missed call: the influence of cell phone culture on political polls

Politics and prophecy have ancient mutual origins in military tradition. It is obvious why knowledge of the future confers strategic advantage. Once a tradition of mysticism and ritual, prophecy now involves the application of algorithmic calculation to large data sets for the production of useful extrapolations. This is how finance capitalism evaluates companies, how Target uses sales data to know about a woman’s pregnancy before she does, and how campaigning politicians know which doors to knock on or avoid. In the era of big data, we should not be surprised that big money remains the dominant influence.

If it seems as though new, contradictory polls are produced daily, then we can thank the news media for increasingly relying on polling data to provide inexpensive programming. Commercial news is an entertainment product, a consequence of media conglomeration by large multinationals. In this context, polls quantify the drama of the electoral road and turn the relative boredom of electioneering into an adult videogame formatted for inexpensive mass consumption. Of course, without editorial discretion on the part of media agencies, this process often results in the publication of polls bearing dubious statistical legitimacy.

Gauging public opinion requires time to properly accomplish. Survey length and complexity dictates cost, and media organizations need to produce other content while waiting for the survey to be completed. As a result, new survey techniques which greatly simplify survey questions while reducing the time and budget required for data collection have come to the fore in the prediction industry, with the resultant products ready for media consumption. Some polling companies such as Angus Reid and Abacus Data have transitioned to online polls of dubious legitimacy. Most companies, such as MainstreetTechnologies and Forum Research – often cited in Toronto media – use interactive voice response (IVR) technology, a self-aggrandizing term for computerised phone surveys.

So what exactly is the problem with telephone polling in the 21^st century? Telephone collection of public opinion data from a random selection of Canadians has long been the gold standard for the polling industry, as landlines existed in virtually every residence in the country and data could be collected in a cost-effective manner. However, academic and industry studies have noted that the recent decline in the response rate to telephone surveys has greatly impacted the validity of data produced. Reasons for declining response rates are numerous, but often involve technological developments such as line screening and the adoption of mobile phones. Unlike the phone books which graced every home when landlines were common, wireless carriers have not coordinated their databases to produce a national cellphone directory. Furthermore, due to built-in caller ID and pay-by-the-minute billing, cell phone users are more prone to ignore calls from unknown numbers. As a result of these issues, many telephone surveys omit cellphones from their sample sets, as it is difficult and expensive to correlate demographic information with individual numbers.

Youth, urban professionals under the age of 40, renters, and low-income voters in particular are not being captured by polls relying on landline survey data. Governmental research suggests that mobile-exclusive residences currently represent nearly 19% of Canadian households, a number that is sure to rise as nearly 65% of people under 35 report using mobile phones exclusively. As a result, poll data is skewed toward older, wealthier voters in rural and suburban communities, reflecting a bias for conservative candidates. This bias evidences in polls as reported by the news media, but often vanishes once votes are actually counted on election day: witness the last Ontario election, in which poll data almost universally predicted a Conservative victory, while the actual election granted a majority win for the Liberal party. In a similar manner, Olivia Chow’s popularity lies with demographic groups not captured by landline surveys and so may not be reflected in poll results indicating a race between John Tory and Doug Ford.

According to polling companies, the use of IVR along with advanced statistical analysis results in a rate of predictive accuracy comparable to landline telephone surveys and other established methods for gauging public opinion. However, more often than not, polling companies simply do not perform the requisite statistical calibration to legitimate their results, suggesting that their data acquisition methodologies emphasize turnaround time and affordability rather than statistical viability. My own calculations indicate that IVR is only accurate when the results of numerous polls are averaged over a much longer term than the daily surveys being reported in the news media. Importantly, the long term trend is not reflected by individual studies, which vary wildly from the long-term median.

As a result of focusing on short-term results skewed by unrepresentative population samples, the news media often misrepresents public opinion to the voting public. With an increasing number of miscalled elections, hopefully the public learns the sense of editorial mistrust and critical evaluation which the news media, in thrall to the temporal acceleration of market forces, have relinquished. 

Published for rabble.ca 

letter to Jason Kenny, re: changes to foreign worker permits for touring artists/musicians

Mr. Kenny,

Recent changes to the fee structure for visa/work permits allowing touring artists and entertainers will not allow small- or medium-scale musicians to legally tour and perform in Canada. It is clear to those of us with experience with the music industry that the government’s changes did not intend to directly affect the bars and music venues which rely on touring musicians for the effective operation of their business. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the Conservative Party intended for its policies surrounding work permits for foreign labourers to have the consequence that Canadian bars and entertainment venues which have capacities of less than 1,000 people would be affected in the negative manner which will result from these policies. It seems to me that given the nature of the music business as inherently multinational in nature, Canadian venues with capacities less than 1,000 people will suffer catastrophically from the lack of touring musicians able to perform in Canada. There won’t suddenly exist an expanded stable of internationally-recognised Canadian musicians from which promoters and venues can choose; rather there will be fewer live music performances, and venue revenues, with their contingent tax revenues, will fall considerably. Quite simply, many venues will not be able to remain in business.

