Proportional representation and (un)Fair Vote Canada

Lawrence Solomon began his ‘Post’column today:

Canada needs electoral reform to bring in proportional representation. It is unconscionable that in a modern democracy such as ours, vast swathes of the
electorate should be effectively disenfranchised ...

Aarrggh! Lawrence Solomon is now on the stinking PR bandwagon? Say it ain’t so!

However, reading on we discover that by ‘proportional representation’ he means straightforward rep-by-pop which is currently out of whack with BC, Alberta and Ontario badly under-represented. Mr. Solomon’s problem is with Bill C-22 which brings BC and Alberta up to snuff after the 2011 census but will leave Ontario 11 seats short. He is also unhappy with organizations such as Fair Vote Canada who have been silent on the issue:

The unfairness, affecting almost 12.7 million Ontarians, could not be plainer. Yet rather than take on this dismissal of the principle of one person-one vote – surely a prerequisite for any voting system that pretends to democratic fair play – Fair Vote Canada has other priorities.

The Fair Vote lobbies, its fair to say, are not about fair voting at all. They are not even about proportional representation, the term they have appropriated to describe their electoral preferences. The Fair Vote lobbies are about delivering power to the parties, rather than power to the people.

Right on, Larry! What a relief! The guy who brings such good sense to the global warming debate and who previously denounced Ontario’s MMP proposal just couldn’t have climbed into bed with the Fair Vote PR flacks.

Parliamentary ethics committee gong show

On Mike Duffy Live today, lawyer William Kaplan, author of a book on the Mulroney/Schreiber affair, had this to say about Schreiber’s questioning and testimony before the ethics committee hearings:

I don’t think there was any damage in testimony today to anyone. The only thing that was damaged was the reputation of the House of Commons and the special committee on ethics. They behaved badly as predicted. It was a gong show as predicted. They were undisciplined. They were uninformed. They didn’t put a good face of government out to the people of Canada.

Kaplan described how American legislative committee hearings are run and, comparatively, the Canadian version comes off as an amateur show.

Duffy criticized committee chairman Paul Szabo for coaching Schreiber on how to avoid answering questions.

Video here.

CBC insists on zero wait times - at the border

Terence Corcoran makes an excellent observation in today’s Financial Post.

This week an ambulance carrying a Windsor patient to a U.S. hospital for an emergency angioplasty was held up for a few minutes by U.S. border security. Apparently (I don’t watch the CBC) the CBC’s The National carried the story, with "a sense of outrage", as part of its on-going border-watch coverage. This led to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announcing in the House of Commons: "We don’t want to see this continue."

Mr. Corcoran:

But what is it that Mr. Day and the CBC don’t want to see continue. By reporting this as big news, the CBC essentially seemed to be imposing a tough Zero Wait Time policy on U.S. border officials.

Only in Canada would the national media get into a lather over the difficulties of crossing a border to get health care - when the need for an emergency trip across the border is the Canadian "Wait for it" health care system.

Private hospitals are mostly illegal in Canada, certainly in Ontario, thanks to the border and Ontario law that blocks privatized health care. The Henry Ford health care group couldn’t build an angioplasty unit in Canada if it wanted to.

This lack of private facilities is a source of national pride among Canadians, and the border is the enforcement mechanism...

A Globe and Mail headline ... said "Day urges U.S. to reconsider border policies." That's certainly easier to say than "Day urges Conservatives to reconsider health care policies."

This is as close to a cosmic joke as you can get in Canadian affairs.

Healthcare - Canuckistan versus America

As all Canadians are reminded almost daily -‘American-style’ health care is B A D. It’s a given that the Canadian/Cuban/North Korean/Soviet universal healthcare model is the best in the world.

According to a new study by economists at Baruch College in New York - not quite so. William Watson summarizes the results:

The health payoff to higher income ("income-health gradient") is bigger here than in the United States... even though the whole purpose of medicare is to eliminate the effect of income on health. [my bold]

And some small details:

one magnetic resonance imager for every 37,000 Americans, versus one for every 182,000 Canadians.

computed tomography scanners ... one for every 31,000 Americans, versus one for every 87,000 Canadians...

