Canadian taxpayers' buy Broadway tickets for corporate FatCats

Spencer Fernando:

The Trudeau government spent $30K in taxpayers money giving out free tickets to a Broadway Play ...Come From Away ... Not only were tickets given to foreign diplomats – including reps from the United Nations, Qatar, and Kuwait – but wealthy bankers were also given tickets at taxpayers expense...

... the opposition grilled Freeland [who] had no good answers:

As an aside, unlike Spenser Fernando, I DO have a problem with the theme of the musical.  It strikes me as cringe-worthy self-regard for Canadians to present a play in America, telling Americans how wonderful we were in their time of tragically obvious need [and, our government promoting the show, at taxpayers' expense, just compounds the problem].  Now, if Americans had created such a play to thank Canadians, that would have been something else.

2013 "Council of the Federation" meeting a big flop

Andrew Coyne's excellent column today explains how the Premiers, instead of attending to matters within their own jurisdiction, wasted their time (and our taxes) telling the federal government how to suck eggs:

It is possible to imagine a situation in which it would be useful for the premiers to meet, just as it is possible to conceive of a reason why anyone should pay them the slightest attention [but just barely].  ...

[They could discuss taking action in many areas]: 

... the hundreds of inter-provincial trade barriers that still disfigure the landscape

...  to stop their professional bodies from discriminating against those who have received their training elsewhere. 

... to allow each other’s oil and hydroelectricity to cross their soil without being held to ransom. 

... to put their budgets on the same system of accounts, so the public could have some idea of how much they were spending, relative to each other.

These would all justify the premiers meeting.  ...  there is nothing to prevent the premiers from doing any of these. Because, you see, they all have the inestimable advantage of being within the premiers’ jurisdiction. ...  It isn’t just that they almost never agree to anything that is in their power to do ...  They barely even talk about it.

Instead, they talk about the feds: what Ottawa should do, how much money it should spend, and on what. On this, let it be said, they have no trouble agreeing. ... And, of all the things the premiers might think to suggest the federal government spend more on, what do you supposed tops their list? Why yes: themselves.

... And when they have finished all this — when they are done writing Ottawa’s budget, and amending the Criminal Code, and drafting federal safety regulations, and demanding to be consulted on everything under the sun — the premiers use whatever time they have left to complain about federal interference.

The Premiers ought to be embarrassed.  They've made a joke of their meetings. It's hardly much wonder why Harper ignores their invitations.  He'd have to be nuts to attend.

Corruption in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) + nitwit mayors and useless media

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) is holding its annual conference in Vancouver this year.  This is the conference attended by Mayors and municipal staff to share ideas (collude) on stuff like, you know, "green" plans, "sustainability" initiatives and "climate change" strategies (aka wasting wads of cash ripped off from taxpayers).   Ezra Levant describes it as a lobby group that received $550 million in taxpayer funds from the federal government. 

Ezra also pointed out in this segment how and why corrupt thugs from FCM blacklisted a Montreal contractor from its tradeshow for having the temerity to advocate more efficient, open and honest tendering of municipal acquisition contracts:



And where's the Media Party?  One wonders whether or not this FCM corruption was a topic of discussion at the conference, at least informally among attendees.   Also, was the corruption in Quebec discussed?  There's real corruption in the FCM and real corruption in Quebec municipalities, so you might think the media would give their reporters an assignment to ask some relevant questions.   Well, there was no sign of it on my local CTV news last night.  The one and only topic they saw fit to cover was: "Rob Ford criticism bubbles up at Canadian mayors’ conference".  [The mayors were all atwitter, like giddy schoolgirls sharing hot gossip.  Note that one scumbag mayor, Frank Leonard of Saanich, BC, skated close to slander by suggesting Ford should be in jail.]   A worthless media sinks farther into irrelevance.

Canada's admirable contribution to combatting desertification

When Canada recently announced its withdrawal from the UN Convention on Combatting Desertification (UNCCD), professional do-gooders and political partisans began howling with righteous outrage.  For example:

Elizabeth May (tweeted): "So upset Harper pulled us out of another global env treaty. He's making us a rogue nation. The North Korea of environmental law."

Toronto Star: "... The Harper government’s latest nose-thumbing at the UN is a baffling move that lacks any obvious political advantage to balance out the sizeable blows it inflicts on the government’s domestic and international credibility. ..."

