EclectEcon

A recent study for the C.D. Howe Institute is called, "The Welfare Enigma: Explaining the Dramatic Decline in Canadians’ Use of Social Assistance, 1993–2005," by Ross Finnie and Ian Irvine. The title is misleading, though, for there is no enigma: welfare benefits were reduced, employment options improved, and the combination meant fewer people sought social assistance.

...the SA rate fell, from a peak of 3.1 million individuals
in the early 1990s to 1.7 million in 2005.

In other words, as social assistance benefits fell, and as the opportunity costs of going on social assistance rose [eco-speak for saying that people had improved options, compared with going on welfare], surprise! Fewer people chose to go on social assistance.

The importance of these empirical findings is to see that welfare is not an either-or thing; rather, adjusting the height of the social safety net plays a role in determining how many will avail themselves of the support provided by that net. And if we opt for a lower social safety net, fewer people will use it.

For further evidence along these same lines, see this by Tim Worstall at the Adam Smith Institute.

From Stratfor:

Reports from Canada say Hezbollah operatives have been detected conducting surveillance on Jewish targets in Toronto, including schools and synagogues. U.S. sources have confirmed increased Hezbollah activity as well. Intriguingly, the reports specifically said the men conducting the surveillance were Hezbollah members, not just men of Middle Eastern appearance. That either indicates a deep penetration of Hezbollah in Canada — the Canadians knew the political affiliation of the men — or psychological warfare against Hezbollah, an attempt to let the group know the Canadians are on to them. If this is a Hezbollah operation, the Canadians just told them they were busted.

Why announce it? To deter Hezbollah from attacking Jewish sites? To say, "We're watching you, and we will stop you before you succeed?" To reassure the voters that the Canadian spy agency really is effective?

But at the same time, won't this also tell Hezbollah that they need to improve and rethink their terrorism projects?

Last week, Ron sent me a copy of a mass e-mailing urging people to sign an on-line petition to protest recent changes to CBC Radio 2:

On March 19, 2007, CBC Radio 2 cancelled its excellent evening classical music programming, and the immensely informative Arts Report, and the award-winning Two New Hours. We consider that with these changes the management of our only national public broadcaster has compromised its tradition of providing stimulating and informed programming. We also believe that these changes are not consistent with the CBC mandate and the recent UNESCO treaty on cultural diversity.

The public voices of many dedicated and world-class Canadian writers, hosts, composers, producers and artists are being muted. If the changes are allowed to stand and the trend to continue, the CBC will have entirely squandered its unique capacity to represent the arts, with their inherent qualities of complexity, depth and order.

We, the undersigned, believe the new programming is a retrograde step, one that duplicates material readily available on other stations and compromises the cultural integrity of our public broadcaster. We respectfully insist that the current programming changes to Radio 2 be revisited, and the damage reversed by reinstating the type of intelligent, provocative and informative programming that has long been a hallmark of Radio 2.

My reaction to the changes was a bit different. First, I have always hated the so-called "arts report"; it is usually a collection of special pleadings from the arts community for more gubmnt support.

Second, I have been delighted that CBC Radio 2 has cut waaayyy back on its newscasts. There's no good reason for both CBC1 and CBC2 to run long newscasts, and given the biases of CBC news, the less news the better.

Third, I rarely listen(ed) to CBC2 at night. But I'm certainly willing to give up evening classical music if that means we can also get rid of the arts report.

Further, with web radio and satellite radio, there is far less reason to have the taxpayers of Canada support the performance and broadcast of classical music. CBC2 has traditionally represented a distinctly non-egalitarian redistribution from the taxpayers at large to elitist snobs. But with these technological developments, those of us who want to listen to classical music can easily pay for it and find it ourselves.

While we're at it, why don't we just shut down all of CBC Radio 2 and sell off their broadcast frequencies and equipment?

Related Digression: The television coverage of the World Curling Championships on CBC has been far less than satisfactory.

via BenS and John Meuller:

Did Canadian Medskools admit too many females over the past few decades? Yes, in some ways, it can plausibly be argued that Canada does have too many female doctors. This conclusion is based on several important observations (courtesy of discussions with colleague Brian Ferguson):

• Canadian Medskools limit enrolment with the result that, at current wages and prices, we have far fewer physician services provided than customers would like to "buy".
• Time and again, the evidence from fee-for-service data is that female physicians opt for more leisure in the work-income-leisure trade-off; on average, they provide fewer services per year than do male physicians.

Given these two pieces of evidence, it looks as if we would probably have more physician services and fewer shortages in Canada if medskools had admitted only male medical students.

Of course, a better solution might have been and would certainly be to admit more of both males and females to medskools.

No biases here (from Mark Steyn's website, courtesy of BenS):

... [A]s it happens, the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission controversy is not short of agents provocateurs. Want some names?

Okay, step forward, senior CHRC "human rights investigator" Dean Steacy, last heard from in these quarters explaining that "freedom of speech is an "American concept". Mr Steacy likes to hang out at the "white nationalist" website Stormfront and post under the name "Jadwarr", as the CHRC quietly conceded just before Christmas ... [transcript deleted]

So let's see if I understand this. Canada's "Human Rights" Commissions have managed to get anonymous website comments designated a crime and its investigators now go around leaving such comments themselves? Is that right? Traditionally, an "agent provocateur" in the men's room has to entrap the guy in the adjoining stall into propositioning sex. In other words, the target still has to commit the actual crime. But in the case of the HRCs the agent provocateur can, in effect, commit the crime himself and then charge the target with it.

Nice work if you can get it. Agent Steacy and other current or former CHRC employees who do likewise would undoubtedly insist that they're nice liberal progressives posing as anti-Semitic white supremacists. But who's to say it's not the other way round? Maybe someone should take them to the CHRC.

The HRC scandal is not primarily to do with me, Ezra, Muslims, Christians, gays, white supremacists or anybody else. It is about the corruption of justice. The genius of the English legal system is the balance it strikes between the components of any trial - judge, jury, prosecutor, etc. The CHRC system muddies all the distinctions to the point where an ex-investigator is the serial plaintiff and a current investigator is posing as a perpetrator to create "crimes" in which there is no presumption of innocence.

And here's more:

In the three decades of the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal's existence, not a single "defendant" has been "acquitted."

... Who has availed themselves of the "human rights" protected by Section XIII? In its entire history, over half of all cases have been brought by a sole "complainant," one Richard Warman. Indeed, Mr. Warman has been a plaintiff on every single Section XIII case before the federal "human rights" star chamber since 2002 — and he's won every one. That would suggest that no man in any free society anywhere on the planet has been so comprehensively deprived of his human rights. Well, no. Mr. Warman doesn't have to demonstrate that he's been deprived of his human rights, only that it's "likely" (i.e. "highly un-") that someone somewhere will be deprived of some right sometime. Who is Richard Warman? What's his story? Well, he's a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission: an investigator. ...

