Category: Canadian Politics
Why a [U.S.] Big Mac costs less than a salad
This comparison, from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, is, of course, based on U.S. farm subsidies and U.S. dietary guidelines. Any data geeks out there want to take a stab at Canadian pyramids?
An important meeting about Sable Island
In addition to her invaluable work on Sable Island, Zoe Lucas has, for the last five years, hosted annual public meetings where scientists, government officials, industry representatives, and naturalists like herself have briefed the public on developments affecting the island.
The sixth of these sessions takes place at 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 3, at the Theatre Auditorium, McNally Building, Saint Mary’s University. This year’s meeting takes on special significance because of the secret deliberations currently underway between the Harper and Dexter governments over the level of protection to be afforded Sable in years to come.
Federal Parks Minister Jim Prentice and provincial Natural Resources Minister John Macdonell announced the negotiations in January, when they signed an MOU promising to designate the island either a National Wildlife Area or a National Park. Unfortunately, the MOU also stipulated that bureaucrats would make the decision as to which behind closed doors, with the public consulted only after matters were settled.
What’s worse, Prentice raised fears about the Park option when he spoke of “encouraging” more people to visit and enjoy Sable, and speculated that private operators could be invited to transport tourists to and from the island. Some people cannot gaze at a spectacular natural landscape* without imagining “improvements.”
Nevertheless, some people who have worked long and hard to protect Sable against government indifference and cupidity favor the park option because it would provide broader legislative protection than a National Wildlife Area. They point to a few very remote parks in the far north that limit visitors and eschew the usual array of parks structures. I worry that, once a park is established, it will take only a hot dog like the current minister, and a few craven Parks bureaucrats, to open the floodgates.
Whatever their view of the park vs. NWA decision, I think most participants in the debate object to the highhanded way the two governments are excluding the public from their deliberations. Officials from both Parks Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Service have asked for time to speak at Wednesday’s meeting, so perhaps they will at least give us some insight into their private discussions.
All these issues are discussed and debated more fully at Zoe’s Green Horse Society website, at my Hands Off Sable Island Facebook Page (2,300 members!), and in previous Contrarian posts here, here, here, and here.
Wednesday’s meeting will also hear presentations from ornithologist Ian McLaren and biologist Bill Freedman—both eminent scientists with deep knowledge of Sable. Zoe Lucas, a highly accomplished autodidact whose life’s work has deepened public understanding of and respect for Sable, will report on the year’s happenings on the island. This will likely include a fresh round of her always inspiring photographs.
Finally, Zoe and Mark Butler of the Ecology Action Centre will lead a discussion on next steps for the island.
I hope that discussion will call on the bureaucrats to bring deliberations about the island’s future out into the open. I would like to hear whether legislation establishing a park (or a wildife area) could include provisions preventing a future minister from turning it into yet another ocean playground. I would like to know why plans for protecting Sable are limited to those two options. Why not a unique legislative framework for protecting a unique island, rather than a cookie cutter approach?
Come early. It’s a big hall, but it’s always packed.
–
* To head off a flurry of email, I do recognize that Sable has been affected by human intervention over the last two centuries, most dramatically in the introduction of horses, who now play a significant role in the island’s ecology. But compared to any National Park in Atlantic Canada, it is pristine.
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – yet more feedback
Previous installments here, here, and here. A longish dissent from reader Jay Wilson:
The way you make it sound, we, the public, are the ones who indirectly caused this problem by forcing our poor beleaguered elected representatives underground and into making the kinds of reckless spending judgements they made. I take issue with that.
As you said in your blog, “Upon taking office, most MLAs set aside established careers in exchange for a job with far less security than comparable positions in the private or public sector.” That once was the case, for a good reason. Once upon a time, MLAs made very little money as elected representatives. To offset their costs of travel, constituency responsibilities, etc, they were given expense money. Fine.
Then more people from different walks of life started getting involved in politics who didn’t necessarily make as much as the usual assortment of doctors, lawyers and businesspeople who had mostly made up the elected ranks. Not to mention the complaints from the very sorts of individuals you referenced: People from higher-paying occupations who said it wasn’t enough to live on and they could make more in the private sector.
Over time, a new sensibility developed along the lines of “Let’s pay them a better salary so that they can afford to live while serving our best interests.” In the interests of fairness, the thought occurred to some that the money spent on expense accounts and the like could be decreased as now these elected officials would actually be making more. That’s not what happened.
In fact, as salaries continued to increase, so did money for expenses and then it diversified into a whole host of different expense categories. MLAs were getting money for everything and the kitchen sink, and who made these changes? Who increased their salaries and expense money? Who made the rules so deliberately ambiguous and full of holes so wide you could drive a tank through them? They did, behind closed doors and in quick legislative motions, with cursory mentions in the local press for the most part.
Please don’t try to excuse MLAs for their sorry behaviour. This is about three things: A pronounced sense of entitlement, a disconnect from reality and pure abject greed. Maybe it isn’t on the same scale as the scandals in Britain and even Newfoundland, but those three things are present in each situation and they are things we should all be vigilant against.