Again, it is clear that such was not the intention of the policy changes enacted by the federal Conservatives. Rather, the problems with which the live music industry is now facing are the result of a total lack of consultation on the part of the governing Conservative Party of Canada. As this situation is simply not acceptable to anyone in the music industry in Canada, what measures will the government take to immediately address this issue? The policy as currently extant does not work for the music industry, or for the arts more broadly. Let me be blunt about the situation, Mr. Kenny. There is nobody currently serving as MP within the Conservative caucus who understands or has any experience with the issue of the performing arts in Canada. In fact, understood within the context of other policy and procedural changes and the abusive, omnibus-bill methods of public governance which marks the history of the federal Conservatives since 2006, neither I nor other members of the art industry communities in Canada have any confidence in the ‘expertise’ displayed by the Conservative government in this regard.

Will government officials, in consultation with members of the Canadian live music industry, work on excepting touring entertainers for the reason that they inhabit an obviously different employment situation relative to a one-night performance than does a foreign worker coming to Canada to fill a six-month full-time position? What steps, in the timeframe of the next eighteen months, will be taken to restore the business viability of live music venues in Canada, now that recent policy changes enacted by the Conservative government have seriously undermined the business potential of the industry in Canada?

Regards,

UPDATE:

a letter to Vic Toews about Bill C-30

Hello Mr. Toews,

I just listened to your interview with Evan Solomon of the CBC, in which you stated that you have neither read nor do you understand the content of Bill C-30. Putting aside for a moment the question of why you slandered critics of the bill by stating that they "support child pornographers" when you yourself have not read the bill and cannot demonstrate an understanding of its contents, I am presently writing to you in search of an answer to the question below. In seeking an answer to this question, I will also put aside for a moment my doubts as to the wisdom of conjoining a large variety of important legislation into one Omnibus Crime Bill, thus limiting the possibilities for debate or scrutiny over the individual parts of tabled as "Omnibus". I will also ignore the recent events surrounding Vikileaks's illumination of the public records related to your personal life, Mr. Toews, except to state that now you may better understand why Canadians will not tolerate the governmental unconstitutionally spying into their affairs (although Vikileaks itself does not represent criminal or unconstitutional activity).

My question to you is the following: is it not normal parliamentary procedure for a minister (and indeed other MPs) to read and understand the legislation that is under the mandate and jurisdiction of their department, which they will be championing in public forums (in this regard, you rather childishly and boorishly denigrated critics as "supporters of child pornography"), and upon which they will be voting in the House of Commons?

Surely, such activity is in fact at the heart of the function of an MP, and most especially one who is also a senior minister, for otherwise Canadians would have elected to Parliament an incompetent and irresponsible Member. Given that in this case you, Mr. Toews, are ostensibly the Minster responsible for Public Safety, it is paramount that you competently perform this charge lest the public be endangered due to irresponsible governance.

It is now clear to all Canadians who look into the matter, in either a systemic or a cursory way, that Bill C-30 is either ill-considered and poorly-formulated, or it represents a wilful disregard for the constitutional rights granted to all Canadians. It is here that I will return to your insulting comments about child pornography. I know several victims of childhood sexual abuse, and furthermore my mother The Reverend Dorothy Hewlett (Anglican) has spent a great deal of her professional life counselling victims of childhood sexual abuse. Your casual and irresponsible invocation (use) of the horrors which abused children suffered and continue to suffer is a callous and opportunistic ploy to silence critics of what is an unconstitutional or ill-considered legislative mistake. How dare you, Mr. Toewes? You are in effect condoning the suffering of individuals as the rhetorical justification for the ignorance which Bill C-30 represents. If you are a religious person, Mr. Toews, you need to look at yourself in a mirror and then speak with your god. If you aren't religious, then please just look at yourself in a mirror for a while.

Mr. Toews, due to the fact that you do not appear to be properly performing your duties as minister, due to the fact that in the process of performing your responsibilities you insulted not those Canadians who are critical of Bill C-30 but also the victims of childhood sexual abuse whom you purport to be defending, I cannot in good conscious allow the epithet "Right Honourable" in the same sentence as your name.  

VIC TOEWS'S OFFICE RESPONDS IN FORM STYLE:

Thank you for contacting my office regarding Bill C-30, the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act.

Canada's laws currently do not adequately protect Canadians from online exploitation and we think there is widespread agreement that this is a problem. 

We want to update our laws while striking the right balance between combating crime and protecting privacy. 

Let me be very clear: the police will not be able to read emails or view web activity unless they obtain a warrant issued by a judge and we have constructed safeguards to protect the privacy of Canadians, including audits by privacy commissioners.

What's needed most is an open discussion about how to better protect Canadians from online crime. We will therefore send this legislation directly to Parliamentary Committee for a full examination of the best ways to protect Canadians while respecting their privacy.

For your information, I have included some myths and facts below regarding Bill C-30 in its current state.

Sincerely,

Vic Toews

Member of Parliament for Provencher

Myth: Lawful Access legislation infringes on the privacy of Canadians.

Fact: Our Government puts a high priority on protecting the privacy of law-abiding Canadians. Current practices of accessing the actual content of communications with a legal authorization will not change. 

Myth: Having access to basic subscriber information means that authorities can monitor personal communications and activities.

Fact: This has nothing to do with monitoring emails or web browsing.  Basic subscriber information would be limited to a customer’s name, address, telephone number, email address, Internet Protocol (IP) address, and the name of the telecommunications service provider. It absolutely does not include the content of emails, phones calls or online activities.

Myth: This legislation does not benefit average Canadians and only gives authorities more power.

Fact:  As a result of technological innovations, criminals and terrorists have found ways to hide their illegal activities. This legislation will keep Canadians safer by putting police on the same footing as those who seek to harm us.

