Harper in bed with the Socialists and Separatists

Read 'em and weep blogging Cons! And what's the prize behind door titled "Hypocrites"? Why, it's a potential trip to the Vancouver Olympics!

I guess Jack was wrong when he said that the "new coalition" was between the LPC and CPC. And I suppose that working with the "separatists" isn't all that bad, seeing as how the entire CPC caucus decided to back a Bloc motion yesterday to put 2.6 billion into Quebec pockets.

Should Harper reach a deal on EI, pensions, credit regulation and Quebec tax-harmonization and independence - giving into the platforms of both the NDP and the Bloc; how far does that bring his government from the December LPC-NDP Coalition?

Harper is grasping at straws if he thinks he can take the credit for "making parliament work." He won't come out looking like the good guy on any of those issues as the Bloc and NDP will make sure it is known that it was them pushed the PM to the edge to get them done. And it will all be out of the fear that Ignatieff would replace Harper as prime minister should an election be held in June. Which says what about the NDP and the Bloc?

I hope that there are changes to credit card regulation in Canada, and that pensions and EI are protected during this crisis. What I'm not okay with, is extending the shelf-life of the Harper government and calling it "solving the problems of the kitchen-table." Who has more to lose in an election? The NDP wouldn't make up the government even if we had a recession circa 1930. Gilles' problems stem more from provincial politics than federal. And Ignatieff, for all of the "honeymoon" talk, seems to be the real deal - the guy to defeat Harper.

Any election, now or in a year, will see the NDP shrink and, whoda thunkit, remain in the opposition. It would also see the Bloc challenged in Quebec like it has not been since the 1990s. The best situation for Jack and Gilles is to get as much as they can out of Harper and pull the plug. Why delay the inevitable? Unless, they're comfortable with a CPC PMO? Which, up until now, they have not been; and since December, they've been beaking at the LPC that they should have taken Harper down in late January and forced a Coalition Gov or election. Three months later, their tunes have changed.

Mirror, mirror on the wall! Who's the biggest jackass of them all?

Now is it time to reform our global food system?

When the swine flu hit Mexico most people didn't really care beyond the WHO. At least, Canadians had no reason to worry. Some Americans in Texas and the southern states began to sweat, but these types of things are contained to poor semi-third world states, no?

Now the swine flu is in Canada. Alarmingly, it didn't come from one area of the country, but it has crept up at both ends of the country and the strain is spread easily between people, some of whom have never had contact with pigs in their life. But besides the concern for the young and the old in our society and the strain this might put on our health care system, what is it and how does is it a result of our global food system?

Over at the Huffington Post, David Kirby outlines how confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, are at the heart of spreading diseases like the swine flue, avian flu, etc. between animals. These confined quarters are the ideal conditions for a virial strain like the swine flu.

Pigs are nature's notorious "mixing bowls" for inter-species infections, and many swine flu viruses have long contained human influenza genetic components. Then, in the late 1990's - when industrialized swine production really took off in North America - scientists were alarmed to find that avian influenza genetic material was also mixed into the continent's viral soup.

So where did this new, virulent and highly infectious influenza emerge from? According to Mexico's Health Minister, Jose Angel Cordova, the virus "mutated from pigs, and then at some point was transmitted to humans." It sure sounds like something happened on some farm, somewhere.

For years, leading scientists around the world have worried that large-scale, indoor swine "factories" would become breeding grounds for new pathogens that could more easily infect humans and then spread out rapidly in the general population - threatening to become a global pandemic.

We know that hog workers in Europe and North America are far more likely than others to be infected with potentially lethal pathogens such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), drug-resistant E. coli and Salmonella, and of course, swine influenza. Many scientists also believe that people who work inside CAFOs are more at risk of contracting and spreading these and other "zoonotic" diseases than those working in smaller-scale operations, with outdoor pens or pasture and far lower animal density.

What authors Tim Lang and Michael Heaseman are calling our global food system, complete with CAFOs and genetically modified food, the "military industrial complex" since it now imitates all the qualities of the modern industrial factory. Profits are the bottom line and the lean production model is the mantra for "agribuisness."

I don't know about you, but I'm not comfortable with thinking that my food comes from a factory or "factory farms." (This is part of the reason that I do not eat WonderBread, since it doesn't really taste like it has ever been baked...) Factory farms are a part of our global food system and they are a part of Canadian agriculture. Grain-fed animals, many of whom are not inclined to eat grain by nature, confined to cages or pens - hundreds, perhaps thousands, to a barn literally eat, sleep, live and breathe in their own shit. They're "protected" against disease through inoculation - another human intervention into nature - and this is supposed to make us feel better.

