The bard has moved!

For all those who have bookmarked my blog, or have wondered where I've been, I've been very busy. But I've just moved my blog to my own domain at www.technicalbard.com.

Hope to see you there!

Calgary Election - Public Transit Problems

OK, so in a couple of weeks less than 20% of Calgary residents will trudge to a polling centre and vote in municipal elections. In all likelihood His Worship Dave Bronconnier will be re-elected mayor, along with the rest of the socialists currently sitting on city council (hopefully Rick McIver will be re-elected - he's the only sane one there).

Calgary has a mass transit system like many other cities - our's is a Light Rail Transit system called the C-Train. It has it's problems but it does move a fair number of people. Currently there are three legs of the system running out from the downtown core, as can be seen here.

Dave wants to extend the NW and NE legs out to the essentially the very edge of the city, much like he did with the South leg. This doesn't make a lot of sense as the trains are already very full. He also wants to build the West leg of the C-Train out to that edge of the city through mostly low-density neighbourhoods. This might provide some reduction in traffic, but will further overload the downtown stations, which are all along 7th Avenue South.

Some of the other candidates, like Alnoor Kassam and Sandy Jenkins have better ideas. They propose:

• expanding existing train stations to allow for 4-train cars instead of the current 3 car limit. This would increase system capacity by 33% and reduce the crush of people on trains during rush hour.
• rerouting the planned West leg of the C-train south so it reaches Mount Royal College, which would be helpful due to the student load in that area and the prevalence of higher-density housing.
• Rerouting the downtown C-train line from the surface of 7th Avenue to be underground either 7th or 8th avenue. This would help reduce the number of train/vehicle and train/pedestrian accidents. There have been over 20 fatalities involving the 7th avenue C-train line since 1981, while the subway in Toronto has had only 5 since 1950...

One idea I haven't seen proposed by any of the candidates is to reroute/extend the NE leg expansion to include a stop at Calgary International Airport. This would help alleviate the taxi shortage in Calgary by introducing competition. It makes no sense that the C-Train should avoid the airport. At other cities around the world the public transit system is available at the airport (Chicago O'Hare, Washington Reagan, all New York airports, London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle, etc). Why does no one propose this?

On Affordable Housing

Recently, there have been many news stories on radio, television and in print regarding the lack of affordable housing in Alberta (and Calgary in particular - although it applies to most large municipalities). The news stories have also covered the proposals of various groups and governments to deal with this problem.

First, I agree that housing costs have gotten a little out of control in Calgary (and Vancouver, Edmonton, Ft. McMurray). Additionally, rents are rising quickly as landlords' costs rise and the market becomes tight. This is an unfortunate reality of the free market when demand outstrips supply.

However, the solution is not to have the state interfere in the market in ways that have been shown to be at best ineffective and at worst detrimental.

Rent Controls
Some advocates have called on the provincial government to impose rent controls. In one way they already did, by changing the regulations on how often landlords could raise the rent from six months to twelve. The result: Landlords raised the rent significantly more because they realize they cannot adjust for increasing costs (due to property taxes, energy costs, maintenance costs) as often. This means that the landlords' must raise the rent further to reduce their risk over the next year. In the old system they could wait until events unfolded, thereby reducing risk.

Strict rent controls, such as those in Vancouver or New York, have clearly been shown not increase the availability of affordable housing. What they do is increase the affordability for the small group that already have low rents. But government regulated rents make the business of owning a low-rent building unattractive to an entrepreneur, because the state restricts how much profit they can make.

The solution to this problem is that the state should not impose rent controls, but should take action to make affordable housing more attractive to landlords.

Government owned housing
In Calgary recently, the cit council has proposed that all new developments (neighbourhoods) should be zoned to include affordable housing. Not a bad plan. However, one alderman (I don't recall which one) stated that the provincial government should purchase the land and build low income housing. So basically what this alderman wants is for Calgary to follow the lead of numerous US cities (New York, Chicago, Philadelphia) and Toronto to build what are affectionately known as "The Projects". While the projects started out as low income housing for working people they quickly became the "ghettos" of these cities with soaring crime rates.

Like most other programs, government ownership and operation do not result in quality housing for people or low cost for society. Private ownership would be far better in most cases.

For those that think that government owned property for housing of low income people is the solution, I would advise you to visit one of the hundreds of Indian Reserves in this country and then tell me whether nearly a century of government owned property has helped that group.

Solutions
A solution that should be seriously considered to increase the availability of affordable housing is for the cities and provinces to make private ownership attractive. For instance, if the city wants there to be low income housing, they should waive the requirement for property taxes on housing units that meet a predefined affordability criteria. This criteria must be linked to the income achievable by the landlord to prevent the state from reneging this promise after the housing units are built.

Second, the province could subsidize housing by paying landlords some portion of the rent charged for those tenants who are on very low incomes or fixed state-provided incomes in areas with high inflation (and therefore increasing costs for the landlord).

These plans would be far more effective in increasing the availability of affordable housing without resorting to "big stick" approaches like rent controls (which don't work anyway).

The SCOC makes a partially bad decision

The Supreme Court today decided that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the right to collective bargaining, and that governments should not be able to change the rules for union contracts arbitrarily.

