creation of housing bubbles in some of Canada's largest cities.

Since the crash the government has reduced the amortization period by a token amount to 35 years and mandated a 5% down payment. However, much of the damage is already done, and the government has to find of a way of cooling off the market while all the while not setting off a real estate crash that could kill the recovery. This is something that needs to done. After all, in the long term, interest rates are going to go up and no matter how good the recovery there are going to be a lot of people under water when that happens. Prices in Vancouver, in particular, are too high. A 2 to 3% hike in interest rates will hurt a lot of people.

One way of chushing the blow of the inevitable interest rate hike is to address some of the other costs mentioned above. A Conservative would say cutting taxes, but targeting the high cost of childcare is a far more effective way of dealing with the problem. It is not uncommon for families to pay $1000 plus per month per child. If the Liberals were to be truely bold and provide all day kindergarten and preshool to every 3, 4 and 5 year old in country, the savings for young familes, arguably the most vunerable home owners, would be huge. Some familes would stand to save up $20,000 a year in childcare costs.

Can not Score Canada: More emphasis on Speed and Scoring was needed

Canada was shut out by the Swiss, by the Fins and by the Russians in 2006. Scoring was a problem, the powerplay was problem and a lack of speed on the blueline was a problem.

Things have not changed that much up front. The pool of forwards Canada has to draw on is not that much better than in 2006. So it was vital that hockey toss aside its fascination with "role players" with "chemistry" with "grit" and "leadership". 2006 team had all those things in spades and it sucked. Kris Drapper selection in 2006 represents everything that is wrong with Hockey Canada. Kris Draper was a good role player. He was gritty, he provided leadership and it was absurd that he made the team and Crosby, and E. Staal did not.

Yzerman should know better than to repeat Gretzky's idiocy. After all, he was left off the 1991 Canada Cup team for no good reason. Mike Keenen said that Yzerman was "too young", but he was 25! and whatever his age he scored 51 goals and could skate like the wind. Besides, Keenen is the guy that still thinks that Greg Gilbert and Stephene Matteau for Tony Amonte was great trade for the Rangers.

Canada might still win in 2010, but as in 2002 it will be despite management and not because of it. In 2002 Gretzky left Bertuzzi Thornton off the team and despite the gold Canada was far from flawless.

Team Canada: are you kidding me

Morrow 25 points, Seabrook 16 points and Bergeron 29 points make the team and Mike Green 38 points, St. Louis 43 points, J. Carter 46 goals last year, Stamkos 37 points, LeCaviler do not. Hockey Canada can no longer afford to hand the reins over to ex superstars without them first have proved themselves at the GM level. Crosby might have the makings of a great GM. I do not know. However, good numbers do not mean that he should be the GM in 2024, say.

Mike Green Should Make the Team

If Green is left off the team, Yzerman will prove himself to be as bad as Gretzky. Green has 38 points, was nominated for Norris last year, and is plus 15. People say his Defense is lacking, put he is every bit as good in his own end as Dan Boyle and is better offensively. Oh yeah and Niedermayer is -13.

The pundits are biased towards older players -- particularly the grind it out type. Unfortunately, in the past so was management. This has to change if Canada is avoid another 2006 debacle. Ryan Smyth, for example, does not deserve to be on the team. It is that simple. When you compare his skill level to emerging players such as Stamkos, and Toews and his stats over the last few years to more established players such E. Staal and Lecavailer you see clearly that he does not measure up. Team Canada managment can not afford to be nostalgic.

Team Canada: This who should make the cut

G: Fleury, Brodeur, Luongo

D: Boyle, Weber, Pronger, Niedermayer, Keith, Bouwmeester, Green

F: Getzlaf, E. Staal, Nash, Thorton, Heatley, Crosby, Lecavalier, St. Louis, Ignalia, Carter, M Richards, Marleau, Perry

Canada's Afghan boondoggle

So what does the 18 billion get us.


1) Over 2 thirds of Afghans in Kandahar province want us gone.

2) Whether it be by Al Qaeda (see there warnings related to the Afghan mission) or by homegrown terrorists (see the Toronto 18), Canada is more likely to be attacked.