If the thought of eating a genetically modified watermelon makes Canadians suspicious of the natural processes in growing our food, surely they should be as alarmed at the way most animals are treated on factory farms. (As a side note: an Environics poll back in 99 showed that 80% of Canadians want the government to mandate that GMO food to be labelled in our grocery stores. Today, I cannot imagine that number has dropped significantly to affect my line of argument.)

Our global food system needs to change if we are truly concerned with our health and our future as eaters. Factory farms need to be scaled down and traditional farming ought to be encouraged, and protected, by the government. The beginning of this change needs to come from the consumer: if we are concerned with how our food is being grown, under what conditions our meat and poultry are being raised and fed, and what implications this has on our health (and healthcare system) we need to be vigilant and change where we buy our food from.

Consider, for example, emerging Food Box programs in Canada. Food Box programs are designed to provide consumers an alternative to grocery chains in purchasing local, organic, fresh, seasonal produce. Local farmers sign up to Food Box programs and consumers can order which fruits and vegetables they want every week (depending on seasonality). The boxes are then delivered to your door or can be picked up at a local farmer's market. For a list of Food Box programs visit Foodshare.ca. Local eating is on the rise and it will become a way of life if consumers demand a new way of eating.

We can live, work, and eat in harmony with nature or we can alter it to suit our preferences. The former acts as a natural defense against viral outbreaks like the swine and avain flu, mad cow disease, etc. The other, is more convenient for the industrialized urban lifestyle, but it has it's own risks that - if I am correct, most people do not want to deal with in their life. Can we have it both ways? We cannot.

If Kirby is right, and I think he and fellows like Tim Lang, Michael Heaseman, and Michael Pollan - we need a shift to our global food system, away from the military industrial complex and lean production model, and back to a natural way of eating, to ensure a sustainable and healthy relationship with the earth. However, it is unfortunate that it has to take the deaths of dozens of people to bring consumers to this obvious realization that things, as they are, cannot go on.

We and They

The differences were already evident the moment Ignatieff became a member of parliament and front-runner to succeed Dion. Harper has his MA in Economics from the Calgary School. Ignatieff was educated at Oxford and Harvard. Harper's former employers consist of the National Citizen's Coalition and the Canadian Alliance. Igantieff has taught at Cambridge and was the director of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Now, Harper and Ignatieff square off in the political arena and the differences continue to pile up. Consider their itineraries and plans in going to meet our cousins south-of-the-border.

Harper goes on a US media tour stopping at FOX News. Ignatieff goes to Washington DC to meet with key advisors to the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.

Harper gets to speak with Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Ignatieff gets to deliver the keynote address on Afghanistan on Thursday to an exclusive group of U.S. policymakers that includes Richard Holbrooke, the president's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Progressives get the ear of Obama insiders - Harper entertains the audience of the "Situation Room." If I didn't know better, I'd say Ignatieff was our Prime Minister.

I'd vote for the Layton New Democrats

...if they could actually convince the Harper government to put forward a referendum on electoral reform. (H/T to Jerad Gallinger.) Well, maybe I wouldn't vote NDP in an actual election but I'd give them props! Changing the first-past-the-post system should be on the agenda of all the parties in parliament, especially the CPC and NDP since they are the parties who, historically speaking, usually occupy the Opposition's benches.

Moving from a FPTP system to Proportional Rep or a Single Transferable Vote would embolden their positions in parliament and force parliamentary cooperation. The sell would be to tie legislation that sets the number of years between elections to such a referendum. Say, 3 and a half years, a government must sit before an election is called. That way, the government could change, the balance of power could shift, without going into an election every 8 months should the party with the most seats refuses to cooperate with others. That is the kind of stipulation that Canadians would need in order to pass any kind of referendum on electoral reform.

That being said, it would be a hard sell to get the Liberals such a referendum. I would hope that the LPC would support a referendum, even though they might not want the electorate to pass it.

This could be the very move Layton needs to reposition himself as a relevant and viable leader for the country. He campaigned to be the Prime Minister during the 08 election, even though there was no way the NDP was going to take the most seats in the house. In a PR system, or STV system, he could be deputy PM. He could be king-maker, which in the parliamentary system, is sometimes better than being the actual PM - where you can take more credit than deserved when things go well and easily deflect retribution onto the government when things fail.