In one respect, I agree. Contracts are contracts and should not be easily violated by a legislature looking for an easy way out of a problem that in all truth the legislatures created in the first place.

However, the more fundamentally significant problem with the decision is that the Supreme Court's ruling says that collective bargaining is protected under the freedom of association. The problem with this is that the freedom not to associate was not clarified. This decision has reinforced the problem of closed-shops in Canada which does not bode well for business or government activities.

The only way governments will be able to reduce union contract costs for public services now will be to reduce public services, or get out of particular services altogether.

We need a case to go to the Supreme Court challenging the closed shop to force a decision on the freedom to not associate, or to associate with others rather than be forced to join unions.

Stupid idea #3 from the Stelmach government

Carbon Intensity caps and penalties

OK - this story is three months old - but I've been busy.

The problem with this is that they gave companies 9 MONTHS to meet the commitment. Impossible considering it would take at least that long to do the engineering, let alone buy eqiupment and construct anything to abate CO2 emissions. Since industry's only alternative is to pay the carbon tax, they will pay. This is a government tax grab designed to look like "greenness". Of course, coupled with the federal plans, the truth is that none of the penalties are high enough to force investment. All they will do is push investment out of Canada. See my explanation from a few months ago when the federal Liberals proposed a similar system.

Stupid idea #2 from the Stelmach government

Royalty Review

This process is simply going to cause grief for everyone. Most Albertans are happy with the level of taxation the province receives from the oil industry. Oil sands in particular are not a super-attractive business. Returns are generally <15%. This is because the capital investments are huge, energy input costs are huge and the value of the product is variable, as it is the world price for crude oil. The current very high oil prices (~US$65 this week) may make people think that the oil companies in Alberta are making super high profits. But they aren't as good as they could be because the costs of doing business here are high. If the capital and operating costs eat up $40/bbl, and then the government increases the royalty, and imposes a carbon tax of $5/bbl the margins suddenly don't look spectacular. Increasing royalty rates now would put a huge damper on the oil sands.

Of course, doing nothing will bring out those who will claim the government is in the pocket of the oil industry. And they won't lower the rates. So investigating was just bad political judgement. Don't these people think ahead?

Stupid idea #1 from the Stelmach government

Well, Ed Stelmach and his government have come up with some doozies for bad ideas. Most of them are clearly those espoused by "red tories", people who believe in growing government for the sake of government...

Stupid Idea #1
High Speed Rail Link

I admit that driving the QE2 (Highway 2) between Calgary and Edmonton isn't exactly fun, and the traffic is terrible. I will also admit that the security precautions at the airports (and the fact that Edmonton's airport is in Leduc) make flying between the cities prohibitive from a cost and time perspective.

But the solution is NOT to have the government spend >$10 billion of valuable tax money on a white elephant. If a high speed rail line made sense, the private sector should be willing to step up to the plate. If such a private sector company were to step forward, I would accept the government help with zoning, obtaining right of ways, etc. But there should be zero government money invested as capital and zero government money used as subsidy for the project. Government will always be distracted by political issues and the money will be wasted and I doubt the project would ever see the light of day.

Proof that Equalization is Broken

M. Charest is going to cut taxes in Quebec based on increased monies from Ottawa. Quebec currently spends more per capita on programs than any other province, with the possible exception of Alberta (where the government never saw a dime it wouldn't spend). And the federal government continues to pour money into Quebec to ostensibly help it "provide similar services" to those available in other provinces...

Quebec already provides more services to it's citizens at higher cost than other provinces do. And it has the highest debt load per capita. Why should I, a taxpayer of Canada support handing them more money just so they can lower their taxes.

The first thing that should happen is that each jurisdiction in Canada that spends money should be forced to raise it. There should be limited "transfer" of monies from one level of government to another, because this is simple obfuscation - adding layers between the taxpayers who have to cough up the dough and the politicians and civil servants who "sell" the services to them.

The Conservative Green Plan - Stupid Idea #1

Replacing incandescent light bulbs with lower power alternatives is a good idea. Banning them when the best alternative currently available is a compact fluorescent is very bad public policy. There are two reasons for this.

First, compact fluorescent bulbs each contain approximately 5 milligram of elemental mercury vapour. As I'm sure you are aware, mercury is highly toxic. If you break one in your house there is some risk to you. It could be very expensive to clean up.

Second - try getting a fluorescent bulb to light up outside at -30°C... they don't work very well cold - so you will still need incandescent bulbs outdoors - of course if they are illegal it could jsut be very dark.

Here's to hoping light emitting diode technology gets cheap and easier to produce very quickly.

Biofuels are not the answer

Interesting post on Slashdot today that pointed to a few items in the MSM around the world on why biofuels are not the answer.

First, and article from the Guardian in the UK last week showing the very negative environmental footprint that biodiesel production is having, particularly in the developing world. Rainforests are being cut down to grow oil palms, from which biodiesel can easily be produced. A lesson in unintended consequences for the environmentalists, I'd say.

Second, a link to an article in ScienceNews from last July showing that biofuel production drives up the price of food... As I pointed out previously, this can't be a good thing from any of us, particularly the poor.

Also - through these found a good link to what can only be described as an environmentalist anti-biofuel site.