3) The misssion poises a threat to national unity. Indeed, a terrorist attack, inspired by Canada 's presence in Afghanistan, might revitalize the Quebec’s separatist movement, especially if Quebec is the victim. Currently the Afghan mission is opposed by 70% of Quebecers. If Quebecers die as a result of us being there, the separatists will use it as a reason why Quebecers need their own country with its own foreign policy.

4) An attack would set back race relations in Canada and hamper our ability to sustain the high levels of immigration needed to combat an aging population.

Olympic Hockey Roster

Here is rough break down of who I would have as the final 25 back in the summer.

G: Mason, Brodeur, Luongo

D: Burns, Weber, Pronger, Niedermayer, Keith, Bouwmeester, Phaneuff, Green

F: Getzlaf (C), E. Staal (W), Nash (W), Thorton (C), Heatley (W), Crosby (C), Lecavalier (C), St. Louis (W), Doan (W), Ignalia (W) Carter (C), Richards (C) Marleau (W) Toews (W)

Move Carter and E. Staal to the wings. Staal moved to the rightwing to play with Getzlaf and Nash in the world Championships.

Since then, Burns and Mason have played themselves off the team and Fleury and Boyle have played themselves on. Perry and Stamkos deserve to be ahead of Doan and Toews and Phaneuff, Staal, Lecavalier, have not set the world on fire and B Richards has been hot.

This is who I would go with now.

G: Fleury, Brodeur, Luongo

D: Boyle, Weber, Pronger, Niedermayer, Keith, Bouwmeester, Phaneuff, Green

F: Getzlaf (C), E. Staal (W), Nash (W), Thorton (C), Heatley (W), Crosby (C), Lecavalier (C), St. Louis (W), Stamkos (W), Ignalia (W) Carter (W), M Richards (C) Marleau (W) Perry (W)

Immigration: Canada needs to Get it Right

An aging population and not climate change is the biggest threat we face as a nation. In fact it is not even close.

The average Canadian in 2004 was 39.7; that makes Canada one of the oldest nations on earth. However bad things are now things promise to get a lot worse. The percentage of Canadians over 65 is set to go from 14.7 now to 27.6 in 2050. If the situation was ever allowed to get this bad, the economy would at best be stagnet, the federal government would surely be in deficit, and virtually every public entitlement program would be under enormous pressure or would have already collapsed. Most notably our health care system would be in serious trouble.

The problem is this. People in their 60s cost the health care system more than twice as much on a per capita basis than any of the younger demographics. People in their 70s cost the health care system more twice that as people in their 60s on per capita basis. People in their 80s cost the system twice as much per capita basis and on it goes. In US, since 1975 half of every health care dollar spent has been spent on the last year of life. It is not without reason that some commentors recast the health care crisis in the US in Canada is really being a demographic one.

The notion that this problem can be addressed by encouraging Canadians to have more kids is unrealistic. There is not one Western nation with a fertility rate above the replacement rate yet alone one with a fertility rate high enough to withstand the aforementioned increase in the number of seniors as percentage of the total population.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:CAN&q=fertility+rate+canada


To think that Canada has chance of nearly doubling its current fertility rate of 1.6 -- and that is what it would take -- is pie in the sky nonsense. Moreover, far from making things better a massive baby boom would only increase an already mushrooming dependency rate for a good number of years. There is something perverse about wanting Canada to become a country of the very old and very young supported by taxes on a rapidly shrinking working population.

Canada has no option but to continue with a high rate of immigration.

Immigration is allowing us to make some headway. 2001 study found that based on 1996 census if Canada did not allow any immigrants, then the number of seniors as percentage of the population in 2050 would be 29. 8. If on the other hand Canada let in 225,000 annually, then that number would drop to 25.4. Finally, if Canada let in 450,000 annually that number would drop further still to 22.9. http://sociology.uwo.ca/popstudies/dp/dp03-03.pdf Of course, if 450,000 annually is good, somewhere between 500,000 and million is even better. Finally, latter number and more of an emphasis on youth would be best of all.

That is the good news. The bad news is that Canada's immigration system needs to be reformed.