Myth: Basic subscriber information is way beyond “phone book information”.

Fact: The basic subscriber information described in the proposed legislation is the modern day equivalent of information that is in the phone book. Individuals frequently freely share this information online and in many cases it is searchable and quite public.

Myth: Police and telecommunications service providers will now be required to maintain databases with information collected on Canadians.

Fact: This proposed legislation will not require either police or telecommunications service providers to create databases with information collected on Canadians.

Myth: “Warrantless access” to customer information will give police and government unregulated access to our personal information.

Fact: Federal legislation already allows telecommunications service providers to voluntarily release basic subscriber information to authorities without a warrant. This Bill acts as a counterbalance by adding a number of checks and balances which do not exist today, and clearly lists which basic subscriber identifiers authorities can access.

BOB RAE'S OFFICE RESPONDS IN SLIGHTLY LESS FORM

-LETTER STYLE

Dear Quintin Hewlett:

On behalf of Liberal Leader Bob Rae, I would like thank you for your email regarding Bill C-30, the Conservative legislation that will allow Vic Toews and Stephen Harper to creep your Facebook and read your emails.

It’s unacceptable for the Conservatives to paint this as strictly an issue of pedophilia and child pornography; Canadians deserve an honest debate on something this serious.  This is a complex bill that contains numerous provisions requiring scrutiny and careful examination at Committee.  A proper balance must be struck between the privacy rights of Canadians and public safety.

Privacy is a fundamental freedom enshrined in our Charter and Canadians have every right to be worried about heightened surveillance of their online activities.  Liberals are seriously concerned about the lack of judicial oversight in this bill relating to subscriber data, and that forcing ISP and telecomm providers to have the capacity to trace all communications in their system could create a very slippery slope.  After all, this is a governing party that has proven itself willing to violate online privacy before – like with its Facebook creeping activities during the last election.

The Liberal Party will be proposing several amendments to Bill C-30, including adding the requirement that there is judicial oversight before law enforcement can access personal subscriber information.  In addition, we are calling for open and transparent hearings on this legislation.  If you would like to support these proposals you can sign our petition.

Thank you for taking the time to write to the Leader of the Liberal Party.

Yours sincerely,

Colin McKoneOffice of the Liberal Leader 

RESPONSE TO TOEWS

Mr. Toews,

Since you did not address my complaints about your invocation of child abuse, I will address your interpretation of Bill C-30. I have taken into consideration the "myth/fact" sheet forwarded to me by your office. 

VIC TOEWS OFFICIAL RESPONSE MYTH: "Our Government puts a high priority on protecting the privacy of law-abiding Canadians. Current practices of accessing the actual content of communications with a legal authorization will not change."

FACT: Several Provincial Privacy Commissioners have outlined the precise manner in which Bill C-30 will undermine the privacy of law-abiding Canadians. Furthermore, since Canadian law protects the privacy of non-law-abiding persons in an equal manner as it law-abiding persons (the key word upon which the law rests being "person", not "law-abiding"), the government has no right to breach this privacy during the course of an investigation **without judicial oversight**. In other words, law enforcement agencies are required to obtain a search warrant in order to breach the privacy of *any* person. 

VIC TOEWS OFFICIAL RESPONSE MYTH: 1: "This has nothing to do with monitoring emails or web browsing.  Basic subscriber information would be limited to a customer’s name, address, telephone number, email address, Internet Protocol (IP) address, and the name of the telecommunications service provider. It absolutely does not include the content of emails, phones calls or online activities."2: "The basic subscriber information described in the proposed legislation is the modern day equivalent of information that is in the phone book. Individuals frequently freely share this information online and in many cases it is searchable and quite public."

FACT: Not only does the "modern phone book" allow real-time monitoring of the location data associated with ISP and wireless connections, but the Vic Toewes Myth is being entirely disingenuous to its own intentions. Law enforcement agencies would seek subscriber information in order to read the contents of that person's communications in order to determine evidence supporting the guilt of that person relative to the criminal intentions presumed by the law enforcement officials who initiated the investigation. Otherwise why would law enforcement bother to engage in breaching a person's privacy?

VIC TOEWS OFFICIAL RESPONSE MYTH: "Fact: Federal legislation already allows telecommunications service providers to voluntarily release basic subscriber information to authorities without a warrant. This Bill acts as a counterbalance by adding a number of checks and balances which do not exist today, and clearly lists which basic subscriber identifiers authorities can access."

FACT: The checks and balances you indicate are entirely at the discretion of the investigating officer(s). Under the proposed bill, investigators would have to log and report the activities of their online investigation. However, there is no mechanism in the bill by which a party exterior to the investigating officer(s) has supervisory jurisdiction over the investigation except in the retrospective manner. Thus, the bill assumes an element of "faith" and "due diligence" on the part of investigating officer(s) as to the intentions behind their capacity to breach the a citizen's privacy. A hypothetical example: an officer pulls over a female driver for speeding. A few days later, that officer accesses the woman's personal information without a warrant. Under Bill C-30, there is no mechanism by which the officer will be impeded in his illegal activities; the woman's privacy will be breached. 