Business as a Solution to Poverty

It is amazing to me, that considering the infiltration of our education system by socialists (ie. unionize teachers, government bureaucrats setting curriculum) that we can still get bright lights for the free market like Kathleen Guglielmi, a Grade 12 student at Loyola Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario. She has writtten a short essay on how business, not aid, is the solution to poverty in the developing world. For this she won the 2006 Fraser Institute Essay Content (High School). You can read her essay here.

Things Mr. Harper SHOULD be doing...

As opposed to the increasing spending put forth by the Conservative government, the federal government should be quickly and drastically "desocializing" the nation, by reducing government involvement in as many sectors of the economy as possible. This would include:

• Health care
• Business regulation (ie. bank mergers, the CRTC, foreign investment reviews)
• Native reserve funding
• Social handouts
• education

just to name a few. And as for how they should and should not go about doing it?

See this article by Murray Rothbard from 1992...

Why I don't like the 2007 Federal Budget

I am not a big fan of the federal budget that Mr. Flaherty presented on Monday. It is not libertarian enough for my tastes. The massive increases in spending, even if most of them are transfers to the provinces, simply grow the influence "the state" has over the lives of individual Canadians. There was clearly no attempt made whatsoever to curtail spending in any federal department, or to withdraw funding from programs that clearly aren't working so the money could be used more effectively to reduce taxes.

And the family friendly budget? Come on - it will reduce my tax bill by a whopping $620 a year. Considering my tax bill is many times larger than that, I would hope for something in the thousands of dollars per year if the government is serious about helping out families...

As I have stated previously, the true fiscal imbalance in this country was exactly what people claimed it was: The federal government was collecting too much revenue and the provinces were expected to provide services. The correct solution to this was for the federal government to reduce taxes drastically, cut transfers to the provinces and let the provincial governments increase taxes to provide the revenue. Alternatively, provinces could choose to reduce spending and not raise taxes.

The vast revenue machine that is the Canadian federal government is the single largest problem in this country. Because as a certain US president said - "Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem."

What we need is more individual responsibility and less socialist intervention in the lives of individuals and business people.

Can someone please send Mr. Harper and Mr. Flaherty copies of the works of Hayek and von Mises?

Dion's Tax Grab - here's why it doesn't work

OK - so Liberal leader Stephane Dion has proposed that starting in just 9 months, large industrial CO2 emitters will have hard caps set and that if they do not meet these caps they will need to pay the federal government $20 / tonne of CO2 emitted, with the tax rising to $30 / tonne in 2011... And through this he is going to have us meet our Kyoto goals...

OK - say that half of the CO2 emissions in Canada come from these emitters. That means that assuming we did nothing to the other half (the voters heating their houses and driving their SUVs), that the large emitters would need to reduce their emissions by about 70% from current to get the nation to 6% below 1990. If we assume that Canada's current CO2 (and equivalent) emission are about 800 Mt/y currently, which isn't far off, this means that industry would need to reduce emissions by 280 Mt/y starting in 9 months. The tax to avoid doing something would be $5.6 Billion per year. Now, should industry do something or pay the tax?

Let's look at the oil sands industry. CO2 emissions from oil sands are about 80-100 kg/bbl of oil produced. Let's say 1 tonne per 10 barrels. If Alberta wants to produce 3 million bbls per day, that would be 300,000 t/d or 109 Mt/y.

If Stephane gets his way, Oil companies have three choices:

1. Pay the emission taxes, which would constitute about $2/bbl of oil.
2. Invest in CO2 capture and sequestration technology. The CO2 capture technology is proven, but expensive (around $40 per tonne based on capital and operating costs), and large sequestration has not yet been proven. Cost estimates for this run perhaps as high as the capture step. Let's be generous and say that the capture and storage cost only $50 per tonne. That's $5/bbl. Also - these projects will take 3+ years to engineer and construct. Therefore any current producer will still pay the fine for longer than Stephane's "2 year do gooder" payback scheme.
   
3. Not build projects in Alberta and invest in projects elsewhere in world that have oil. For example, Angola. Let's look at this more carefully. If crude oil is worth $50/bbl, and it cost $30 a barrel to extract oil sands and upgrade it to synthetic crude, then an oil company can make a profit of $20 per barrel. (before royalties and taxes). Let's look at Angola - offshore Angola you can hunt for oil in deep water and produce a light crude oil for about $25 per barrel. Of course, there are risks there, such as exploration risk (e.g. you drill holes in the sea floor for $100 million a piece and find nothing) and political risk (Angola hasn't been the most stable place in the world over the last 50 years).

So - if I can choose to spend $2, $5 or zero and take a risk somewhere else, which should I pick. If we say that companies invest in Alberta because of stability, that stability premium is the cost difference between producing oil in Alberta versus Angola. If the stability premium rises due to government action, it will make Alberta less attractive and make some investors choose to go elsewhere.

The result of the Liberal plan with therefore be:

• No one will invest $5 /tonne in carbon capture and storage
• They will choose one of the other two options
• If $2-3/bbl increase in the stability premium in Alberta changes the risk equation, the $100 Billion investment in Alberta will disappear overseas where there is less government intervention. And that lost investment will hurt more than just Alberta. As was pointed out a few months ago, the federal and other provincial governments benefit immensely from these projects. Think about the poor towns in Atlantic Canada that will stop getting cheques from the fathers, brothers and children who've moved to Ft. McMurray for work... Think of the increased cost on the EI program for the hundreds of thousands of people who will loose their jobs.

