Politics-Provincial
I Love It When A Plan Comes Together
We all hate garbage. Some of us just want to deal with it better than others. But the hard work by some to change the views on how we handle our trash is paying off.
The corporation (Waste Management Inc.) wouldn’t budge. They worked every angle possible to move their plan of expanding the Carp Mountain (a garbage dump) forward. Then the city of Ottawa had it’s election.
And the new sheriff in town declared war on dump expansion.
A scant 6 months later, the plasma gasification pilot project is under way and the corporation feels competitors (like Plasco Energy Corp) nipping at their heals and Waste Management is now realizing that their lack of effort to be modern may end up costing them millions, if not billions, of dollars.
In a letter to council yesterday, the last holdout in the turnabout, Waste Management, has informed local politicians it’s withdrawing a proposal for the Carp dump and is coming back with something entirely new, with an emphasis on an energy-from-waste facility, more recycling and less of an emphasis on expanding the dump.
Sue Sherring’s article also points out the city councilors who deserve some credit.
Councillors, including the likes of West Carleton’s Eli El-Chantiry, Kanata’s Peggy Feltmate and Stittsville-Kanata West’s Shad Qadry have also played a role, and with their help, the taxpaying public found a way to voice discontent.
But there is one other person Sherring fails to recognize who may have played one of the most instrumental roles in all of this. Stittsville businessman Gilles Chasles, the man behind nodump.ca and one of the biggest advocates fighting the expansion of the dump.
I can just see Hannibal from the A-Team lighting up his cigar right now…
Giving Students An Equal Perspective On Global Warming
Calling all sane people!!
For all of you who are up for an equal perspective education, I have made it easy for you to email all the current education ministers in the nation and ask them to show the British Channel 4 movie, The Great Global Warming Swindle to all students that were shown Al Gore’s Convenient Lie.
This would give the students two perspectives of the global warming debate and let them see what both sides have to say. Considering the global warming debate is so controversial, this would the right thing to do.
You can easily send this email with your own email program by clicking the link below.
I also encourage any other bloggers out there to include similar code on their website.
If you are interested, the following list outlines who is emailed via the link above.
British Columbia: Shirley Bond (Prince George-Mount Robson)
Alberta: Ron Liepert (Calgary West)
Saskatchewan: Pat Atkinson (Saskatoon Nutana)
Manitoba: Peter Bjornson (Gimli)
Ontario: Kathleen O. Wynne (Don Valley West)
Quebec: Jean-Marc Fournier (Chateauguay) (he was the last education minister before the election call
New Brunswick: Kelly Lamrock (Fredrickton-Fort Nashwaak)
Newfoundland and Labrador: Joan Burke (St. George’s-Stephenville East)
Prince Edward Island: Mildred A. Dover (Tracadie-Fort Augustus)
Nova Scotia: Karen Casey (Colchester North)
Yukon: Patrick Rouble (Southern Lakes)
Nunavut: Ed Picco (Iqualuit East)
Northwest Territories: Charles Dent (Frame Lake)
Yellow Bellied McShifty Breaks Another Promise – Class Sizes Won't Reach 20
Geoff Matthews points this out in today’s Sun newspaper. Not that class sizes need to reach 20, but what the heck was Dalton doing making this promise in the first place?
Now comes word that the provincial government hasn’t a chance of meeting its self-imposed target of cutting classroom sizes for primary grades to no more than 20 students by this September — a promise that was made during, you guessed it, the 2003 election campaign.
The question isn’t whether the goal can be met. It’s why did the premier make the promise in the first place?
Is there some magical reason why a class with 20 students can be managed, while a class with, say, 23, will spiral out of control?
Couldn’t a class of 30 kids work perfectly well in some instances, while in others anything more than a dozen would be a challenge?
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old geezer, let me point out that when I was in school, we had classes of well over 30 students, and we never seemed to lack for a bit of personal attention from the teacher when it was required.
You got it right on the money Geoff. When I was in public school, there were well over 30 kids in my class just about every year. The only time there were less was if a grade only had 25 or so kids or if there were 50 or 55 in the grade and two classes were split.
