Protesters in Toronto COST over 1 million dollars to charities

By the numbers
An 'estimated' 10,000 protesters. Ontario minimum wage is $10.25. That's $102,500 for one hour.

The meeting is over 2 days, so let's say, conservatively, there is a total of 10 hours of 'protests' over the course of both days. That means had those attacking police officers and destroying small businesses 'worked' for those 10 hours at the MINIMUM wage, they would have been able to raise over ONE MILLION DOLLARS for charity. Instead the damage caused is almost certainly going to pass 1 million dollars.
But there's more to it than just that. The G20 will be over a 48 hour period. The cost is 1.1 billion dollars. That's an astounding  $22,916,666.66 PER HOUR!

Numbers can be tools of incredible enlightenment and perspective.

Any 'Liberal' (voter, member or MP) who would join the CPC because of a coalition/merger was never a Liberal

This isn't new, but after a few discussions with various people the title of this entry is something that needs to be said.

With stories like this and this, all we really need to know is that the Canada Stephen Harper envisions is one that has failed America. Anyone who seeks to remould Canada in the image of George W. Bush's America and shares views with 'the tea baggers,' isn't a Liberal, lower or upper case.

Coyne describes the Liberal Party as a big tent, but we're not, really. We're a party, a group of people, who support 'reality-based' policy that works. We don't want or seek to govern by ideology, but rather desire a stronger, better Canada. If that can be achieved by cutting spending and balancing budgets (fiscal conservatism), then that's what we do. If we need to fund day cares to allow for equality of women and better off children, then that's what we do.

Where Coyne has it right is that we have lost our sense of direction. We also seem to have lost this idea that we govern based on what works. And until we come to grips with this and start to rectify things, we may be only a stones throw away from the collapse that Coyne predicts is now inevitable.

Sun TV News---- But the real question is...

Who will be their first sunshine girl?

Glenn Beck and Bill O of the True North Strong and Free

With news that 'someone' is leaving their current job for Fox News North, I decided to do a quick search of the net to see what this new network would try to counter. Bloggers on the right elate in posting about CBC bias... but if you have to use the word 'bias' in your argument, you don't have an actual argument. Conservatives don't like the CBC because it isn't conservative. Sort of like they don't like people of colour because they aren't white, they don't like gays because they aren't straight etc.

From the political side of things I actually think this will be a HUGE boost to the Liberals. If we have the ability to point to the imbeciles that support the CPC every day and what their beliefs are, then we're gonna be winning some votes back.

On the social side of things is where this concerns me. My hope, honest to goodness hope, is that Canadians are too smart for this type of a network and for those that are dumb enough to watch and pay for it, I hope their numbers are so low that the network can't sustain itself. I can easily see this being as wildly popular as the Fox News 'answer' to the Daily Show, "the half-hour news hour."

But one look at the network that 'they' are trying to emulate leads to all kinds of questions. Is America 'better' because of Fox News? No. Has journalism improved since it hit the airwaves? No. Has their quality and accuracy of their reporting been repeatedly and routinely found to be lacking or inaccurate? Yes.

And if these are the answers, why do conservatives, big and small C, want this brought to Canada in any format? If it's about 'values' than one quick look at Fox News discussing whether Lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite shows that values and Fox News are contradictory ideas.

If the ideas of conservatives stood on merit, than a Fox News of the North wouldn't be necessary. One thing their vaunted 'free market' does is test ideas. And time after time the ideas of Fox News have been found to be two things in the US: inaccurate and popular with the ignorant.

I don't view any conservative news station as a threat to the Liberal Party, but I do believe it weakens and worsens Canada as a country.

Balancing the budget, one toke at a time

Canada's debt and deficit situation might not be quite as bad as other countries, but it's still a  major issue that we need to address. The interest payments alone eat in to the money we could be spending on health care, green technologies, pensions and almost literally countless other things.

So what if I told you there was we could cut potentially $5 billion from our deficit this year, next year, and every year to come?

Legalization of marijuana would do just that. And there's a good chance that it might actually be able to contribute more than that.