If we assume for a moment that the $2-3/bbl increase in stability premium doesn't change the risk equation and the projects go ahead, then the federal government will pull in an additional $5-8 billion per year in revenue, that they have promised to spend on climate change projects. But if industry is INCREASING emissions and paying the tax, what EXACTLY is the government going to be able to do to reduce the nation's emissions? Because they would need to reduce all non-industrial emissions by greater than 100% (which is of course impossible).

Alternatively, they could build projects to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. I suspect that would cost more than the $20-30 per tonne they are collecting - especially after the bureaucracy uses up 50% of the money...

Finally - they could use the money to buy emission credits from other countries, like Russia. Of course, that would just send money overseas and do nothing to reduce CO2 emissions and therefore have no effect on the supposed problem.

Which means of course, it's a waste of time. Unless of course the goal is to create more government bureaucracy - because it will do that very nicely...

Enlightenment vs. Multiculturalism

Pascal Bruckner posited an excellent paper (h/t SDA) late last month.

It is an excellent read that makes obvious the ridiculousness of multiculturalism...

Making ethanol from food is hurting poor families

See this article...



BBC NEWS | Americas | Mexico leader in tortilla pledge



Most interesting part:

The price of tortillas, the main source of calories for many of Mexico's poor, rose by more than 10% last year.

Mr Calderon said the government would clamp down on speculators and search for cheaper providers of corn.

Under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico used to get cheap corn imports from the US, but Mexico's Economy Minister Eduardo Sojo said that with more US corn being diverted into ethanol production, supply was dwindling.

So the question is, is making fuel from corn a good idea? I think this story makes that obvious...

Finally someone in Europe who understands

This is good news - now let's hope the forces of "political correctness" don't destroy this effort...



BBC NEWS | Europe | Germany pushes Muslim integration

The private sector should be doing this...

The City of Calgary is considering how to meet the demand for more ice sheets for people to play hockey, figure skate, etc. The existing rinks are overloaded due to the rapid population growth, and as most city rinks are owned and operated by the City, they seem to think the solution is more city owned rinks...

I don't know how the city rinks work, but I suspect that tax dollars subsidize the operation, thus subsidizing those people who choose to use them. This is government performing services that would be better served by the private sector, with competition.

Therefore, the city should simply simplify zoning requirements and let the private sector step up to the plate. In Calgary, there should be no shortage of entrepreneurs willing to invest in rinks, unless of course they would have to compete with taxpayer subsidized rinks. If that is the case, the proper solution is for the City to privatize the existing rinks and get out of the business altogether.

Islam and Freedom of Speech

There is an interesting an fascinating comparison of the difference between Islamic countries and free ones this week.

This story shows one of the fundamental conflicts that exists between the West and the Islamic world. These journalists are on trial, and their publication banned, due to publishing jokes deemed insulting to Islam in an article entitled "Jokes: How Moroccans laugh at religion, sex and politics?". If Muslims are unwilling to accept that making fun of their religion is acceptable, then freedom of speech and the press will never be acceptable to them. And in the West, the freedom we all enjoy, and often take for granted, is primarily due to freedom of expression.

What should happen in Morocco is that the King intervene to ensure freedom of the press, even if they choose to "insult" the state religion. If he wants his country and people to advance, freedom of expression is critical.

In Canada on the other hand, we have a television comedy, Little Mosque on the Prairie. When you first go to the website it declares "Muslims around the world are known for their sense of humour". I watched Little Mosque and found it entertaining - and there were even jokes that made light of certain aspects of Islamic faith and practice.

Interesting that both events revolve around jokes told by Muslims (Little Mosque is the invention of a Muslim). But in one country the government wants to imprison the publishers, while in the other the government is the publisher...

Making the Courts more public

It is generally accepted that anything that goes on in a court of law in Canada is public, unless the judge has ruled there is some good reason to limit access to the details of the court, usually for the protection of one or more parties.

The problem in Canada is that getting easy access to the documents associated with the courts is not easy. There is a simple solution. Canada (and the provinces) need a system like PACER. This allows anyone to review the filings, arguments, and decisions of the US Federal Courts, for a small fee.

This would allow easier access by the public to the goings on in the courts. It should not be horribly expensive (although the government has been known to waste vast sums in IT projects - ie. the Gun Registry) to implement for the federal and provincial courts. It could even be linked to the system by which litigants could file their documents with the courts, electronically.

This would make a lot of sense... and would probably reduce costs for the legal profession in searching documentation.

Socialized Medicine in a Wealthy Country

Every Canadian should read this article. It is written for an American audience, but it applies equally to all nation-states and we would be wise to heed it's message. Single-payer health care is bad for people...

Socialized Medicine in a Wealthy Country

More on "clean" fuels

Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense.

Why the boom will end...

For those people in Alberta (or anywhere in the world for that matter) who think the good times can't end, here is a very good prognostication of why and how the boom will come to a rather unpleasant end...