Take family reunification. There is no reason why an immigrant should be able to bring in anyone other than his spouse and dependents. After all, if the main point of a high rate of immigration is to lessen the effects of an aging population, what sense does it make to allow immigrants to sponsor their parents and grandparents?

Eliminting the ability of immigrants to sponsor their parents and grandparents is obvious place to start, but there are other less obvious reforms that need to be taken. One of the biggest concerns is that the ratio of skilled principle applicants as percentage of the over number of immigrants to Canada is way too small. Currently less than one in 5 immigrants is a skilled principle applicant. And however much I am loath to admit it, the Mark Steyn's of the world are right about one thing. Allowing someone to immigrant to Canada has a huge potential cost associated with it. This espeically so with regard to any other category of immigrant other the skilled principle applicants. After all, it is only skilled principle applicants that earning anywhere close to what their Canadian peers are earning and skilled principle applicants are the only category of immigrants that are working in numbers that even approach the Canadian average.

"At 26 weeks after their arrival, 50% of all immigrants aged 25 to 44 were employed. This was 30 percentage points below the employment rate of about 80% among all individuals aged 25 to 44 in the Canadian population. ... At 52 weeks after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 58%. This narrowed the gap to 23 percentage points. At 104 weeks, or two years after arrival, the employment rate among prime working-age immigrants was 63%, 18 percentage points below the national rate of 81%. ... Immigrants admitted as principal applicants in the skilled worker category had an even better record for employment. At 26 weeks after arrival, the gap in the employment rate between them and the Canadian population was 20 percentage points. By 52 weeks, this had narrowed to 12 points, and by two years, it was down to 8 points."

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/051013/d051013b.htm

If you tease out the numbers, 55% of non principal skilled applicants in the 25 to 44 age group are working after 2 years! Canada needs to do a better job of ensuring that immigrants are able to succeed and while some bleeding hearts will no doubt claim that a complete turn around is possible, an approach that is far more likely to bare fruit is eliminating or greatly limitiing those categories of immigrants that are not likely to succeed economically. To say that Canada needs immigrants is only half right. We need young well educated immigrants who are proficient in English. Indeed, we need a lot more than what we are allowing in now. We do not, however, need their parents and grandparents. We also do not need refugees. Most of all what Canada does not need is cheap unskilled guest workers.

Given Jason Kenney's stated desire to avoid “the kind of ethnic enclaves or parallel communities that exist in some European countries” and Mark Steyn's rantings about second generation Islamic exterminism in Europe you would think that Kenney and Steyn would reel back before the subject of guest workers like vampires before garlic. Instead, Steyn's musings reduce to an infintile and bigoted ethnic essentialism and Kenney seems hell bent on allowing more guest works than Germany, Netherlands and Austria did in the 1960s and 1970s combined.

Indeed, whereas the typical guest worker was once an American transferred to a branch office in Canada, the fastest growing category of guest worker is now the unskilled type with poor language skills. Under the Conservatives, Canada has allowed in some two hunderd thousand plus unskilled workers a year. In other words, the average Canadian tax payer now pays through the noise to have cheap labour sent in from other countries for the sole purpose of cutting his wages. Forget Conservative talk about such provincial programs bringing in much needed skilled workers, this was the kind of positions Alberta was hoping to fill through its guest worker programs this summer: Front desk clerk, short order cook, baker, maid, assembly line worker, server, buser, bellhop, valet, and cafeteria worker, laundry attendant, pet groomer, general labourer, and hair dresser. All that is required of such would be immigrants is that they score 4 or 24 on the language assessment. In other words, they can still be functionally illiterate and still get it in.

Pace Mark Steyn, Integrating immigrants is really quite simple. If you bring in young well educated immigrants that are fluent in English, they will integrate. It will not matter a lick what their background or skin colour is. On the other hand, if you bring in non English speaking uneducated immigrants to clean toilets and serve donuts at Tim Hortons, you have recipe for what happened in Europe, viz, poor race relations, xenophobia and illegal immigration. It is really that clear cut and Kenney should know this. Every expert on immigration does.

It takes a great deal of chutzpah to Kenney to talk about wanting to avoid “the kind of ethnic enclaves or parallel communities that exist in some European countries” and then go about encouraging the very thing that led to the creation of these communities in Europe, viz., importing gobs of unskilled guest labour.