Mr. Toews, at this point I wish to address the fact that the Bill itself, as well as your childishly irresponsible description of opponents of the bill as "supporting child pornography", casually and wilfully invokes the suffering of children for political gain. There are absolutely no provision in the bill which will specifically address the needs of victims of childhood sexual assault (as a minor example, there exists a great number of sex abuse victims who cannot afford to pay for the counselling or psychological treatment; they are left to fend for themselves), so naming the bill itself "Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act" is a unconscionable travesty, and you and your government should be absolutely ashamed for your disgusting rhetoric in relation to this issue. 

Mr. Toews, It is clear to me that your government operates with a myopic and opportunistic arrogance which demonstrates the morally-bankrupt nature of your politics. 

Tory math makes children cry

Since the minority Tory government was installed in January, the Conservatives have made quite a lot of noise about the importance of their budgetary tax cuts and changes in government spending. In addition to a $1200 per year child support allowance, the Tories have promised a one percent reduction to the GST, a slight increase to the personal exemption credit, a much-needed mass transit credit worth 15.5% of the cost of a pass, and a tax increase from 15 to 15.5 percent on the first $36,000 of your income. That last point is worth noting, as this is the first recorded instance in Canadian history of a government decreasing income taxes by increasing the income tax rate.

In reality, save for the transit credit there is no way that these tax cuts will amount to anything for the vast majority of Canadians. Only those whose income is high enough to allow them to freely spend thousands of dollars each month will see anything of merit. If you have an income of, say, $3000 per month, you might have $500 of it to spend at your leisure. By lowering the GST by 1 percent, you will save around $5 of that $500 per month. A one percent reduction in retail tax does not address any of the problems faced by people who pay taxes or work in this country. It will not stimulate retail sales, or put any extra money back into the pockets of those who might need it.

Furthermore, it really is a shame that the plan for child care in this country fell through the floor. Since when does a $1200 yearly cheque pay for day care? By this, I can only assume that the Conservatives cannot rationalize their costs on this one. If they could, they would see that by giving working families $4.80 per business day (assuming you qualify for the full $1200; since the rebate is reduced by income, if you earn $30,000 you will not see anywhere near $1200) they are insulting employed parents by ignoring their actual living conditions. Furthermore, they are insulting early childhood care providers who surely make more than five bucks in a day. The old Liberal plan for child care was to increase the number of childcare facilities and staff to the point where it could be incorporated into the educational system as pre-kindergarten. Now I don’t like the Liberals either, but that sounds like a real plan. Some might even call it a strategy for future success. Now, to add balance to this argument let’s look again at the Conservative plan.

There is no Conservative plan for childcare in Canada. Instead, the Tories are doing something for which they have criticized every other party: throwing money at the problem. Literally. “Hey problem-with-childcare-in-Canda-wherein-working-families-
cannot-afford-childcare, how are you doing?” Stephen Harper might say. “Here’s $1200 bucks. Go away.”

To analogize, the Tory "plan" for daycare is akin to giving parents $15 bucks a day and calling it a functional educational system. Maybe the Tories thought you could add the $5 monthly GST rebate to the $4.80 childcare “program” to further provide for the well-being of your family. This brings the total amount of care that the Conservative government wishes for your children to $5.04 per day. Which is about the cost of a movie rental these days. Which gives us a TV babysitter in the guise of a Tory Childcare Plan. Moving on. Dot. Org.

More interesting to those who study semantics is the increase in the tax rate for income up to $36,400. I think it works as follows: for many workers, there will be an increase in the tax rate decrease of negative 0.5 percent. That’s right working-poor, look forward to that tax decrease of -0.5% as if you earn up to $36,400 you will not see your taxes go down, but rather in the negative-down direction. Which is up. As in the poor pay more taxes and have even less disposable income for the GST credit.

This now explains to me why the Tories have changed Canada’s strategy for childcare. To the best of my abilities, the assumption works like this. If you get two overworked parents to spend $1200 on miscellaneous crap to appease their tired lives, they will ignore the fact that their kids underperform at school and their taxes have negatively gone down. This underachieving lifestyle is due primarily to the lack of an “environment of intellectual interest”, which usually involves parents having the time to involve themselves or the money to involve other people in the lives of their children. Hopefully, the $1200 also appeases the many single parents who might have a job or go to school and who thus far don’t have any choice but the whoever-works-for-free-oh-wait-you-aren’t-available-anymore policy that they can afford. In either case, neither parents nor their kids in these situations will have a good chance of securing the education they need to get good jobs and move them out of the $36,400 tax bracket. Since more taxpayers are to be found in a bracket which had its taxes decreased by negative 0.5 percent, the economy is stimulated enough to offset the $15 billion in increased military spending. Now that’s how you grow an economy, son!

Some economists hypothesize that the economy would be best stimulated by raising the disposable income of the bottom twenty percent of income earners. Their reasoning suggests that it is better for the economy and most citizens within to have one million consumers spend ten bucks each rather than one man spending ten million in one go. When you consider that the masses are going to make small purchases more habitual and frequent than the wealthy are going to make large ones, you cannot help but assume that tax cuts for the working poor will make more money available to the system as a whole and thus stimulate the economy in the negative-down direction.

None of these economists are in the employ of the Conservative government.

For such a junk budget, the transit tax break is nice to see, even if it is a direct descendent of a Liberal attempt to adhere with the Kyoto accord. Frankly, with the mounting expenses associated with global climate change, now is indeed the time to encourage progressive solutions such as mass transit through tax incentives.