How the Global Boom Might End

Of course, you really need to understand that the Austrian school of economics is better than other theoretical foundations...

On the CWB and Dion

Liberal leader Stephane Dion has declared that he would reinstate the CWB monopoly if the Harper government does away with it.

Someone should ask Mr. Dion this question - if the CWB is so good for prairie farmers, would he support extending it's powers over farmers in Ontario and Quebec?

Chemical Management Plan

As Steve Janke brings to us, Stephane Dion's week got worse when the government presented the new Chemical Management Plan. He quotes:

Rick Smith, who heads the Canadian advocacy group Environmental Defence, applauds the government's plan. He said the chemicals it targets are highly toxic and cause cancer, and are dangerous for the development of children.

"This announcement is long over due, frankly," he told CBC News. "It's a great step to bring us up to the level of the kind of programs we're already seeing around the world.

"This is a significant step forward for pollution reduction in Canada."

Smith said the United States and Europe have traditionally been better than Canada at controlling toxic pollutants.

Steve goes on to point out that Dion was the previous environment minister who did "nothing".

Yesterday I was listening to the radio (770 CHQR) and there was someone on from an environmental organization talking about this. And the previous government didn't do "nothing". Canada leads the world in categorizing toxic chemicals. So the previous government helped identify the chemicals - it just didn't do anything about them...

Sounds kind of the like the gun registry... identify then ignore.

Sanity on Global Warming

This is an excellent article, by Pierre Jutras of Saint Mary's University, about Global Warming / Climate Change, taking a scientific and very long term view of the issue. From the article:

...it is the tendency of humanity to look at any change as intrinsically bad. There is this ingrained biblical attitude and belief that the Earth was a static Garden of Eden before humans came to mess it up. In fact, the Earth is always changing, has always been changing, and always will be changing. It is better to adapt to changes and try to mould them to our benefit, than to hopelessly try to maintain things in a static state.

Carbon Dioxide isn't a pollutant. It's a chemical that gives the planet life.

Corporate Tax Burdens

Corporate tax burdens vary from country to country, and the lower the tax rate the more attractive it is for businesses to operate within the borders of said country. The chart below, published in the Economist, shows the total tax burden of various countries.


Canada's corporate tax rate is slightly lower than that in the United States, but still higher than those in the UK and Ireland. We should be trying to reduce corporate taxes to improve competitiveness.

In similar vein, Mike Harris and Preston Manning have called for a significant reduction in the size of government in Canada. I could not agree more. Large government becomes socialist and totalitarian, as envisioned by Hayek. The only difference is that in the modern world such ideology is imposed indirectly via regulation.

As Ronald Reagan said in 1980 - "Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem"

Indigo (Reisman) limiting book availability?

I was in my local Chapters bookstore today, partly because I was curious whether reports I had seen on the net were true. These regarded whether Mark Steyn's new book, America Alone, was available in these stores.

The answer was "No". I also inquired about a number of other conservative-minded authors, such as Oriana Fallaci. Again, "No". A young staffer offered to assist, and after searching on the computer, concluded that:

We don't have it in stock, and we can't order it. No stores in Alberta have those books. You should try Amazon

I don't think that is what Ms. Reismann wants her staff to be doing... I think she doesn't want Canadians to read these texts because they go against her political leanings.

There were however, lots of anti-Bush books on the shelves...

UPDATE: America Alone is now #2 on the Amazon.ca best sellers list... Canadians are reading it!!!!

Perhaps Arar knows something...

This article raises some questions about all the apologies to Maher Arar:

globeandmail.com: Documents tie Khadr to tortured pair

Abdullah Khadr, whose father was a ranking member of Al-Qaeda and friend of Osama bin Ladin, acquired radio equipment from Abdulla Almalki. Almalki went to Syria and was detained and supposedly tortured by the Syrian authorities. Almalki's acquaintence Maher Arar was also investigated and subsequently detained by the United States and deported to Syria for questioning.

Abdullah Khadr apparently learned of Almalki's shop from his father... which means that a ranking member of Al-Qaeda knew of this source of equipment. Is it possible that Al-Qaeda had shopped there before? If so, perhaps Almalki is supporting terrorism. And is Arar just a third party who knew none of this? I wonder....

The Quebec Question and Demographics

Demographics are very important when analyzing the demographics of Canada. Currently, Quebec constitutes approximately 23.3% of the Canadian population. More importantly, people who claim their mother tongue is French constitute 20.5% of the Canadian population, according to Statistics Canada (estimates for 2005).

The problem with recognizing Quebec as a "nation" within Canada is that in 50 years, what will Quebec look like? What will Canada look like?

At current population growth rates (2003 estimate 0.94%), Canada's population will rise from 32.6 Million in 2006 to 52.1 Million in 2056. As the fertility rate of the nation is only 1.61 (2003 estimate), all of this population growth will come via immigration. It is unlikely that 20.5% of the immigrants required (roughly 30 million people, consider deaths in Canada) will be French-speaking. Likely they will speak Mandarin, Hindi, Urdu or Arabic.

Considering that the birthrate in Quebec is below 1.5 children per woman, this means that 25% of the Francophone population will disappear each generation (approximately 25 years). This of course assumes that the francophone population and Quebec population are essentially the same people (arguably the ones who are the "nation of Quebec").