Isn't there something a little odd in a supposedly necessary Canadian federal "human rights" system used all but exclusively by one lone Canadian who served as a long-time employee of that system? Why should Richard Warman be the only citizen to have his own personal inquisition? You can hardly blame the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada and no doubt the Supreme All-Powerful Islamic Executive Council of Swift Current, Sask., for now figuring they'd like a piece of the human rights action.

Try this quiz. I scored 15 out of 21.

Given that it's a multiple-choice quiz, this result implies that I probably knew only 12 or 13 of the correct answers and got lucky with a few. But see what happens when you try to convince students that a correction factor for guessing and wrong answers gives a better estimate of how much they know.

Stephen Gordon, writing at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, has a very revealing graph (reproduced here):



The upper, dashed blue line represents Canada's trade surplus with the US from 2002 until the present; the lower, solid blue line represents Canada's trade surplus with the rest of the world. From 2002 until about two years ago, Canada's trade surpluses remained roughly constant and positive. Put bluntly, we were sending more of our goods and services to foreigners than they were sending to us.

Two years ago, the surpluses started to decline a bit, but they are still surpluses! Canada is still sending more goods and services to foreigners than they are sending to us.

And this high demand for Canadian stuff just keeps putting upward pressure on the Canuck buck, as shown by the red line in the graph. There's a tendency to think that because the Loonie is appreciating, our trade surpluses will decline, but that phenomenon (analogous to a movement along a demand curve) is more than offset by the continued growth in demand (shift of the demand curve) caused by rising oil and commodities prices.

Digression: Stephen also has some poignant insights about The Bank of Canada in his recent postings -- well worth reading.

It's an annual event put on by the Fraser Institute; lunch is provided; all you have to do is register in advance and then show up.

I have participated in the seminar in previous years, and I highly recommend it. Here are the details.

"Free" is in quotation marks because from an opportunity cost perspective, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

If people stay home in droves today, it will be because they recognize the wisdom of these words by Schumpeter (from Cafe Hayek):

Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with keeping in the saddle that they can't bother about where they go.

That observation, sadly, captures the essence of both the Ontario PCs and Liberals.

This is a huge tragedy. Although I fervently disagree with so many of the Western Standard's writers who are non-libertarian social conservatives, the journal as a whole provided an important voice for the political right.

I am sure other print voices will emerge. Some thoughts:

• If it will help, they can keep all the pay I get for blogging at their website (I receive no pay, and the website will likely continue for quite some time as a profit centre).
• Clearly there is a market failure here. The gubmnt should subsidize the magazine to keep it going.
• If the gubmnt really cared about jobs, it would subsidize the continued publication of The Western Standard to save their jobs.

Best regards to everyone there.

My friend Lori writes,

Perfection is something that exists because there are examples of non-perfection out there, the NDP supporters being a text-book example…

Note: the NDP is a Canadian political party made up of redistributionists in league with elitist interventionists.

Last May, I visited the memorial to Canadian soldiers who helped fight for England in WWI and WWII. It seemed to be a flat-ish but non-level pond-like thing with maple leafs in inverse relief, over parts of which water gently flowed. I remember noticing at the time that it had some pigeon droppings on it — is there anything in London that doesn't?? But I did not think the memorial was in any sort of disrepair or even neglect. After all, it would be pretty costly to maintain around the clock pigeon-dropping cleaning services.

So I was surprised to read this in the Globe and Mail last week:

Premier Dalton McGuinty says Ontario could foot the bill to maintain a neglected Canadian war memorial in London, England.

Mr. McGuinty says the federal government should pick up the $25,000 tab, but if it doesn't, the Ontario government might step in.

The Canadian War Memorial near Buckingham Palace has fallen into disrepair, amid arguments over maintenance responsibilities...

The monument was inaugurated by the Queen 13 years ago to honour Canadians who fought and died in the two world wars.

$25,000? What's the problem? Or is there some question about whether the memorial really needs any maintenance?

Below are some photos I took at the time. I really don't see the neglect or disrepair.

From e-zine, No Apologies ($, but it might be available in audio at that site for no charge.) [h/t to Benny and Bessy]:

Bernard Goldberg's latest book, "Crazies to the Left of me, Wimps to the Right," ultimately lacks the courage to say what needs to be said: Liberals are traitors.

Goldberg's basic thesis is that liberals have abandoned the core principles of men such as FDR and JFK, while the Republicans have lost their courage.

His assessment of Republicans is spot on.

Republicans are wimps. At least some of them are.

But on the other salient point he is wrong - fundamentally wrong. Liberals aren't just "loony" or "stupid." These are all adjectives he uses to describe the principal players in mainstream liberalism. And neither is liberalism just "becoming increasingly irrelevant," as he asserts. I wish Goldberg were right about that. I wish liberalism were irrelevant - if that were true, we wouldn't have to worry so much about what 2008 might have in store.

But liberalism's problem is much more systemic then Goldberg lets on, and his book lacks the courage to state what his evidence uncovers.

Liberals are traitors - at least the self-conscious ones are. And it is not because they hate Bush or disagree with the Iraq war. Their treason stems from their behavior - from the way they go around telling everyone that they hate Bush and disagree with the war - even to the extent that they sympathize with and give material aid to the enemy. ...

Liberal perfidy is deliberate, and it is dangerous.

It is one thing to disagree with the policies of one's government. After all, no democracy can be a democracy without the balance of a loyal opposition. However, when the rhetoric and behavior of that opposition is no longer in keeping with the principles of loyalty - when it turns to sympathy and material aid for the enemy and strident and arrogant criticism of your own government - then that opposition has turned to treason.

This is what self-conscious liberals are doing in the name of their civil rights. They have become traitors to the cause of freedom and democracy, and unless something is done about it, it won't be the enemy abroad that will be our undoing. It will be the traitors from within.

Canada's manufacturing labour force has declined by over 11% in the past three years. Nevertheless, our unemployment rate is as low as it has been for decades and income per capita has continued to grow. The reason? Growth in high-paying jobs, especially in the oil patch but also in the finance and insurance industries. Steve Poloz has the details:

Nearly 260,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since May 2004, a drop of 11.2%. Manufacturing output has fallen only 0.7% in the same three years, implying that average productivity per worker is up, but that is no consolation for the unemployed. Meanwhile, since May 2004, the non-manufacturing economy has created 1.1 million new jobs – which means that, after taking account of manufacturing job losses, the economy has added 860,000 new jobs.

Some treat non-manufacturing jobs with scepticism, describing them as part-time, low-paying and less value-creating than manufacturing jobs. These concerns are clearly worth examining.

