At Home in Hespeler

—noun, plural soph·ist·ries.

1. a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.
2. a false argument; sophism.

NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar

They set up a false choice and put it out there that if you’re not with us, you’re against us. And if you’re not with the government sworn in in Israel, you’re against the people of Israel.Which is nonsense. It shows a lack of sophistry.*

The question is, is Paul Dewar having an Inigo Montoya moment, or does he believe Canada’s foreign policy should be fundamentally dishonest?

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*Note: The Canada.com version of this article removes the key sentence from the Mark Kennedy story. Below is a screen shot from the digital edition of today’s National Post showing the full quote.

Uncategorized Israel, NDP, Paul Dewar, Stephen Harper

A few elections ago then Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton said of the electricity market: It’s too important to be left to the private sector. A few people I knew agreed with this, to which I always answered, just hope Howard Hampton never notices how you buy your food: the last time some one decided food was too important for the private sector, the Russian people were relegated to 50 years of cabbage soup and black bread. Well don’t look now but…

Michael Ignatieff, who, of course has cake, has proposed a National Food Policy. The Government of Canada would get in the farmers market and local food game. Fourty-million dollars here for a national healthy start (breakfast for brats) program, eighty-million dollars there for a buy local fund and pretty soon your talking real money. Then there’s this:

Reward farmers for environmentally sustainable initiatives such as setting aside land for wildlife habitats or carbon sequestration (emphasis theirs… and mine)

The Liberal government will spend untold millions, hundreds of millions more like, to pay farmers to not grow food. This plan talks of spending $170M, but has hundreds of millions more not factored in. Government food programs in action: more money out the door, less food in.

Then there’s the City of Toronto. I have spent considerable energy on this blog highlighting the folly of the City of Toronto and it’s elected representatives. So it is with some shock I report, they are on to a good idea. Yesterday’s Sun reports the City is considering allowing people to keep chickens in their backyard. Frankly as long as there’s no health hazard – and there isn’t – why it’s the City of anybody’s business if you keep chickens I have no idea. None the less if the chicken lobby gets it’s way, soon you’ll be able to have a couple of chickens producing fresh eggs in a coop on your very own property in Toronto. A few years down the road when the eggs stop coming it’s Ann Boleyn meets Colonel Sanders and dinner has never been so fresh.

Alas, this is the City of Toronto, the people who could screw up letting street vendors sell food. All chickens would have to be registered. That’s right, a chicken registry which, surprisingly, isn’t in Michael Ignatieff’s plan. Presumably the chicken registry is not in case some chicken goes wild and it’s owner needs to be identified, but so that City Hall can tax your free eggs. No doubt you’ll need their permission before putting Betsy in the deep fryer.

Sad to say this scheme also falls under a food plan, in this case the “urban food strategy” that Toronto Public Health is putting together.

The politicians have noticed: look for less food, less selection and higher prices in the food market in coming years.

Economic Fundamentalism, Food Ann Boleyn, chicken, Colonel Sanders, Food, Howard Hampton, Michael Ignatieff, National Food Policy, NDP, Toronto, urban farming

I remember it like it was just last year, Jack Layton was telling every microphone within’ diaphram-shot that he wasn’t running to finish third place; he wasn’t even running for leader of the opposition. No in the 208 general election, Jack Layton was running for Stephen Harper’s job. He had the stuff, he was The Man: Prime Minister material.

But Prime Minister’s lead, Prime Minister’s make a decision and stand on that decision. Voting present, as Rudolph Guiliani put it, is not an option. That’s what Stéphane Dion’s Liberals did, and Jack derided him.

Yesterday, “the prime minister in waiting,” Jack Layton, and his caucus sat while Parliament’s confidence in the current government was being decided. For all his big talk the past number of years, when the decision was a tough one Layton’s NDP abstained: they voted present.

Jack Layton: Stéphane Dion in waiting.

Jack Layton Election 2008, Jack Layton, Liberals, NDP, Rudolph Guiliani, Stephane Dion, Stephen Harper, voting present

Greg Weston was one of the journalists in the Parliamentary Gallery who got his nose particularly out of joint with the PMO when it got invaded by Conservatives. He has since calmed somewhat and seems to be offering fairer reportage. Today, he offers up a tidbit I never heard before, but which gave me a good laugh:

"Stop wasting my money!"

It has been almost 30 years since a flock of geese flying across Canadian television screens caused a national flap over taxpayers’ money being used for partisan political propaganda…

Liberal MP Bob Rae, then a member of the NDP, said at the time: “I will never be able to look at Canada geese in the same way again. I’ll see them as Liberals in disguise.”

Even right-wing commentator Gerry Nicholls decried the campaign as “an abuse of tax dollars,” describing the ads as “clearly partisan, clearly Conservative propaganda.”