In addition to letting in more skilled immigrants and less of everyone else, Canada needs to refine what it means to be skilled applicant.

The point system is a mess. It is weighted, accidently I am sure, in such a way as to favour older applicants over younger ones. A premium is placed on experience, being married is advantageous and age is not penalized much at all. For example, a 49 year old is given the same number of points for age as a 21 year old! Not only is all this is completely at odds with the stated aim of using immigration to mediate some of the stresses of having a low birth rate, a shrinking supply of labour and a graying population, the very kind of skilled worker most likely to fail, viz., older workers is the one most likely to qualify.

Indeed, while everyone agrees that Canada needs to be a better job of recognizing foreign credentials, what has gotten less attention is just how hard it is establish oneself in a particular field without any contacts in that field and work contacts are what many new immigrants lack. As various studies have shown, for immigrants outside of the Western world, work experience counts for virtually nothing as at all. For this reason alone, Canada needs to redo its point system such that it looks to attract younger skilled workers who are not at such a disadvantage contact wise as their peers.

Above all else though Canada need put more of an emphasis on language proficiency. After all, although Jason Kenney may let in hundreds of thousands of unskilled guest workers with little or no English, he is right to say that language proficiency is best predictor of economic success.

It should be noted that by language proficiency I mean ones ability to converse in either French or English. Currently, moderate proficiency across the board in both English and French is amounts to the same thing high proficiency in one! This is akin to thinking an average switch hitter is not the equal to all star who bats only right handed.

All that being said, in order to get at appreciation for some of the short comings of the current points system consider this. Under the current formula, a single 26 year old who has just completed a PHD in Canada, and who speaks perfect English, but who lacks relevant work experience and is not proficient in French would likely not qualify. Indeed, assuming no family ties and no relevant work experience, they would score 56 out of 100. In other words, if they were not able to quickly secure a job in one of the relevant fields, they would be heading back to their country of origin in short order. Even, if that same applicant spoke perfect French and English they would still not qualify. They would score 64 out of 100.

By contrast a 49 year old who has never set foot in the country and speaks no French but has a BA, 3 years experience, moderate English skills a spouse with a 1 year diploma, and a cousin in distant Canadian city would score 67! This is absurd.

Gift Cards: Like Cash, but less useful

Why do people buy gift cards? There is something that does the very same thing and it is redemable everywhere. It is called CASH. I will only ever buy a gift card if the amount on the gift card is greater than the amount it costs to buy that gift card. But given the number of suckers out there, I am going to be waiting a very long time.

Janine Krieber

This is what Janine Krieber got right

1) Igantieff has been an unmediated disaster.

2) The rot goes well beyond Ignatieff.

3) Paul Martin was a cancer.


Now this is what she got wrong.

1) Love is blind. It is obvious to all but the two of them that Stephen Dion does not have the ability to rebuild the party. His English is not good enough. He never had the support of the caucus or even the party base. He is not engaging speaker, he is not charismatic and he comes off as a wimp. Moreover, the notion that the green shift would win the election for the Liberals was pie in sky nonsense. The Liberals actually did a nice job boiling down what the tax shift was. "Less on what you earn more on what you burn." However, the Liberals were never going to be able to explain to the public just what is "burnt" and as a result how such a shift would effect the cost of any number of goods and services. The Conservatives gave them an answer. It would be a "tax on everything". Naturally some Canadians were convinced that this was simply a tax increase in disguise. But the kicker was this. I do not care what Canadians told polling companies about climate change. No one I mean no is ever going to be excited over a tax shift. Making the central plank of his platform something that did not offer a single tangible benefit Canadians just went to show how hopeless Dion was as a politician and why he needed to be ushered out the door as soon as possible.

2) Listening to some Liberals you would think that the gun registry, NEP and SSM lost the Liberals Western Canada. Such suggestions are of course ridiculous. West of Winnipeg the Liberals were only ever strong in BC and the reason they dropped off the map in BC after the 1974 election was because of Trudeau's pandering to Quebec. Of course, pandering to Quebec was the same reason why "the West" rejected the PC party in 1993. For Janine Krieber, to suggest that the coalition with the Bloc was a good idea just goes to show how removed she is from understanding political realities in Western Canada.