Could this Conservative-Socialist Coalition change Canada for the better? Could Stephen Harper actually be the reformer (not Reformer) his supporters claim he is? If this proposition comes into fruition we might have a Harper government for longer than any progressive would like, but it would surely spell the end of the Harper PMO since the balance of power in a post-FPTP parliament would lie with the Liberals, NDP and, you know it, the Greens. The Bloc would lose all of its relevance in parliament which might push a sovereigntist resurgence in provincial politics. But we'd just have to grit our teeth and cross that bridge if we came to it.

While this could be a mere Internet rumour, it's one that Layton should maybe consider. New Democrat support for 1 year and a planned election for Summer 2010 with an electoral reform referendum question attached. Sounds reasonable to me. It buys Harper and Layton some time to whether the economic storm in the hopes that their popularity rebounds with Canadians - something Ignatieff shouldn't be worried too much about. But even if LPC and CPC fortunes reverse it wouldn't be a Conservative majority and we'd be a short minority government away from a new era in Canadian politics.

Good news from the only pollster I trust

EKOS has some good news for all who want to hear it! (H/T to Montreal Simon, where I saw this first.)

Asked which party they would support if an election were held tomorrow, 36.7 opted for the Liberals while 30.2 per cent chose the Conservatives. About 15.5 per cent supported the NDP, while the Green party was the choice of 8.1 per cent and the Bloc Québécois was backed by 9.4 per cent.

The survey was conducted using a hybrid internet-telephone research panel between April 8 and 13, and involved a random sample of 1,587 Canadians. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

A similar poll question was asked just after the December prorogation crisis, when the minority Conservative government almost fell in the face of a challenge from a Liberal-NDP coalition headed by former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion.

It suggested the Conservatives had 44 per cent approval among the Canadian public, with dips for the Liberals (at 24 per cent) and NDP (at 14.5 per cent) compared to vote share those two parties had earned in the Oct. 14 federal election (26.2 per cent and 18.2 per cent respectively).

Quite the fall from grace! While Liberals might be upset with the Ignatieff coronation this May, instead of a leadership convention, they have to be happy with these numbers.

With these numbers Frank Graves, EKOS pollster extraordinaire, is right: a third minority government for the CPC is extremely iffy. And while this might not be good news for the CPC MPs and the PMO, their base seems quite content with the way Harper is leading the party. Harper has a 90% approval rating with his party and it looks like the only conservatives fighting about Mulroney are the ones sitting in parliament, which isn't the best position.

A happy CPC base, albeit stagnant (respondents who said they had voted for another party in the October election, Harper's personal ratings were "in the single digits or teens at best," Graves noted); a seemingly divided - or at least distracted - caucus; rising Liberal numbers under Ignatieff in Ontario and Quebec do not spell out good weather ahead for the Harper Cons.

Watch for the government to fall in June.

McTavish! Say it ain't so!

Why coach Mac T? Why? You were the best thing Calgary Flames' fans had behind the Oiler bench.

Flames limp into playoffs... again.

How does a team with a commanding lead in their division go from third overall in the Western Conference to 5th in a matter of weeks?

Some suggestions:

1. The Flames have seriously cooled since the arrival of Olli Jokinen. Something about the lines is simply not working. Consider 40-some consecutive scoreless powerplays.
   
2. Kippursoff is burned out. But how can you blame Miika for being tired when you have Curtis McElhinney backing you up? Cutting Cujo loose after last season will be food for thought in the 09 postseason.
3. The Canucks are just that good: HA! Luongo has played well, I'll give him that. But not spectacularly. They've lost some bad games in the last few weeks but the game that they didn't play poorly in was their game against the Calgary Flames last week. (Considering they won their last two games 1-0 against Los Angeles and Colorado, I wouldn't say that they're particularly on fire.)
   
4. They are cursed. I'm seriously starting to consider this as a viable excuse as to why the Flames have been simply terrible entering the last four Stanley Cup playoffs.

Unfortunately, without a convincing win over Edmonton tonight, I cannot see the Calgary Flames moving past the Chicago Blackhawks. Maybe they could do it with home-advantage going into a Game 7 situation; but winning crucial games on the road has not been the Flames' forte.

I'd love to see a Flames/Canucks Round 2, but I'm not sure that either team will make it past their first round opponents. My friends will laugh, but remember the Flames and Oilers' cup runs: both teams began in 8th place. And right now, Columbus and Chicago look better than both respective Alberta teams.

I'm hoping for Calgary to come out tonight and kick the crap out of Edmonton in preparation for a tough series against Chicago. If Calgary is soft tonight, they'll be setting a terrible precident for the next few weeks.