The Japanese ... have even more [CT scanners and MRI’s] than the Americans.

...Americans seem happier with their health care than we are with ours.

...we have better longevity and infant-mortality statistics. But other differences between our societies explain that..

Fifteen percent of older Americans say their health is excellent, versus only 8% of Canadians...

...more Americans than Canadians who have a given condition receive treatment for it.

In several forms of preventive care, we lag the Americans.

Americans have a higher incidence of cancer, we have higher mortality rates...

And, there’s no mention of the fact that "waiting lists" are essentially unheard of in American healthcare.

Now, let’s hear it one more time for Saint Tommy.

Ref also.

Canadian star chambers in action - again

This time professional, self-appointed ‘human rights’ Nazi Richard Warman sic’d the Canadian Human Rights Commission on waitress and racist blog commenter Jessica Beaumont.

A Canadian Human Rights Tribunal recently rendered its decision finding Jessica guilty of communicating hate messages on the internet, fining her $1500 and ordering her to cease posting ‘hate messages’ on the web.

No question - Ms Beaumont has some unsavory views about certain non-white, non-Christian and non-heterosexual groups. She’s clearly racist and homophobic and unrepentantly so.

However, provided she doesn’t advocate violence towards the people she hates (and she didn’t), she should be able to freely express her hateful stupidity. Unfortunately (as noted previously) in spite of the Charter’s fine words about free expression, the Human Rights Act effectively cancels those rights.

The danger here, is not the Jessica Beaumonts, but the Human Rights Act and the ‘Star Chambers’ it mandates. If Jessica Beaumont’s speech can be suppressed anyone’s can. The hate speech section of the Act, if not the entire Act, should be repealed.

[Via SDA where there’s some outstanding debate and discussion.]

Water ‘conservation’ idiocy

This survey today reminded me of another of my pet gripes - idiotic conservationsim.

A perennial bugaboo of the local Victoria press, politicians and enviro-nuts is the state of the fresh water supply. The Regional water Nazis restrict water usage during the dry months and hector the populace year round to conserve. UVic and the local newspaper recently teamed up to publish a conservation bulletin just chock-full of nifty recommendations for cutting down on water use including: multiple toilet uses before flushing, halving time spent the shower, not running the tap while brushing teeth, etc.

As Glenn Beck would say - this is a load of conservationist bullcrap!

There is no shortage of water! This is the Pacific Northwest for God’s sake! We get 5 feet of rainfall every year. We’re surrounded by rain forests. If there were a shortage of anything (and there isn’t, except for common sense) it would not be water but water storage capacity.

If we don’t use the stuff it collects in the reservoir which overflows in January every year (December last year) and flows into the frickin’ ocean. So instead of flowing out our taps, down the sewer pipes and into the ocean, it just flows over the top of the reservoir dam and straight into the ocean. With the amount of available fresh water it’s not possible to ‘waste’ it. It’s an annually renewable resource.

So why the phony hype about conservation - as if using it today is somehow robbing future generations? I don’t know. It’s hard to figure except that it gives the Regional government ‘authorities’ a chance to yap about what wonderful ‘stewards-of-the-earth’ they are. In my estimation, given all the fresh water that falls out the sky here, the Regional authority’s principal job is to make sure that enough of it is collected in reservoirs and avoid having to hector us with stupid ‘conservation’ suggestions.

Worth repeating

Aussie PM John Howard on multiculturalism:

"Immigrants, not Australians, must adapt. I'm tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia. However there are a few things that those who have come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand. This idea of Australia being a multi-cultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. ...This is our country, our land, and our lifestyle, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But if you complain about our flag, our pledge, our Christian beliefs, or our way of life, I highly encourage you to take advantage of our other great Australian freedom, ‘The Right to Leave'!"

It would be nice if the Canadian political class could be as sensibly direct.

[via, and]