3) The rot did not begin with Martin taking over. Under Martin and Chrétien the Liberals abandoned universality, the heart of the Liberal brand, and favored instead means tested programs. Means tested social programs do not win elections; the populace is not going to get excited about paying for a service that only a small percentage of the public can use. By turning every social program on offer into a form of welfare, the ability of the Liberals to offer anything other than tax cuts is very limited. Sure enough the Liberals, despite their vacuous rhetoric to contrary, have become virtually indistinguishable from the Conservatives on most issues.

Dion did nothing to reverse the trend. The Green shift only goes to prove that this is true. The same party that had once promised to replace the GST was now planning to reduce income taxes and introduce a regressive tax.

Worse, Dion was the first to take steps to rob the Liberals of their only remaining redeeming feature, viz., a luke warm social liberalism. People should not be confused by Dion's commitment to affirmative action and other forms of degenerate liberalism. Whether it be marijuana, euthanasia or prostitution, Dion did nothing and said next to nothing. What Dion started Ignatieff finished. Under the guise of making the Liberals competitive again in rural Canada,Ignatieff Liberals have made it clear that the Liberal party will never again to say or doing anything that might anger social conservatives.

Conservatives enabling Criminals to Keep their Guns

Gun nuts love to drone on about how law abiding gun owners are being targeted by registry. Leaving aside the fact that given that it is a crime not to register a gun, only gun owners that register their guns are law abiding. Of course the registry targets --- a odd choice of words given the subject matter really--- , law abiding gun owners. If you take any large group of people, and the number of law abiding gun owners is large, you can predict with fairly good accuracy that a certain number will develop heart disease, a certain number will get cancer, and certain numbers will be convicted of a crime. By not having Canadians register long guns, the Conservatives are enabling criminals to have guns. After all, the registry, and remember we are talking about former law abiding gun owners who dutifully registered all their guns, gives the authorities enough ammunition to ensure these criminals surrender their registered guns.

The Gun Registry: Some thoughts

1)The cost of registry is about a billion dollars. The 2 billion dollar figure bantered around by the Conservatives is a lie. Whatever the cost though, saying these cost overruns justify disbanding the registry now is akin to saying that if a bridge goes over budget than it should be blown up upon completion. By the way, it costs around 3 million a year to register long guns and if the Conservatives had of continued to collect monies for these guns, then there would be no cost to tax paper whatsoever.

2) People still get murdered by long guns in this country. Indeed, 88% of women killed with gun were killed with a shotgun or rifle.

3) The sharp distinction between "law abiding" firearm owners and criminals is a false distinction. From 2005 to Sep 2009 there have been 9,340 firearm licences have been revoked. Some developed a mental illness. Others committed crimes of various sorts. In other words, over time a sizable number of "law abiding" firearm owners become statistically much more likely to poise a danger to others, particularly their spouses. Little wonder than that while the vast majority of gun owners want the registry gone, 77% of those living with a gun owner want it kept. As another blogger, Luke, identified the crux of the matter. "If person had their firearm licence revoked and their firearms are not registered how would the authorities ensure proper disposal of the firearms?"

4) There is also the issue of suicide to consider. For every homicide in Canada there are 6 or more suicides. The likelihood that one will commit suicide goes up significantly if there is a firearm in the home.

5) All the evidence is consistent with the gun registry having worked. To wit:

The suicide rate in Canada peaked at 15.2 in 1978, dipped below 12 for the first time in 32 years in 2000 and reached a post 1970 low of 11.3 in 2004.

The average suicide rate per year between 1970 and 1976 was 13.35, between 1977 and 1983 it was 14.5, between 1984 and 1990 it was 13.1, between 1991 and 1997 it was 13 and between 1998 to 2004 it was 12.

The number of suicides by firearm in Canada dropped from a high of 1287 in 1978 to a low of 568 in 2004. There was an average of 1033 fire arm suicides per year between 1970 and 1976, 1197 between 1977 and 1983, 1084 between 1984 and 1990, 970 between 1991 and 1997 and 682 between 1998 and 2004.