Doing the math, this results in a key finding: The francophone population of Canada in 2056 will be 3.77 Million, which is only 7.2% of the country as a whole. Assuming that Quebec continues to attract immigrants at the same rate as the rest of Canada, the population of Quebec will be 12.1 Million. This means that francophones will only make up 31% of the Quebec population.

Therefore, if we entrench the idea of the "Quebec Nation" in the constitution, or elsewhere in legislation, it is going to be a big problem in 50 years because the people that make up this supposed nation will be a minority in their own territory... How much life will bilingualism have once there are no provinces with a majority Francophone population? My prediction is that Quebec's francophone majority will cease to be a majority in 2034. Mark that date...

So entrenching Quebec's "special status" based on linguistic or culutral heritage is ridiculous, because in 50 years this country will look very different.

Taxing Trusts

While the Conservative government is pilloried over backtracking on it's campaign promise regarding the taxing of income trusts (globeandmail.com: Income trust party is over), I must applaud them, but not for the reasons they are doing it.

The real problem with trusts wasn't that tax revenue was being lost by the government. It was that the trusts are not growing businesses. They do not spend earnings on R&D or market development. They are stagnant businesses, and the economy needs active businesses to grow the economy. Trusts are a short-term benefit due to tax savings - it is difficult to see how income trusts are sustainable long term against competition from active and aggressive businesses with new ideas and investment.

Therefore, I support making trusts taxable as corporations, but it is for the good of the economy, not the tax losses of the government.

Of course, the better answer would be to reduce corporate taxes to remove the incentive to convert to trusts...

America Alone

I have just completed Mark Steyn's tome, America Alone, the End of the World as We Know It. I recommend this book to EVERYONE, regardless of political persuasion.

Steyn lays our clearly that western civilization may be doomed by it's own social-welfare state policies and the consequences of same.

The difference in birthrate between western nations and Islamic states is startling and the fact of the matter is Europe may be majority muslim during this century. Do you think liberal democracy in Europe has a chance of surviving a majority who follow imams show preach hatred of infidels? Steyn doesn't think so and I must agree with him.

The other key aspect of Steyn's arguments is that Western Civilization has lost the will to fight for what it's values need to be in order to survive. Multiculturalism and tolerance will not protect free speech or freedom of religion. They cannot if a significant a growing part of the population despises everything that the West stands for. Allowing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect an imam who preaches what can only be described as treasonous behaviour is ludicrous if we have any hope of survival in the next 100 years.

After reading Steyn, it also frustrates me that we are arguing over things like "climate change" when it may be irrelevant if the next century ushers in a new "dark ages", and industrial civilization collapses in the face of a seventh-century ideology. We need the ideology of freedom to stand up for itself and fight this battle.

The big question is, what ideals are you willing to fight for, to send your sons into combat for? If there is nothing, then you must be willing to let the enemy win.

The Conservatives are showing their big-government bias...

The Conservative government in Ottawa is showing it's bias towards big government, in two stories in the National Post this morning.

First, there is the story about how the Labour Minister, Jean-Pierre Blackburn, is proposing that the federal government enforce pay equity in federally regulated businesses. This is essentially the government deciding who should get paid what and what the value of a job is, rather than the market deciding. Do you want a bureaucrat in Ottawa deciding how much you should get paid, or if you own a business, deciding how much you should pay your employees? This is further complicated because the current pay-equity rules speak of "equal pay for work of equal value". The problem is who gets to decide the value of the work? If the bureaucrat decides that the tellers in a bank provide the same "value" as the investment bankers, we have a serious problem...

The second story is about how the Canada Labour Code is recommending a national minimum wage, and that the NDP is pushing at $10/hr. This would be $2.00 higher than the highest provincially mandated minimum wage, found in B.C. While this would only apply to federally regulated businesses. The CLC also indicated that the government should enforce more strictly laws about overtime and vacation. The market handles this very effectively. If you don't like the terms of a job, you can quit and find another one. Of course, if the welfare state has caused structural unemployment to site around 10%, this is more difficult, but then you can always choose the dole.

These proposals from Ottawa are detrimental to the interests of the people and of the country. They should die a quick death.

Utopian Dreams lead to Chaos

Celestial Junk has an excellent commentary on where the Utopian Left would lead us in the relationship between Western Civilization and Islamic Fundamentalism.

One point against the Conservative Government

In June 2006, the Minister of Agriculture, Chuck Strahl, indicated that the government supported the marketing boards, stating:

"We think the system has worked well for Canada. It's a system other countries should consider as part of their agricultural policy," Strahl said.

I wrote to the minister pointing out that supply management for the purposes of increasing the economic security of the producers reduces the economic security of everyone else in the economy (F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 1944). Supply management does nothing but protect consumers from low prices.

I received a response from Chris Patterson (Senior Policy Advisor) and Marilyn McEwan (Agriculture Canada) indicating the following:

"have long supported the concept that producers are the most appropriate judges of the type of marketing systems that best serve their needs. In the case of supply management, it is a shared federal-provincial jurisdiction. Many producers who currently operate under the supply management system have not requested either the federal or provincial governments to remove the system."