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – more feedback
Previous installments here and here. Paul Pross, emeritus professor of public administration at Dalhousie and the author of several books on lobbying, NGOs, and the formation of public policy, thinks we are being too hard on our politicians:
I first met a politician fifty years ago. Since then, as a political scientist teaching at Dalhousie and, since retirement, as an active party member, I have met many more. A few turned out to be crooks. There were some self-important, pompous twits. But the majority were decent men and women who worked hard at a challenging and often stressful job.
They don’t deserve the abuse being heaped on them.
We should ask why MLA’s spend their allowances in the way they do.
For example, most MLAs seem to have bought cameras. Why? This is an electronic age and photographs are an important part of making the work of the MLA visible to voters. MLAs need photographs of meetings with constituents and the events they attend to put in newsletters, press releases and to use as videos on websites. Leaders and some other MLAs need professional quality equipment because, as Stefan Dion discovered, leaders can’t afford to look amateurish. Professional equipment can be expensive.
MLAs’ charitable donations have also been criticized. MLAs are approached by numerous charities and worthy causes. It’s hard for them to refuse, or even to give a small donation for major local projects such as a recreation centre or purchase of hospital equipment. So many politicians donate far more every year than most of us.
We clearly need updated and more explicit rules governing politicians’ expense accounts. But we should ensure that they adequately support legitimate political expenses. In fact, we have less need for highly detailed regulations than for rules that encourage respect for public money and discourage a culture of entitlement.
The media could help to achieve that if effort were put into showing the public exactly what politicians do when they are not sitting in the Legislature and why they spend what they do.
False positive – II
A few weeks ago, a swab test of Contrarian’s laptop at Stanfield International Airport registered traces of nitroglycerin, leading to an additional interview and a 95% thorough physical pat-down. Details here.
The Canadian Air Traffic Safety Agency (CATSA) has apologized in writing to a Winnipeg-based human-rights activist for a similar incident. A swab test of Ali Saeed’s hands – not his laptop – turned up traces of trinitrotoluene, or TNT. After questioning, Saeed was permitted to board his flight for Denver. His return flight was uneventful.
Regular readers will know that Contrarian detests many aspects of airport security. Recent air travel through South America — where officials do not obsess over the amount of mouthwash among your toiletries, passengers carry pop bottles aboard unchallenged, and metal detectors do not have such hair-triggers that the rivets on your Levis set them off — reinforced my view that Canada has been unnecessarily craven in adopting idiotic US screening standards.
But random checks for explosives strike me as one of the few CATSA protocols that actually carries some protective value. In my case, the secondary screening was carried out professionally and politely, and the CATSA supervisor summoned to deal with the situation explained the nature of the alarm and what might have triggered it. I have no complaint about the incident.
So why did CATSA apologize to Ali Saeed? Because officials broke protocol by telling him about their findings.
CATSA’s procedures stipulate that screening officers must not discuss an … alarm with passengers… We are sorry that this is not what occurred. We extend our sincere apologies for the screening officers’ actions and the stress it caused you.
In my case, being told what the swab test turned up and what common household chemicals (hand cream, heart medication, household cleaners) might have triggered the false positive, helped persuade me that the episode, while not fun, was reasonable and appropriate.
So it seems to me CATSA has apologized to Saeed for something it did right, and by implication, promises not to do right again.
Ceremony
I hesitate to start this, for fear of luring Olympic-worshiping bores out of their rec-rooms, but US bloggers had a field day with the perfectly hideous opening ceremony in Vancouver. My favorite was Heather Havrilesky in Salon.com, Moneyquotes:
Some dramatic photography paired with soaring music and a lot of melodramatic prose. “Here, where a swerving coastline submits to waves of glacial peaks, where the mapping of the Western world came to an end, the discovery yet begins anew!” Praise Jesus! Who writes this stuff?
Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams perform the lamest song since that thing they play at the end of the NCAA basketball tournament, “One Shining Moment”: “This is your moment, your time to run like the wind!” I’m flashing back to Up With People. First Nations dancers are jumping up and down like the fraudience at a Miley Cyrus concert.
Now here comes a tribute to “the frigid North.” It’s snowing. Donald Sutherland is murmuring into a microphone somewhere. People in white are walking through the snow….
“The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass speaks to me, and my heart soars,” says Donald Sutherland….
Now here’s a tap dancer on the platform, and more maple leaves. Now there are swarms of tap dancers. Tap dancing doesn’t exactly read in a stadium. Oh, we’ll fix it by adding sparklers to our heels.
Wow, this is quite seriously not good. Now more maple leaves are falling from the ceiling. There are quite a few identifiably uncoordinated people in the mix out there. Oh God. When will it end?
Naturally, Canadian readers fired back, including this beaut from someone who styled herself, Sweet Jane.