The number of accidental shooting deaths in Canada stood at 143 in 1971 and has generally declined since then; a low of 20 was reached in 2000. There was an average of 117 accidental shooting deaths per year between 1970 and 1976, 70 between 1977 and 1983, 62.3 between 1984 and 1990, 50.1 between 1991 and 1997 and 28.1 between 1998 and 2004.

The rate of homicide in Canada peaked in 1975 at 3.03 per 100,000 and has dropped since then, reaching lower peaks in 1985 (2.72 per 100,000) and 1991 (2.69 per 100,000) while declining to 1.73 per 100,000 in 2003. The average murder rate between 1970 and 1976 was 2.52, between 1977 and 1983 it was 2.67, between 1984 and 1990 it was 2.41, between 1991 and 1997 it was 2.23 and between 1998 and 2004 it was 1.82.

Liberal Bloggers Need to Say What they Stand For

Many Liberal bloggers are content to argue the party line, talk inside baseball and daily goings on. This is too bad. The Liberals do not stand for anything. They are no role model. Moreover, the Liberal party needs to be regularly kicked in the balls least it become to comfortable with its own mediocrity. The Liberal bloggers, big and small, need to articulate what concrete programs and changes they want. So let us hear it Calgary Grit, BCer in Toronto, et al.

Here again is my list. Of course, not all of them are terribly realistic, but so what

Things that need to be legalized

1) marijuana,

2) prostitution

3) euthanasia.


Needed Federal Programs

1) Dental care

2) Full day Kindergarten and Playschool

3) Natonal Drug plan


Upgrading of national standards

1) $10 hour National minimum wage indexed to inflation

2) Miniumum 4 weeks vacation a year. This is the European minimum.

3) Massive increase the number of ridings. The hinterlands have way too much electoral clout.


Things that need to be abolished

1) Native Rights If someone was to suggest that land should be reserved for, say, Chinese Canadians and that Chinese Canadians should have rights that other Canadians do not have, you would first ask them to lie down; you would then call 911 and tell the person at the other end of the line that you believe that the person before you had suffered a stroke and that paramedics should come quick. Whether it be billions lost to illegal cigarette sales, or setting up school food programs for kids who live on land that if divided equally would net them tens of millions on the open market, it hard to think of anything quite so daft.

A commitment to native rights and reserves condemns future generations to be born into a communities that are completely economically unviable. Without hope for a better future, these children will be plagued by the same problems that plagued their parents. Lamenting high infant mortality rates, teen pregnancy rates, teen drop out rates, crime rates and rapid substance abuse, means nota if you are setting in motion the very things you lament.

The same goes for racism. People can lament that racism still exists in Canada all they want. However,supporting a policy that defines native in the same manner that Nazis defined Jew and giving one particular group rights that no other groups enjoys, is preventing things from getting better. The bleeders should not kid themselves.

2) The Senate.

3) Family Unification If the main point of a high rate of immigration is to lessen the effects of an aging population, what sense does it make to allow immigrants to sponsor their parents and grandparents? The average immigrant to Canada is only a bit younger than the average Canadian. Now do not get me wrong. Canada needs more immigrants -- alot more. Canada needs to at least triple the number of economic immigrants to Canada each year. However at the same time as it needs to do that, it needs to all but eliminate every other category of immigrant. Also, there needs to be a greater emphasis and youth, and language skills.

4) The ability of employers to bring in unskilled temporary workers. The Canadian tax payer should not be paying to have temporary unskilled workers brought in just so the Tim Horton's and company can undercut wages of Canadians. If they want workers, they can pay the piper.

Integrating immigrants is really quite simple. If you bring in well educated immigrants that are fluent in English, they will integrate. It will not matter a lick what their background or skin colour is. On the other hand, if you bring in non English speaking uneducated immigrants to clean toilets and serve donuts at Tim Hortons, you have recipe for what happened in Europe, viz, poor race relations, xenophobia and illegal immigration. It is really that clear cut and Kenney should know this. Every expert on immigration does.