This article lays out a fair amount of useful information on the costs of marijuana being illegal. But it doesn't account for all sources for revenue. But to keep things simple I'll use some of the numbers found in that article. 

If we take the 400 tonnes mentioned in the article (almost certainly lower than the actual amount) and then use his price per gram estimate, we come up with a simple calculation using the numbers provided:

400 tonnes= 400,000,000 grams. 

each gram produces a total of $4.24 of taxable income.

Law enforcement costs= $400 million (rough number)

All social costs (lost productivity etc)= $400 million (rough number)

He estimates somewhere between 2 and 3 billion dollars being lost in revenue to the government.

But what also needs to be factored in is the way our tax system works, combined with market practices. It's not so much that X is lost in taxable income, but rather we have: growers, shippers/distributors, sellers, marketers, all with incomes that could be taxed if marijuana were legalized. Then on top of that there are sales taxes, and if those followed the model of tobacco taxes, then we're talking about millions, upon millions in additional revenue.

You then factor in what would likely be greater drops in law enforcement costs, since gangs and other criminals benefit from the sale of an illegal product (marijuana) and then use those profits toward other criminal activity.

We then factor in 'tourism'; and, yes, there would be tourism.

Even if we account for any cross border slow downs etc, the year-after-year benefit of legalizing marijuana would still be well above 4 billion dollars, and likely, as I said, above 5 billion dollars.

I am hardly the first person to argue this with these type of figures, but at a time when the world is facing almost unprecedented economic turmoil and never before seen debt and deficit levels, to ignore this kind of economic argument, especially when the social argument is even stronger for legalization, shows how broken our policy is in Canada.

To put it another way, in 10 years we could pay down 10% of our national debt. 

The Sarah Ferguson of Canadian politics

That's what the Liberal Party of Canada has become. These merger talks are a desperate attempt to regain what we once had. The video of 'us' smoking while pathetically trying to sell 'access to our ex/power' will soon be thrown up on youtube.

Abandoning 143 years of history and service for a quick fix, and I'm not sure 'fix' is the right word to use there, because we wont be fixing anything.

Placing our faith in our lord and saviour; a resurrected J.C.

I've now had multiple people send me this much circulated story.


Some of what is written is astute and some of it fails in its assessment.


Where Travers gets it right is his overall analysis of the Liberal Party:

a once dominant party in steep decline and startling disarray.

That might be the best one line summary of the state of the party that I have read yet. And he doesn't miss the mark later in the article, either:

But retreating to the future would be as risky a Liberal solution as abandoning its brand.

Their current agony is rooted in expedient leadership decisions that began with letting Paul Martin escape the necessary crucible of a testing campaign. Forgotten, too, is that parties shooting inwards become wounded prey for outside predators.

But where he misses the mark is where he assigns blame to our current leader. The Liberal Party was in a state of disarray long before Iggy took the reins and it will continue to be in disarray until certain things are addressed.


Talk of Jean Chretien returning to power is a symptom of the larger problems that we face. Rather than being a lack or failure of leadership, we have two other principal causes for what might be our demise. We have come to have a culture of entitlement and we believe, rightly or wrongly, that we are Canada's "natural governing party." 


Until we can get over, around, through or in any other sense abandon these two ideas, we will likely be sitting on the opposition benches. No coalition, no merger and no return of our once great leader will change that. 

What's wrong with the Liberal Party in one link

Coming on the heels of reading this post over at Bowie, we decided to take a quick look at the major party websites.

The NDP have this link featured prominently on their main page.

The Conservatives have this link, and the fact that it's two years out of date shouldn't be overlooked, nor should the delusional hilarity of the fact that they claim in the link that 'they understand the financial crisis,' when 'they' were the ones claiming everything was just A OK as it was unfolding.--- Again, yet another example of a talking point we should be using but aren't.

The Green's have this link.

The BQ also have a prominent listing, but no one link to their policy section.

This means that the only major Canadian political party to not have a policy section are the Liberals.

But it gets worse.

Our lack of vision and lack of direction means we're trailing The Christian Heritage Party and the Progressive Canadian Party.