Well of course the producers aren't going to ask to reduce their economic security. I replied:

The fundamental problem is that the producers will select a system that benefits them the most, even at the expense of others. In this case, the governments' support and legislation regarding supply management improves the economic security of the producers at the expense of the consumers who buy their products. Since there are more consumers than producers, this policy reduces the economic security of more people than it helps.

Therefore, the concept that the government supports is damaging to Canadians and to our economic health.

I received this response this week:

The purpose of the dairy supply management system is to provide producers of milk with the opportunity to obtain fair returns for their labour and investments, and to provide consumers of dairy products with a continuous and adequate supply of dairy products. This is not to say that our supply management system is perfect; indeed, there are some important disadvantages to the system such as the difficulty new producers have in entering the system and the displacement of the use of dairy products by the processing industry with products like milk protein concentrates. Nonetheless, the Government supports those industries and producers who have chosen to market their products in this way.

In order to address the issues that are creating problems within the industry, the Minister has tasked both dairy producers and processors to work on developing solutions, which will benefit all, including the consumer.

OK, so they've admitted that the existing system protects existing producers while making it nigh impossible for new competitors to enter the market. Good first step. The bigger mistake is that the government (and their policy advisors) are not leading the country. They are letting the minority (the existing producers) do what is best for them, at the expense of everyone else.

I call on the Minister to reverse position and dissolve all the marketing boards. Because marketing boards don't help Canada. They hurt it.

Public opinion is wrong on Afghanistan

So the Canadian public wants us out of Afghanistan

globeandmail.com : Most Canadians believe Afghan mission a lost cause: survey

So, the Canadian public thinks we should stop fighting the Taliban and let them return Afghanistan to a strict sharia-based society where women and girls are second-class humans who don't deserve an education, where individual freedoms are meaningless and personal investigations into anything from science to philosophy to religion or politics is verboten...

The problem is that the fight in Afghanistan is a significant front in the War.  This War is not George Bush's War on Terror.  This is the War between Civilization and Barbarism.  There is no negotiable, touchy-feely way to solve this situation.  If you believe in freedom of speech, thought, religion and all that goes with it, you cannot disagree with this war.  If you are ok with intolerance and totalitarianism, then you can be against it.

Which side are you on?

On the Laval Bridge Collapse

The history of engineering projects teaches us that improvements are made slowly over time, but that intermittent catastrophic failures result in rapid improvements.

The situation in Laval is not an example of engineering failure. The bridge stood for 36 years. The problem was in inspection and maintenance. The government of Quebec has called a public inquiry to determine the cause... I don't think they are going to like the result, if they allow it to come to an honest result.

The problem is that governments in Canada (and elsewhere) love spending capital to build infrastructure. It gets them votes. They then fail to properly pay for maintenance, thus the condition of much of the country's roads and bridges. They do this because they get better political results from spending money on social programs and new infrastructure.

In the coming days and weeks you will hear local politicians blame the provinces for failing to fund properly, and provincial politicians blaming Ottawa for failing to fund properly.

The truth is, it is the municipalities and provinces who have failed to choose to spend enough on maintenance (or on not using salt to destroy infrastructure). They chose to spend it on other things. And as voters we let them do it. I wouldn't be surprised if across the country a significant number of bridges are closed in the coming weeks/months due to increased inspections.

Why Alberta doesn't need school boards

The Calgary Board of Education is appealling a decision by the courts in Alberta. In this decision, the Court ruled that two formerly private schools that have a religious affiliation may become publicly funded charter schools under the Palliser Board of Education (Lethbridge Region). This comes after the CBE denied the request of these schools to become part of the CBE's region.

The CBE wants to deny these schools access to public funding even though the schools meet all the requirements of the provincial government, simply because the political views of the CBE don't like religious affiliation.

The CBE does not raise it's own taxes or decide how to spend money. It doesn't even set curriculum. All of that is done by Alberta Learning (the Ministry of Education). So what does the board do? I don't know. But I think the solution to this problem of the CBE is as follows:

• Abolish the school boards
• Have money follow the student to each school
  
• Allow parents to choose which school their child attends
• Allow schools some leeway in accepting students
• Have each school operate a profit/loss statement to determine capital, maintenance, operating costs.
• Allow each teachers and schools to negotiate on an individual basis as to where teachers work. Do not allow the unions to make mass decisions. Give more freedom to Parent Councils to advise schools on what staffing changes need to be made.

This would do far more for education than wasting money on another level of bureaucracy.

On Ijtihad

I recently finished reading Irshad Manji's The Trouble with Islam Today, and I definitely recommend this book to every person on earth. It can not only be a guide to Muslims seeking another way outside the "desert Islam" of al-Wahhab and Qutb, it can be a guide to anyone who needs a little refresher in the Enlightenment.

Individual exploration, expression and discovery (Itjihad in Arabic) made Western Civilization. They made the "golden age" of Islam in the early centuries after the Prophet. Failure to continue on this path will doom civilization and the Dark Ages will return.

I commend Ms. Manji for the fortitude it must have taken to publish this book, and in particular to translate it into Arabic for readers in countries that ban such thought provoking works.

An Example of how Liberals don't understand overtaxation

Yesterday, the Government of Canada announced it was going to cut $2 Billion dollars in program spending because it did not see value in the programs in question.