First, consider the part-time/full-time split of the employment growth that has occurred. Of the 860,000 jobs created on net between May 2004 and May 2007, 750,000 are full-time, an increase of 5.8%. Part-time jobs are up 3.8%, so the share of full-time jobs is rising, not falling.

Second, consider the claim that new non-manufacturing jobs do not pay as well as the lost manufacturing jobs. The average manufacturing wage in Canada is about $936 per week, which is good money. Manufacturers of durable goods earn more, $978, while non-durables workers earn $851. What about the new jobs? Construction jobs are up by 187,000, and weekly wages are $919. Jobs in mining and oil and gas are up over 63,000 and pay $1,386 per week. Those two categories alone are roughly enough to replace the high-paying manufacturing jobs that have been lost since May 2004....

Of course, there have been new jobs created in the service sector of the economy as well. Finance and insurance are up by 108,000, at $985 per week. Professional and technical jobs are up 101,000, with an average wage of $978 per week. Education and health care have added 232,000 positions, at pay rates of $700-800 per week. And there are some 250,000 new jobs in retail trade, wholesale trade and the hospitality sector, where there is a wide range of salaries, but most of which would be quite a bit lower than those in the manufacturing sector.

Even a cursory glance at these numbers can explain why Canadian income growth has been strong despite the losses of manufacturing jobs. The claim, made by some, that non-manufacturing jobs are less value-creating....

The bottom line? The Canadian manufacturing sector has a good future, but it will look different from what it does today. The share of total employment in fabrication is declining, as in other countries, and as it has done for the last 50 years. The key is to ensure that both companies and workers have the tools they need to help them adapt to these challenging conditions.

I would add that they also need flexibility to adapt, and an important part of that flexibility comes with freedom from burdensome gubmnt restrictions that impede the flow of resources, especially labour, from declining to growing sectors of the economy.

Last month, the Trono Globe and Mail reported that teens are still having as much sex as they ever had, but that teen pregnancies and teen abortions have declined dramatically.

The number of unwanted pregnancies among adolescents and young adults has fallen principally because they are using birth control, said Alex McKay, research co-ordinator at the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada, and author of the study.

"It's due to greater contraceptive use, not teens having less sex," he said.

... The research, published in today's edition of The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, shows that the teen pregnancy rate in Canada fell to 32.1 per 100,000 population in 2003 from 53.9 per 100,000 in 1974.

During the same period, the teen abortion rate increased to 17.1 per 100,000 from 13.9 per 100,000. However, the number of teens having abortions has fallen steadily since 1994.

I have to wonder how much of a role welfare reform played in these trends. If teens knew that raising infants on welfare would not be easy, it must have deterred some of them from becoming pregnant.

From Kip Esquire:

ITEM: A blogger is apparently being sued for defamation -- over his blogroll. ("I'm reportedly being sued for maintaining a blogroll that links to a site that links to a site that contains some allegedly defamatory third party comments.") Don't worry, I don't understand it either. (And it's Canada, so who cares anyway?) (Via Slashdot.)

If one of the goals of the public funding of the CBC is to help inform the rest of the world about Canada, surely a mandate of the CBC should be to telecast everything they can (I realize there might be contractual barriers with some programming) via broadband so that anyone with a computer anywhere in the world can watch CBC programming. And yet, the last time I scoured their website, I could find nothing about broadband telecasts from the CBC. This just smacks of more misplaced priorities within the CBC.

The next time they need a chairman, I nominate myself.

From yesterday's London Free Press (aka "the Freeps"),

Mayors of Ontario's automotive cities are rallying to fight a recently announced tax on gas guzzlers they say will "decimate" the province's auto industry. ... Mayors from 13 Southern Ontario cities met in Woodstock to talk about how to help the province's auto industry.

... "This could decimate an entire industry," said Woodstock Mayor Michael Harding, who will co-chair a committee opposing the tax with Gray.

... The mayors oppose penalizing large fuel users, fearing Ontario will move toward adopting California standards for vehicles that, by 2012, would mean Ontarians would not be able to buy cars assembled here, Harding said.

... In its budget, Ottawa said some large gas users will be hit with a tax of up to $4,000, hurting primarily the traditional Big Three. Buyers of fuel-efficient vehicles will receive rebates of up to $2,000.

New cars contribute to only only one per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, yet the largest contributors, fossil fuel burned for electricity and the Alberta tar sands project, were ignored in the budget, the mayors point out.

... The only automaker to speak in favour of the federal government policy is Toyota, the company building a new assembly plant in Woodstock that will employ 2,000. Despite the fact Harding's hometown manufacturer supports the policy, it is still bad for the industry, he said.

"I appreciate that Toyota is green, but the Big Three are still the largest employers of auto workers. We cannot, as an industry, favour one automaker over another."

I had two reactions to this article:

• It seems like a clear case of NIMBY [Not In My Back Yard]. The mayors might all be in favour of reducing pollution or reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but at the same time they want policies that do not affect their constituents so directly.
• If, indeed, burning carbon fuels is so horrible, why tax the vehicles??? Why not just tax the fuel purchases directly (and reduce other taxes, so the programme would be revenue-neutral)? Then, if people want to burn a lot of fuel, they would be individually paying high taxes to do so. People who drive small cars a lot would be paying for all the negative externalities they generate, and people who drive humongous SUVs very little would be causing less total pollution and could easily end up paying less in total taxes, too.
  
  Taxing the vehicles is such an indirect way of doing this, involving ham-fisted taxes, when fuel taxes would be tied much more directly to the use of carbon-based fuels.

So while I am not at all thrilled with the mayors' position that the federal gubmnt shouldn't pursue policies that might hurt the auto industry, I agree that there is a better, more efficient way to pursue the same goal. I'm guessing the mayors' reactions to a big fuel tax would be less negative than would the reaction from the oil patch, even though it might have a similar (though smaller) effect on the demand for gas guzzlers. One reason is that it would appear to be a tax on oil, not on SUV manufacturers; another is that it would tax all fuel users according to how much fuel they use and would not be directed only to the purchasers and suppliers of gas guzzlers.

... and, as a result, has some advantages heading into the playoffs. To celebrate the team's excellent performance, today I wore my curling cuff-links:



Team USA was the only team to defeat Canada in the round robin, and finished in second place. The two teams will meet each other at least once in the playoffs.

Not that I am all that keen on subsidizing the Vancouvre 2010 Winter Olympics, but I enjoy curling enough that I bought an entire roll of these quarters last week (10 bucks! big spender, eh?)

Rodney Hide is the leader of the ACT party in New Zealand, a party which consistently advocates shrinking the size of gubmnt and cutting taxes. While his party has had a substantial impact in the past, in the most recent election ACT was reduced in size (to only Rodney's seat, I think).

During the past year, too, Rodney Hide has lost weight and embarked on ambitious conditioning programmes (see this and this, for example).