In fact, based on our website, the party the Liberals most closely resemble in policy and priorities right now is the Marijuana Party of Canada. And you really do need to click that link to see what we mean...

The Liberals might be undergoing a major policy review and development phase, but that doesn't excuse the current situation. The fact that we don't have a policy link on our main page says a lot.

Apple and Microsoft

When I saw the story that Apple had surpassed Microsoft as the world's most valuable tech company, it dawned on me that the example was eerily similar to that of the Liberals and the Conservatives.

Microsoft lucked out when IBM decided to license their operating system rather than buying it about 30 years ago. That choice created a monolithic power that would rule the computer world for 30 years. And for those 30 years rather than pursue any bold innovations or breakthrough technologies, they used their virtual monopoly to stifle and surpress competition, much to the detriment of the entire world. How many people will read this using what is almost universally regarded as the 'worst browser' simply because that's the one that came with their computer?

Though still the dominant OS across the globe, the failure of Microsoft to generate quality products and meet market and consumer expectations has taken a toll on the company's status and reputation. Once the market overlord, it now finds itself struggling to keep pace with the products it releases either flopping or simply not matching up with those of the competition.

"The competition" for Microsoft comes from many sources, but in this case Apple is the focus. A company that was once openly ridiculed now stares in the face of the once mighty giant and smirks. And no one is going to tell them to wipe the smirk from their face.

Apple came to the position they're in because they didn't just follow the market, they created the market. They led the way with creation and innovation, and then managed both to lead the way in the industry. From the Ipod to Itunes, and touch screen tech to the iphone, Apple created demand and built a reputation that would lead them to the dominance they now enjoy.

And there are more than a few parallels between this clash of technology titans and the current landscape of Canadian political theatre.

The Liberal Party for too long rested on the fact that it IS the party that most closely represents Canadian values. But in recognizing this, the party got lazy and rather than pursue bold or innovative policy, they stuck with what they knew, played it safe and in the process failed to keep pace.

The record of the Chretien terms was not without its successes, but it was also not without its failures. These failures only came to be magnified under the leadership of Paul Martin, who when finally coming to lead the party after over a decade of yearning for the top job, seemed to have no ideas, no plans and no way to cope with an emboldened opposition.

And as loathe as I am to compare the Conservative Party to Apple, if only because they are antithetical to much of what Apple is, and they are in many ways the embodiment of Microsoft, they have also organized themselves incredibly well. They know what they're doing, they're ready to do it, and maybe most of all they're ready to take all comers on. And those are three things that can't be said about the Liberal Party.

Macro and Micro

The wonderful blogger, Calgary Grit, has a good post up about riding analysis. It's a great example of the micro analysis that the party needs to be doing both for the short and long-term viability of the party.

When it comes to specific riding analysis, especially for attempts to take ridings that you don't already hold, long-term planning is tough. Most candidates don't want to go down in defeat two or more times before they might see a win. This is especially true of anyone who might be considered a serious candidate with a professional reputation to maintain.

The best way to go about it is to have a strong sacrificial candidate as another candidate is groomed and works to establish the base of support needed to make a legitimate run. But that takes a lot of planning, money and foresight. It also takes luck and the hope that there's no internal party conflict over a nomination. I say this because if you're taking about becoming the only Liberal MP in all of Alberta, it means instant power.

And so while Dan has a point with his post, I think it's important to also look at a larger scale strategy.

As was written in another post on this blog, the voting trends among Canadians are pretty clear. What the Liberal Party needs to do is find a way to reconnect and draw in 'progressive' voters. That's a more widely used term now because of it's expediency, but it applies here. What we need to be doing is coming up with a platform that is economical viable and responsible, but also one that draws in Green Party, marginal NDP, and Red Tory support.

Where as Calgary Grit looked at specific riding chances, one thing that any or all of those ridings would need beyond the long-term effort and the strong candidate that he described, is MOMENTUM....

And right now the Liberal Party is about as stagnant and sedentary as a rock.