Liberal Finance Critic John McCallum, a former bank economist, was quoted as saying:

"Why in the world do we have to cut those programs on the same day that the government is announcing a $13-billion surplus?"

To Mr. McCallum, any money the government has should be spent by the government. In his mind EVERY program the government can imagine is a good program.

Fortunately for Canada, the current government knows that some programs are a waste of money or worse, they are bad for the country. Some of the programs cut this week are in that latter grouping (particularly the Court Challenges Program).

Congrats to the Government for having some guts. Now take it a step further and get the government out of a number of other things...

Naivete isn't the word for them...

You've got to be kidding me...

Lift ban on Hezbollah

Three Canadian opposition MPs travel to Lebanon, via Syria, at the behest of an organization (the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations) that has clearly supported Syria in the past (see Steve Janke's site) and are toured around Lebanon by Hezbollah... Then they declare that Israel is the party at fault.

And even better, two of them explicitly call for Canada to take Hezbollah off of the Terror List. Borys Wrzesnewskyj (Lib-Etobicoke) and Peggy Nash (NDP-Parkdale-High Park) spoke out and said that we should allow Hezbollah to raise funds in Canada and we should help their internal power structure shift from military to political activities.

Could someone please educate these two that Hezbollah was formed as a militant organization and is only political because it gains them power within Lebanon as a way to shield their military actions against Israel? Isn't it also clear that Hezbollah is simply a military front for Syria and Iran to attack Israel without provoking attacks on their own countries? Hezbollah has NO INTEREST in becoming a purely political entity. There is nothing in it for them as a Shia organization could never rule Lebanon by democratic means due to demographics.

If we are truly at war with the terrorists, supporting the enemy would constitute treason. Perhaps someone should remind them that scoring political points at home isn't worth the potential consequences.

On the Monopoly of Violence

Steve Janke hits the nail on the head and points out that John Ibbitson misses the boat on the current situation in Caledonia:

Steve Janke: Angry in the Great White North

The viability of the State requires that in the face of violent insurrection (which is what the Caledonia occupation by the Mohawk Warriors is), the state enforce it's monopoly and use violence to quell the situation.

Negotiating the the Mohawk Warriors after they have spit in the face of the rule of law simply gives other groups the indication that the State will negotiate with them to meet their grievances if violence is employed to get attention.

This is not acceptable.  I agree that the Mohawk Warriors should be declared a terrorist organization and we do not negotiate with terrorists.

On the Lebanese Situation

I wasn't sure if I should comment on this topic, but I can't not considering the criticism of the Prime Minister in the this country, be it from the left-wing media (ie. CBC) or protestors on the streets.

The PM has been very clear that he supports Israel because they are on the right side of international law. Israel has the right, if not the duty, to defend itself against attacks on it's civilians and territory. It is Hezbollah that is in violation of international law for launching attacks from populated areas and using the population of Lebanon as shields. All those individuals who value the free society we enjoy in the "Enlightened West" should be agreeing with the PM wholeheartedly. Can you imagine the attitude of people in Canada if there was a terrorist group in Vermont hurling rockets at Montreal and the US Government couldn't or wouldn't deal with them? Would we be expected to sit back and take it?

Hezbollah probably kidnapped the Israeli soldiers (the beginning of all this) because Tehran told them to - in order to get the world's attention away from their nuclear program. They have in large part succeeded - diplomats from around the world, and most of the UN are now busy with the Israeli-Hezbollah problem - and Iran has slipped down the priority list - buying Tehran time to develop their nuclear program....

Lebanon is a joke of a state in that it cannot even control what goes on inside it's borders - no truly independent country can countenance a force like Hezbollah. I agree that the civilian deaths in both Israel and Lebanon are a tragedy. And perhaps diplomacy can help that. But if the diplomacy doesn't result in the disarmarment of Hezbollah it will fail in the longer term.

And I fear that until Damascus and Tehran are dealt with, Hezbollah will continue to be a problem for not just Israel, but the free world.

Ottawa makes a critical error

The Conservative government in Ottawa is making a mistake

Ottawa overrides its controls on contracts security

Attempts to direct the "benefits" of these military contracts to specific regions of the country is bound to be a failure.   Mulroney did this in 1987 with the CF-18 maintenance contract and this was one of the things that drove the creation of the Reform Party.

It is politically foolish to try to distribute benefits of these projects because provincial and municipal governments who want more will complain that politics left them out in the cold.   And they will be right - they can complain that the government didn't choose them.  So it is politically risky.

The more fundamental reason why doing this is foolish is that is will not grow the economy of Canada and make us richer.  By forcing the supplier (in this case, mostly Boeing) into operating in a new and different way than they are used to it will increase their costs - which they will happily pass on to the government of Canada.  Therefore, taxpayers will face higher costs for the equipment being procured. 

It would be better for the Canadian taxpayer to let Boeing build the equipment wherever Boeing can do it most efficiently.  If Canada is a cheaper place to do this - it will happen through market forces. 

Redistribution of wealth doesn't make us richer - it just gives the false impression of making some people richer at the far greater expense of everyone else.  And it is something the government should not be doing with these contracts.