With that background, enjoy the following Q&A:

Rodney Hide: Has the Minister seen any reports of a political party that has always advocated extensive tax cuts, whatever the macroeconomic conditions, its own electoral fortunes, and the fads and fashions of politics--and, indeed, irrespective of floods and volcanoes?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes, I have. I have noted that both the size of the caucus and the size of its leader are shrinking at approximately the same rate.

To which Rodney added,

But we never deviate on our policy!!

After seeing this week's Liberal Conservative Party's budget, I sure wish we had some Rodney Hides as members of parliament in Canada.

Clarence Louie is chief and CEO of the Osoyoos Band in British Columbia. He thinks people should accept responsibility for their lives. Here are some excerpts from a column by Roy MacGregor of the Trono Globe & Mail, about a talk Chief Louie gave last fall:

“Blaming government? That time is over.”

“The biggest employer,” he says, “shouldn't be the band office.”

“If your life sucks, it's because you suck.”

“Quit your sniffling.”

“Join the real world — go to school or get a job.”

“Get off of welfare. Get off your butt.”

Chief Louie is tough. He is as proud of the fact that his band fires its own people as well as hires them.

He also says the time has come to “get over it.” No more whining about 100-year-old failed experiments. No foolishly looking to the Queen to protect rights.

He prides himself on being “a stay-home chief who looks after the potholes in his own backyard” and wastes no time “running around fighting 100-year-old battles.

Things have been more than just "tense" in Caledonia, Ontario, with many native Canadians claiming a legal and moral right to land that was being developed for residential use. John Hagopian, writing in the Hamilton Spectator, critiques those legal and moral claims [thanks to Jack]:

It's time for the politically incorrect truth to be told. In short, the Six Nations have no legal rights to the lands in question, and have had none for over a century.

They have never had any rights to land in Ontario by virtue of aboriginal title or by treaty. For a tract of land along the Grand River, they obtained in 1784 merely an occupancy permit from British colonial Governor Frederick Haldimand that endured only at the pleasure of the Crown. After 1784, the Six Nations surrendered to the Crown various portions of the Grand River tract, and by the middle of the 19th century all that remained was the land contained in the current Six Nations reserve south of Brantford. That is a summary of their legal rights.

As for moral obligations, a review of the history of the Six Nations Indians indicates that they are not innocent victims of land robbery by European colonizers, but are instead themselves the culprits who terrorized, conquered, and displaced many other Indian tribes whose lands and resources they sought to control.

These land claims, along with the legal, historical, and moral criticisms, remind me of the various historical claims I have read about land in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Emotions run high and cloud whatever clarity there may be in the law.

Rory Leishman has terrific column about the attempt by Canada's opposition parties to embarrass or force the gubmnt into formulating a plan for Canada to honour the commitments made by the Liberal party under the Kyoto accords.

Under terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is supposed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below the levels set in 1990 by 2012. The previous Liberal government signed this Kyoto Protocol on behalf of Canada, but failed to devise a plan for fulfilling the commitment.

... Having failed for two years to devise a plan for complying with Kyoto, how can Dion expect the Harper government to pull off this feat within 60 days? Dion knows full well that this deadline is preposterous. In a candid moment during last year’s election campaign, he admitted that he did not think that a Liberal government led by him would be able to slash Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions as required by the Kyoto Protocol within the next five years.

Dion had good reason for scepticism. It’s practically impossible for any government to have Canada comply with the Liberals’ rash Kyoto commitment According to the latest data from Environment Canada, Canada contributed about 758 megatonnes of green house gases to the atmosphere in 2004. That was 195 megatonnes above the Kyoto target.

... On the Kyoto issue, it’s evident that the Liberals are hypocritical. And the same goes for leaders of the New Democratic Party, Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois. They all must know that Canada cannot possibly comply with the reckless Kyoto commitment made by the Liberals without plunging the entire country into a dire economic crisis.

He also has a number of interesting comments about the economics of the Alberta oil sands and Canadian federalism.

The other day my car had been left out of the garage overnight, and the temperature was -20°C when I got to it. When I picked up a coin that had been left in the car, it stuck to my fingers. Unfortunately, it fell off before I could take a picture of it.

Digression #1: Remember that when talking about temperatures, C stands for "Canadian" and F stands for "foreign".

Digression #2: Yes, the car started.

Digression #3: That same day, three different highways were closed because water mains near them froze and broke.

I have no idea what the source of this list is. Ms. Eclectic sent it to me.

SO, WHAT DO CANADIANS HAVE TO BE PROUD OF?
1. Smarties [EE - If this is such a big deal, why do M&Ms kick butt in taste tests?]
2. Crispy Crunch
3. The size of our footballs fields and one less down [EE - I'm not so sure this is something to be proud of. If it is, why do so many Canadians watch the NFL while so few outside Canada watch the CFL?]
4. Baseball is Canadian
5. Lacrosse is Canadian
6. Hockey is Canadian
7. Basketball is Canadian
8. Apple pie is Canadian
9. Mr. Dress-up kicks Mr. Rogers butt [EE - but not in the ratings wars]
10. Tim Hortons kicks Dunkin' Donuts butt [EE - Almost surely this is correct]
11. In the war of 1812, started by America, Canadians pushed the Americans back...past their 'White House'. Then we burned it...and most of Washington. [EE - in the end, though, the US won the major concession it was seeking, namely that Canada would stop harbouring Indian raiders. And the Brits surely sold out Tecumseh at the end of the war.]
12. Canada has the largest French population that never surrendered to Germany. [EE - my favourite item in this list!]
13. We have the largest English population that never ever surrendered or withdrew during any war to anyone. anywhere EVER. [EE - well... see #11 above.]
14. Our civil war was fought in a bar and it lasted a little over a half hour.
15. The only person who was arrested in our civil war was an American mercenary, who slept in and missed the whole thing... but showed up just in time to get caught.
17. The Hudsons Bay Company once owned over 10% of the earth's surface and is still around as the worlds oldest company.
20. We don't marry our kin-folk. [EE - whoever compiled this list seems ignorant of much of the local history in many parts of this country]
21. We invented ski-doos, jet-skis, velcro, zippers, insulin, penicillin, the telephone and short wave radios that save countless lives each year.
22. We ALL have frozen our tongues to something metal and lived to tell about it.
23. A Canadian invented Superman.
24. We have coloured money.
25. Our beer advertisments kick butt [EE - That's a matter of taste, for sure]
26. Coffee Crisp [EE - one of the worst-tasting chocolate bars ever invented, but I know I'm in a minority on this.]
27. We don't bomb our allies
28. Our elections only take one day [EE - This is silly and wrong. Canadian elections are for only one office at a time; nevertheless, there are days and days of advance polls for each election.]
29. We invented zambonis BUT MOST IMPORTANT:
30. The handles on our beer cases are big enough to fit your hands with mitts on.