With some momentum, with some strong PR and strong policy that might expand and base of support and boost our poll numbers, then we can start targeting specific ridings. But until we can get things right on a larger scale, the aspirations we might have for the ridings mentioned will be stuck on hold for a very long time.

Numbers don't lie

The Liberals seem to have once again adopted the maxim "if what you're doing isn't working, keeping doing the same damn thing because at least you know what the result will be."

WK has his quick analysis, and it reads more like an excuse and a failed rationalization than any kind of positive spin.

But what the numbers show is clear, just as the last 4 elections have demonstrated; a sizeable majority of Canadians do not want a Conservative government. Now Conservative supporters may point out that the Liberals weren't much higher in the popular vote when they won two of their majorities. And they would be right. But the electoral math hasn't changed much. From the time of the 1997 election right up to today, 60% or more of the country has supported a non-conservative party.

The pie charts below illustrate the remarkable consistency of the right and centre-left divide in Canada over the last 15 or so years. The support for conservatives has remained relatively static. It's the support for the Liberals that's dropped, and we need to ask ourselves, as Liberals, "why?". What can we do to regain support and sway voters to return to the Liberal fold? What have we done to make them vote for someone else?

Until we ask these questions and produce some real, tangible answers, we wont move up in the polls. And if we continue to stand silent saying nothing and doing less, than we have no where to go but down and we have no one to blame but ourselves.


1997 election

conservative                   Non-con
38.91%                          61.09%





2000 election

conservative                 Non-con
37.68%                         62.32%





2004 election


Conservative                       Non-con
29.63%                                70.37%




2006 election

Conservative                      Non-con
36.27%                              63.73%



2008 election

Conservative                      Non-con
37.65%                               62.35%

“We make war that we may live in peace.” Aristotle

I have been calling for a culture war since before we lost power. Hell, I thought a 'culture war' was a good idea when we were in power. I can remember working on The Hill and putting dossiers together on the creme de la creme of idiotic Canadian Alliance, and then Conservative party, MPs. But seven years ago rather than going to war I was told we would trust our leader to win the battle, for he was the one the people wanted.

How'd that turn out for us, huh?

There are quotes. I know. I found them. I'm not sure if they aren't being used because we now live in an age where no one reads anything and everything has to be in video format, or maybe they lost the documents, or maybe the idiotic mentality that led to the Paul Martin debacle is still in place and we believe that our leader will lead us to victory based on his merits alone--- despite overwhelming poll numbers to the contrary.

In the last few weeks we have had all the evidence we need that something is brewing. The stage is now set for us to stand up and fight those that would strip gays of not just their right to be married, but their rights in general. It is time we step up and fight so that women can exercise full control of their bodies. It is time we step up and fight so that George W. Bush's America doesn't become Stephen Harper's Canada.

We shouldn't be fighting this war simply because we want power. We should be fighting this war because we want to live in peace. And the religious-conservative agenda of Harper and the Conservative Party mean that peace, along with order and good government, are threatened.

In the beginning god created the roll call

I recently asked a former colleague if he would tell me who the genius was that screwed up the vote on family planning so badly. His lips were sealed. But I still can't help wonder how such a gaffe would ever take place.

The process before any vote in a minority situation is pretty basic. You count how many votes you have (A). You count how many votes 'they' have (B). You account for the variables of MPs in your party who wont support your position (X), MPs who wont be present for the vote (Y), and any possible votes coming from the other side of the HoC (Z).

What this means is that A minus Y plus Z must be greater than B+X.

Put another way, you makes sure you have the mother fucking votes to win and if you don't you either don't do it or you find a spin to put on it that makes you look good and your opponent look bad.

This is stuff that you learn from watching the West Wing and doesn't require a whole heck of a lot of experience. The Whip, the Chief of Staff and the Party Leader should all be way ahead of the ball game on this.

But instead it would appear that no one in the party apparatus took the time to actually count if we had the votes to win.

A roll call. That's what it came down to. And whether it was the electronic age of twitter and facebook that stopped a good ol'fashioned roll from taking place, I'm not sure. But what I am sure of is that this speaks volumes about why 'my' party is trailing in the polls.