The issue isn’t class size. It’s how the teachers control that class. And this day and age, they just don’t have the skill or desire to do it. They blame things like ADD or ADHD for their inadequacies in controlling children. They push them along year after year just happy to get the troubled ones out of their class, watering down the value of a high school diploma.
As A Health Issue, Crack Pipe Kits Should Be Paid For By Province, Not City.
In the past, I have commented on the fact that Ottawa’s Crack Pipe Kit program is a health issue, and as such, should not be paid for my municipal city taxes and that if it is to continue, the provincial government.
In this mornings Ottawa Sun, Nicholas Little of the Aids Committee of Ottawa (ACO) confirms:
“Larry O’Brien, I imagine, sees this as a legality issue, when, in actual fact, it should be treated as a health issue,” said ACO’s Nicholas Little.
“Addiction is a question of health, not of criminality.”
Mr. Nicholas is an advocate for the program but his words still ring true. This IS a health issue. But I disagree with him that it is not an issue of criminality. It is most certainly an issue of criminality. Crack cocaine is illegal. That is, in actuality, the only cut and dry part of all this.
It may not be a huge expense, but if it is to be made, it is up to Dalton McShifty to pay it with the health premium he burdened Ontario residents with shortly after becoming the Premier.
Ringtones For The Politically Minded
I was going to save this for the pending Ontario provincial election, but apparently political ringtones are now the hot item.
The Blogging Tories website has a set of ringtones created from the commercials they have been running lately.
So here goes. I owe Brent Colbert for this one.
My Dalton McShifty Ringtone for those of us in Ontario.
You can listen to him or simply download it for use closer to the election.
H/T to Phantom Observer for the BT ringtone link.
Ontario Liberals Redefine Hypocrisy In Opening Of Smoking Lounges
The Ontario Liberal government has decided that government owned casinos are no longer considered public places because the Niagara Falls Casino and the Windsor Casino will be opening smoking zones.
Today, Ontario Health Minister Jim Watson defended the announcement by saying that the ban on restaurants and bars is different because they serve food but that the primary reason for a casino is not to serve food.
This plan comes on the heels of the drop in business at the Windsor casino after the Detroit casino opened up a smoking area.
In related news, Legion’s are still smoke free zones which means the Provincial Liberals, headed by Dalton McShifty, are giving more rights to gamblers than to veterans who fought to create a free Canada.
I guess the dollar is almighty to the Ontario Liberal government and public businesses just don’t get a level playing field.
OfficiallyScrewed … again.
Ask For Bacon, Or You Only Get A Cheeseburger
My wife teases me a lot with the phrase “You think you can change anything with a bit of money.” because if I can’t find something specifically the way I like it, I wonder how much money it would take to customize to my needs.
I know this makes me sound like some overpaid ass, but in reality, it comes from the fact that I work in the fast paced high tech industry and if a customer comes to me asking for something out of the ordinary, I never say no unless it is completely impossible. The conversation usually ends up with an explanation of the time and effort involved to make it happen and the opportunity cost is assessed and a surcharge is brought in, because my industry understands customization.
It was this same philosophy that created the “Add Bacon 50 cents” option on cash registers. It was people like me who grew up with banquet burgers asking Wendy’s and McDonalds for bacon on our cheeseburgers and offering to pay more for it that revolutionized restaurant cash register operation and, more importantly, gave us more options as consumers.
Life truly is better.
Where am I going with this? Well Yahoo news has an article about how a BC clinic is charging customers $30 for appointments and the NDP (go figure) is bitching about how this is a violation of the Canada Health Act and that the clinic needs to be stopped.
I thought this was the usual private clinic argument until I read this:
“Without the benefits offered under the plan, beginning March 1, 2007, there will be a $30 reservation fee in order to schedule an appointment to see one of the doctors at a specific time,” the letter states.
Drop-in patients or patients without scheduled appointments will not be charged the appointment fee.
*emphasis mine
So the patients are not being charged if they are willing to accept regularly scheduled appointments or drop in and wait for a gap in the doctor’s time. The ONLY people getting charged are those who ask for a specific time. i.e. that person out there with a busy schedule because they are being productive to society and not willing to stop being productive without a bit of guarantee that when they arrive they will be seen right away so they can go back to being productive to society. Hell, I bet if I had this service my boss would be glad to pay it to get me back on the job quickly and efficiently.