Stephen Gordon posted a link to a YouTube video that had been made about his hometown of Orillia, Ontario.

My reaction: at least Orillia has a Taco Bell, which is one of my all-time favourite restaurants (Clinton does not have one). And you should have seen the dancing in the streets in Clinton when we got a Tim Horton's here.

When I first began writing this blog, a bit over two years ago, I wrote this about Boxing Day:

Today is Boxing Day in Canada and elsewhere - a great day for post-Christmas sales.
Upon moving to Canada many years ago, one of the first stories I heard about the origin and meaning of Boxing Day is that this is the day well-to-do people box up the gifts they received but don't really want and give the reboxed gifts to their servants. I doubt this story is completely accurate, but it provides another opportunity to mention re-gifting.

One of the best and most thorough descriptions of Boxing Day was just updated at Snopes, which is an excellent website for checking just about anything.

Since Christmas came on Saturday in 2004, the legal day off for Christmas might be Monday, and the legal Boxing Day holiday might be Tuesday.
One creative on-line merchant began its Boxing Day sale at midnight on Christmas Eve!

Last year I added,

This year (2005), because Christmas is on Sunday, many workers get Monday as a holiday for Christmas. And that means they get Tuesday off for Boxing Day.

It used to be that since these days were holidays, and stores were not permitted to open on holidays, Canadians would have to wait until until December 27th (or in years when Christmas came on Sunday, the 28th) for Boxing Day Sales. But nowadays, some stores are advertising that they will open at 7am on December 26th for the big post-Christmas sales.

And this year (2006), Christmas is on Monday, and Boxing Day is on Tuesday. In the bad old days, we'd have had to wait until Wednesday for the post-Christmas sales, but this year we can shop just about any time.

When I first moved to Canada, I thought it was fascinating that all the product labels had to be in both French and English. I had the mistaken impression that as a result, I might even become fluently bi-lingual (actually, I came close once, as a result of taking some courses, but not because of the law requiring bi-lingual product labeling).

Here is a pretty strong criticism of multi-lingualism and multi-culturalism. And it wasn't written by someone in Canada. From the UK Times, written by Zia Haider Rahman:

It’s a shocking figure: more than £100m was spent in the past year on translating and interpreting for British residents who don’t speak English. In the name of multiculturalism, one Home Office-funded community centre alone provides these services in 76 languages.

According to BBC’s Newsnight last week, local councils spend at least £25m on these services, the police £21m, the courts system more than £10m and the National Health Service accounts for £55m at a conservative estimate.

The financial cost is bad enough, but there is a wider problem about the confused signals we are sending to immigrant communities. We are telling them they don’t have to learn English, let alone integrate. Worse, by insulating them linguistically we have created communities that are now incubators for Islamo-fascism.

... “Awareness-raising programmes” are all the rage — we have to celebrate our diversity and raise awareness among those oppressed of their rights. But self-reliance doesn’t come from handouts. You don’t learn to stand on your own two feet if someone is holding you up. Indulging differences can be harmful if it prevents communities from integrating.

Readers in the US should give these points serious consideration. It seems to me that learning English there might be slipping as a requirement for getting by in the society, and the resulting enclaves that are created will surely raise similar questions.

And in Canada, as things have changed, I have never quite understood why Quebec doesn't have to have bilingualism the way English Canada does.

[h/t to Melanie Phillips]

Too bad this guy doesn't have a majority gubmnt in Ottawa. From the Globe and Mail,

"We will not solve the Palestinian-Israeli problem, as difficult as that is, through organizations that advocate violence and advocate wiping Israel off the face of the Earth," Mr. Harper said yesterday in a wide-ranging year-end interview with CTV to be aired Saturday.

"It's unfortunate because with Hamas, and with Hezbollah in Lebanon, it has made it very difficult to have dialogue -- and dialogue is ultimately necessary to have peace in the long term -- but we are not going to sit down with people whose objectives are ultimately genocidal."

But leave it to the Globe and Mail to editorialize negatively in the "news" item:

Many Canadians expressed discomfort with the strong pro-Israeli stand Mr. Harper took soon after his election and again this summer during Israel's bombardment of Lebanon. Previous Liberal governments have tried to walk a more neutral line, saying that permits Canada to be an honest broker in finding a resolution to the conflict.

It appears that the RCMP incorrectly informed the US that Maher Arar was a suspected terrorist with the result that he was seized while in the US and deported to Syria, where he was tortured. As a consequence there was an inquiry into the RCMP's actions. From the Canadian Coalition for Democracies,

Certain RCMP officers made a serious mistake. The government has recognized the fallibility of its security forces by undertaking an independent investigation into how such a mistake was made. We cannot expect a democracy to be perfect, but we can expect it to recognize its mistakes, to compensate the injured parties, and to take concrete steps to prevent a recurrence.

But who will hold inquiries into the torture being committed in Syria? Where are the UN resolutions condemning Syria for its violation of human rights?

The most important lesson to be learned from Mr. Arar’s case is not the shortcomings of our own security services, but the barbarism of our radical Islamist enemies who brutalized an innocent Canadian. The real lesson is the treatment of Bill Sampson, a Canadian tortured and sentenced to death by beheading in Saudi Arabia. The real lesson is the torture and murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi under Iran's chief prosecutor, Said Mortazavi, who was subsequently welcomed at the inaugural session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Also see this.

Michael Ignatieff was defeated for the leadership of Canada's Liberal Party over the weekend. While I watched the event unfold with Stephane Dion emerging as the victor, it looked to me as if many of the party faithful just could not tolerate having as their leader a man who seemed to come from the ivory tower of academia to tell the great unwashed masses how to run their party and their lives and who, in the process, committed several gaffes himself. Whether Ignatieff really is that type of person may be open to question, but it sure seemed as if that was how he was perceived.

I'm not sure either Rondi or Alan (also this) agree with this terse perception, though.

From a cartoon collection posted by Russ Wilcox (Note: click on the cartoon to see it more clearly; h/t to Judith):

On Wednesday morning Canadians learned that a major tax loophole is being closed by the Canadian gubmnt. Here is how the loophole worked, and here is what the gubmnt did (for more, see many articles; this is one; here is another):

"Income trusts" as a legal construct have evolved that do not pay the corporate income tax but pass their earnings through to their stockholders (or the equivalent thereof). These earnings are taxed as income, not as dividends.

This legal device for avoiding double taxation was becoming increasingly attractive in Canada, especially since during the previous election campaign, Conservative leader (and now Prime Minister) Stephen Harper repeatedly pledged that income trusts would not become liable for corporate profits taxes.

The tax break, along with Harper's commitment, provided considerable impetus for the growth of income trusts. More major corporations were considering becoming income trusts. (see here) My major surprise was that more corporations had not made the move.