Gerry Nicholls, Ink Stained Wretches Bob Rae, Conservative Party, Gerry Nicholls, Greg Weston, Liberal Party, NDP, Pierre Trudeau, Sun Media, Toronto Sun

sounds more like a patch honest politicians would wear on their Armani jacket. It is, instead, a rule for an MP sending Parliamentary flyers to someone else’s riding.  It’s wrong, and it should end.

When a bureaucrat designs a "ten percenter" patch.

John Mraz goes over the top,  calling it corruption. It’s not, but it is, as he notes, “the diversion of public resources to politicized ends.” I would not call it corruption more because it’s above board, and of such a small scale. Mraz, a former Liberal campaign manager, also throws a blame grenade at the Conservatives, both here and in the US. Note, for example, fringe Republican Obama birthers are the only ones who are nuts, ignoring Democrats who thought GW Bush was a) the dumbest man ever to learn to knot his own tie b) the criminal mastermind behind 911. In other words Mr. Mraz’s biases get in the way of his thesis.

His thesis, however, is spot on. Ten percenters are wrong. Parliamentarians are using the rule that allows them to send informational material to ridings other than their own, up to a total of ten percent of the constituents in their riding. I have complained before about this policy, but still receive quarterlies from Jack Layton. These things are not informational, they are propaganda. Paper wasted bashing the other party, taking biased surveys, that you can send back at parliamentary expense (i.e. taxpayer expense).

To be sure, I receive the same nonsense from my MP, Conservative Gary Goodyear, but he’s at least my MP. Their is a legitimate argument to be made that an MP needs to communicate with constituents, and needs to offer constituents a forum to let their MP know how they feel on issues. If I find the communiques so offensive, I can always vote for someone else. I can’t, however, choose to vote against Jack Layton MP. So why am I receiving his mailers? And why, far more significantly, am I receiving his mailers at parliamentary expense?

Conservatives and Liberals are not innocent in this, and Gary Goodyear has been the subject of a formal complaint to the speaker on this very subject.

They are all doing it. And they are all wrong. On this, I agree with Mr. Mraz. It’s time to stop the practice of ten percenters.

Politicians acting badly, Silly Politicians 911 truthers, Barack Obama, Canadian Parliament, Conservative Party, Democrats, Gary Goodyear, GW Bush, Jack Layton, John Mraz, Liberal Party, National Post, NDP, Obama Birthers, one percenters, Parliament, Republicans, ten percenters

I was in Toronto last week for one of my very seldom visits. While I have read a story or two of the stench of rotting garbage on the streets, the disgusting mess of litter on the sidewalks, I found that not to be true.  Was there a slight odour of garbage, left out on a summer day? Certainly, but that’s as expected in a dense metropolis. Garbage will accumulate, and it will offer a distinctive scent if left on the sidewalk for a summer afternoon waiting collection. So no, Toronto wasn’t disgusting just because the public union said it should be so.

Yet I’ve started to hear the old legislate them back to work canard. One hubby and the Mrs. radio show in particular yesterday was pushing for the province to legislate CUPE back to work. Other op-eds are starting to mention, casually, the possibility.

The instinct to force the union back to work usually comes from my side of the political aisle. Conservatives, who tend to dislike the unions anyway, are often quick to say, legislate them back to work. The pressure will come from Conservatives, the NDP will oppose any such motion.

The Toronto inside workers strike is now over two weeks old. In 2002 the provincial government of Ernie Eves legislated Toronto’s striking workers back to work by this time.  Permier Dalton McGuinty, who was then leader of the opposition, led the fight to have them legislated back. In arbitration, the union won a ruling on job security, the main issue in the strike. This time, McGuinty appears to be leaving the strikers alone: in Windsor a similar strike has been ongoing for almost three months.

The Premier is right: let the workers strike. Toronto is not falling apart, in fact they seem to be managing quite well. It is likely the workers were happy to go on strike, fully assuming they would be legislated back after a few weeks, and would then win in arbitration. That’s been the modus operandi for as long as their has been garbage strikes, and it has failed the public good. Let the workers strike, let them learn what we private sector union workers know: once you walk off that job, there’s no guarantee you go back. It is the one reign on unions behaviour and demands. Let the unions action have real consequences, and next time they’ll think twice; next time they’ll consider how many years of sick days they’ll need to bank to make up for the days lost to being on strike.

And here’s some good news for beleaguered Torontonians: as of today it’s that number is one… and counting.

unions 2002 strike, CUPE, Dalton McGuinty, David Miller, Ernie Eves, Garbage Strike, Liberals, Mel Lastman, NDP, Progressive Conservative, The Motts, Toronto