Craig and Marc Kielburger: "... walking away accomplishes nothing."

Oh, COME ON! Cut the hyperbole!  With all due respect to the Kielburgers, rather than "accomplish nothing" Canada announcing its withdrawal has had at least two very beneficial effects: 

(1) Until then, no one, least of all the above complainers, had ever even heard of the UNCCD.  Now it's their cause célèbre.

(2) Canada has, once again, drawn attention to the wasteful uselessness of the UN.  Most UN activities, UNCCD included are, at best, unproductive talk-fests that use UN conventions as an excuse for over-paid bureaucrats to regularly gather in five star hotels in exotic locales.

This can only boost real action towards combatting desertification and reforming the UN, something you'd expect the Lizzy Mays, the T-Stars and the Kielburgers would be applauding rather than bitching about. 

Bill Whittle - seeing double in Canada

"Hate 2.0: Combating the Radical Right ... "

If we needed another example proving that university humanities faculties are, at best, a waste of time and money here’s one proudly presented in the Summer 2012 Carleton University Magazine:

With a major grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, [Jennifer] Evans and her Carleton colleagues Christiane Wilke, a legal scholar; historian Shawn Graham; and communications professor Josh Greenberg have embarked on a two-year project called "Hate 2.0: Combating the Radical Right in the Age of Social Technology."

Evans and her collaborators will examine the ways social media are being used to combat neo-Nazism and other radical-right strains of thought in Germany and Canada.

The Carleton Department of History announcement of Evans’ grant last summer featured this National Organization of Women (NOW) logo along with these details:

From the perspectives of social and gender history, critical legal studies, and media studies, the research team will examine how local, state, and federal authorities, together with institutionalized anti-hate initiatives [e.g. the HRCs], social justice organizations, and avant guard movements, employ digital media to promote awareness, combat denial, and contest the rise of xenophobic sentiment.






In other words our federal government is ponying up real cash for far-left academic ideologues to investigate ways of combatting a handful of lonely neo-Nazis operating from their moms’ basements. Couldn’t they have at least targeted a real and present danger? Was Richard Warman on the committee that awarded that grant? So many questions.

Oh the humanities! What a colossal waste! Shut down the whole lot and save billions!

Update:  Some of the comments regarding the proper place of Nazism and Fascism on the political spectrum reminded me of this post on the subject a few years ago.

Humongous civil service pay hikes

The Post:

Wage increases doled out to federal and provincial public servants have nearly doubled those given to private-sector employees in the past decade.  ... federal public servants’ wages rose by 59%, far outpacing the average worker. [And 59% approaches triple the official inflation rate.]

"... there are some theories ... Economic forces could be driving talented staff into the public sector and thus increasing the value of their work ... [Bwaahahahaaa..!!] But political scientists and economists have said there are political reasons for government workers getting “unusually large annual raises.” [That's better.]

... The common view that government is a cushy place to work is misguided and unfair, said John Gordon, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents 180,000 federal workers. ... “The workload increases every day, and politicians ... buy into that ‘fat cat public service’ perception.” Public employees deserve the pay raises, he said, and they face many of the same strains as private-sector workers — if not more. [Predictable propaganda from a union honcho - but utter bullshit. There is no way that civil service employees deserve pay increases that are double those in the private sector.]

As a former military officer with years of experience working in Ottawa along-side the federal civil service I find it impossible to accept these exhorbitant increases.  That's not to say that there aren't a lot of highly talented civil servants working very hard to meet or exceed their job descriptions. But it is highly dubious that they are more talented and/or work harder than their private sector counterparts.  Also, unfortunately, large numbers of civil servants are employed doing work that doesn't need doing (and we'd all be better off if it went undone).  Talented people working hard at these jobs is just more government waste - not justification for huge pay increases.

CBC kovers kangaroo kourt

One of Kathy Shaidle's readers encountered a couple of crack CBC "journalists" covering the trial:

Who is this Steyn guy they asked. Is he a journalist?

Did they know who Elmasery was? No.

They asked if I had a picture of Steyn.

They knew nothing about the AHRC case against Ezra.

They did know about the Western Standard but were unaware that it was no longer being published.

I tried to provide some background on each of these cases but could see that there was not a lot of interest.

Read the whole thing, but, warning, it'll make you sick.