Unlike income trusts, corporations' profits are subjected to double taxation. First, they are taxed at the corporate profits tax rate; second, the dividends are taxed as income and/or capital gains. Many economists, me included, have long wanted gubmnts to get rid of the double taxation of corporate income. So, from that perspective, the growth of income trusts seemed like a good direction — a backdoor way to get rid of double taxation without the potentially unpopular (unpopular with the NDP and CBC anyway) options of eliminating either the corporate income tax or the taxation of dividends (I know, I know — dividends are treated differently from income).

But what did Harper do? Instead of promoting income trusts, he both broke his campaign promises and eliminated this tax-efficiency which had evolved over the past few years or so.

The current speculation is that the Conservative gubmnt did this so they can raise more tax income this way and then cut taxes in other ways next spring, when we are closer to having an election. So we are probably going to see more changes in the tax code that cause more tax lawyers to get rich and which do not have the efficiency basis of (a) eliminating double taxation and (b)having a consumption-based tax instead of an income-based tax.

Reducing the GST and now this. I'm disappointed in the tax policies of the Conservative gubmnt.

Note: I did not have any money invested in income trusts, at least not directly. Some friends, however, probably lost some sizable portions of their nest eggs as a result of this policy change.

The Canadian Armed Forces are in a bind. Canada has made a strong commitment to take on quite a bit in Afghanistan, but does not seem to be able to recruit enough soldiers to do the job. And, as happens in all walks of life, the Armed Forces has had to choose whether to offer a more attractive package or to lower its quality threshold. The Forces appear to have chosen the latter.

A minimum level of fitness is no longer required of those who wish to join the Canadian Forces.

A notice posted in the recruiting section of Canada's military website says that, as of Oct. 1, the regular test to determine physical capabilities that has traditionally been demanded of all new applicants has been eliminated.

It's a change that comes as the Forces, stretched to the limit with deployment of more than 2,200 soldiers in Afghanistan, tries to increase its ranks by 8,000 members over the next five years even as attrition is depleting them.

After joining the Forces, however, recruits will still be subject to a medical examination — and those who can't meet the grade physically will be turned over to trainers who will try to get them into the kind of condition required to begin their life in the military, the notice on the website says.

This could turn into a great recruiting tool. Instead of making it look as if they are lowering their standards, the Forces could spin it to look like a sweeter offer to new recruits:

Why pay to join a gym or fitness club, when the Forces will pay you to get in shape?
And you will be serving your country at the same time!

What puzzles me about this shortage of recruits is that there are lots of us old farts wandering around who might be pretty good soldiers for many tasks, but the Forces do not seem interested in us. A lot of us could pass the physical without any preparation (20 situps, 20 pushups, and 2.5kms in 12 minutes), but even if we couldn't, there are lots of things we could be doing in the Canadian forces.

Last week I sent their recruiting website a simple question, "What is the maximum age for someone to join the forces?" and you know what? They have not bothered to reply. If they are so desperate for new recruits, why don't they answer their mail? Maybe they could take on old-fart new recruits to do that for them at the very least.

My friend, Rory Leishman, is a social conservative. Given my libertarian tendencies, it isn't surprising we clash on many topics having to do with censorship. My own view is basically that consenting adults should be free to do what they want. His is.... considerably different, and yet we remain friends.

Rory writes a column that is published bi-weekly in the London Free Press and many other papers in Canada. They declined to publish his latest, however. Here is a message he sent to his friends, along with the column itself. I don't think I will want to see the show he mentions, but I am happy to have the Grand Theatre try whatever it wants, so long as paying customers have some idea of what they are in for and so long as they don't try to get me to pay for it through my taxes (hah!). Rory disagrees.

Dear All:

The London Free Press has decided not to run the following column that was slated for publication on Tuesday, October 24. I have received the following explanation from an acting editorial-page editor at the paper:

"In consultation with (Free Press Editor in Chief) Paul Berton, we've held your column for Tuesday. It would appear from your brief description that you hadn't gone to the play, and must have been relying on the reports, reviews etc that Sonja Smits was "naked" on stage - which she was. However, having talked to people who did go and weren't scandalized, comparing that to the goings on in a strip club is simply over the top."

It's true that I did not attend the play. Indeed, I have no wish to do so, but I disagree with the editor's judgment in refusing to run the column. Let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Rory

Here is the censored column:

Following the tawdry example of theatres in England and the United States, London’s Grand Theatre is luring customers with a play featuring a lead actress who appears stark naked on the stage. Count this as another sign of the escalating degradation of our Judeo-Christian civilization.

Just a few years ago, such a shameless performance would not have occurred even in one of the city’s seedier strip clubs, because the offending actress and the club’s managers would have been liable to be charged under section 167 of the Criminal Code with presenting “an immoral, indecent or obscene performance, entertainment or representation in a theatre” – an indictable offence punishable by up to two years in prison.

What has happened in the meantime? Has Parliament repealed section 167 of the Criminal Code? Not at all. The law is still on the books. The problem in this as in so many other instances is that the Supreme Court of Canada has decided not to uphold the law as enacted and originally understood.

That’s fine with the management of the Grand Theatre. One wonders what they might stoop to next. Perhaps some day soon, they will strew the stage with mattresses and invite naked volunteers from the audience to engage in group sex.

That’s inconceivable, you say? Alas, no. In last December’s ruling in Labaye, the Supreme Court of Canada decreed that notwithstanding the law on indecency in the Criminal Code, there is nothing inherently illegal about the presentation of group sex in a public theatre provided only that the audience receives fair warning of what to expect.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote the reasons for the judgment of the Court in Labaye. In describing the sexual antics at issue in this case, she related that people lay on mattresses scattered about the floor and engaged “in acts of cunnilingus, masturbation, fellatio and penetration. On several occasions observed by the police (undercover officers), a single woman engaged in sex with several men, while other men watched and masturbated.”

McLachlin and the majority of her colleagues held that there is nothing “immoral, indecent or obscene” about such conduct within the meaning of the law, because the presentation of an orgy of group sex before a willing audience is not of a nature that “causes harm or presents a significant risk of harm to individuals or society by predisposing others to anti-social behaviour that is incompatible with the proper functioning of society.”

This ruling was entirely unprecedented. It had no basis in either the plain language of the Criminal Code or the previous judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada. In effect, McLachlin and her colleagues proceeded on their own in Labaye to overturn the law on indecency in Canada.

That’s fine with libertarians. They argue that people who are offended by obscene displays of nudity on television or in movies and the theatre should change the channel and boycott the offending movies and theatrical performances.

There might be something to be said for this argument, if there were reason to believe that the public display of lewd behaviour has no adverse effects other than to demean and degrade those who engage and witness such spectacles.