5) The Monarchy

The Liberals need to forget Chrétien majorities and build a movement

The Liberal's problem in nutshell is this. The Conservative party is part of larger conservative movement and very notion of liberal movement sounds well odd. Conservative party draws strength from the movement and movement in turn draws strength from having a party that reflects their values. There is no liberal movement in Canada and the Liberal party, especially under Ignatieff, has done nothing to foster one.

Without a core set of policy goals to work towards, it at little wonder why the Liberal party is purely reactive and dominated by short term thinking. Other than returning to power, the party has set itself no goals. This is marked contrast to Harper. Harper has a long term vision and long term strategy for how to accomplish it.

Chrétien's successes provide the Liberals with no template. The seas parted for Chrétien in 1993. The constitutional wars sidelined two two major federal parties (NDP and PCs) for a decade and gave birth to two new parties (Reform and Bloc). The Liberals were the only established party left standing after the 1993 election. His subsequent majorities were based on taking a 100 seats in Ontario. The Liberals would do well to pretend that they never happened.

Jason Kenney Thinks Canadians are Morons

Jason Kenney must think that Canadians are morons. The notion that Canada will be able to better ingrate immigrants into Canadian society by teaching them about the beaver and Vimy Ridge is ridiculous.

Integrating immigrants is really quite simple. If you bring in well educated immigrants that are fluent in English, they will integrate. It will not matter a lick what their background or skin colour is. On the other hand, if you bring in non English speaking uneducated immigrants to clean toilets and serve donuts at Tim Hortons, you have recipe for what happened in Europe, viz, poor race relations, xenophobia and illegal immigration. It is really that clear cut and Kenney should know this. Every expert on immigration does.

The thing is though the number of guest workers allowed in has exploded since the Conservatives came to power and whereas the typical guest worker was once an American transferred to a branch office in Canada, the fastest growing category of guest worker is now the unskilled type with poor language skills. The Conservatives have not done this directly. They have turned over a greater percentage of the immigration file to the provinces and Western provinces in particular have used the program to undercut labour. The Canadian tax payer has paid through the noise to have cheap labour sent in from other countries for the sole purpose of cutting wages of the Canadian tax payer. Forget Conservative talk about such provincial programs bringing in much needed skilled workers, this was the kind of positions Alberta was hoping to fill through its guest worker programs this summer: Front desk clerk, short order cook, baker, maid, assembly line worker, server, buser, bellhop, valet, and cafeteria worker, laundry attendant, pet groomer, general labourer, and hair dresser. All that is required of such would be immigrants is that they score 4 or 24 on the language assessment. In other words, they can still be functionally illiterate and still get it in.

It takes a great deal of chutzpah to Kenney to talk about wanting to avoid “the kind of ethnic enclaves or parallel communities that exist in some European countries” and then go about encouraging the very thing that led to the creation of these communities in Europe, viz., importing gobs of unskilled guest labour.

Do not take my word for it. Take Sheila Fraser's word for it. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/auditor-general-sounds-alarm-on-immigration-policy/article1349837/

Liberal Fund Raising Plea

When we were flush with cash, it was easy to poll for policy. Now that times are tight, we still poll --- more than anyone else I might add-- , but we do poll nearly enough. As result, we are essentially flying blind!!!!!!!! We do not have enough information to see which way the wind is blowing and tailor our policies to whims of public opinion. The policy cupboard is bare. Only more polling will change that.

Remember what separates us from the Conservatives is not policy. Not being able to poll for policy we have had to adopt their platform as our own well all the while voting against them in the house. No, what separates us is that they have opinions and we have none They shape opinion and events and we react to them -- well at least some of time. We have not bothered to say anything about Senate reform and the gun registry for years. Being significantly older than than those whipper snapper Conservatives MPs, we just do not have the energy. We old, tired and stuck in our ways. Help us.

Liberalism Is Dead

Small l liberalism in Canada is all but dead. The Chrétien and Martin fatally wounded it. Under Martin and Chrétien the Liberals abandoned universality, the heart of the Liberal brand, and favored instead means tested programs. Means tested social programs do not win elections; the populace is not going to get excited about paying for a service that only a small percentage of the public can use. By turning every social program on offer into a form of welfare, the ability of the Liberals to offer anything other than tax cuts is very limited. Sure enough the Liberals, despite their vacuous rhetoric to contrary, have become virtually indistinguishable from the Conservatives on most issues. Indeed, so in lock step are the Liberal and Conservative parties that a tax shift is considered a bold departure.