If there is anything left in me, I might as well say it now: Go! Flames! Go!

Libertarianism gone wrong: An Eye for an ATV

Let us fill in the blank in the CBC news headline: Farmer charged with shooting alleged thief overwhelmed by _________.

A.) Grief
B.) Remorse
C.) Joy
D.) Support

The answer is D. Support. One more news headline that makes me wonder if I really ought to go back to Alberta for the summer...

How can a guy who shoots at a thief riding his stolen ATV be lauded as some sort of hero? How is attempted murder an appropriate response to having a possession stolen? What kind of "lesson" is this for rural thieves? Watch out, Jimmy's got a gun?

Maybe a lesson has been taught to rural hooligans and criminals: next time, bring a gun yourself.

What a tragedy for Mr. Knight and his family; and what an embarrassing community has crawled out of the bush: libertarian gun-nuts who advocate for murderous vigilante justice in the face of due process over stolen recreational vehicles. Is this, my friends, the "Alberta Advantage?"

I hope the prosecution puts both Mr. Knight and the thieves in jail for a long time to set the record - and the law - straight.

"Right" to gamble be damned!

When a supposed "hobby" needs provisions such as a "self-exclusion program" to keep gambling addicts out of casinos and other venues, there is an obvious problem with said "hobby" that society, and our governments, are supporting.

The extent to which gaming officials are responsible for keeping gambling addicts out of casinos is at the heart of an eye-popping $3.5-billion lawsuit filed in Ontario by a man who blew through hundreds of thousands of dollars on slot machines.

In his suit against the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., Peter Dennis argues gaming staff allowed him to keep gambling even though he had authorized them to stop him from entering casinos or throw him out if he went in anyway.

Dennis's inability to stay away from the slots had terrible consequences for him and his family, but senior gaming officials said blaming the "self-exclusion program" for his problems was both dangerous and misguided.

"What we find troubling is the belief that this program, when distorted to be something that it isn't, provides hope to real victims that somehow they have found a way not to be responsible for dealing with their own addiction," said Rob Moore, a senior vice-president with the gaming corporation.

"It's quite dangerous and misleading to think that one could transfer the responsibility they have, once they've confirmed they have an addiction, onto a third party."

Under the voluntary self-exclusion program begun in the mid-1990s, problem gamblers could sign a form authorizing the province's gambling facilities to use their "best efforts" to keep them out or remove them if they sneaked in anyway.

If the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission - a public entity - cannot properly enforce the self-exclusion program to do what it is meant to do, keep gambling addicts out of casinos, then what is the point of the program? Additionally, whose interests does the OLG have? Raking in addicts money and handing it over to the government? Or to the public who enters their facility?

I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to stop problem gamblers in the self-exclusion program. Swipe their drivers license to verify their age prior to entry and if they are a signatory to the program then they are flagged on the computer. This would require checking everyone's identification at the door. Which would be a minor inconvenience if the public and the government were truly concerned with tackling gambling addiction.

But wait! The self-exclusion program isn't meant to make casino employees into some sort of gambling addict police force says Rob Moore, a senior vice-president with the gaming corporation.

Still, Moore said, the program was never meant to turn gaming staff into detectives but rather to allow addicted gamblers to take a self-help step by having them acknowledge their problem.

"To presume that this one program is designed as a policing program to keep people out is just wrong," Moore said.

"It was not in its intent, design or its execution a commitment for us to exclude people or to stop people from coming into our facilities."

I repeat: to presume that this one program is designed as a policing program to keep people out is just wrong. WHAT? Excuse me? The program was designed to list addicts so that casinos could use their best efforts to keep them out. Apparently, according to the VP of the OLG, that isn't what it was meant to do. Then what, pray tell, is the program for?

Nothing. And that is why the OLG is facing a 3.5 billion dollar lawsuit. Because they enacted a mirage of a program that addicts believed would keep them out of casinos if they were not able to stay out themselves. Addicts, in a sense, asked for help and trusted the province that help was on the way. But it wasn't. And the most vulnerable people in casinos, gambling addicts, were not stopped from entering gaming establishments and throwing their money away - to the corporation that, ironically, proposed a program to stop that very thing.

Gambling is a deplorable activity that I personally find immoral for a society to profit from. I hope Peter Dennis gets a settlement that clears his debts and forces the province of Ontario to give the self-exclusion program some teeth to force Casinos and gaming establishments to act as they promised.