But that, plainly, is not the case. Ever more flagrant exhibitions of sexual promiscuity have coarsened our entire culture to the point that many husbands and wives who would not have dreamed of entering a relatively tame strip club 30 years ago now sit complacently through a far more graphic presentation of lewd conduct in the Grand Theatre.

And that’s not the worst of it. Only the naïve can suppose that there is no connection between a rising tolerance for obscenity and the epidemic of fornication, adultery and divorce that has undermined the stability of that most fundamental of social institutions, the natural family.

What can be done? There is one obvious remedy: Decent citizens can make a more concerted effort to support principled politicians who combine a sincere and enlightened compassion for all their constituents with a clear understanding of the difference between right and wrong, and a firm determination to combat the usurpation of legislative power by the amoral and transgressive elitists who predominate on the Supreme Court of Canada.

Digression: What is it about so much nudity, that it seems to involve females? Are we still living is such a male-dominated society, or is it just that female bodies make for better art than do male bodies?

For more information about Rory Leishman's views on judicial activism, see his book.

From Alex Rostas to the appropriate ministers in the Canadian gubmnt:

I am a Canadian citizen who has lived, worked, and paid taxes in Canada my entire adult life. My parents brought me to this country as a child after the Hungarian Revolt of 1956, whose 50th anniversary will be on Oct. 23rd. I am a medical specialist, married to a fifth generation Canadian and am a father of three children, all university graduates. I am proud of Canada and appreciate the opportunities that it has provided for my family. I am also grateful for having had the good fortune to be able to contribute to my adopted homeland.

It was therefore greatly disturbing to read that a great number of Lebanese -Canadians who were evacuated this summer at a cost of $6000 per person have returned to Lebanon, where they reside permanently. Even if the Canadian government decides to not alter the status of dual citizenship, a concept I oppose, consideration should be made to changes in our tax laws. These expatriate "Canadians" should be compelled to pay Canadian taxes. Countries such as the USA and Israel compel their expatriate citizens to file annual tax returns. Thus a Canadian residing in a higher tax jurisdiction like Sweden would owe no tax because of the foreign tax credit. If one resides in a country with lower tax rates such as Lebanon then taxes would be owed to Canada. If these "Canadians" do not wish to pay taxes to their adopted country they would be free to give up their Canadian citizenship. I hope that you give this proposal some consideration.

In response to yesterday's item about Michael Ignatieff's misunderstanding about what constitutes war crimes, I received the following message from Danny Czamanski, reproduced here with permission:

Dear EclectEcon,
The fundamental problem with many [e.g. Ignatieff] who comment on events that they observe from a distance is that they misinterpret the facts. In the case of the second Lebanese war, a fundamental fact that needs to be stressed concerns the nature of the rockets that were fired at Haifa and other Israeli cities.

One rocket fell in front of the hi-tech building in which my economics consulting firm is housed. The thousands of one inch pellets that were released upon impact destroyed the office. The young woman who sat in the office left for the shelter in response to the alarm and so was saved.

This weapon cannot be directed and kills without discrimination. Whoever fires it intends to kill civilians. In contrast to the villages in Lebanon, there are no military targets in residential neighborhoods in Haifa.

Aiming at military targets and incidentally killing civilians as was the case with Israel is fundamentally different from aiming at civilians as was the case with Hizzbollah. Hizzbollah committed a war crime.

I think that intellectuals like Ignatieff should be ashamed.

Update: Let me add that Ignatieff's misuse of the concept of "war crimes" epitomizes why so many people are justifiably suspicious of those who talk about "human rights" or "international law". Both of those terms seem like little more than buzz-words for "anti-Israel" or "anti-Western".

From today's Globe & Mail:

Michael Ignatieff's comment that Israel committed a “war crime” in Lebanon cost him the support of a Toronto MP Wednesday and sent the Liberal leadership front-runner scurrying to deflect charges that he is gaffe-prone.

Susan Kadis, co-chair of Mr. Ignatieff's Toronto-area campaign, jumped ship with a sharp rebuke that he should have known better.

And Liberal MP Keith Martin, an Ignatieff supporter, distanced the party from the statement.

While Ignatieff also mentioned Hezbollah later, he either has a misunderstanding of what is meant by a war crime or has an anti-Israel bias. Given his background and training, I suspect the latter.

Hezbollah committed thousands of war crimes by indiscriminately lobbing rockets into Israeli civilian areas. They purposely and intentionally and directly targetted civilians. Israel killed civilians, too, but not indiscriminately, not purposely, and not intentionally. What Israel did exemplifies the tragedies of war. What Hezbollah did was criminal.

And, to make matters worse, most liberals are talking about this as a gaffe, not as a serious bias or problem. I hope he loses the liberal leadership and returns to Cambridge, Mass., to join Chomsky and others of his ilk.

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada.

For the past several weeks, farmers have been harvesting their crops.
Ms. Eclectic and I are visiting relatives.
Life has been so wonderful for us in so many ways.

Turkey or Tofurkey? You choose.

.

My first thought was Maude Barlow, about whom I wrote this last year. But I wonder whether because she seems to attract a smaller audience and have less influence, she might be less annoying than my other choice, David Suzuki.

There is a vote being held at this site. As I write this, Jack Layton is far in the lead, but he is so laughable as to be more humourous than annoying.

Belinda Stronach, criticizing the media attention that her alleged affair with retire hockey great, Tie Domi, received, wondered whether it would have received as much attention if she were a man.

Of course it would have. A male politician having an affair with Tie Domi would have been much bigger news. For those of you who are wondering, here is a photo of the happy couple, courtesy of the Globe & Mail:



Update: From a Clement editorial cartoon in the NatPost [h/t to Jack]: Tie says to Belinda, "I used to be right wing, too, Belinda."

From Rondi Adamson's latest column at the Toronto Star:

The tragedy of Maher Arar might suggest any number of things. For example, that the RCMP were, at the time of Arar's arrest, unprepared for their post-9/11 duties, for the vastly increased workload that the attacks created, for new laws on the books, and for the de facto training on the job that accompanied the implicit changes. At worst, Arar's story might suggest the RCMP were incompetent, ignoring procedures, and that Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli should step down.

Be sure to check out her blog, too, Begin Each Day As If It Were on Purpose.

With thanks to Alan Adamson, who told us this at lunch today. From the Trono Globe & Mail:

Liberal MP Belinda Stronach has been named as the other woman in a divorce application filed by Leanne Domi, the wife of former Maple Leafs tough guy Tie Domi.

... In the documents, Ms. Domi says she asked her husband to leave their home in July because she "just couldn't believe that he was telling me the truth about Belinda Stronach's 'business relationship' with him."

And more details from another article in the Globe & Mail:

Former Maple Leafs tough guy Tie Domi is dating heiress and federal politician Belinda Stronach, a source said yesterday.