I think the Conservative government needs to go back to school on the tax issue, that is assuming they don't use one of those "10 bucks per day" schools to which I earlier referred. Perhaps the real issue which we should discuss is why $15 billion of our money is being spent on military acquisitions. For example, maybe we could claw that back to $10 billion and spend the other five on a child care program. Oh wait, that was the last Liberal budget, wasn’t it???

I find it more than fascinating that Conservative parties tell us that they are the only ones who have the economic expertise to balance the books while they are in fact a most spendthrift group of faux-economists. Only after a few years will we see whether the Conservatives will maintain Canada’s world-leading budget surpluses (inherited from the Liberals) or squander the wealth for inaccurate tax cuts and bad spending. The fact is, if you search the net for any of Harper’s past writings or speeches, you’ll soon realize that this government is shying away from the media for the very obvious reason that it has a degenerate ideological approach to governance. By giving the Conservatives the vote at last election, we traded a child care plan from a group of lying backscratchers for a short-sighted rebate coupon from a group of covetous and prehensile ideologues whose numbers don’t add up.

By the way, did you notice that your taxes are going up this year?

some thoughts about the elections in Canada -- Korean dispatch

1> The conservatives believe in an "each to himself" type of economy, which means you pay for everything yourself. Ultimately, that increases the overall cost to the education, healthcare, and administrative infrastructures. To see the effects of such policies, just look south where people pay low low taxes, but receive no services except (abstract) military protection. This is especially true of health care and education where the rich continue to enjoy the benefits that we in canada all more or less share, and the poor and working poor get NOTHING and are in NO POSITION TO BETTER THEIR SITUATION.

2> Notice i said "each to HIMself" above, as many in the conservative party adhere to ideologies of masculine dominance over the public and domestic sphere. It's not simply about taking away a woman's right to abortion or proper health services specific to their needs. It's also about allowing equal rights in corporate and employment ethics, it's about having a progressive police and legal system, which currently still has a way to go to recognize some issues that women still face everyday.

3> The conservative party wants further economic and legal integration with the US. this would destroy the country at this point in time. America is on the verge of countering almost every civilized country on the planet, who are at this time working together to the greatest extent in human history. America has undermined every international treaty, disregarded international laws when they are against "american" interests, and opposed the formation of internation courts (largely because those courts would find many senior american officials guilty of serious criminal offences). The US is a sinking ship, and i hope they learn to fend for themselves in a positive way, but right now Canada should solidify relations (trade, legal, etc) with Europe, Latin America, and Asia to secure economic growth. America will begin to disregard its trade imbalance with more and more violent and depressive results as it's economy continues to slide over the next few years. If you don't know what that means, i'm sure Mr Andreas Link can be of service.

4> The conservatives seek a domestic social policy that is highly regressive, turning time backward against the positive human rights issues that have been worked out over the past few decades, such as worker rights, ethnic equality issues, homosexual equality, and intelligent (ie sane) drug policy. Many of their members have a fundamentalist christian ideological background that DOES NOT SERVE THE INTEREST OF CANADIANS, and is highly oppositional to a humane and civilized country. We must lead this country with rational and emotionally sensitive policies which look to material consequences on human terms, not abstract sense of "morality" which can in no way be seen as universal or transcendental.

5> Harper has repeatedly said that he wishes to give a lot more power to the provinces. That should be looked at from two sides. there are reasons to do this, such as regional economic issues (maritime vs prairie). At the same, the real reason that he is doing this is to allow Alberta to follow it's own economic and domestic policy, which is decidedly against what Canadians have repeatedly said they would like to see for the country. This is the first stage of what might be referred to as a big fight for Canadian oil reserves (Dick Cheney has already visited...)


6> Every time there is a Conservative scandal, it is one of monumental proportions, like making ethnic or gender slurs. There is also a high degree of monetary corruption in most conservative parties throughout history. I am not saying this to get the Liberals off the hook, as they took a lot of conservative policies and made them their own, including huge fiscal kickbacks. Every government has a scandal of some sort. The point is, is it relatively harmless to the citizenry, or is it one akin to the PC government in Ontario saying that it was balancing the books when in fact it was selling off assets. It's kind of like the difference between Bill Clinton lying that he got a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky, which was argued as a cause for impeachment, and George W. Bush lying to congress, the senate, and the entire world about information which has so far led to the murder of nearly 100,000 people. It's a matter of degree. Hey look, I just saw a Conservative MP get arrested for smuggling booze into the country! Hey, didn't another one just accuse a woman of doing useless work? How will justice be able to precipitate from people who think in such superstitious and backward ways?

7> The Liberals are indeed just cruising along, and for that they deserve at best a minority government yet again. I really would like to see them in coalition with the NDP, as such a government would benefit Canada quite well while allowing some progressive trends.

8> That being said, I think that the NDP and the Green Party would be a very viable opposition if they don't quite make it to power. The NDP have already proven that they can get work done while everyone else is just trying to topple the government. Stop wasting our time Conservative party. Those tactics you employed in delaying any action in parliament -- that's childish playground antics that do not have a place in a professional house of representation. Frankly, I hope you do get a minority government so that we can knock you on your ass with a non-confidence motion within a few weeks of gaining office.

Long story short, vote how you want. Just do a little research behind the scenes and don't just get excited by the fact that you think Conservatism means good economic policy. Frankly, if you look over their platforms, it's the NDP and the BLOC that have the most fiscally responsible plans. The Conservative plan is the most expensive. Odd isn't it...