Having already insured that Conservatives and Liberals are of a piece when it comes to foreign policy, and pandering to Quebec nationalists, Ignatieff is poised to delivery the coup de grace. Under the guise of making the Liberals competitive again in rural Canada, the Ignatieff Liberals have made it clear that the Liberal party will never again to say or doing anything that might anger social conservatives. Small l liberalism is dead and with it the Liberal brand. It should also be said that this bolds ill for the Liberals electoral fortunes. If conservatism is what the public wants, they are going to prefer the real thing to some ill named Johnny come lately.

Why the Green Shift Failed

The Liberals actually did a nice job boiling down what the tax shift was. "Less on what you earn more on what you burn." However, the Liberals were never going to be able to explain to the public just what is "burnt" and as a result how such a shift would effect the cost of any number of goods and services. The Conservatives gave them an answer. It would be a "tax on everything". Naturally some Canadians were convinced that this was simply a tax increase in disguise. But the kicker was this. I do not care what Canadians told polling companies about climate change. No one I mean no is ever going to be excited over a tax shift. Making the central plank of his platform something that did not offer a single tangible benefit Canadians just went to show how hopeless Dion was as a politician and why he needed to be ushered out the door as soon as possible.

Is Igantieff just Visiting? I am starting to hope So

There were times over the last few months that when the Conservative Ignatieff just visiting ads came on that I thought to myself if only this were true. Last week I did not even need one of the ads to prompt such thoughts. I dreamt of driving him back to Harvard myself

Now do not get me wrong. Ignatieff is lot more salable than Dion ever was. No matter how much some people wanted to deny it, Dion's English was just not good enough and he came across as a consummate whimp. The Conservatives literally pooped on the guy. Ignatieff, at least, has a strong command of both languages and I never once thought of stealing his lunch money.

The problem with Igantieff is that as a politician he is a deathly boring panderer and amazingly insubstantive. He is of his party in other words. Martin had dreams of being all things to all people, but it was not until loosing power in 2006 that this sentiment really started to take hold of the party and has since culminated in Ignatieff's directionless leadership. A party that wants to be equal things to both social conservatives and social liberals, to both federalists and Quebec nationalists will not mean anything to anyone Ignatieff has stripped the party of any passion and any energy Indeed, the Liberals do not even pretend to stand for anything. When pressed as to why they have not introduced any policy, they either dodge the question or they answer in terms of political consequences. "The Conservatives might steal it" for example. Never mind the fact, that if the Conservatives are likely the steal it chances are it is not worth squat to begin with. Such messaging is only ever going to make sense to the dwindling number of Liberal die hards. Indeed, to your average voter, it does not matter a lick to your average voter whether another party steals a policy. What matters is whether they like that policy. And from a public policy point of view what matters is whether the policy is good for the country.

With the notable exception of the Dion's half baked notion that the Liberals could sail to victory by championing the environment, not since Trudeau have the Liberals been willing to advance anything resembling an agenda. In the Chretein and Martin years the Liberals did not so much advance policy as -- at least in their telling of it -- have it forced upon them either by external forces or by the courts. SSM is a classic case in point. The Liberals framed the issue as something that they had been forced to do. As Martin put it, you can not cherry pick charter rights; you take the good with bad. SSM was the just the price for having other rights guarnteed. SSM was the straight man's burden to bear.

All of this is in marked contrast to the Conservatives going all the way back to Mulroney. Whether it be an the idiotic idea of a Triple E senate or equally stupid idea of shutting the "long registry", full blooded Conservative parties have always known what they want and they have been willing to pursue it. What this has meant in the greater scheme of things is that just as the Liberals have feetered away the advantage their once mighty brand gave them the Conservatives have replaced the Liberals as the natural governing party of Canada.

The Liberals can not afford to not weigh in on contenious issues. Playing itself will not rebuild their brand. Playing it safe will not win them the next election. Playing it safe will mean a Conservative majority.