The kicker is that the patient is NOT paying for healthcare at all. The price for the treatment is the same if you wait or if you take the appointment they give you or if they charge you to be flexible to your time requirement. The patient is paying for expediency. They are paying for time saved. They are paying for a customized treatment “time”.
i.e. They are paying for a bacon cheeseburger.
Wait Times Indirectly Longer Due To Provincial Government Waste
Let’s put two and two together.
The Auditor General for Ontario just released a scathing report which goes so far as to say they have no idea what the level of waste is when they have millions in expenses without receipts and millions more listed as miscellaneous expenses. This outrageous spending was nickelling and diming Ontario Taxpayers to the poorhouse by buying things like 40 leather jackets for one provincial power entity and one teacher who sent flowers to her own wedding.
We should already all be aware of the overspending by MHA’s from Newfoundland which has been turned over to the Department of Justice. Some of the money, apparently, went towards gold rings that many people claim they never got. I am sorry but even if they did get the gold rings, why the heck are taxpayers paying for jewellery?
Another report in the news indicates that for the tenth year in a row the money spent on health care in Canada went up but that we STILL only spend half the money per capita that the United States spends
Let’s do the math. The Americans are taxed at a lower tax rate than Canadians. The Americans have the money to spend on an awesome military. The Americans spend twice what we do per capita on healthcare yet we are supposed to have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. I emphasize the word supposed.
Considering my mom was in intensive care for five days last week after a triple bypass, I can assure you, our healthcare system needs help.
I am grateful and thankful for the high quality education and skills our doctors and nurses are equipped with, but when an intensive care unit (ICU) has a broken ice chip machine for five days something is wrong with the system.
When a patient is left in an expensive (one to one nurse to patient ratio) ICU for two days longer than needed because there are no beds or rooms available in the cardiac care ward then something is wrong with the system. The nurses themselves told us that there were at least 5 people and as many as 7 who were ready to go to regular care but there weren’t any open beds.
Wait times can easily be cut shorter by putting more beds into the picture because the bottom line is this. If the ICU is packed with people waiting for beds, then the surgeries are not happening because there is no ICU space to put post-op patients. Hence, wait times are directly affected.
For those who care, mom is doing great and recovering nicely.
And The Chess Strategy Becomes More Clear
In support of my post on the “nation” issue being but a single small move by a chess grandmaster, I have found Mr. Plonka translating some French for me. The translation comes from La Sphére des idées J.H.
I’ve just learned from a reliable source today that Prime Minister Harper will announce, on this coming December 19th in Quebec City, his proposal to limit the spending power of the federal government in provincial jurisdictions. There’s exactly one year between that and last year when, at the same place, the Tory chief promised Quebecers a new and open federalism during his electoral campaign. Many political analysts considered this announcement to be the key to the Conservative breakthrough in Quebec.
Harper plans to execute his promise by way of a Constitutional amendment which would limit the spending power of the federal government in provincial fields of jurisdiction, and would demand the approval of the provinces when creating a national program within a provincial field. Aside from these two conditions, in the event in which a federal program is created, a province will have the ability of opting out from the program with full financial compensation. To do this, the Conservative government will need the signiature[sic] of at least 7 provinces representing at least 50% of the population.
How could any province say no to these two items?
Continuing on further into the post.
We’re witnessing, at this moment, a renaissance of the Canadian federation, to the slow agony of the sovereigntist movement
…
Decentralization is the key to the survival of Canadian federalism and to inflicting slow, painful agony on the separatist movement, the latter finding its essence chiefly in the anger of nationalists towards an unrepentant federal government.
This is quite indicative of what I see coming and alluded to in my last post. A stronger Canada via stronger provinces, and not a centralized powerhouse. The downscaling will drop taxation dramatically at a federal level which will in turn put pressure on provinces to raise taxes to compensate for programs they are supposed to run and the amount of hands on the feds provide will be minimal and there to provide some equalization for the poorer provinces.
The feds can in one fell swoop drop taxes, give the provinces (including Quebec) more control of their own destiny, remove the fear of separation, alleviate the west’s feelings that Quebec is appeased and fix, or dramatically reduce, the fiscal imbalance.
And the chess game continues. Stay tuned.