Turning Oil into Trees

Last week the U.S. made it clear that it was no longer going to abide by NAFTA. Since the late 1980s, many critics have argued that NAFTA had always been intended as a one-way deal, with the majority of benefits going to American business interests.

The issue at hand is of course Canada’s long-standing complaint concerning the importation duties that United States trade officials imposed on many wood exports. The most recent – which the BC government, who must have a quotient of horror film aficionados on staff ready for every requisite press release, so brilliantly names ‘Lumber IV’, commenced in May of 2002. At the time, it was argued that Canada was illegally subsidizing lumber production. Since then roughly $5 billion in anti-dumping and countervailing tariffs has been collected from the Canadian Forestry Industry.

Canada has made numerous appeals to both the NAFTA legislating body and the World Trade Organization, and so far every single appeal – except, of course, one done by the U.S. in the U.S. – has demonstrated that Canadian lumber is not being dumped at illegal price levels. Each of these legal actions has demonstrated that the States is acting illegally in collecting duties.

So what has changed recently? Well, for starters Canada won another appeal, this time adjudicated by the very cool sounding NAFTA Extraordinary Challenge Committee. U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman’s stated “We are, of course, disappointed with the ECC’s decision, but it will have no impact on the antidumping and countervailing duty orders given the ITC’s November 2004 injury determination. We continue to have concerns about Canadian pricing and forestry practices.”

In my mind, the issue follows a simple supply model. Canada has a lot of space for a lot of trees. Thanks to urban sprawl, industrial growth, and a tenfold higher population, the United States simply cannot compete with Canada on a tree for tree basis. Obviously, any business which has a controlling interest over raw resources will be able to operate more cheaply. Moreover, despite some ecological nightmares that continue to occur in Canadian forestry, the industry up here has more environmental protections in place than do their southern counterparts, largely due to the early realization that the healthy re-growth of forests results in a more profitable industry. The principal issue the U.S. has with Canadian forestry practices is that our Crown land is cheaper than competing tracts of land in the States. This stance ignores the fact that most land in the U.S. is more expensive than in Canada. Again, let me refer you to the tenfold higher population, the smaller country, and the so-called open-market system. Few people live in Northern British Columbia or North-Western Ontario (I don’t meant North Bay, I mean north of Armstrong), and consequently land prices are fairly low in comparison to, say, Washington State.

More importantly than the U.S. reaction – which we should frankly just come to accept as the manner in which they do business – is that of our own government. All of a sudden, the Liberals seem to have a spine in regard to Lumber IV. First they called off trade negotiations for the simple reason that you cannot bargain with people who don’t abide by trade agreements. Furthermore, today Industry Minister David Emerson spoke about efforts to retaliate: “I have a background from my younger days in hockey. When somebody slammed you into the boards with undue force and aggression, you took their number. I think we've got to take their number." So what number is being taken, specifically? Nothing has yet been announced, but Emerson mentioned that Ottawa is seeking to list a number of American exports that will have duties applied “without serious damage to the Canadian economy and, hopefully, with maximum impact in the U.S.”

Sadly, Emerson was quick to rule out the resource with the most pressing potential to the American economy. By imposing exportation duties onto Canadian oil reserves heading for the U.S., as NDP leader Jack Layton had initially proposed, the American population would quickly notice the results at the pumps. This would have a double effect. The duties would cause the average American to begin to think about why the country’s gas prices are so high, and if Canada played the PR game properly, a great deal of pressure could be exerted. Additionally, it would cause many northern U.S. residents to cross the border into Canada to buy gas, much like Canadians were doing in the late 1980s. This would allow gas tourists to see what a nice country it is up here, with all of our pretty trees.

The reasoning behind Canada’s refusal to restrict oil supply to the States is largely provincial, in that the Albertan economy would be “unfairly targeted” (maybe you should tell that sob story to east coasters, oil ranchers…). Realistically speaking however, every country on the planet needs a hell of a lot of oil, and China or India in particular would love to get a piece of Alberta’s black gold. But of course, that means Alberta’s oil industry might have to actually do some work to promote itself, instead of just opening the floodgates to our southern neighbours.

Out of all of this, normal Americans might start to get news reports concerning the vast amounts of oil that are just north of them, and wonder why they can’t get it as cheaply as other nations. As oil supplies continue to restrict towards the end of the decade, Canada’s oil supply could prove to be the biggest bargaining chip that the country has against the We-Set-Our-Own-Rules American government. And anyway, what are they going to do? Invade us to get our oil? Put pressure on Alberta to secede from the country? The U.S. just doesn’t (*cough* Venezuela) ever (*cough* Iraq *cough*) do that sort of thing.





NAFTA ECC ruling on U.S. appeal of previous NAFTA rulings

BC government site concerning the dispute

Open Letter to Mr. Gilles Duceppe

Mr Duceppe,

I am concerned that you and your party are playing a game of partisan politics at the expense of both your own constituency and Canadian voters as a whole. Throughout the electoral debates of last year, and repeatedly in interviews and parliamentary discussion, you made it clear that the Bloc Québécois wished to work for the good of both the people of Québec as well as the rest of the nation. In addition to succession issues, your platform seems to be in favour of bolstering support for the Kyoto Protocol and the move to a sustainable economy that it represents, increasing corporate responsibility in terms of business ethics and taxation matters, strengthening public education and healthcare through proper funding, and keeping government out of the personal lives of Canadians in regard to reproductive issues and same-sex equality.