We put the proudest, butchiest lesbian ever on an international stage to sing the living shit out of a song widely considered to be among the best ever written. Ever. We’re understandably proud of that. You don’t think it was appropriate. Go read the words – conveniently googleable! (Also, that lesbian? Totally allowed to get married here in our hopelessly-decade-behind-the-times little backwater. When, oh, when will we ever catch up to rest of the world?)
Now the good news, for those who imagine such things to be important, Nate Silver’s wonderful poly-sci statistics blog, Fivethirtyeight.com, projects that Canada — Canada! — will win the most medals at these games.
Don’t worry. We’ve sent Nate’s slide rule out to get it checked.
Hat tip: Fritz McEvoy (but don’t blame him for the snarky stuff).
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – feedback
Contrarian reader Kirby McVicar responds to our post on MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery:
The question that springs to my mind is: “Who are you and what have you done with Parker Donham?”
Resigned MLA Richard Hurlburt
What I hear you say is, ”Well, MLA’s only stole a little bit, and it’s the media’s and the public’s fault for not providing adequate salary.” Are you serious?
What does this line of thinking say to all the honest MLA’s who did not steal from the public purse: “You missed out on an opportunity we, the public and the media, set up for you. How stupid of you!”
I agree that politicians need an independent body to set remuneration policy that is binding, but this issue should not be confused with theft from the public purse.
Where is the CBC Parker, from the “Harry and Parker Show” who would have spent 15 minutes railing against such a rationale? Has the election of an NDP government outed you?
I was out of the country, but wasn’t it a Tory MLA who resigned? After the jump, more reader reaction.
Protecting Sable – III
A former Parks Canada employee sends this comment on the prospects for Sable if Harper Environment Minister Jim Prentice succeeds in making it a National Park:
I continue to have a great affection for this institution and its objectives… In my time I worked in the parks themselves, at Head Office in Ottawa, and at the regional offices. All levels are influenced by the conflicting desires to both protect, and to show what has been protected.
Unfortunately, with money for expenditures somehow ever flowing, and with government’s obsession with “show and tell” as the chosen means of bringing good fortune to themselves, advancement-seeking civil servants and advantage-seeking politicians (usually with little or no sense of history) will inevitably leave their heavy footprints on the very land they were mandated to protect.
Sadly therefore, from experience, I must, at least until National Parks Objectives are significantly revised to enhance their protection mandate, agree with you. Don’t let the bastards near Sable Island. All your negative predictions should they come are very realistic! Witness the dividing into thirds of Rustico Island in PEI National Park, the creaping evolution of a long planned for (by various political parties and park staff) Olympic-type village at Lake Louise, and so on, and so on!! ‘Tis sad to say, but the Park Systems of Canada are not ready for Sable Island.
I have received several thoughtful comments, and will post more tomorrow.
Sable MOU
For the on-line record, and thanks to Joey Schwartz’s OCR magic, here is the start of the Sable MOU signed Monday, with the remainder after the jump. To download the official PDF version, click here and the unofficial Word version here.
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
(hereinafter referred to as “MOU)
BETWEEN
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF CANADA
AS REPRESENTED BY THE MINISTER OF THE ENVIRONMENT
(hereinafter referred to as “CANADA”)
AND
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF NOVA SCOTIA
AS REPRESENTED BY THE MINISTER OF NATURAL RESOURCES
(hereinafter referred to as “NOVA SCOTIA”)
RESPECTING
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A FEDERAL PROTECTED AREA
ON SABLE ISLAND IN THE PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA
WHEREAS Sable Island is a remote island located about 160 kilometres from mainland Nova Scotia near the edge of the continental shelf;
Protecting Sable: The MOU
Canada and Nova Scotia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the future of Sable Island Monday amidst considerable fanfare and media coverage. Surprisingly, and unusually, the actual text of the agreement was not made public at the time. Normally such agreements are posted on government websites at the time of such announcements.
Thanks to the communications folks at the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, Contrarian has posted a copy which you can download here. [PDF file].*
The MOU confirms that the process annouced Monday will unfold in two stages, only the second of which will involve the public.
First, provincial and federal bureaucrats will form a task force to consider various issues surrounding the protection of Sable Island and, within 90 days, recommend that Sable become either a national wildlife area (under the Canada Wildlife Act) or a national park (under the Canada National Parks Act). The public will have no role in this discussion.
Only after the decision was made will the public be invited to “comment on the conservation, management, and operational issues associated with the designation” recommended by the task force.
Suffice to say that people who attended Monday’s announcement came away with a very different impression: that the public would be consulted about the decision, not after it.
Where have we heard this approach to natural justice before? Oh yes:
‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’
‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.
‘I won’t!’ said Alice.
‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
[* The pdf is a scan of the original document. This means the text is not searchable. The document is not very long. If any Contrarian reader is a really good typist, or has optical recognition software, and would like to convert it to text, I will p[ost that version, which will ensure that people can find it using text searches. Please send the text to comments[@]contrarian.ca. Thanks!]