Mr. Domi has recently brushed aside questions about the persistent rumours he was romantically linked to Ms. Stronach. But it was confirmed yesterday that he is indeed in a relationship with the Liberal Member of Parliament.

The daughter of Frank Stronach, the auto-parts billionaire, Ms. Stronach was a Conservative until she crossed the floor to the then-governing Liberal Party early last year [emphasis added]. She has been on the opposition benches since the January election.

Ms. Stronach has been married twice and has two children from the first marriage. She also had what appeared to be a serious relationship with Peter MacKay, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, which ended abruptly when she quit the Tories. The tabloids have tried to link her to former U.S. president Bill Clinton, but the two insist they are just friends.

Mr. Domi began and finished his career in Toronto, playing also for the New York Rangers and the Winnipeg Jets. He was an enforcer, racking up a club record of 2,265 penalty minutes with the Leafs.

He had three children with his wife Leanne before their marriage ended in 2005.

Update #1: Eric McErlain has some choice speculation about the future of Tie Domi as Canada's "First Man".

Update #2: Alan Adamson alerted me that the Trono Sun is full of the topic. See here, and here,

For those of you who don't know who Bob Rae is, he is a former NDP [New Democratic Party](i.e. socialist) premier of Ontario. When he was elected as premier, he took over when the provincial budget was massively overspent and the economy was headed into a recession. He was hated by many, both within his party and outside it, for trying to implement some fiscal responsibility. He is now seeking the leadership of the federal Liberals. I can see a very close connection with the views of Paul Summerville. You can see this connection in the following excerpt of an interview Bob Rae did with Bill Good of CKNW:

Good: Why the Liberal Party? Why didn't you challenge Jack Layton and try to lead the NDP, the party you led in Ontario?

Rae: ... I left the NDP in the late nineties, and I concluded that it really was and is a party of protests and not a party of power, that it's fundamentally a party that prefers to be on the margins of things. That's where its activists are, frankly, happiest, I think.

Also, I don't think they really understood, or they don't get the economy. I concluded after my time in office that it was very, very tough to convince a whole section of the party that the market was a great thing and it was something to be celebrated and it was not something to run away from [emphasis added] and that we had to recognize that the world had changed all around us and globalization was here to stay.

I find that resistance to those ideas is still pretty strong in the NDP when you actually look at it. I mean the resistance to any tax cuts, the resistance to any…the way in which they look at business with a sort of sceptical eye all the time, the assumption that business is bad and government is good and private is bad and public is good. That still lies pretty deep in a lot of sections of the NDP and I frankly just decided that I wasn't going to spend my life inside trying to fight that — that I was really fundamentally going to be happier in another political party.

Good: In fact, wasn't it those activists who brought you down when you tried to tackle the economy, when you understood that you had issues, that you were in a recession and that you had to challenge the unions.

Rae: There was a lot of resistance in the party to what we felt we had to do to deal with the recession and its impact on the province and on public finances in the early nineties. Sure, that's true. And when I was in government I think there were a lot of people who came with me and there were some people who didn't, and then when the government was defeated I think there was almost like a collective sigh of relief in the NDP in Ontario, saying: well, thank God that's over. Now we can go back to our old ways and to opposing whatever comes along and to just sticking with our own tidy little knitting over on the left hand side of the spectrum, and that's not really where I think a big party needs to be. A party needs to be close to the centre and try to talk to all people and that, I guess, in my case is the Liberal Party of Canada.

Now I understand why Bob Rae and Paul Summerville are working together. A little dose of reality always helps people understand the benefits of the market and the detriment of relying on well-intentioned bureaucrats.

Some folks are pretty skeptical, though. Check out the comments here.

Update: For those who would like to listen to the entire interview, I received the following e-mail from CKNW:

You can re-listen to the interview on our website's Audio Vault. Head to cknw.com then click on the Audio Vault. You will have to sign in with an email address & a password to access the files. Just select the date and time it aired (Monday Sept. 18th from 8:30 - 9:30 am) and it should start playing on your computer.

Nice piece from Rick Mercer's Blog:

I see that Jack Layton has distinguished himself on the international front by coming up with a solution for the Afghanistan situation. Jack is calling for peace talks with the Taliban. About time the NDP get back to their more loony roots. For a while there they were coming off all semi-sensible.

Rest assured if there are peace talks with the Taliban and Jack Layton The Mercer Report will be there! I've attended a lot of political events over the years and as a location I would suggest holding the talks in one of the ball rooms at the casino in Hull.

I think you might be able to smoke there and I'm guessing the Taliban would appreciate that. All the Taliban really require to have a good time is an ashtray and a few de-peopled women making sure there's a steady supply of unsafe drinking water.

Agenda for Historic Peace talks between Jack Layton and Taliban leader - room 202 Casino Du Lac Leamy, Quebec

8:00 am – Jack Layton opening comments and welcome to assembled media and Taliban representative.

8:05 am – Taliban representative walks to podium, poses for photographs with Mr. Layton.

8:06 am – Taliban representative cleaves Mr. Layton in the forehead with giant axe.

8:08 am – Peace talks end.

8:10 am – Olivia Chow says she is "encouraged by talks” – announces plan to run for leadership of NDP.

Professor Gordon is live-blogging the NDP Convention at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. One poignant observation so far (that I also noted in an update to an earlier posting):

The first order of business was to complain about - naturally - the order in which the resultions were going to be discussed. After 45 minutes, they still hadn't decided on an agenda, so I decided to take a short break. Then I found that I wasn't allowed back into the room, because I wasn't a party member. So I went home - to learn that the session to which I was denied access was being broadcast live on CPAC.

From Paul Summerville's blog, quoting a NatPost story:

Paul Summerville, the former Bay Street economist who became a star candidate for the New Democratic Party in the last federal election, has defected to the Liberals because he is disillusioned with the NDP's economic policies.

Mr. Summerville says that if the NDP is to be taken seriously it has to accept the market economy is [not] "a necessary evil but an indispensable part of the engine of prosperity and by implication, justice. In addition, the party must accept the fact that Canada does not, and never will have the capacity to rewrite the rules of engagement in the global economy. ... Consequently, saddling the party with anti-trade, anti-corporation, anti-market rhetoric just perpetuates its marginal status at federal level.

[link via Alan Adamson, who has more].

Update: Stephen Gordon of Worthwhile Canadian Initiative is live-blogging the NDP convention. Best line so far:

The first order of business was to complain about - naturally - the order in which the resultions were going to be discussed. After 45 minutes, they still hadn't decided on an agenda, so I decided to take a short break. Then I found that I wasn't allowed back into the room, because I wasn't a party member. So I went home - to learn that the session to which I was denied access was being broadcast live on CPAC.