By siding with the Conservative Party in an attempt to topple the Liberal government, you are supporting a political platform that is antithetical to your own. It is true that the Liberals need to be chastised for the sponsorship scandal, and losing their tenuous minority government would be appropriate censure in that regard. However, I do not believe that the majority of Québecers wish the Conservatives to gain any degree of power as a result of your party’s actions. The Conservative Party threatens to impose a cultural recession on the country, as their ideology seeks to maximize gains for the wealthy and minimize the rights and freedoms of minority groups.

An election in June would have a Conservative minority government as a likely result. If the Conservatives do indeed get into power, they have promised to kill support for Kyoto, increase tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of social programs, and begin the move toward two-tier health care. This platform is wholly against the populism at the ideological heart of the Bloc Québécois. Obviously, most Canadians would expect your party, as well as both the Liberals and the NDP, to oppose Conservative platforms. This would lead to yet another non-confidence motion against the Conservative minority government, and would ensure a Parliament that remains paralysed. Maybe Canada will enjoy the distinction of yearly elections until this mess of representational government is sorted out.

It is time to move beyond majority leadership and begin to embrace coalition governments. Almost universally, parties in majority governments have proven themselves arrogant and untrustworthy. I implore you to work with the Liberals and the NDP to ensure that the position of the Bloc Québécois is represented in Parliament. Only by working together while simultaneously challenging each other over differences will the political parties serve the will of the Canadian public and provide a stable and prosperous Canada.

I understand that you seek the interests of your party above others, but for the good of all Canadians including Québecers, please do not allow short-sighted party gains to be realized by sacrificing the social programs and collective freedoms that all Canadians now enjoy. The recent actions of the NDP have shown that you can indeed influence the governing party to incorporate aspects of opposition platforms while retaining political independence.

Let the Bloc Québécois be a party of inclusion by working to ensure common goals beneficial to all Canadians, rather than one of exclusion by difference and partisan power politics.

Thank you for your time.



M. Duceppe,

Je suis concerné que vous et votre partie s’engage dans un jeu de la politique partisane aux dépens de votre propre collège électoral et d'électeurs canadiens en général. Dans toutes les discussions électorales l'année dernière, et à plusieurs reprises dans les entrevues et la discussion parlementaire, vous avez indiqué clairement que le Bloc Québécois a souhaité travailler pour le bien de Québec aussi bien que le reste de la nation. En plus des issues de succession, votre plateforme semble être en faveur de l'appui du protocole de Kyoto et du mouvement à une économie soutenable qu'il représente, augmentant la responsabilité de corporation en termes d'éthique d'affaires et issues d'imposition, renforçant l'éducation publique et les soins de santé par le placement approprié, et gardez le gouvernement hors des vies personnelles des Canadiens en vue de les issues reproductrices et l'égalité des couples de même-sexe.

Par le dégrossissage avec le Parti conservateur afin d'essayer de renverser le gouvernement libéral, vous soutenez une plateforme politique qui est antithétique à vos propres. Il est vrai que les Liberals doivent être châtiés pour le scandale de patronage, et perdre leur gouvernement effilé de minorité serait censure appropriée à cet égard. Cependant, je ne crois pas que la majorité de Québécois veulent que les Conservatives gagne un degré de puissance en raison des actions de votre partie. Le Parti conservateur menace d'imposer une récession culturelle au pays, en tant que leurs recherches d'idéologie pour maximiser des gains pour le riche et pour réduire au minimum les droites et les libertés des groupes de minorité.

Une élection en juin aurait un gouvernement du Parti conservateur de minorité comme résultat probable. Si le Parti conservateur entrent en effet dans la puissance, ils ont promis de tuer le soutien de Kyoto, d'augmenter des réductions des impôts pour le riche aux dépens des programmes sociaux, et de commencer le mouvement vers la santé à deux niveaux. Cette plateforme est complètement contre le populisme au coeur idéologique du Bloc Québécois. Évidemment, la plupart des Canadiens s'attendraient à ce que votre partie, aussi bien que le parti Libéral et le NPD, s'oppose aux plateformes conservatrices. Ceci mènerait à encore un autre mouvement de non-confiance contre le gouvernement conservateur de minorité, et assurerait un Parlement que les restes paralysés. Peut-être le Canada appréciera la distinction des élections annuelles jusqu'à ce que ce désordre de gouvernement représentatif soit trié.

Il est temps de se déplacer au delà de la conduite de majorité et de commencer à embrasser des gouvernements de coalition. Presque universellement, les parties dans des gouvernements de majorité se sont prouvées arrogants et peu fiables. Je vous implore pour travailler avec le Parti libéral et le NPD pour s'assurer que la position du Bloc Québécois est représentée au Parlement. Seulement en travaillant ensemble tandis que simultanément provocant des différences d'excédent veulent la volonté politique rendre service au public canadien et fournissent le Canada stable et prospère.

J'ai appris que vous cherchez les intérêts de votre partie au-dessus de d'autres, mais pour le bien de tous les Canadiens comprenant Québecers, s’il vous plait ne laisse pas des gains myopes de partie être réalisés en sacrifiant les programmes sociaux et les libertés collectives que tous les Canadiens apprécient maintenant. Les actions récentes du NPD ont prouvé que vous pouvez en effet influencer la partie régissante pour incorporer des aspects des plateformes d'opposition tout en maintenant l'indépendance politique.

Laissez le Bloc Québécois être une partie d'inclusion en travaillant pour assurer des buts communs salutaires à tous les Canadiens, plutôt qu'un de l'exclusion par différence et politique de puissance de partisan.

Comme note latérale, je fais des excuses que mon propre Français écrit n'est pas sur le pair avec la façon dont vous souhaitez et méritez d'être adressé. Merci de votre temps.

Quintin Hewlett

2 Parties in 1 Night???

Well, it’s that time of a young Canadian’s year when all thoughts turn south, to warmer climes and sunny breaks from the late-fall rainy season. Actually, fuck that. I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and miss the cold and the snow. That's a rant on a different station though...

More accurately though, it is around this time every four years that many Canadians begin to wonder how the US elections will impact their lives. Will we get screwed by protectionist “free”-trade policies, strongarmed into military expenditures, or granted economic benefits that fuel Stephen Harper’s best wet dreams? Given the two-party U.S. system which limits the options considerably, as a politically conscientious Canadian it seems obvious to pick one or the other. Or more precisely, the one which is not George W. Bush. Frankly, that would be the easiest, most conveniently-illiterate-voter friendly system that could ever be introduced: Do you want George W. Bush to be your president? If “No” wins, then the country gets led by a robot monkey: a Canadian solution to an American problem. It’s likely that the monkey would show up to work more often than Dubya has, and maybe its health care policies would revolutionize America. Besides, by not getting mad about the wired-up speeches given in the presidential debates, America has already accepted the world’s first cyborg leader in G.W. Bush. So it would in fact boil down to this question: Do you want a cyborg or a monkey for president? See Mr. O'Riley, voting can indeed be simple.

Ah, but then there’s voting itself. In America, voting is to democracy what computer flight simulations are to planes. Sure, the basics are there, but it’s unlikely that anybody’s going to get off the ground. See, it’s one of the least popular things to do in America. And so we hear that the vote needs to be Rocked, Smacked-Down, Punked, HipHop’ed, or Prayed (I’m not making that last one up – google “Presidential Prayer Team” for a sublime experience). Just get out and vote, we are told. It doesn’t matter if you know about the candidates or their platforms, or how their particular ideologies could make or break the country. It’s all about the numbers, and everyone should participate. I’d like to think that the upcoming election in America is actually about the vote, but I cannot see the process itself as being all that important. Come to think of it, neither it seems do most of the politicians involved.

The precedent for the unimportance of the voting citizen was set by the 2000 election, in which every single vote cast was thrown away in order to give Florida the consequence it enjoyed (ie: Jeb Bush). Sure there were indeed votes counted, but those numbers didn’t add up to give Bush his office. No, that little slight of hand was accomplished by the whole 9/11 patriotism thing, which allowed the judicial decision for a Bush presidency to go ahead despite the recounts which gave the win to Gore. In fact, it seems more likely that voting actually gets in the way of things, from the point of view of the power elite. Forget for a minute the weighty argument that the democratic process requires a financially stable, educated, and healthy population to be properly realized. That can be faked (ie: Jeb Bush) or otherwise disregarded. Votes themselves are easy to get (ie: Jeb Bush). All you really have to do is speak the right key words (gun control, un-american, socialist, abortion) and you will mobilize a population in your favour. See you need those key words in place or others, like poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, violence, destitution, racism, and even torture, come onto the popular lips. At that point, whoever is in office has a Big Problem, as the citizenry has started to make the revolutionary act of actually thinking about what it needs to prosper.

More important, however, is the increasingly obvious fact that the only votes which count are those given to corporations. The 2000 election was a corporate coup of America, perhaps the only overt coup that the country will ever see. It is unlikely that power will be “voted” back to the Democrats any time soon, as the Bush Republicans are giving corporate America every dream it has always wanted: relaxed labour and environmental laws, new markets for expansion (Iraq, Afghanistan), protectionist trade policies, and the rescinding of personal liberties. Corporate individuals (you know they are legally classified as people, right?) can’t really survive without taking the place of actual persons within the political machine, as each is in a very real way antithetical to the other, despite their mutual dependencies. Political parties cannot survive without the support of such wealthy individuals as $hell, McDonald’$, and Micro$oft, and so those corporations get their justice while the workers of the country wait in line for flu shots and outsourced jobs.

It’s perhaps most fitting that the sole challenger to the oil-fuelled Bush campaign is the obesity-fuelled Heinz heiress and her war-vet husband. What a perfect way to say “Now is the time for change!” I would like here to forward a notion more heavily favoured by recent history: there is only one real political party in America, and so it does not really matter if you vote. Much has been written in the press about how the platform tabled by the Democrats is actually the same as the Republicans’. The war in Iraq will continue (if the money from Iraq’s oil does get into American coffers soon, look forward to a recession the likes of which have not been seen in generations); no actual money will be marked for health care or education; individual liberties will be curtailed by the “War on Terrorism”. Kerry will seek the properly corporate citizens to lend support in his favour, and that will mean less consideration for the working family. And yes, Kerry will surely favour protectionism instead of fair and free trade, O wondering Canadian. Sure a few details of his platform are genuinely in opposition to Bush, but the Big Wheels will keep on Turning for the Right People, if you get my meaning. Four years after a Kerry presidency, many will be calling for some good ol’ Republican change.

I say we let a robot monkey lead the country through world war III until Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2012.

Hopefully that's not the last time that I get to use that sentence...